Page 4 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
Do other people know?
No, she doesn’t care about that. What she cares about – what she needs to bring into effect, right now – is getting him out of the house. For good. He can leave his dirty undies on Donna’s floor. Anna is not going to keep making a home for him when he’d rather be somewhere else.
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 cannotbearthe 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 knownfor yearsthat 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.’
