Page 76 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
She shakes her head, although she doesn’t entirely agree with him: maybe it would work, the two of them. More likely, she then thinks, he would be a different man – a different Sam – and she wouldn’t like him the way she does now. So he’s right.
‘But I do love you,’ he says. ‘You have such a big heart. So generous. You are caring and loyal and kind.’
‘I’m boring,’ she murmurs.
‘Boring?’ He snorts. ‘Hardly, darl. You’re so funny, the things you notice about people. Do you really thinkIwould want to spend time around someone boring?’
He winks and she feels her face relax into a smile, although she’s still not quite in her body. Mainly because she doesn’t want to be. The fantasy she had of life with him was so much nicer than this reality in which they will never be together and she’s going to have to find a way to live without the comfort of that love.
‘No,’ she says. ‘You wouldn’t.’
They sit in silence for a little while, then he smiles sadly. ‘I hope you still want to be my friend,’ he says.
Does she want that too? She thinks of how much she enjoys his company – has that been only because she thought there might be something more to it? No, she does genuinely like him. He amuses her, and it seems she amuses him. That’s a start. Maybe it’s everything.
‘I do,’ she says.
He looks so relieved. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘Then you can help me hoover up this lot of food before our sweet and sour pork arrives.’
She laughs, even though she doesn’t really feel like it, and picks up a lettuce leaf for the san choy bow.
The rest of the meal is spent in light conversation. It’s pleasant, spending time with him, even as she wants to go home and lick her wounds.
Later, as she climbs into bed, she feels at last back in her own self, and once she turns out the light she lets herself cry, and she keeps crying until she falls asleep, waking up six hours later with tears on her cheeks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
With piles of sewing in her workroom, waiting for her children to go to bed, the rain causing a leak in the kitchen that Anna can’t fix herself, a load of washing she forgot to put on today and a dinner the children didn’t like, Anna finds herself irritated with the incessant small tasks that come with being an adult. What is even more irritating is that she can’t switch off being an adult; it would be so nice, such a relief, to take a break from it every now and again.
Instead she has to deal with two children who are now sitting in front of her with serious faces, their baths done and dressing gowns on, ready for bed. They’ve been serious ever since they came home from school; quieter than usual when not whispering to each other.
She knew that having them close together in age might mean they’d be in cahoots as they grew older – possibly cahoots against their parents – and she has always loved the fact that they are close. Tonight, though, they seem to be winding each other up about something.
‘Mama,’ Renee says in a singsong tone.Muh-maaa.
‘Yes, darling?’
Renee looks at Troy, who glances at Anna then back to his sister.
‘I want to ask a …’ She sighs and giggles and twists her hands around each other.
Anna waits. She doesn’t like to prod the children into saying things because they’ll come out with whatever it is eventually,and prodding them makes it seem she’s too impatient to wait for them.
Renee and Troy look at each other again. He nods as if he’s egging her on. They often communicate like this: wordlessly, gestures and eyes only. Like twins, someone once said, except Anna tends to think twins do it not because they’re twins but because they grow up so closely together. For example, she’ll often think something then her mother will say it. Who can explain that other than to say that they know each other very, very well?
‘Do you still love Daddy?’ Renee says quickly, then her eyes drop and the hands are twisting again, but not as much as Anna’s guts are.
Oh crap, Anna thinks. This is not a question she wants to answer precisely because it’s a question she’s been asking herself as she tries to work out what she wants to do with her life. That’s part of being an adult too: having to make decisions. So many decisions.
Last night she was making a skirt for this nice lady who lives down the street, and a question popped into her head.
Do I still want my husband?
It’s been churning around in her mind ever since, because it’s an important one, obviously, but also because it’s a change from what she’s heard other women wondering, which is whether their husbands still wantthem. That’s the wrong way around, isn’t it? She knows she’s been trained so well to think about what everyone else wants – and a big part of turfing out Gary was because she was thinking about whatshewants, as unpopular a stance as that is – that it feels revolutionary to ask herself what she wants. Not just once, but over and over.
Because here’s what she’s realised: if she’s asking herself what she wants, and trying to give it to herself – like getting the new hairstyle, like taking care of herself better, like makinga new friendship – she’s happier. Less resentful. The things that people need her for don’t seem so annoying, even onerous, now. There’s a certain power that comes from doing something because shewantsto not because she feels shehasto. And what she’s found is that, after making sure she does some things she wants to do, she is still very keen to take care of other people, to support them, to be generous with her time. The caring just comes from a better place. A place that doesn’t involve her performing like a well-trained maid.
The fact that Renee has come up with a version of the question Anna has been asking herself is proof – if any were needed – of Anna’s very theory about how family members can appear to read each other’s minds.
