Page 4 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER THREE

Evie walks as fast as her short legs can take her, just shy of breaking into a trot, as she hurries from the Seaside Salon to the primary school, which is also in Terrigal, as is Evie’s house.

She’s late picking up her son, Billy. Why did she book in that last client?

Who books in a cut and colour at two o’clock and expects to get away at three?

Sure, some days she might be able to risk it but they’re down a hairdresser so that means she’s doing her own washes, which means everything’s slower and they’re getting backed up, which means it’s three thirty-five now and Billy will be at the school gate with no one to meet him.

Trudy didn’t say anything to her, either. Usually if Evie’s cutting things fine with school times Trudy will send a ‘Pet?’ across the salon with a slightly warning tone and Evie doesn’t need anything more than that to hurry up and get out the door.

Not today, though. Trudy’s slipping.

Oh yes, that’s right, blame Trudy. As if the woman doesn’t have enough going on, what with being a widow and that bloody Jane taking off and setting up the new salon.

The cheek of her! Evie never really got on with Jane but she’d been there for so long Evie had thought she must have had Jane all wrong.

As it turned out, she did not: Jane was a snake in the grass who slithered away with a good portion of Trudy’s clients. It’s not fair. Trudy may smoke too much and wallow in misery a little bit, but she’s the kindest lady in the world.

While Evie couldn’t manage without some of the school mums, who let Billy hang out at their homes on the afternoons she can’t get away in time to pick him up, she also couldn’t manage without Trudy.

If Billy is off school sick he sometimes has to come to the salon if it’s really too busy for her to stay home with him, and he’s often there in the holidays, and Trudy never minds.

Sure, he’s a quiet kid, always reading a book or playing with his yo-yo, so he doesn’t cause any fuss.

But Evie doesn’t like to take advantage of Trudy’s understanding, so she makes arrangements for him after school when she can.

It can be exhausting, though, ensuring he has somewhere to be.

She wishes, often, that she had a sister or mother nearby who could help her, but her mum died when Billy was a baby – he’s seven now – and she doesn’t have a sister.

Two brothers, and they’re not on the Central Coast.

‘Hello, sweetheart!’ It’s Mrs Champion. She lives a few doors up from the school and sees all the parents and kids coming and going. At first Evie thought she was a bit nosy but now Evie thinks of her as a one-woman Neighbourhood Watch.

‘I’m late, Mrs C!’ Evie calls, more out of breath than she wants to be.

She keeps promising herself she’ll start doing aerobics because putt-putt golf – her preferred form of recreation – isn’t really a fitness activity, but she hasn’t managed it yet.

The leg warmers are stopping her. She’ll look stumpy in them, she’s sure. Not like Jane Fonda at all.

‘Are you off to the school?’ Mrs Champion calls back.

Evie thinks it’s a funny question. Where else would she be going?

‘Yep!’ She flashes a smile and keeps walking.

‘But your lad’s gone.’

Evie stops, her heart in her throat, then turns around to face Mrs Champion.

‘ What? ’

‘With his dad.’ Mrs Champion smiles kindly. ‘Isn’t it his day?’

Evie scans her memory. She and Stevo have an arrangement for Billy. Four days out of five it’s her picking him up – unless he’s going home with a friend – and on Wednesdays it’s Stevo. And today is …

Wednesday.

Her shoulders sag. No wonder Trudy didn’t say anything. She probably thinks Evie’s odd for rushing out the way she did, hardly saying goodbye. It’s a strange day when your boss knows your school pick-up schedule better than you do. Not to mention the one-woman Neighbourhood Watch.

‘I’m an idiot,’ she groans.

‘No, sweetheart,’ Mrs Champion says, leaning on her gate, secateurs in hand. She’s always cutting something, or acting as if she is. ‘You’re a busy mum. Don’t be too hard on yourself.’

Evie smiles gratefully. ‘Could you just forget you ever saw me?’

