Suzi and I worked really closely on Parricide, meeting every week or so. She actually had a lot of the information in her head, and I was amazed at her capacity to file things in such an orderly way in her brain. It was only a shame that she didn’t write in that manner.
Around this time, Max had gotten in with a boy called Lewis at school. I’d always been wary of Lewis, with his three rough brothers. And my fears were being realised. Max had stopped drawing or doing craft, all of that stuff had become ‘for girls’. My gorgeous son with his long pianist fingers started arguing about doing his piano practice each night (‘this music is boring’). He listened to Top 40 music in his room with headphones on, and criticised me for my taste in music when I played Daniel Johnston on the stereo.
Then he started lying about having eaten his lunch at school, and he continued to play football every lunchtime even though he’d hurt his Achilles tendon and the doctor had told him to keep off it. No longer was I allowed to be in the bathroom when he was showering: he’d become self-conscious of his growing body. He was obsessed with football, his footy cards, and knowing the stats of all the different players and teams, and I was starting to fear that I had lost my beautiful, sensitive boy. He was becoming more and more like all the rest of them.
I knew that people change; human relationships change all the time. Nothing stays the same forever. People grow, they become different shapes and sizes, they realise they want different things to what they once wanted. Some people wake up one morning, look at their partner in bed and think ‘What the fuck have I done?’ And life is long. Lots of people live to eighty or ninety these days. I had been married to Luke for nearly twelve years, but I might still have had another forty or fifty years to go with him. It felt like a life sentence.
Things were going well at the Patch. All of the plots were fully booked and Luke had a waiting list of over forty people. One wall of Luke’s office was plastered with reviews from major newspapers, lifestyle magazines and printouts from fashionable blogs. He’d been called a visionary. The Patch had been featured in three or four different TV segments. These always made Luke feel nervous. He preferred doing print media, he found TV intimidating. He didn’t like how the crew would be there for three or four hours just to shoot a three-minute segment, and how he never knew which part they would select for use.
‘I saw Luke on Coxy’s Big Break last night,’ Suzi said at one of our café meetings.
‘You watch that show?’ I asked.
‘I was just flicking.’ Thank God, I thought to myself. Coxy’s Big Break is the epitome of all that is wrong with this world. ‘It was a good segment. Luke certainly sold the idea.’
‘He’s good at that. He’ll get loads more visitors to the café. It’s amazing to see the cause and effect of publicity.’
‘I really admire what he’s done,’ Suzi said. She had a dreamy look in her eyes, and I wondered whether my chat to her had resonated, whether she was starting to imagine herself as the beauty he could walk out the back door with.
***
I wasn’t surprised when Luke came home a week or two later and said that Suzi had been at the Patch.
‘Who was she with?’ I asked excitedly.
‘Just herself. She said she had a meeting in town.’
‘Really?’ This was fantastic — my plan was working. ‘What did you talk about? Did you talk much?’
‘Just a bit. She’s a real green thumb, did you know? We were talking about how undervalued kale is.’
‘Kale?’ It didn’t sound riveting, but whatever got their socks off, I guess.
‘I helped her pot up some strawberries to take home.’ Now here was an image for me: the two of them out the back of the tool shed, working side-by-side at the wooden bench with their garden gloves on. Did he stand behind her and hold her hand as she dropped some dirt into the biodegradable pot with her trowel? Did he lean his body into her? I couldn’t decide whether I was excited by this idea or repulsed by it. It was starting to feel strange.
His face didn’t look so grey or downtrodden that night. He looked something akin to happy, and was even chatty, sitting at the stool at the kitchen bench while I made dinner. He drank a European beer with a slice of lemon on the rim, and we hung out, talking like we were friends, not inmates.
***
The next time I saw her, Suzi didn’t mention that she’d been to the Patch. I waited to see whether she would say something, but she didn’t, and I don’t think it simply slipped her mind.
