Page 30 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
‘Such a pin-up, isn’t he?’ another regular said, and again Evie smiled and said nothing, although that time she knew the answer wasyes.
Sam has created quite the sensation in the salon, simply by existing – although he is a great hairdresser too – and that is a gift more than a skill. It’s no wonder, then, that she can’t stop thinking about him, this man who creates light and happiness and weaves both of them around her. While she knows it’s partly his nature, she’s also allowing herself to think that some of it is just for her. It’s her he chats to the most; her he hovers around when there are rare quiet times. She may be flattering herself by thinking he sees some kind of light and happiness in her too, but why shouldn’t she?
‘Even if you don’t have silkworms, maybe you should come round and see my mulberry tree,’ Sam says to Billy, who looks delighted, although Evie feels odd about it: she wants to visit Sam’s home on her own first. As an adult. While she loves that Sam is interested in her son, she really wants him to be interested inher. Although he is. Isn’t he?
‘Can we, Mum?’ Billy asks.
‘Of course, sweetie.’ What else would she say? Ultimately she wants her son to be happy more than anything else in the world. ‘I’ll talk about it with Sam. Now he and I need to get back to work. Would you like to read for a while?’
Billy nods and she fishes his book out of her handbag, giving it to him, then closing the door after she and Sam leave.
‘What a great kid,’ Sam says, his voice soft, his smile wide.
‘I like to think so.’
‘That means you’re a great mother.’ He squeezes her arm and then turns away from her and toward the next client who’s walked through the door.
Evie almost feels like crying, because no one ever tells her she’s a great mother. ‘Thank you,’ she whispers.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to pick you up this evening?’ Evie says as she pulls into a parking spot near Gosford train station.
Trudy almost fainted when Evie offered to drive her here today. They’ve never seen each other on a Sunday. Not usually on a Saturday either, apart from school-formal season when the salon is packed to the hilt with teenagers wanting perms and teases and it’s all hands on deck. So when Trudy mentioned she was heading to Sydney by train, she wasn’t expecting Evie to offer a lift to the station. Except she did.
‘You don’t have a car, do you?’ Evie asked as she was about to walk out the door to pick up Billy on Thursday.
Trudy can see how Evie would think that. After all, Trudy lives and works within a very small area, and she walks to the salon and the shops and back home.
‘I do,’ Trudy said. ‘I’m just not that keen on driving. Laurie was the driver. I’ve hardly driven since …’ There was no need to say it – Evie knew.
‘I can take you to the station,’ Evie had said.
Trudy could have managed to drive herself to the station, of course. Or made her way there by taxi, presumably. Or maybe there’s a bus … When she’d suggested taking the train to Sydney she actually hadn’t considered the logistics of it. So when Evie took that problem away from her, she felt grateful and surprised at how emotional she was about it. As she’s not given to crying – even after Laurie died, she didn’t cry much – the emotion shefelt at Evie’s gesture seemed too strong, and she’s still feeling it as she unbuckles her seatbelt in Evie’s car and prepares to exit.
‘Thank you, pet,’ she says. ‘But I’ll be fine this evening. You’ll have Billy coming back and you’ll be busy.’
‘Trudy,’ Evie says firmly, ‘how do you think you’ll get home from the station?’
‘There must be a bus. Something.’
Evie raises her eyebrows. ‘A bus on a Sunday night? You’ll be lucky.’ She smiles. ‘Why don’t you call me when you know which train you’ll be on. You can leave a message on the answering machine if I’m not home.’
‘What about Billy?’
‘Billy can come with me to pick you up. He loves an adventure. He’ll probably want me to put him on the train instead of taking him back home.’
‘All right,’ Trudy says, feeling that gratitude emotion rise, but she’s not going be pathetic in front of Evie so she sniffs it back. ‘Thank you.’
Evie waves her goodbye and Trudy heads for the platform.
When the train arrives it’s mostly empty; she takes a window seat because there’s a lot to see on this journey. Sometimes she and Laurie would take the train to see Dylan rather than Laurie driving, so she knows the track. The journey won’t be too long – Dylan suggested they meet at Hornsby, which is where she’d have to get off the train anyway, as everyone has to change at Hornsby if they want to travel elsewhere in Sydney. If they were driving it would be at the end of the freeway, so it almost marks the spot where Sydney begins. For her, at least.
Dylan suggested they go to the RSL for lunch, as it’s near the station. Trudy is happy with that – she likes a club.
The rhythm of the train makes her drowsy but she wants to keep watching the view. As the train nears the Hawkesbury River, Trudy marvels at the size of it. The magnificence of thesetting. It looks more like an inland harbour than a river, dotted with islands and defined by inlets. Oysters are farmed down there. People have whole lives lived in, on and around that river and she knows nothing about them even though as the crow flies they’re not that far away from her.
It’s been so long since she’s seen the Hawkesbury – at least two years. Maybe three, because in the last months of Laurie’s life they didn’t go anywhere much. They weren’t exactly world travellers before that – Trudy doesn’t even have a passport because she’s never been able to take enough time away from the salon to travel very far – but they got out and about. Sundays were their day together and they would drive to Newcastle sometimes and have lunch, or to the Hunter Valley where they’d visit the vineyards. Trudy would sample the wine while Laurie watched. He never took a drop of alcohol when he was driving somewhere.
