It was a much quieter evening, without the extra small persons, Paul and Paula collaborating with Maz to produce what she called a traditionally untraditional nasi goreng, and the ensuing conversation nearly broke me. I have no idea why, but as Maz prattled on about tradition preceding religion, and the central role pigs had always held in ‘Austronesian’ culture until the arrival of Islam. I had some very sharp memories of those first barbies together with Kul and Geeta, where she had avoided neither alcohol not pork.

It was an odd mixture of emotions, that rush of love mixed with utter hatred of her mother and weighed down with so many years of loss. I had to step out into the garden, just as Maz was launching into an account of how the blachan she had needed had been provided by a pastry chef we all knew, who just happened to have a Malaysian restaurant a few doors up the road from her bakery, and that none of us needed to know how the stuff was traditionally made. She was so full of life at that moment it sliced my soul to ribbons.

I found myself in the back garden, the tears flowing, but it was only a few seconds before my boy was there for me.

“Dad?”

“Sorry, son. Memories…”

He tugged me out of visibility from the kitchen window, and pulled me to him, and for once it was my apologies being shushed rather than his.

“Memories, son. Back when we first met. She’s coming back to us”

“I know, Dad. It’s the years we lost, isn’t it?”

I nodded into his shoulder.

“Is it wrong to want to kill her mother?”

“But you don’t, Dad. You would never really want that”

“I wanted her cousin shot”

“No you didn’t. You just didn’t exactly sympathise with him when it happened”

He drew in a deep breath, then hugged me tighter.

“Big difference between wishing someone suffers, celebrating it, and the other side: not being sympathetic if it does happen. Big difference between that celebration and just not having sympathy”

“When did you get all wise and grown up?”

“Spending the most important years of my life without a mother. That’s part of where Clara and I connect, I suppose. Her parents disowned her. Alicia and her dad, he’s special. Rare. Talk to Paula one day, if you want to find out what rejection means, or that Shan over by Gatwick. At least her grandmother is already dead and buried, the evil witch. Dad: I know they would have held onto me if I’d ever visited, but you and Mum, you knew that. Mum was trapped, that’s all. She’s back. Those memories, they’re special, and what’s special is that we can all make more, together. Now, I know where you honeymooned, cause the house is full of photos, so when we get back, Elsie goes to the climbing club to show off, and then we look at somewhere to stop in Espy, just the four of us”

“How… How will you feel about that, son?”

“You mean about Clar, don’t you?”

“Yes, son”

“I have no bloody idea at all, Dad. All of this has come out of the blue. It’s… I know it has to end soon. Can’t just dump my studies and rock up in Cardiff, can I? And if it all falls apart, that would be even worse”

“You think it will?”

“I don’t know, Dad. Not that experienced, am I?”

“Your Mum and me, we’ve talked”

“Glad you got that bit right. Six years without her is in the past, it’s over. New memories to build, and Clar has a suggestion for tomorrow, if you are up to driving”

“Birds?”

“Birds. What has Mum said about us, Clar and me?”

“Letting things take their course, son. Not nastily, but leaving the two of you to find your way, within limits”

I found myself laughing.

“I mean, you’ve already dismissed coming all the way here to study”

“There are gap years, placements, things like that”

“You’re thinking of what we did for Alys, aren’t you?”

I nodded.

“Didn’t spoil her relationship with Enfys, did it? Anyway, nobody can predict stuff like that. Mum and me, we’re there for you, whatever happens”

“I know, Dad, and remember that goes both ways. Me and Elsie, for you. She was the one who sent me out here, the one who spotted you. ‘Dad’s not happy’, she said, ‘Go and cuddle him’. You are her hero, you know? Sort of Prince Charming’s dad”

I could just about unravel that one, but teased him instead.

“You’ll be Prince Charming, then?”

“Nope. Just Big Brother. She’s got to get used to having friends before she gets into the fairy story stuff. All that shit about canes and axes freaks me out, which is why I want to just Aussie her up a bit. Beach and barbies, and maybe girls’ footy”

“You homesick?”

“Not as such, Dad. Just realising time’s nearly up here. Had so much to take in, I think my space for new things is just about overflowing. And it’s all new to Elsie, of course, both here and at home. School’s going to be interesting”

“Interesting as in climbing guidebooks?”

“Exactly. Anyway, let’s get back in. Oh, and you really don’t want to know the trad way of making that special ingredient of hers”

I looked it up later. Ish was absolutely right. We made our entrance once again, and I received a leg-hug from a little girl.

