In fact, just looking at his face and listening to the silence where some sort of declaration should be, I’m worried that process is already in progress. A quick mental inventory reveals that I am unable to take on any new heartbreak at the moment. Whatever this is needs to be nipped in the bud. Stat. Cam had warned me this moment might come. He predicted I’d want to run from it, that it would fill me with guilt. And he was right. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. Run.
I start limbering up in front of Hugh, forgetting I fled down onto the beach straight from bed and am in my pyjamas still. And bare feet. No sports bra. No bra at all for that matter, and this is ill advised for exercise post-breastfeeding. I guess on the upside, nothing is leaking this time . . .
His eyes remain resolutely focused on my face, anyhow. Eyebrows raised. ‘Exactly what are you doing?’
It’s an excellent question, for sure.
‘I want to run.’
‘In your pyjamas?’
‘Is it so hard to believe that I might want to run on the beach?’
He’s trying hard not to smile. ‘Yes.’
I hate running. Hate it hard. He knows that. I extend my pre-exercise repertoire to include dynamic stretches I’ve previously only encountered on Instagram reels, scrolling in bed. He frowns.
And then it happens. I can almost hear the words tumbling out of my mouth before my brain has thought them up and run a sanity check. ‘Mum seems to think there’s something going on between us.’ I serve this revelation with a side of nervous laughter and something approximating a lunge. ‘Have you said something to give her that idea?’
He laughs at the mere suggestion. ‘Did you learn this particular aerobics technique when you were abducted by aliens, Kate?’
I glare at him.
‘Is it an obscure mating call?’
‘Hardly!’
‘Because I’ve got to tell you, it’s low-key beguiling.’
I hit his arm playfully. ‘Will you shut up, Hugh? You’re making me nervous.’
‘Payback,’ he says under his breath.
‘What did you say?’ I ask, just to check.
‘I’m going for a shower. Then coffee. Then we’ve got brunch with my mate Jonesy from uni and then you’ve got the writers thing.’ He looks me up and down critically. ‘Don’t try your weird dancing there. It’s not that kind of festival.’
I make him nervous?
‘And when you’re talking to people, don’t shrink. I’ve read some of your stuff.’
‘None of my stuff has ever been published.’ I hope I never left my manuscript open on the work computer.
He’s backing away from me towards the house. ‘Relax! I’ve read everything you’ve written at work,’ he calls. ‘You can string a sentence together, Kate, and your talent is wasted on our annual report.’
I make Hugh Lancaster nervous. How have I never noticed that before?
I won’t shrink at the festival. Why would he say that? Do I do that? Maybe I’ve been so preoccupied with surviving, and bringing Charlie through his dad’s death, I’ve forgotten about my own abilities. I feel like I’ve spent the last four years on the back foot, constantly in response mode, never ahead of the game.
I don’t want to do this any more. How long is it reasonable to drag out your recovery from grief until you’re expected to get your act together again?
Or maybe that’s where I’m going wrong. You don’t recover from it. There is no ‘healed’ moment. You just absorb it into your new life, somehow, and go from there.
31
The drive into Byron from New Brighton feels too quiet. I tell Hugh he can choose the music this time, but he says he doesn’t mind what we listen to, so I play the soundtrack to the Mamma Mia! sequel, with the windows down, and belt along to it.
So much green in this Irish-looking hinterland. Was that conversation about Ireland only yesterday? I feel like I finally had my volcanic moment, in the shower. Something has definitely shifted since that eruption.
Driving into the beach town itself, the traffic slows to a crawl past boutiques and cafes, antiques stores and eclectic gift shops brimming with wind chimes and rainbow dream-catchers. It’s a kaleidoscope of colour and style that seems to beat to the rhythm of the drumming circles at its hippy heart.
‘Did you enjoy that car karaoke?’ I ask Hugh as he pulls into a car park near the beach.
‘It was right up there with the exercise display this morning,’ he replies.
‘Thanks!’ I fish in my bag for my purse to pay the parking fee. There’s so much stuff in there, I can never find anything quickly. In any case, he’s got his phone out and is paying via the app, without any fuss as usual. We start walking towards the cafe for brunch with his friend. ‘So, this “Jonesy” we’re meeting. Anything I need to know?’
We wait to cross a road.
‘Uni mate. Writer, actually. Used to be a print journalist in Sydney. Quit the rat race and moved here to give screenwriting a go. I think his first screenplay has just been optioned . . . Let’s go!’
We take advantage of a small break in traffic and rush across an intersection, landing straight in front of a bookshop. Fortuitous! We’re a few minutes early for brunch, and I have a personal rule never to walk past an open bookshop, so I linger. Hugh looks back and sighs.
‘Five minutes?’ I ask him. ‘Come on, we’ve got time.’
I know he loves books. But he also loves to be early. We wander along the new fiction section, and I pick up the first two titles that jump out at me – a ‘perfect beach read’ and ‘book club favourite’， according to shiny stickers on the covers.
‘I will buy you brunch,’ I offer, ‘if both these titles aren’t about an exhausted, late-thirties woman with kids, who feels like the spark has left her marriage and longs for something more, but she can’t quite decide what.’
He takes the books from me, flips them over and reads aloud.
‘Felicity Page has spent the last twenty years as CEO of the well-oiled machine that is the Page-McCaffrey family of Balmain East. Married to Jock, high-flying banker and husband who’s barely home, and grappling with two moody teenagers and a French Provincial homewares boutique, Felicity spends her days dreaming of the gap year she never had. When an unexpected opportunity arises to “swap boutiques” – and families – with a woman in a picturesque French village, Felicity can’t stop wondering, “What if . . .” Can you drop everything and travel the world on your own at forty? What if you never come back?’
‘See?’ I say. ‘And the other?’
‘Vanessa O’Shea would give anything to be eighteen again,’ Hugh reads. ‘Weighed down by endless deadlines at work and swamped by a crumbling house that’s less “flip” and more “flop”， she discovers her teenage diary and realises she’s achieved all her dreams. She has the man, the family, the career and even the white picket fence, so why isn’t she happy, the way her teenage self predicted? When an accident in the renovation leaves her with a dose of temporary amnesia, Vanessa thinks she’s eighteen again. Will adulthood play out differently, second time around?’