‘Would you like to come over for dinner to celebrate getting these manuscript changes finalised?’ I asked her. I was keen to witness my husband together with her. There was something so intriguing about it. ‘You can bring Brodie along, too. Just casual. Nothing fancy.’
‘That would be great,’ she said, smiling.
It was just an early, child-friendly 5pm dinner, but Suzi looked as though she’d gone to considerable effort. Her hair looked an inch shorter, and her curls were tighter and more controlled than usual. I thought perhaps she’d been to the hairdresser earlier that day. She was wearing a green A-line skirt with a black singlet tucked in, containing her pretty little waist, and a three-quarter sleeved black cardigan. With her long necklace of orange circles, she looked nothing like a seedy crime writer.
Suzi brought a bottle of Mornington Peninsula Pinot with her. Luke held it up like he’d just won a trophy. ‘I love Red Hill Estate,’ he said, ‘How did you know?’
‘Lucky guess,’ she said, and I could see a great big white tick drawn through the air over her head.
It was a balmy evening, so we sat on the deck while the boys kicked a soccer ball around on the grass down below. Luke had used the evening as an opportunity to launch his new blue-and-white checked shirt with black arm-patches and red buttons. He was wearing his favourite pair of tight black jeans and his recently purchased brown suede pointy shoes. I wasn’t accustomed to seeing him around home in anything other than his grey tracksuit pants or those t-shirts he wore on the weekends when he was fixing up something in the garden — the ones that had started off as good t-shirts eight years ago but had steadily declined to being the ones that were worn only for painting or gardening, falling just short of being the ripped bits of cloth that ended up polishing school shoes. He’d put product through his hair after his shower, and I could smell a dab of aftershave on him. It was weird having an attractive man hanging around the home again.
‘I love your garden,’ Suzi said, admiring the vegetable boxes Luke had built along the bottom of the deck. ‘It’s so lush. I wish my veggie garden looked as good as that.’
‘You should use Seasol, liquid seaweed. I swear by it,’ Luke said. ‘And have you ever tried companion planting?’ Suzi shook her head. ‘People think it’s complicated, but it’s actually very simple. I always plant dill with our broccoli and lettuces — it’s like a miracle plant. I’ll lend you a fabulous book.’
‘That would be great,’ Suzi said, overflowing with enthusiasm.
‘So, how is your book coming along?’ he asked.
‘Great. Luisa’s been so helpful with it,’ she said, looking over at me. ‘It was a bit of a dog’s breakfast, I must admit. But she’s really made sense of it. It needed a lot of work. Dave is going to have a look this week, and then hopefully it will go to design.’
‘So what’s next, then?’
‘You know, I just can’t stop thinking about Martin Bryant. But there’ll be uproar if I write about him. It’s still too raw. So I’m thinking about the women in his life, like his girlfriend at the time. I mean, how weird would it have been to have woken up one morning and seen all that on the news and that was the guy you were sleeping with? And he had a younger sister, did you know that? And there was that old lady he was living with, who left him all her money when she died — now that was a weird relationship. And there were escorts and prostitutes whom he saw after he received the inheritance . . . There’s so much material there, it’s overwhelming. I have to think of the right approach, you know? Something that’s going to sell some books, without being offensive or glorifying the guy and causing a public backlash.’
‘I like it,’ Luke said. ‘I read this book about the Frankston Killer a few years back. What was his name again?’
‘Paul Denyer,’ Suzi said.
‘He was seriously creepy.’ I could practically see Luke’s mind ticking over, trying to find something interesting to say about this killer. It was the only true-crime book he’d ever read, I was sure. He didn’t read much except the sports pages of the newspaper and the back of seed packets. ‘Have you seen that he’s lost all this weight and turned himself into a woman? I mean, how ironic, he goes around killing women with such hate, and then turns himself into one.’ Luke did it! He actually said something insightful and completely relevant to Suzi’s interest in women and Australia’s notorious killers. I almost wanted to applaud him.
The two of them sat there and continued to indulge in a conversation about various killers. Although Luke had never been interested in hearing about the true-crime stories I was editing, all of a sudden Australia’s killers had become the hottest topic of conversation. He was practically bouncing out of his seat about them.
