We could never have been friends,
had I set off immediately.
He was eight and I was five.

Dwarfed by the gigantic blazing scarlet pumpkin
legs of Mrs Donovan’s kitchen table, I’m steadily
falling in love with Arthur’s Pass. In the photo
essay the Ajax pink covered Weekly News
has in the middle. I want to leave her Fernand
Leger red, black and grey abstract linoleum, and
Mum, and rush there at once. I was five. Mum would
have worried about me missing school.

September 28, 1970. The roads aren’t tarsealed. I
love it here. Norwester waterfalls sluice down...

Friday night, November 1984. How empty Canterbury
is this silver tussock moonlit night. Railcar
train racing, to stay at Jack’s Hut. There’s no
gas or electricity. Any kids running out on the road
would be killed by speeding hatchbacks. The
place was built for pygmy roadmen. I crash into
another lintel each time I stand up. On one of our
freezing ventures downhill to buy stuff, Robin
tells me he’d never have let me help him turn the
big KBs from Christchurch, if I’d turned up. He
is three years older. But I was probably bigger...