The meal was superb, despite my wife’s protestations that she wouldn’t normally serve the beef curry thing with the particular rice dish. For a starter, she had used another special ingredient, and we had spicy bits of omelette wrapped with fresh lemon grass in lettuce leaves, as well as Clara’s production of prawn crackers. In my naivety, I had assumed the things arrived like bags of crisps, ready to eat, and not like a bag of guitar picks, or maybe giant’s toenail clippings, utterly transformed when dropped into hot oil, much to LC’s delight. It was all accompanied by bottled beers and other non-wine drinks, as the food’s flavours were too strong to go with a decent wine. That left Paula giggling.

“First time Paul takes me out for a proper meal, one in a restaurant rather than a pub or a caff, and it’s an Indian. Back then, I needed something I could taste, something strongly flavoured, and my darling here was never a wine drinker. There’s the list, and he’s looking at me, as if I’m supposed to know something about them”

Her husband snorted.

“Put my foot right in it, I did!”

“Very nearly, love. He says something about me coming from, well, an affluent background, so I sort of point out how that came to an end when I was sixteen, and there I am, hurting quite a bit from withdrawal and about to bite his head off, when the waiter appears and asks for a drinks order. Paul only asks what wines go best with a lamb jalfrezi”

Her husband was grinning happily at the memory.

“Aye! We were out in Grangetown, well away from Paula’s…. Well away from potential problems. Waiter was a local boy, so I ask, and he says, ‘None of them. All taste like shit with curry, but try this’. And it’s a German thing”

“Piesporter Michelberg”

“Easy for you to say!”

“Niersteiner Gutes Domtal!”

“Yeah, that as well. Anyway, he says it’s basically very sweet and low alcohol, and works okay with spicy food, and he’s right. Couple of steps up from Liebfraumilch, Blue Nun, that sort of rubbish. Like ale: lager works better with curry, as it has less flavour. Then again, Australia’s not exactly known for its ales, is it?”

Normally silly conversation between three couples and one child over a lovely meal, a dishwasher awaiting the dirty plates, and a selection of ice creams and sorbets for afters as Ish’s words kept my soul company as the darkness fell.

Clara’s idea for the day out was an inspiration. We took the main road from the city as far as Briton Ferry, where we peeled off to head for Brynamman, which I recalled as being Annie’s birthplace, and then over ‘The Mountain’ to somewhere else I recognised.

The Black Mountain faces north, and it’s a steep drop down that face, with a pronounced hairpin bend on the road, and it is somewhere idiots in TV car programmes go to ‘test drive’ their tin boxes. Thankfully, there were no idiots out that day, and we arrived at the greener lands below without incident. A sharp turn across a narrow ridge took us onto a local road that meandered between fields with stunning views of the Black Mountain itself, as Clara chatted away in between directions.

“It’s a caravan park now, and calls itself a cottage, but it used to be a pub, and the field is where lots of us have been to see willies and stuff”

Maz snorted at that.

“Willies, girl. Explain. Do”

“Oh, bikers. Do a rally here, and sometimes some of us come. Not a rally like racing thing, just a camping weekend”

I chipped in with “And booze and music”, and she laughed happily.

“Yeah, and rally virgins”

I held my hand up for attention.

“You lot, imagine a field full of very drunk people, some of whom are at their first such event. Those are rally virgins. What did they do to them, Clara?”

“Like that Cowboys and Indians thing. Staked them out on the grass”

“And?”

“Face up. And, er, not wearing anything. Some of the girls… Lots of photos. Our girls, I mean. Photos of willies”

My beloved asked the obvious question.

“No. It was on back in July. Anyway, that’s the field there, and you turn left after this place”

There was a sign I missed that brought a very clear “Ooh!” from my wife, and then Clara directed me into some parking by a small caravan site. Maz was frantically digging out all of her camera equipment as I finally spotted the reason: ’Red Kite Feeding Centre’.

After paying, we sat in the car with the picnic we had picked up from a supermarket on the way there, disposing of the flasks of tea I had insisted on ‘just in case’. An hour before the scheduled time, we made our way down the lane to the hides and at three o’clock both our hosts and guests arrived, the former setting out masses of food of various kinds, and the latter giving the most wonderful of aerobatic displays, completely lacking in any form of table manners. It was absolutely wonderful, and I have no idea how many photos I took, but am absolutely certain that Maz outdid me by at least an order of magnitude.

LC delighted me by her enthusiasm, simultaneously disturbing me in the way she didn’t have to be told not to shout, while the other two just looked smug.