Page 59 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
So, sandwich in handbag, she sets off from the salon toward the beach, although she doesn’t get far before she is stopped in her tracks by the sight of Sol heading in her direction, slowly; he’s told her he has a bad hip, ‘although I can’t remember which one’, which she didn’t find as funny as he no doubt intended it to be.
‘Trudy!’ he says, his face alight.
‘Oh, hello, Sol,’ she says in that tone she gets – in fact, most women she knows get – when they can’t avoid a social entanglement yet don’t want to open any kind of door for further interaction. It’s something learnt at mothers’ knees and has probably been going on for millennia, which is why it’s so instinctual. Or it is for her. And she doesn’t want to stop and chat – she wants sun, sea air and sandwich.
‘How are you?’ he says eagerly, as if she’s going to have a fascinating answer for him.
‘I’m heading out for lunch.’
‘Oh?’
She holds up her handbag. ‘A sandwich by the seaside.’
He nods. ‘What a good idea.’
Then he looks at her.Reallylooks at her, in a way that makes her feel exposed. As if he sees her grief, her loneliness, her sleepless nights, her occasional sense of hopelessness, her dismay that her son hardly contacts her …
She feels empty so much of the time, and that’s what she thinks Sol is seeing now. It’s unsettling, because she was so sure she’d done a great job of hiding that emptiness from everyone. Even as she has wished someone would notice it. However, here he is, possibly noticing it, and she is afraid it means she hasn’t been so good at hiding it, really, which makes her wonder if she’s been wandering around with some kind of hole in her heart that everyone can see. The sort of hole that can’t be filled, that might make her feel ashamed that she isn’t stronger, more capable,more resilient. All the things an adult is meant to be. All the things she has not felt, not one day, since Laurie died.
He was those things for her, and she didn’t really want to have to be them for herself. There’s only so much a woman can handle in her life, and when she has to do it all it wears her out. She is wearing out. Worn out, even. It’s not what she wants, although she doesn’t know how to end it without it being the end. And she’s not ready for that. For all the grief she feels, for how hard the past two years have been, she still wants to be here, on this planet, trying to find a way forward. That’s something.
‘I don’t mean this to sound untoward,’ Sol says.
Trudy thinks that she hasn’t hearduntowardfor quite a while.
‘I would very much like to take you out for lunch,’ he continues. ‘Or dinner, perhaps. Yes, dinner might be preferable, since you have your business.’
He keeps looking at her.Looking-looking, and she feels she can’t glance away or it would be rude somehow. Yet she has to ask him something, because she needs to know.
‘Why?’ she says.
He looks amused. ‘Why?’
‘Mm.’
‘I suppose I could be flippant and reply, “Why not?”’ His eyes are twinkling and she likes the way they do that. It makes him seem lively.
‘You could,’ she says, and something lets go in her. She’s having an adult conversation – a proper exchange between two people who know they’re at the same stage of life and don’t have time to waste – for the first time since … well, since Laurie died.
‘But the truth is, Trudy … I presume you want the truth?’
What a question. A big, all-encompassing question. Or not. There are little truths and big truths. A little truth is giving direct information in response to a question. A big truth is saying ‘Ilove you’ – except that’s also a little truth, because it should be a daily affirmation.
So maybe they’re all big truths. Maybe every time we’re honest with ourselves and others it goes to the bigger whole of how to be in this world, how to make life meaningful, how to roll out the carpet for the rest of our lives. Or for that day alone.
Yes, she’s been doing too much thinking since Laurie died but it can sometimes lead her to good places, and one of those places is the recognition that truth is good. So that’s what she’ll ask for.
‘I do,’ she says.
‘I was a little jealous of Laurie,’ he says, and his eyes look even more alight. ‘You’re an impressive woman.’
She’s taken aback by that. Her, a little hairdresser from Terrigal, impressive? That’s a word she’d reserve for prime ministers and monarchs. Maybe Maggie Tabberer. Not herself. Impressive people are people who have achieved great things. Her life has been small – by choice and circumstance – and she has never minded it, and she certainly wouldn’t make a claim to being impressive.
So she doesn’t know what to say back to him except, ‘Oh?’
‘Indeed. He was a lucky man, I always thought. And, of course, I would never have said anything, but …’
He looks at her again, in that same piercing way, and she understands: he’s waited for two years to approach her. That’s respectful and she likes it, even if she’s not sure whether or not to accept his invitation.
