Luke seemed so happy. I hadn’t seen his guitar for about three years, but he started playing it again. He gave Max lessons some nights after dinner. They started off slowly. He taught Max some chords, like how to play ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, but then they moved on to other things like ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ and ‘With or Without You’. After their little session, Luke would show off to us with renditions of ‘Hey Jude’ or ‘Blower’s Daughter’ or ‘Friday I’m in Love’. He even played that Paul Kelly song ‘So Much Water So Close to Home’ and it was as close as we ever got to sharing a love of Raymond Carver together.
This was the Luke I remembered, the one who used to take his guitar away with him on camping trips with friends of ours when we first met. We were young and full of optimism, and we’d sit around the campsite in Erica, by the running river. He was my man, our musician. We’d all sing along, but the star attraction was all mine. He had hair down to his shoulders, thick and wavy, and he played the guitar as radiantly as the wood in the fire burned. He’d wanted to be in a band once, and I’d wanted to be a writer, and at that time we both thought we would achieve those things, but life had taken us down different paths and somehow we’d forgotten to look back.
So the guitar was out again, leaning against the living-room wall, symbolising a new joy in his life that made him remember old joys. I noticed that he clipped his fingernails more frequently, he went to the barbers more often, he was avoiding getting those ratty tails around his neckline that he used to put up with for weeks. He started running some nights after work, bursting endorphins into his bloodstream that calmed him down and made him more pleasant to be around.
The grey tracksuit pants were languishing in his bottom drawer, and he wore jeans or shorts all the time now. He no longer lived in his around-the-house gear, not even when he was doing the garden. It was like he was expecting someone to drop over at any given time and he wanted to always look his best. He bought a new speaker system and hooked it up outside, so that he could listen to his music while he worked outdoors. From the kitchen window I spied him privately air pumping and singing out to some tunes as though he was on stage. I even saw those shoulders of his move, his head nod and his hips shake.
My emotional affair had made me angsty, withdrawn and guilty; his had made him a better man. I was jealous of his carefree attitude towards it, the way he was flying along with his emotions, feet off the ground. I’d dragged my feet since I’d fallen for Jarvis. I’d resisted everything and been a pain to everyone around me. Luke, on the other hand, had become a joy.
He wanted to talk again. We would hang out in the kitchen making dinner together and he’d tell me about his day with enthusiasm and ask me my opinion on new plans for the Patch. He was even interested in my editing projects.
I hadn’t made up my mind yet about what to do about the message I’d seen. Doing anything felt too scary, so I did nothing. I just wanted to enjoy the new Luke for a while.
One night, Luke organised his sister to come over to look after Max, so we could go out to dinner and a film. He hadn’t done anything like this since Max was born. This spontaneous meal with him was so simple, yet so effective in drawing me back into his aura. We had dinner at Mario’s and we didn’t talk about Max. We talked about beekeeping, sustainable farming and how private schools are the destruction of an egalitarian society. He even let me discourse on the Hermann Hesse book I was currently reading, and showed a glimmer of interest. When we went to see the film, he kissed me in the dark, like a young lover, and put his arm through mine and rested his head on my shoulder. We stayed like that through the whole film.
We went home, and after his sister had gone he lit the fire and we made love on the rug with carefree abandon. He’d thrown caution to the wind and I was coming along for the ride. It was like we were in a yellow sports-car, with the roof down, the wind blowing through our hair, he was driving too fast, and I didn’t know what the destination was, but I didn’t care anymore.