‘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.’
She puts her hand on my arm. Two vastly different life stories. Both on the same page. I ache for her.
‘If I didn’t volunteer here six days a week, I’d spend all my time staring into the space he once took up in my life.’
The space he once took up. Space that can never be occupied. Space destined to be carried around forever, everything else forced to expand and grow around it.
‘When you walked in here, I could tell you had suffered a great loss. It’s all over your face. Your posture. It’s in your voice.’
This bit I get, on an instinctive level. I feel such a forty-year-old wreck because of the grief I’m lugging around. Less so, granted, during the zipper moment.
‘Take it from a very old woman. No amount of sadness is going to bring your husband back. Did he want you to be happy when he was alive?’
‘Blissfully.’
She smiles. ‘Don’t take that away from him, then, in death.’
I’d never considered it quite this way. Staying sad and half-living this life since he died. It’s all I’ve been able to manage and what I thought people expected. But it’s not me. Am I betraying his greatest wish for me?
‘You feel him, sometimes, don’t you?’ she asks me.
I think of the beach and nod.
‘He knows what’s best for you.’
‘I felt him today. He stood right behind me. I felt him protecting me.’ I don’t even care that I’m saying this in front of Hugh.
‘And then what?’
She watches me closely, and I can see her respond to the recognition that must pass across my face as I look at Hugh, who leans across the desk to pick up my bags.
Then Hugh came and Cam just sort of . . . stepped aside.
24
‘Kate, no. You’re not wearing that again,’ Grace says, rolling her eyes at my go-to LBD and walking back to her car.
It’s one of the first few big, critical work events I’ve had the courage to attend since Cam died. High profile. Maximum glam. Several very wealthy, potential benefactors will be there, including one who I know is keen to support some cutting-edge university research into the genetics of Alzheimer’s. And it’s made my job personal. With a son potentially carrying the gene mutations that will lead him down the same path as his father, I’m driven to do everything I can to influence a different result for him, including having a strong interest in research. I will take this right up to the line where a conflict of interest would exist. And Hugh will hold me back from crossing it.
‘You need your game face on tonight,’ Grace instructs as she sweeps through the front door, brandishing a long garment bag and her hair and make-up kit.
First things first. The dress. She hangs the coat hanger on the doorframe, unzips the bag and sighs rapturously. ‘You’re going to say “yes” to this dress,’ she says, eyes sparkling. ‘Tonight is about getting attention, Kate, and I know you hate that, but this is your job.’
‘It’s about getting attention through having important conversations,’ I start to protest, but she is revealing a fitted, strapless emerald-green vintage gown that falls away at the waist into delicate folds of floor-length chiffon. The dress is stunning. Striking. Romantic. Dusted with sparkles that are so sparse and delicate, they almost look like a trick of the light. It’s certainly a ‘look at me’ dress.
‘Well?’ she asks, thrilled with herself.
‘It definitely says, “Give me five million dollars for scientific research immediately.”’
‘I know, right? I love it. And with your red hair!’
‘Auburn, please.’
‘Own it, Kate. The dress you’re wearing now is screaming “grieving widow just walked in from the funeral”。 Take it off!’
I duck into our bedroom – my bedroom, I suppose, these days – and slip off the black dress. The part of me that wants a generous donation to the cause is at war with the part of me that wants a block of chocolate and six hours in my PJs in front of Netflix. When did I lose my love of nightlife and fundraising galas and dancing? I used to lose myself in the rhythm of music, not long before I lost myself in a different way to Cam’s illness and the baby I will always wonder about. Is my spark ever going to return?
Grace walks in and helps me step into the gown. She shimmies it up my body, and I hold the bodice in place while she zips it up at the back, tight.
I turn to the mirror. Well, it’s regal. Can’t fault it. She passes me a pair of diamond and emerald pendant earrings, and places an antique-look statement necklace around my neck. It’s not something I’d normally wear, but it perfectly suits the strapless gown. The clasp is a bit tricky, but eventually she gets it, then digs out a pair of silver heels from my wardrobe.