RIVER MONSTER
In 1994, my father flies me up to Auckland a bit so I can get to know him better. I can be an unpleasant woman, but I am constantly unpleasant as a teenager. Especially to my father.
The one thing I do like about being with him is going out to eat; he is a generous and eclectic diner. Communal steamboat in a grimy place near K’ Rd, yum cha, bouillabaisse, and decent pizza at Prego. Vinnie’s, a fall-of-the-empire feel at SPQR, and the thickest Italian hot chocolate at Alba. Japanese fish custard, risotto, thin ravioli, and a Thai place at the back of a shopping strip near the city with the best banana fritters.
Good food makes my father happy and gregarious, although he is both these things naturally. But I set the twin lasers of my disapproval on him – more specifically, on his world. He is a property developer, and people pull up a chair outside Sierra, the espresso franchise before it gets tired, and tell him they know about a piece of dirt.
A woman wafts past in white and tells him she loves his leather jacket. Sadly, it is quite cool: oily charcoal-brown, Spanish looking and worn in the right places. He nudges me about a chilly blonde at the counter and is at pains to point out that it’s TV presenter Susan Wood. I have not expected my Māori father to be like this and, in my conceited way, decide I feel more Māori than him. I’m taking reo for School Certificate and despite his late claiming of me, I’ve always known I am Māori. Mum has made sure of this. More Māori than the froth on his cappuccino, his silver Range Rover and a frankly amazing pâté made out of sundried tomatoes from the bakery next door to Sierra.
All these words condemn him to a certain point in Auckland’s culinary history. And I am greedy, despite my contempt. I catch him smiling at me once over juice and hummus in a mall. Beaming, he notes I liked my food, and I try to hate him some more.
We wander ill at ease around design stores, and he buys me a pair of black 10-eye Doc Martens and some Workshop jeans that never suit me. The design stores have replicas; Grace Kwan has, where she torments Lionel. I torment Paul, my father, by playing Cowboy Junkies in the car between eateries and stores. My mother’s lesbian music.
