Page 49 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Anna was surprised when Gary called and asked her out to dinner.

She also had to restrain herself from asking why he wasn’t asking the blonde instead.

In the days since she saw them together she’s been mulling over the sighting, then it turned to agitating, then it turned to boiling it up and letting it simmer unattended.

Totally her fault, of course, because she chose to keep going back to the memory when she could have trained herself away from it.

She’s never been one to mull. Or hold a grudge.

Witnessing her father’s long decline meant she tended to keep things in context, which was partly why she asked Gary to leave in the first place: life is, she knows, too short to live badly if it can be avoided.

For some reason, though, the idea of Gary with a new woman really irked her. She’s had trouble sleeping. There have been times when she’s caught herself daydreaming about it at traffic lights. Luckily only one driver has had to honk a horn to wake her up.

What irritated her the most was how upset she felt when she saw him with that woman.

It caused a schism within her, between the Anna she thought she was, completely over her husband and willing to move on, and the Anna who appeared to be lurking underneath that one, with different opinions and needs, and still, quite clearly, attached to Gary.

So after that night she stopped trusting herself and her responses to things.

Did she really think that new school mum was a bitch or was it some insecure version of herself that was popping up and saying hello?

Does she really want to be on her own, footloose and fancy-free, or is she merely telling herself a story to cope with the fact that her husband didn’t want to spend time with her and their children to the tune of staying at work late every night?

It’s really set her at odds with herself, all of this.

And then Gary called her. Wanting to take her somewhere nice.

A month ago she would have rolled her eyes and said, ‘I suppose so.’ This time she had to count to three so she didn’t say ‘yes’ too quickly.

Curiosity. That’s what it is. She just wants to know what he wants. Then she can go back to rolling her eyes.

Sure, sure , the other, subterranean version of her is saying. Tell yourself the story that it’s just curiosity. Ignore the jealousy you felt. Ignore the way you’ve been thinking about him since: as a man, not as an irritant.

He is picking her up tonight. Her mother is staying with the children.

It’s difficult to know whether or not Ingrid wants her back together with Gary. Indeed, it has always been difficult for Anna to know if her mother has ever liked Gary. Ingrid may be a woman of strong opinions but when it comes to her children’s spouses, she keeps her own counsel.

‘You look lovely,’ Gary says after Anna opens the door wearing a new pink V-neck jumper with shoulder pads, made of a fluffy thread she started regretting once she put it on because it may shed all over her woollen camel-coloured skirt.

‘Thank you,’ she says, a little startled at the compliment.

He brightens. ‘You’ve changed your hair.’

Involuntarily her hand goes to her head.

‘Yes.’ In their entire married life, this is the first time he’s noticed a change in her appearance.

Once she cut off a fair bit of hair and he said nothing.

Another time she wore thick black eyeliner just to see what he’d say – nothing.

They went out to dinner with friends and she wore a low-cut top, which was not her sort of thing at all. No reaction.

‘It looks great,’ he says.

Suddenly she feels self-conscious and she brushes down the pink jumper.

‘Thanks,’ she says.

Their conversation in the car is perfunctory: he asks after the children, she gives him answers; she does not ask about his work and he doesn’t volunteer any information.

He’s brought her to a little bistro in Gosford she didn’t even know existed. Maybe he brought the blonde here , she thought as they arrived, then tried to unthink it because it was ungenerous.

Yet she’s not going to let the night end without asking him about that woman. If he’s seeing someone, she wants to know. She has to know.

So she’s not going to wait, she’s going to ask now while they’re in the lull between ordering their food and those meals arriving.

‘This is a change from the Avoca Beach,’ she says, smoothing her serviette over her legs.

‘Hm?’ He frowns and fiddles with his butter knife.

‘The Avoca Beach. I had dinner there the other night.’

He looks up.

‘And so did you,’ she says.

Watching him closely, she sees no discomfort. He’s always had a fairly open face so she’d notice it if it were there.

‘Oh yeah,’ he says, nodding slowly. ‘I had dinner there with Fi.’

Anna swallows, knowing this is her moment of reckoning and she needs to stay calm.

‘Who’s Fi?’ She tries to keep her voice light – so carefree! She doesn’t care about this Fi! It doesn’t work, because she almost chokes on the second word.

‘Bracey’s wife.’

‘Bracey?’

‘Dan Brace. From school.’

Anna tries to remember this person but can’t.

‘We were in the cricket team together,’ Gary explains. ‘Stayed in touch. Sort of.’

Still nothing. Does he have friends she has completely forgotten about? Or did he not tell her?

‘He died.’ Gary looks down, breathes out, looks back up at her. With meaning. Like this is information she’s meant to know.

‘Oh,’ she says. Stalling for time.

‘So, yeah, Fi’s getting used to being on her own. To being lonely, I guess.’ Another pause. ‘They didn’t have kids. Couldn’t have them. So she’s really alone.’ He shrugs. ‘She just needed a night out. So did I.’

Anna feels bad for making presumptions, but they did look cosy together. Which they would if Gary knew Dan that well. Why hasn’t he mentioned them, though? Why hadn’t she met them?

‘We talked about you,’ he continues.

‘Me?’

‘Yes.’ He looks quizzical. ‘Why wouldn’t we? I told her you’d kicked me out.’

‘You kicked yourself out,’ she says sharply and her reward is his hurt face.

‘Fi kind of said the same thing.’

‘Really?’

‘I told her how much I’d been working. She said Bracey always made her a priority no matter how much work he had. He just found a way to manage it all, she said. That’s what you do once you have your priorities straight.’

He stares into her eyes. ‘I have them straight now, Anna,’ he says, and she finds herself holding her breath. ‘You are my priority. You and Troy and Renee. I won’t mess that up. Not again.’

With a flourish the waiter places sole in front of her and chicken in front of Gary, and she stares at her plate like it’s an oracle. Except her future does not lie there. Instead, it may take the form of the man sitting across from her.

‘I know you don’t have much of a reason to take me back,’ he says, picking up his cutlery.

‘But I’m asking you to try to think of one.

And here’s my reason for wanting to come back: I love you.

I’ve never stopped. I just thought it was enough.

You know? I thought all I had to do was love you and you’d know and that it would make everything fine.

But I need to show you. The way you showed me, by taking care of our house and our kids and our friends. ’

He puts down his cutlery and places his hands in his lap, almost as if he’s about to pray. Is he? Has he turned religious in his absence? Anna won’t know what to do with a religious husband.

‘Please give me another chance,’ he says quietly.

The eyes that meet hers are strong, determined. She likes it.

‘You don’t have to say anything now,’ he adds, picking up knife and fork once more. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

So she tells him about Troy’s interest in learning to surf and how Renee wants to do ballet, and he listens.

They talk about the holiday they once took to Manyana on the south coast and how they loved the fact there was hardly anyone there.

Normal things. Family conversation. Yes, that’s what it was.

The sorts of things they always used to talk about.

It may make them a family again. She feels closer to that than she did.

When he drops her home they kiss goodnight. Not on the cheek. On the lips. It’s brief, and she likes it, and when she goes inside she doesn’t think about the blonde woman any more, she just thinks about the kiss and how it had felt like the first time.