‘Now, why would I want to do that? I’m always happy to see you.’

Evie sighs. ‘Thanks, Mrs C.’

Mrs Champion peers at her. ‘He’s a nice man, that Steven.’

‘Stevo.’

‘Not Steven?’

‘Not since he was Billy’s age.’ Evie waves a hand. ‘He prefers Stevo.’

Mrs Champion nods slowly, as if she’s considering something, but she doesn’t say anything.

‘We’re not together,’ Evie adds, although she doesn’t owe Mrs Champion the explanation.

Again, Mrs Champion nods. ‘Oh well. Just because you make good parents doesn’t mean you’re meant to be together, eh?’

‘No. Anyway, now that I’ve got some time I’d best get home and start dinner. Bye!’

She doesn’t really have to rush off since she’s no longer late for Billy, but nor does she want to engage in a conversation about Stevo.

Although Mrs Champion probably knows their business anyway, because Steve works at the fish shop at the Skillion where all the locals go, right where the boats come in – his father opened it and now Stevo runs it.

The hours are long but when Billy started school Stevo was adamant he wanted to pick him up on Wednesdays, and he closes early in order to do it.

There has never been any doubt that Stevo loves his son, and he’s a great father.

That is not the reason why they’re no longer together.

That reason is that they never really fit.

Evie wanted a man who looked like Paul McCartney and ideally wrote songs like him too.

Stevo has dirty blond hair, no doe eyes, and has never met a musical instrument he likes.

They met at a party at the surf club. Stevo asked her out, and they hung out, then Evie got pregnant and Stevo didn’t take off but he didn’t exactly want to stick around either. Not because of the baby – he was rapt about that – but because they both knew they didn’t love each other.

They tried to make a go of it. Even lived together for a few months around the time Billy was born. And it wasn’t that they argued or anything. They just … didn’t care enough about each other, and even Billy couldn’t make them.

So since Billy was a baby Evie has had him most of the time and Stevo takes as much time as he can get.

Evie wants Billy to have stability so that’s why she keeps him living with her, but she likes knowing she has some freedom if she wants it.

Not that she’s not free. She adores Billy.

She loves being with him. She just wants more.

At thirty-three years of age, with some wear and tear on body and soul in the form of childbirth and disappointment and frustration and longing and the arm she broke as a ten-year-old, there is one big rite of human passage Evie has not yet experienced: love.

The romantic sort. The sort she has read about, dreamt about, listened to songs about, obsessed over movies about.

She wants Love. Yes, with a capital L. The kind Trudy and her husband, Laurie, had.

Right up until he died they acted like they couldn’t get enough of each other.

Yes, Trudy is bereft without him – but isn’t that the price you pay when you love someone that much?

When the love is so powerful that your life is forever altered?

That’s what she wants: to love someone so much that it would hurt if he weren’t around any more.

And she wants someone to love her that much too.

Yes, she had a child with a man she knew she didn’t love and who didn’t love her. But it brought her love in the form of Billy. Which is wonderful, huge, overwhelming and reassuring at the same time. Except she wants more, even as she thinks she may be greedy for wanting it.

She wants a romantic hero but he doesn’t have to be a white knight.

He doesn’t even need to be handsome. He just needs to be strong and stable, and kind, preferably.

And he needs to have interests. Maybe even hobbies.

Women always have so many things going on in their lives they tend to have things to talk about, whereas the men she knows have work and sport and that’s it.

It does not make for interesting conversation.

Which is important to her: if you’re going to grow old with a man he needs to be able to hold a conversation.

Because past a certain point joints start creaking and bits stop working and all that’s left is who you are in company with each other.

That’s what she wants. That’s what she looks forward to: knowing someone when he’s old. She hasn’t felt that before, that she wants to know someone when he’s old. Past sixty-four, that standard Beatles age.

The man who’s right for her will be the one she wants to know when he’s old.

