While we have had months to get to know each other, how would two teenage boys who have lost their mother feel about seeing their dad holding hands with a stranger? Not a complete stranger, they’d heard of me, seen photos, we’d shouted greetings at each other over messenger ... it wasn’t just a case of, "Surprise! Here’s a lady!".
One hastily booked, eye wateringly expensive new ticket later and I was on my way to Pottsville NSW, Australia: beaches, snakes, pelicans.
Unfortunately, I might have got a bit excited about being on holiday and seeing humpback whales breaching out behind the surfers, and pelicans (which are enormous and fly low overhead like B52s), and the sea being warm enough to swim in, and the spiky orange flowers of bird of paradise everywhere that on the first evening I probably came across like someone who had accidentally taken someone else’s Ritalin.
Fortunately, the youngest was only communicating with me through the medium of his bedroom door at that point, which would have diffused a lot of my manic energy. The eldest simply assumed it was my first time out of New Zealand.
It was cane burning season and the horizon was aflame at night. Dawns were for walking on the beach, the sunrise bringing warmth to our faces while dolphin families played in the waves. Tweed Shire is basically one long beach, interrupted by the mouth of the Tweed River which flows from the hinterland, running all the way up to Kirra and Surfers, and in the other direction to Byron Bay. The average house price is a lotto Powerball jackpot. Inland from the sandy beaches populated by surfers and dog walkers, Mt Warning and other peaks form a ring around a huge caldera, all that remains of a gigantic volcano 2000m tall that exploded 20 million years ago.
I’m sorry to report I had a wee explosion myself on the second day, hiding in the bedroom having a blub. Teenage girls talk, even just to be bitchy, teenage boys say a lot of nothing. And they were so tall! With their father in the room, it was like being a yappy wee terrier in the land of giants. We had no mutual points of reference: they listened to shouty rap, I listened to Josiah and the Bonnevilles. I didn’t understand rugby, they didn’t understand my accent.
I wanted to say, "I come in peace. No-one can replace your mother, but I’d like to be your friend."
Whatever happened between us, I wanted it to be organic and not forced, not some awkward dinner out or hideous activity where we all had to pretend to be enjoying ourselves.
The only thing I could think to do was cook.
Carbohydrates.
I made lasagne with a rich beef sauce and more cheese than a book of dad jokes, I made a potato bake, chicken fettuccine and brownies so sweet they made your teeth squeak, which were "a solid eight out of 10" - high praise indeed. I made pancakes for breakfast, and through the gateway of food, I got to know them for the wonderful humans they are, and in return they paid me the greatest compliment a teenage boy can give any adult - they took the piss out of me.
