Luke’s beard was even more attractive than Jarvis’s. It had completely changed his face; his eyes looked greener, it softened his nose, and it hid the scar on his chin from when he fell through a window at nineteen. Suddenly his haircut looked good. The beard made him look masculine; it defined him and gave him a personality.
He seemed to be walking around with more confidence, too. If we went out together on Sundays, to the park or down the street for a pastry and coffee, women would look at him and men seemed to treat him with more respect. I felt proud. Not all men can wear a beard so well. Some beards look patchy, undergrown, overgrown . . . and some beards are just plain terrible. But Luke had perfect, even coverage, and he nurtured his beard like he nurtured those plants at the Patch. He shampooed it every day and pruned it on the deck each week.
Max hated his beard. ‘It’s gross,’ he said to Luke over dinner one night. ‘Can’t you shave it off? It’s embarrassing. I liked you better before.’
‘It’s not gross,’ I said. ‘It’s manly.’
‘It’s stupid,’ Max said.
‘Hey, that’s not nice. Don’t say that about your dad! Really, that’s not a nice thing to say.’
‘I hate it.’ Max slammed his drink down on the table, spilling water on our circa-1970s teak table.
‘Max, you need to speak nicely,’ Luke said, upset about his meal being disturbed. ‘You can go to your room if you’re going to act like this.’
‘Fine,’ Max said. ‘I hate casserole anyway.’ And he stormed off to his bedroom, slamming the door behind him.
‘What’s got into him?’ Luke asked me.
‘I don’t know. He’s like this all the time now. Hormones probably.’
‘I’m tired of it. I want the old Max back. He’s watching too much TV and playing too many computer games. Every time I see him, he’s in front of a screen. Why don’t you send him outside more?’
‘Are you blaming me?’
‘You shouldn’t have given him a milkshake after school. Of course he’s not going to eat dinner after that.’
‘Are you kidding me? Why don’t you take him for a bike ride after school or something? Take him all day on Sunday to that track by the Yarra River. He’s bored. He needs to do more activity.’
‘I do lots with him.’
‘I know. But he needs more. He’s so hard to please now. Do you remember when he was delighted by everything? It was so easy.’
‘He’s growing up. We all seem to get more dissatisfied as we grow older.’ And there he was, looking at me. ‘We should have had a sibling for him.’
‘But we only wanted to have one child. What about all that sustainability stuff, the world being overpopulated? That’s what you used to say.’
‘I’ve been too principled. We should have given him a buddy.’
‘You’ve never said that before. Anyway, we can’t regret the choices we’ve made.’
‘Really? You seem to regret all your choices.’
‘What?’
‘You seem so unhappy with everything.’
‘I’m not unhappy.’
‘Don’t you think he picks up on it? The way you speak to me?’
‘What about the way you speak to me?’ I stood up. Suddenly my casserole didn’t seem so appetising. I scraped my meal into the bin and chucked my dish in the sink and then I walked back over to Luke. ‘I’m not unhappy. It’s just I’m not excited about anything. Where’s the fun anymore?’
‘We have lots of fun with Max.’
‘I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about you and me. When was the last time we went out together? Did something just the two of us?’
‘You want to be twenty again.’
‘I don’t want to be twenty. I want to be my age, but having fun with you. It’s all so bland around here. I feel like you’re repulsed by me. I feel like we can’t even stand to take a sip from the same water bottle anymore.’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘Is it?’
‘What about the other night?’
‘After Suzi? That was the first time in a year. Do you want a medal?’
‘You want too much. We should have marriage counselling.’
‘Is that so? Dr Lawson suggested it last year and you were dead against it. Maybe, back then, it could have been saved. But it’s too late now.’
‘I didn’t want to see Dr Lawson because you see her every other week. You’ve got an unfair advantage.’
‘I’m not stuck with you.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Exactly what I said. I’m not stuck with you.’
‘You’ll find it even harder on your own.’
‘Do you want me to stay with you because it’s easier than being on my own, or because I love you?’ I asked him.
Instead of answering, he began chewing on his casserole again, which by then had started looking like one of those fake displays in a Japanese restaurant’s window.
‘Would you even care if I was with someone else? Would you be jealous?’ I asked.
‘You don’t need to threaten me.’
‘No, I’m serious. Would you even care?’ Perhaps I was looking for his permission, for him to say, fuck it, go be with someone else, just don’t ruin our family unit.
‘Of course I would care. I don’t want you to be with anyone else.’
‘Then why don’t you want me?’
‘I’m exhausted all the time. I work hard’
‘And what about you? Do you ever think about being with someone else?’
‘Never,’ he said, his mouth full of chewed-up meat and carrots, a spot of gravy on his beard like a raindrop on a spider web.
‘Because sometimes I don’t even think I’d care if you were. It could be good for you.’ Here I was giving him my permission.
‘Well, that’s screwed-up.’
‘Do you even wank?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘When?’
‘In the shower.’
‘When was the last time?’
‘I don’t know. Last week, the week before.’
‘It’s weird. Maybe you’re asexual.’
‘I am not fucking asexual.’
Then we heard Max’s little voice calling out from his bedroom. ‘Can I come out now?’ We looked at each other, each silently wondering how loudly we’d been talking.
‘Yeah, come on out,’ Luke called. When Max returned to the table, his father and I were rosy and ashamed. Max’s emotional wellbeing was the most important thing to us: in that, we were a team. ‘What do you have to say?’
‘Sorry,’ Max said.
‘For what?’ his dad prodded.
‘For being rude.’
‘Apology accepted,’ I said, because I could hardly even remember what he’d been sent to his room for.
‘Can I have some ice-cream?’ Max asked.
‘No way,’ Luke said. ‘You didn’t finish your dinner. You can have some fruit.’
And so it was that, like so many arguments between parents, this argument was never resumed or completed. It was interrupted midway, and allowed to fester like rotting compost. But it had planted a couple of seeds.