The Growing-apart Pains Of Middle-aged Men
The Age
Saturday February 2, 2008
Friends for 44 years: 21sts, weddings and when horses fall ill. There for each other despite their differences. But Peter sometimes detests Max. By Robert Drewe.
MAX AND PETER HAD been friends since kindergarten. They'd made speeches at each other's 21st birthdays and served as best man at one another's weddings. Now, over New Year's Day beers, while the steaks barbecued on Max's Beefmaster and Max's wife Diana prepared the salad inside, they winced at the fact that this year they'd turn 50. They totted up the years they'd known each other: 44. Whew, food for thought, they agreed, as they allowed the shiraz to breathe.They'd stayed in touch despite their lives taking different paths. Max had dropped out of engineering, gone into real estate, made a pile in the Northern Rivers and retired early to a house poised dramatically above the ocean at Wategos Beach. Peter had studied vet science and now ran an equine practice on the north coast. Eschewing sick cats, dogs and budgerigars for horses had meant worse hours and more travel (horses on faraway acreages had a habit of taking sick on public holidays) and he certainly couldn't afford to retire. He'd seen both ends of thousands of horses but he found his speciality satisfying. "I guess I must like them," was how he put it.The first two beers of 2008 didn't touch the sides. Peter was glad 2007 was over. He was exhausted on all fronts. His marriage had broken up in March and the equine flu epidemic had topped off a tough year. Reclining on the pool terrace, envying Max's white-water view as usual, he was beginning to relax when Max nudged him, murmuring: "Well, mate, I'd had enough spam messages pestering me. I finally gave Viagra a try." How to respond? "Really?" said Peter. "Must make you popular at home." He found this topic distasteful, not least because he was in love with Di, Max's second wife. Had been ever since their wedding. This was his secret. No one else knew, certainly not Di. They always shared wonderful conversations but they'd never flirted. Of course not. Max was his oldest friend.Max winked. "Well, actually I gave it the test run up at the Gold Coast." Max had a secret, too, but not a well-kept one, except from Di. Several times a year he and some cronies disappeared on all-boys sporting holidays to Test matches, football grand finals, fishing trips and Gold Coast brothels. As the steak sizzled on the Beefmaster and dolphins gambolled in the point break below, Max outlined his Viagra research at Lush Peaches. Peter made the appropriate responses: the whistles, the eyebrow raises. The beer suddenly tasted too bitterly metallic - warm, flat, like sucking cutlery. He poured himself a wine. Sometimes he detested Max."Thanks for last night, by the way," said Max. New Year's Eve had passed for Peter in a smelly stall in the stable of one of Max's hinterland properties. Here Di kept her four horses: three geldings and a bay mare. When the mare lay down, writhing, and wouldn't get up, she'd phoned him in tears. He left his New Year's Eve party and drove 50 kilometres to the patient. Colic. Three hours later, the horse on its feet again and defecating freely, Di had kissed him. A grateful kiss. Peter found it hard to sleep that night.The New Year's Day lunch was by way of a thank you. And so the day passed. Wine. Meat. Rollicking conversation. By evening, Max was dozing in front of the TV. Peter and Di were still drinking on the terrace. The moon was on the surf below. "Let's dance," she said. The idea made Peter excited and uncomfortable. She put music on and gyrated close to him. Self-consciously, he jigged about. He could have put his arms around her, taken the next step, but he didn't. But as she bumped her hip against him, Max appeared. And just stood there, silently.Peter called a cab. "Don't go yet," Di implored. Max hovered darkly, saying nothing. While Peter waited for the taxi she sat with him. They squatted on the kerb like teenagers while Max watched from the veranda, frowning like a parent. When the cab arrived, she hugged him urgently.Peter slept even worse than the night before. All next day he sat by the phone, poised to ring her. He could simply be inquiring about the sick mare. He didn't call. NEXT WEEK KATE HOLDEN
© 2008 The Age