Also the one she wants to see naked. That’s the part she doesn’t tell other people about: the part that wants to be kissed and held and other things.

All the other things. The man who’s right for her will give her the best hugs, and when he holds her he’ll make her feel safe.

He’ll take care of everything. Which isn’t to say she can’t take care of things – she’s been taking care of them for years – but she doesn’t want to take care of everything .

So he can take care of a few things and in exchange she’ll take care of him.

It seems like a reasonable exchange. It’s just so hard to find.

She is daydreaming about that love – the way she tends to do – the whole way home, and in the kitchen as she starts peeling potatoes for dinner, and she’s still doing it when the back door opens and she hears her son’s high-pitched tones and his father’s lower ones.

Once she realised it was Wednesday she remembered that Stevo will have taken Billy to athletics.

Billy’s not much of a runner but he likes long jump.

Given that he’s seven, though, she’s not going to hold him to anything.

Unlike some of the other dads – so keen for their sons to play rugby league or don a baggy green – Stevo is relaxed about what Billy may or may not do on the sporting front.

‘Whatever he likes to do is fine with me,’ he told her.

They enter the kitchen from the laundry, Billy grinning, his cheeks flushed, Stevo patting his head.

‘Mum!’

Billy hugs her round the legs and she clasps his shoulders, kissing the top of his head.

‘Hi, darling.’ She straightens and smiles at Stevo. ‘Hi,’ she says. They don’t hug or kiss. That seems too formal for a relationship that is constant yet not close.

‘How are ya?’ He grins in the same way his son does – one side of his mouth lifting higher than the other, and the eye on the same side squinting. Evie doesn’t know if it’s a genetic thing or if Billy has learnt it by watching.

‘Bit tired. You.’

‘Stinking of fish. Aren’t I, Billy-o?’

He ruffles his son’s hair and Billy giggles. Then Stevo holds out a plastic bag.

‘Brought you some fillets. Thought you may want to put them in the freezer.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘That’s really kind.’

He shrugs. ‘Least I can do, keep you two fed.’

Sometimes when he drops off Billy he has this air about him, as if he wants to be asked to stay for dinner. Sometimes she does, in fact, ask him because that seems like the right thing to do. But he never accepts. So she’s not going to ask him to stay tonight.

‘Anyway, I’m off,’ he says, and he kisses his son’s cheek. ‘See ya, mate. Saturday, right? We’ll go fishing.’

‘Don’t you get tired of fish?’ Evie asks, because she’s genuinely curious.

‘Fishing’s not about the fish, Evie.’ He winks. ‘It’s about the peace and quiet. All right if I pick him up at eight?’

‘Yep. I’ll make sure he’s awake.’

‘Thanks. See ya then.’ He waves to them both as he heads for the back door.

‘Bye, Dad!’ Billy calls after him, then he picks up his school bag and heads toward his bedroom.

She’s lucky with her son: he never cries when Stevo leaves; never asks why Stevo doesn’t live with them.

Some of that is to do with Stevo and the fact that he’s very much a part of Billy’s life.

Some of it has to be to do with her, even if most days she feels she doesn’t give him enough attention.

Nothing gets enough attention, though, including her.

That’s just life. She realises that now she’s in the thick of it, being a proper adult.

That’s why daydreams about capital-L Love are so nice.

They take her away from her reality, if only for a few moments.

That’s all she needs. Some moments of escape from being her, the woman who can’t find anyone to love her just the way she is.

And that’s the real dream, isn’t it? That someone will love us as we are.

Won’t want to change us. Won’t wish we were someone else.

Acceptance. Yes. That’s it. Acceptance and also …

appreciation. Adoration. Oh, how she wants to be adored. And to adore.

Billy reappears. ‘What’s for dinner, Mum?’

‘Sausages. Sound all right?’

He nods, then looks at her hopefully, and she knows what it means.

‘Okay, you can watch cartoons while I cook.’

He grins and skips into the living room, then she starts dicing the potatoes.