Page 27 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
Unless she’s wrong about Sam. There’s always a chance. She was wrong about the last male hairdresser she employed, who raced off with one of her best customers. Last Trudy heard they were in Brisbane running a salon together. Good luck to them.
‘Now, darl,’ Sam is saying as he tugs on Bobbie’s ends, ‘do you have time for a conditioning treatment?’
‘Of course,’ the woman says.
‘Josie!’ Trudy calls, and her apprentice emerges from the back room, tying up her hair. ‘See if anyone would like a coffee, would you?’
Josie smiles and nods, and the door opens again, admitting the next client, and Trudy shakes off her worries for Evie and steps back into the bustle.
MAY 1986
Expo 86 takes place in Vancouver, British Columbia. During a visit, HRH Diana, The Princess of Wales, faints.
The albumSoby Peter Gabriel is released.
The Flying Doctorsmakes its debut on Australian television screens.
Hands Across America – a human chain comprised of over five million people – stretches from New York City to Long Beach, California.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘You look lovely, Mama,’ Anna says as she comes to stand behind Ingrid and they glance at each other in the mirror. Anna knows how mirrors work, of course, yet she always finds it a little odd that you can meet someone else’s eyes in a mirror. You’re not looking right at each other outside of the mirror, yet you arein the mirror. Isn’t that odd? Doesn’t that seem like it goes against the laws of science or nature or something?
Maybe she’s overthinking it. ‘You are thinking too much,’ her mother likes to say to her, and it takes all of Anna’s self-control to not bite back when that happens, because she can’t believe her mother doesn’t realise that she hasreliedon Anna to do the thinking for so many years now.
Like this morning: Ingrid said she wanted to buy a new outfit. ‘The bridge ladies have seen all my clothes,’ she said. Anna has seen the bridge ladies and doesn’t think they’ll notice if Ingrid is repeating outfits, but her mother likes to look smart. Anna used to like to look smart and she’d quite like to look smart again, except it’s a muscle that has to be used constantly to work effectively and she’s let hers atrophy. Which is not her mother’s fault, even though Anna sometimes resents her for looking so put-together all the time. Can’t the woman slip, just once? Of course not. Appearances have to be maintained, just as they did when Anna’s father had his accident. Back then Ingrid relied on Anna to help her with that maintenance – and she’s still doing it.
The outfit-shopping needed some organisation. For Ingrid, buying clothes does not mean pitching up at the local shopsand hoping for the best. It’s a mission, so it needs planning and targets. Anna did a recce in Gosford and found a boutique she thought Ingrid would like, and that’s where they’re standing now, with Ingrid in a matching cerise jacket and skirt with blue trim – possibly too dressy for bridge, but then again Ingrid has her own standards.
‘The colour isn’t too … loud?’ Ingrid asks, scanning herself up and down, her blonde helmet of hair barely moving as she does so.
Anna shakes her head. ‘Nuh-uh. Hot pink would be too loud.’
‘Unless it’s shocking pink.’
They smile knowingly at each other. Anna has learnt some fashion lore at her mother’s metaphorical feet, and Ingrid worships at the altar of Elsa Schiaparelli, who was synonymous with shocking pink.
Their little in-jokes remind Anna they have things in common outside of just trying to make it through each day, which is what has marked most of their lives together.
‘We’re decided, then,’ Ingrid declares, then disappears into the change room to put on her slacks and turtleneck.
Back in the car, Anna looks at her watch, considering all the other things that need to be done today.
‘You wanted to go to Noraville,’ she states as she starts the engine.
‘If you have time.’ Ingrid puts on her Jackie Onassis sunglasses and Anna stops herself from laughing, as she usually does. Her mother is not at all like the soignée Jackie. Ingrid is elegant in her own way, but it’s a very different way to Jackie, so the big, dark sunglasses don’t fit her overall look. But she loves them and Anna supposes that’s all that matters.
Noraville is the cemetery where her father lies in ashes. The advantage of only having ashes to bury is that one plot can fit a whole family, and given their straitened circumstances at thetime of his death, it made sense to just buy the one plot and make plans for them all to go in it, also in ashes.
He died when Anna was twenty-three, far too late for her to go to university with her friends from school – she hadn’t been able to even think about it before that, because she had to be at home to help. In that time after school, though, she took up sewing, and became good at it. She did piecework for a local dressmaker and sometimes dreamt of starting her own fashion business. Now she only makes the occasional dress she designs herself, and Ingrid’s never asked her to make one, which is why Anna was surprised to hear her talking about them at the salon the other day.
The drive takes a while and they pass it mostly not talking, listening to classical music on the radio. There’s no need for a mother and daughter to talk all the time, Anna supposes, although she’d like to think she and Renee would always have something to talk about.
When they arrive, Anna follows Ingrid to the grave.
‘It seems like a long time,’ Ingrid says as they stand, both with their hands folded in front of them. It’s something Anna does when she’s standing still; no doubt she learnt it from her mother.
‘Itisa long time, Mama,’ Anna murmurs.
