Page 3 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

A noise at the back of the house tells her that Gary and the kids have returned from the beach.

Which means she doesn’t have long to figure out how she’s going to handle this, but she is, indeed, going to handle it because suddenly she has reached her limit with this situation and she simply cannot bear the idea of Gary being in the house a minute longer.

‘Mu-um,’ Troy singsongs.

‘Can you take your sister to the garden?’ Anna calls.

She didn’t know she was going to ask him to do this, but since it’s emerged from her mouth she must mean it.

Funny how our minds can sometimes know things that we aren’t consciously aware of – like how she’s now sure her mind has been aware that Gary is having an affair and it took the rest of her this long to catch up.

Or maybe it goes even further than that: her mind has known for years that he hasn’t really been interested in this marriage, which is why he’s spent increasing amounts of time away from her and their children, and she’s been too stupid to figure it out. Until now.

She can’t hit him with that straight up, though – he’ll deny it.

Why wouldn’t he? If he’s got away with it for this long, what reason does he have to own up to it now?

No, she needs to find another lever to get him out.

Because that’s what she’s decided to do.

If he wants to be with someone else so badly he can spend all his time out of the house, he may as well be permanently out of the house.

Gary appears in their bedroom door, where she’s pacing, hands on hips, her face so tense she feels as if she’s going to grind her teeth to dust.

‘G’day, love,’ he says cheerfully, as if everything is wonderful. Probably because it is, for him.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she says, keeping her voice down even though their bedroom is the furthest room from the garden, where she has sent the kids.

His brow furrows. They’re the only lines on his face, and even then they’re temporary. Sometimes she hates him for that. He has smooth, olive skin and a great head of thick hair, long eyelashes, full lips. Lovely cheekbones. He was stunning when they met and he’s aged so well. Unlike her.

Yes, all right, she’s superficial and she initially went out with him because he was the handsomest man she knew and she couldn’t believe he was interested in her.

She was a secretary in the legal office where he was a junior solicitor and he asked her out to dinner one night, and it went from there. Marriage. A house. Children.

It’s the children who deserve better than a worse-than-part-time father – by which she means they deserve a mother who doesn’t spend so much time worrying about why their father doesn’t come home, and if Gary isn’t living here any more she can stop worrying and just focus on being the best mum she can be.

If she’s going to be doing all this housework at least she can do it for people who don’t leave their clothes on the floor.

‘What do you mean?’ Gary says, those lines still on his forehead.

Anna wonders if his mistress likes them.

‘Sunday is the kids’ only day off,’ she says, setting up her argument. ‘They don’t want to go running.’

‘Sure they do,’ he says lightly.

‘How do you know?’

‘They didn’t complain.’

‘ Gary! ’ she shrieks.

He jumps.

Fair enough, she’s being a little dramatic. Because she feels a little dramatic.

‘They see you so rarely,’ she goes on, ‘they’re glad for any scrap of time you give them.’

The brow furrows deeper. She remembers the days when she used to kiss those furrows, laughingly saying they’d set in stone if she didn’t. That was so long ago.

‘What do you mean?’ he says again.

‘You are working seven days a week,’ she says.

‘No, I’m not – I’m home today.’

‘And last Sunday?’

‘Um …’ He shrugs, looking sheepish.

‘What about Saturdays, when I’m running them around to sport?’

‘I told you, it’s busy at the moment.’

‘Well, I’m busy too. With our children .’

He laughs lightly. Too lightly. Because he has no idea what’s coming.

‘I’m bringing home the bacon,’ he says, like it’s funny.

Like it’s the best reason for never being here.

Except it’s never been a reason for her.

It certainly wasn’t the reason she married him.

Laughter, lust, companionship, shared values – or so she thought: these were why she married him.

Oh, and love. She loved him. Loved how he made her feel protected and safe.

Instinctual things she’d never known she wanted but when she felt them around him – when she felt he would take away her worries, make her feel she could just be her – it was so strong she wanted to preserve it forever.

That’s what has disappeared: the feeling of being protected.

Of being safe. Without him here – when he’s at the office most hours of the week – she has felt exposed.

Vulnerable. And stressed. If she is going to feel vulnerable she can do without the extra stress.

She’s making a decision to put her wellbeing first, for once, knowing that what’s good for her is good for the children, because if she’s not functioning properly she can’t look after them properly either.

‘I think it’s best if you move out,’ she says.

‘What?’ He says it so softly it’s as if he has no air left.

‘Move out. You clearly don’t want to be here. And I don’t want to just be your maid.’ She’s tacked this on because it sounds like a rational argument, whereas you’re having an affair does not.

‘You’re not –’

‘Gary, I am.’ She feels calm as she says it. Strong. Maybe she doesn’t need him after all. Maybe all this time she hasn’t needed his protection.

She can be her own protector. Although she wavers a little at that, because she doesn’t want to be.

Except he hasn’t been looking after her for years anyway, she realises, and this makes her feel so sad it’s as if a deep cavern has opened inside her and sucked into it all the good things about him – the things she fell in love with.

‘We’re done,’ she says simply.

His mouth opens and she thinks she sees tears in his eyes, but he says nothing further.

She leaves the room and goes to the garden, where Renee and Troy are running in circles, laughing.

Simple things can mean so much to children.

To adults too. Love is simple. Or it can be.

It should never be more complicated than I love you and I love you too because everything else should flow from that.

But it becomes complicated as life goes on.

As layers are added to it. Conditions too.

She added conditions for Gary without even realising it, and those conditions included actually being present in their marriage and in their home.

That should be one of the marriage vows: Do you promise to love, honour and actually show up for your wife instead of spending as much time as possible away from the marital home thereby rendering the marriage effectively dead even though you’re too cowardly to say it?

‘Dad’s going away,’ she tells her children as they continue running and laughing.

‘Where to?’ Renee says hoarsely, giggling.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Okay!’

Troy doesn’t even seem to react to what she’s said.

Although why would he? He’s eight. His world consists of what’s happening right now.

The past and the future haven’t started to take root in him as they will later on, pushing and tugging at his psyche, offering up stories and interpretations of events and blurry memories that may be fantasies but he won’t be able to tell the difference.

These are the layers that complicate love.

The layers that can be kept from turning into sediment, then stone, with careful attention and commitment.

Mothers do that for their children: they offer them love which manifests as that attention, reminding their children that they see them, cherish them, that the past does not have to define them and the future is whatever they wish to make of it.

Someone has to do that for mothers too, though, and sometimes their own mothers aren’t enough. Or even capable. If that attention doesn’t come from anywhere, those foundations may turn to dust. Unless a mother determines to keep building them for herself.

‘What shall we have for lunch?’ she asks the children.

‘Carrots!’ Renee yells. Since she turned seven she has been obsessed with carrots for some reason.

‘You’ll turn orange if you eat any more of those,’ Anna says with a laugh. ‘Let’s have a salad sandwich instead.’

The children murmur their agreement and set a course for the back door.

As they all walk inside the house is quiet.

Anna doesn’t know if Gary has packed a bag or simply walked out.

It causes her immense sadness, for a moment or two, to realise that it won’t make a difference to their lives either way.

Then she turns her mind to sandwiches, knowing that once they’re done she’ll have a long list of other things to worry about and it will no longer include Gary.