It’s awkward, every single time. I don’t want to make everything about the fact that I lost my husband, but if I don’t mention it early in a conversation, people invariably ask me some question that lands us all in excruciating discomfort, with me breaking the news as gently as possible while they feel horrendous about having put their foot in it and I’m forced to comfort them over my loss.
‘I told him about Cam,’ Hugh says.
‘I was sorry to hear it, Kate. Writing about it could be a good idea. Some people sit on their grief for decades. They let it close in their lives completely.’
I nod. Hugh turns a page in the menu sharply.
‘Sometimes they become such a slave to their grief,’ Andrew continues, ‘they won’t take risks. They pass up opportunities that are right in front of them.’
‘The eggs Benedict looks good,’ Hugh observes, conveying this fact to Andrew in particular, as if it’s imbued with a secret code. ‘What are you having, Kate? Smashed avo?’
‘Am I that predictable?’
He shakes his head. ‘Only where avocado is concerned.’
‘I’ll have the granola,’ I say.
‘To prove me wrong?’
Andrew sits back and watches us as if he’s taking mental notes for his screenplay.
‘Are you going to the festival?’ I ask him.
‘Yeah. You?’
‘Definitely. Can’t wait. I’ve never been. I’m so excited!’ I sound like a thirteen-year-old, rambling about seeing her favourite pop star, but I don’t care.
They’re both smiling at me.
‘What can I get for you?’ a waiter asks us, looking at me first.
‘I’ll have a latte thanks, and, hmm. Actually I think I’ll have the—’
‘Smashed avo,’ Hugh says under his breath, while I say it aloud. I ignore him. ‘He’ll have a double-shot long black, no sugar and eggs Benedict with a side of field mushrooms. Andrew?’
‘Short black and the granola, thanks,’ Andrew says, and the waiter walks away to organise our cutlery. ‘You two have breakfast out a lot at work, do you?’
We look at each other. Not really?
‘I supervise the young graduate who processes all of his business expenses,’ I explain.
‘And you forensically analyse them and commit Hugh’s breakfast preferences to memory?’
No. Actually, I can’t explain how I know this. I just know it. ‘This mutual friend,’ I say, diverting the conversation. ‘The one you met through at uni. Who was it?’
They both sit up straighter in their seats.
‘She wasn’t so much a mutual friend as a girl we were both interested in when we met,’ Andrew says.
‘Jonesy.’ Hugh’s warning is low, but clear.
I lean forward in my chair and smile encouragingly at Andrew.
‘It was years later when we met her again, volunteering for an NGO in East Timor. Well, she and Hugh were volunteering. I flew in to do a photo essay,’ he explains.
‘And?’ I press.
‘And . . . There’s not much to say. Hugh won.’
I glance at Hugh, who stares at the salt and pepper shakers like they’re the most fascinating objects in the world and plays with a long packet of sugar, evening up its contents like he often does out of nervous habit. I didn’t know he volunteered in East Timor. For starters.
Then Andrew delivers an innocent question that seems to hit me with the full force of a sniper’s bullseye.
‘Hugh’s told you about Genevieve, surely?’
32
He has not. This is her. The one who broke his heart. It’s written all over his face. And I’m wondering where she is now, and if she’s married and has kids, and whether they keep in touch, and why I’m hot and prickly just thinking about her. Am I jealous? Of the girl Hugh fell for two decades ago, when he was technically a teenager?
He looks straight at me, willing me to change the subject, and something in his expression makes me want to rescue him. I think it’s the way he’s chosen me, here. He and I are the team, not he and his friend of many years.
‘I met Cam at uni too,’ I tell Andrew. ‘What about you? Have you ever married?’
He laughs. ‘Twice. Both disasters.’
I smile and touch his arm comfortingly. ‘They say third time’s the charm, don’t they?’
Hugh gives me a grateful smile across the table, and all I can think is, who the fuck is Genevieve? The woman has him utterly flustered. She’s got me utterly flustered. I start fanning myself with the serviette and it does precisely nothing. It’s just pushing the humid air around. I’m actually starting to feel a bit faint. Is this the perimenopause? I almost hope so, because getting this hot and bothered about your boss’s first love is plain pathetic. I pour a big glass of water, ensuring several blocks of ice tumble into the glass too, then I fish one out and hold it to my face.
I know. Terrible manners. It’s just so cool on my cheeks, and I run it over the back of my neck and round the front and drops of icy water run down my chest and it’s truly divine, particularly when there’s just a hint of a breeze, enough to give me goosebumps . . .
It’s not until their conversation pauses, mid-sentence, that I realise Andrew and Hugh are both watching this performance. I come to my senses. Drop what’s left of the ice cube into a plant to my right and dab my skin dry with the serviette.
‘I thought women only did that in eighties soft drink commercials,’ Andrew observes.
Is it my imagination or does Hugh actually kick him under the table?
‘I’m just hot,’ I explain, but I don’t mean it the way it comes out. ‘Physically, I mean. Wait!’
I look at Andrew and shake my head, then at Hugh. ‘Sorry! I don’t mean this the way it sounds. I’m just—’
‘Hot,’ Hugh confirms. ‘We know.’
He catches the attention of the waiter. ‘Can we have another jug of water, please? Extra ice. She’s hot.’
I know he’s only stirring, but hearing this observation from the horse’s mouth, even as a joke, is exhilarating.
‘Andrew. Tell us about your new screenplay,’ Hugh orders, and Andrew takes the bait, because he’s a writer and this is a chance to workshop his plot. Whatever he says next, though, is a blur. I stare at Hugh and he stares at me, and I begin to think there’s not enough ice in the second jug for a job of this magnitude.
The waiter brings my smashed avocado and his eggs Benedict and he scrapes half the mushrooms onto my plate without asking if I want them, which of course I do. And while Andrew provides some never-ending background noise, revealing the entire three acts of his screenplay, it occurs to me that Hugh and I, perhaps for the longest time, have been involved in a dance, choreographed by my grief. It’s been me leading it, every step of the way. Always choosing the music. Always picking the pace. He’s followed so closely that there have been times when it’s felt like he was the one leading. The day I lost the baby. My first day back at work after Cam’s funeral. First year back, probably. Each time I lost my way, everything kept turning, like magic.
And now he’s sitting across from me, looking at me in a way that he never has before – not once in four years, until the airport yesterday morning. But the familiar music has stopped. The dance has faltered. And neither of us knows the new steps.