Men who’ve spent the year meekly pruning and defoliating let their beards go wild.

It’s like dress-up time for grown-ups. And so I’ve got the mo. It begins under the shower, halfway through shaving off a week’s growth. ‘I could stop right here and have a mo,’ I think to myself, and there seems no reason not to. These are the liberations of the Australian beach holiday. You can slough off your workaday self at the same time you slough off your clothes. In a pair of sluggos, you could be anybody. For instance, the sort of guy who has a mo.

‘What sort of guy has a mo?’ I ask Jocasta, as she hovers with her magazine, chanting the word ‘Viggo’ in the hypnotic manner of a Sufi priest. ‘A sleazy, creepy guy,’ says Jocasta distractedly, as she turns the magazine to better appreciate another shot of Viggo.

I don’t think she’s right. As a mustachioed man, I think I’d be more decisive, more manly, stricter with myself and with the world. I’d probably drink less and be able to play sport. The question is: is it worth gaining all of the above if I also get a bigger nose?

‘Do you think my nose has actually grown bigger or does it just look bigger?’ I ask Jocasta, but she doesn’t seem to hear me.

‘What colour of nail polish do you think Viggo would like on a woman?’ is all she says, rocking her magazine from side to side to better appreciate the effect of sunlight on the actor’s skin.

‘Pink,’ I suggest. ‘An actor would love something theatrical.’ I’m hoping an answer from me might garner one from her; a tactic which fails to work. ‘He’s not just an actor, you know,’ says Jocasta. ‘He’s also a poet, a horseman, and he speaks ten languages.’

The next day we’re playing beach cricket. Jocasta is bowling, wearing bright pink nail polish on her toes. She’s never worn nail polish in her life but such are the transformations of the beach. Our mate Neil whacks the ball hard, on a fast, low trajectory. I stretch to the left, wondering whether I’ll miss the ball entirely as usual or instead catch it, fumble for a while, and then drop it. I look down to check the manner of my disgrace only to find the ball nestled sweetly in my hand. In a summer of sporting firsts, here’s another. I’ve caught a cricket ball. The moustache has more power than I thought.

During the 1970s, I spent most of my leisure time trying to summon up a single chest hair on my otherwise hairless torso. I’d brace my body, shut my eyes, hold my breath and squeeze. Under this sort of pressure the usual result was an explosive fart, together with the odd ruptured pimple. But the hoped-for hair never put in an appearance.

Hair seemed to be some sort of code for masculinity. On TV, cricketers like Dennis Lillee mocked me with their ever-larger moustaches. Schoolmates would undo successive shirt buttons to reveal gorilla-like thatches. There was so much pure manliness knotted inside the bodies of my compatriots, it just kept bursting out—that seemed to be the unstated message. ‘Mate, every time I have a shower, more of it grows; I just can’t help myself’—that seemed to be what they were saying.

As a teenager whose main interests were theatre and the odd book, I needed all the masculinity I could get.