I couldn’t watch any longer. I got up and lit the barbecue, and Luke didn’t even notice, or care that this was usually his job. I did the salads and he did the barbecue, this was the way it had always been. But that night, I did it all. I put the meat on the barbecue and then slipped inside to dress the salads and cut and butter the baguette. I watched Suzi and Luke from the kitchen window. They looked good together; they would make a great couple. As the sky turned a dark orangey pink and the trees became silhouettes against the clouds and the mosquitoes came out for a nibble, the two of them sat there talking as though they were the only people who existed in the world.
I stalled by the barbecue for as long as possible, but just as the meat was turning to charcoal I yelled out to the boys to wash up for dinner. I was impressed with Brodie. Although only a year older than Max, he had a nice level of maturity and pleasant manners. He was quiet but not shy, seemed aware and considerate of others, and was more of a listener than a talker. His orange hair was ungoverned, thick and curly, and he had thoughtful green eyes and a cute baby chin. Over dinner, while Luke and Suzi continued their discussions, I got to know Brodie a little. I asked him about school, and I liked the positive way he talked about things, not launching into everything that he hated about school, as some kids of that age did. He liked playing football and basketball, and was taking guitar lessons. Certainly he didn’t seem too damaged by his parent’s divorce, which was reassuring. Suzi must have handled it all really well.
At one point I tuned back into the adult conversation. ‘I hear you’re growing a beard,’ Suzi said.
‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Luke responded. I think I saw some colour around his ears. He hadn’t been thinking about it at all, what a grand liar. What happened to all that itchy chin business he had been worried about?
‘I’m loving this renaissance of the dark, thick beard,’ Suzi said. ‘I never thought I’d see the day.’
I thought about Jarvis and his lovely soft beard, the way it had felt against my lips. My plan was definitely working. One day soon I would have Jarvis’s beard lying on my bare chest. I got that familiar feeling in my stomach of yearning and lust.
I don’t think I was the only one around that table who was feeling a yearning. Suzi was definitely hot for my husband. Somehow, it was even making Luke look more attractive. Old dusty eyes had been replaced with a charming imposter. He was in such a good mood I thought he was about to break out into improv dance moves. She’d managed to dig up my old husband, the one who had been buried for so long. Here he was shooting out glossy lime-green sprouts: he was bursting with humour, he was fresh and funny and attentive.
I was enjoying the company, but after everyone had finished their meals I sent the boys inside to play the Wii so I could tidy up. Luke and Suzi made token gestures to help clear the table, but I insisted that they stay put, and carried all the dishes inside myself. It was dark outside by then, so I switched on the spotlight on the deck so that I could keep an eye on them from the kitchen window. It sure was a fascinating performance to watch: my own husband flirting with another lady, with my permission. I had no idea what they were talking about, but as I washed the dishes I could observe their body language — the way they were positioned facing each other, the way he ran his hands through his hair every now and again, and the way he laughed more animatedly than usual.
I was just washing the last salad bowl when they finally came inside, both claiming that it had suddenly got cold. ‘I’ve got goosebumps,’ Suzi giggled like a schoolgirl, rubbing the bare part of her arms with her hands.
‘I’ll make coffees,’ Luke said. ‘Baileys, anyone?’
It was late for the boys, but we adults sat by the fire and drank our coffees and Baileys. I don’t think Luke or Suzi noticed how little I contributed to the bubbling conversation. We were in a verbal game of snakes and ladders. They were both climbing together to the top and I was somehow slipping down those snakes to the very bottom. I felt quiet, reserved and tired. I wanted to sneak away and check whether there was a new message from Jarvis — something beautiful and poetic, perhaps a new song to stir up my emotions. But I remained seated on the floor, sipping my Baileys on ice, waiting for Suzi and Brodie to finally leave.
That night Luke made some moves on me in bed. It was especially lovely because nothing like that had happened in over a year.