The Last Love Note(52)

Poor Mum. My heart hurts. How could I have been so wrapped up in things that I missed this? For a woman with no filter, she has expertly hidden her deeper thoughts.

Oh, dear. This is not why I messaged Justin. This is meant to be about Grace. I can’t raise that now, though. Not after he’s just done our family a massive kindness.

Why is everything so complicated?





23





I turn and face the mirror, feeling demoralised enough already without also being confronted by a full-length reflection of my semi-naked self under stark fluorescent lights.

It’s not about appearance. Not completely. I’ve done enough work on body acceptance since having Charlie and losing Cam to be grateful for a body that gave someone life and has also managed to keep itself alive, despite all the trauma and stress it was forced through.

Watching Cam degenerate, physically, as the disease ravaged him, gave me a perspective on the workings of the human body that transcends image. Once you’ve watched a strong man fade, when you’ve borne witness to a body in peak physical condition spiralling until it’s unable to will itself into one more day, it’s harder to care whether breastfeeding has deflated your boobs or a miracle growing within you has graffitied your skin. And when you’ve spent a few minutes with a body that no longer houses a soul, so still and lifeless and empty, you really see it for what it is, and how incredible it has been, no matter how it looks.

At least, that’s the philosophical position I’d arrived at before everything got messed up on that motorbike. And now I feel like a hypocrite. With confidence issues. I’d reached that comfortable place with Cam where he loved me the way Mark Darcy loved Bridget Jones: just as I was. He’d seen me in the delivery suite during childbirth and looked at me like every moment of that experience brought us closer together. Since he died, I’d been perfectly content going about my post-Cam life living vicariously through Grace’s dating capers, but now I have a vague recollection that there are things a body can do beyond haul sadness around. And a vague idea that perhaps I might want to do those things again one day.

The bell tinkles over the door to the shop. As the door opens and shuts, the breeze blows open a slight gap in the changing room curtain. Peering through it, I see Hugh looking around the store, searching for me. It’s strange seeing him so relaxed here, in cut-off jeans and a black T-shirt. Strange to be here with him at all, in a setting like this.

Behind this flimsy curtain, which looks like it was hung in the 1980s and could disintegrate at any moment, I feel more exposed than ever. I pull the two pieces of fabric tightly together and press myself up against the side wall of the cubicle. Catching my breath.

‘Can I help you?’ someone says. It’s the old lady looking after the store.

‘I’m looking for my colleague,’ he says, before correcting himself. ‘Friend.’

It’s a subtle distinction, but one I’m glad he’s made, even if it’s nothing to this woman whether we work together or hang out socially. I think once you’ve spent time under a shower with someone crying her eyes out, you’ve moved well beyond workmates.

‘You must mean the lady with the dog,’ the woman says. Apparently everyone in the shop heard that entire conversation. ‘Are you that wonderful man she was talking to on the phone?’

‘Er, I think you mean someone else . . . My friend doesn’t have a dog.’

I make a tiny slit in the curtain and look through it.

‘Well, not any more,’ the lady says. ‘Poor Knightley.’

Hugh’s expression changes. He knew Knightley well.

The old lady takes him by the arm and, horrors, starts leading him towards the change rooms.

I clear my throat and grasp even harder on the curtains. ‘In here!’ I call out, wishing I’d spent more time trying things on instead of having an existential crisis over body image. Now he’s standing so close I can see his canvas shoes underneath the curtain and I am almost naked and shaking.

‘Kate?’

‘What you did for her mum today was really beautiful,’ the woman goes on. ‘Inviting her in for TimTams? From an old lady who has felt very alone at times, let me thank you, Justin, for being so thoughtful.’

The shoes step back.

This is out of hand! I step into the bronze halter-neck maxi dress and tie it up at the neck, fling open the curtain and reach behind myself to do the zip, fumbling with it.

‘Hugh! Hello!’

I pick up the PJs I was wearing and scoop up some shorts and T-shirts and a long skirt and blouse, a cardigan and a couple of other things that I know will be fine without trying them on, stuff my feet back into the sandals and pick up my phone and sunglasses. The zip is stuck, I think. I can’t budge it.

‘Fix that for her, dear, while I tally these up,’ the manager tells Hugh.

I read her name badge, ready to protest. ‘Mrs Davis—’

But Hugh has stepped in behind me already. His fingers brush the skin of my lower back while he gently nudges the zip and slides it slowly up over my skin at a pace my distracted mind is going to replay, later. Several times.

‘My first husband died,’ Mrs Davis says, just as we were about to make our break. ‘I was about your age.’

‘Mrs Davis, I’m so sorry.’