Mostly Calm with Isolated Squalls

August 1981 arrived, and with it, another return to Mallorca. My mum came along again—of course. She always did. God knows why. She could’ve just put me on a plane to visit my dad, but no, she insisted on coming too. Maybe it was for me, maybe she wasn’t quite ready to hand me over, or maybe she just couldn’t help herself. Mallorca had history for her too and not all bad. 

This time, my dad had rented a house in Son Vida—the very neighbourhood where we’d lived before the affair with Kirsten had blown everything apart before my mum packed it in and took me back to South Africa. So returning there wasn’t just about beaches and sun. It was a quiet kind of reckoning. Familiar streets, familiar weather, completely different dynamics.

Dad would go back into town some nights or disappear for a couple of days at a time, staying with Kirsten. We were still being “spared” that meeting, apparently. Not ready. Like we were going to break out in hives if we saw the woman he’d left our family for. Mum didn’t say much about it, but the tension was there, always in the room. Always just under the surface.

Thankfully, the island still had its cast of characters. Bubi was still around, as was Juan Carlos. And then there was Eva. She was a recent arrival to the gang, she was confident, magnetic. The first time we met, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “Peter, tu eres un legendo por acqui.” After a couple years of being treated like the arse-end of the fourth division at St John’s, that went down very nicely indeed.

That summer had its moments. One that stands out was a sailing trip to Ibiza. Bubi’s dad, a lovely man and built like a refrigerator, had one of those proper racing sloops—maybe 50 or 60 feet, I never knew the exact number. All white decks and sleek rigging. The real thing. Bubi, his sister Mousi (who was, let’s just say, extremely easy on the eye), and I were invited along.

The day we set off was pure cliché—flat sea, bright sun, barely a ripple in the Med. We motored out slowly, no wind at all, dolphins swimming up alongside us like we were in a holiday brochure. I was thinking, yes, this is it. The perfect day. Then Mousi went below, came back up with a big black basura bag—basically a sack of garbage—and casually lobbed it over the side. Just like that it floated away on the calm sea giving nor sign of sinking at least. No thought. No hesitation. A whole bag of rubbish into that crystal-clear sea. I was stunned, but I probably shouldn’t have been. It was the early '80s. Nobody was talking about plastic islands or marine life. There wasn’t a recycling bin on the island. If you were rich and on a boat, the sea was your bin.

Anyway, not long after, the radio crackled to life with word of a storm ahead. Bubi’s dad barked the order to make everything fast. We did what we were told, though the sea still looked like a mirror. Then—out of nowhere—the wind hit.

No warning. Just a wall of it. The boat listed hard to one side, and I’ll never forget the sound of the flag snapping clean off the sternpole. Not flapping. Snapping. And the sails weren’t even up. That was just the mast catching the wind like a punch to the gut.

We were ordered below deck, and for the next couple of hours—though it felt like a full night—we chugged along under motor as waves slammed us from the side. Every time the boat leaned over, it felt like we weren’t coming back. Then it would recover, then lean again. Over and over. I didn’t have any real experience with this kind of sailing, but I figured if Bubi and Mousi were calm, we’d be fine.

They weren’t calm. They were wrecks. Proper panic. I ended up comforting them, which didn’t exactly boost my confidence.

Eventually, we limped into San Antonio. The storm passed as we approached. The harbour lights were glowing, people were sitting out at bars like nothing had happened. Ibiza doing what Ibiza does. The well of the yacht had filled with water, and in it—no joke—was a fish. A normal, live fish, not a flying fish just flapping around. 

The following year, we went back again. That time my dad had rented an apartment in San Agustin, somewhere around the seventh or eighth floor. I didn’t know anyone anymore. Juan Carlos had moved, Bubi was away at boarding school. I only went into Son Vida once or twice. I remember standing there at the beginning of that trip, staring down the barrel of four weeks of just my mum and dad. Not exactly what I’d call a dream setup.

Thankfully, my cousin Sally arrived—along with her boyfriend, Peter Sikta, who was a lovely guy and incredibly funny. Briony came too. And just like that, the whole vibe changed. I ended up spending most of my time with them, driving around the island, getting out of the apartment. What started off as another awkward family trip turned into a proper summer.

Sally was from the Wilkinson side of the family. I’ve talked about them before—my early trip to the Dales, the anxiety—but they were never the problem. Quite the opposite. They were kind and grounding, and I always felt welcome around them. Now, I was 15, and Sally was in her early twenties. She was gorgeous. I mean, really. I had a full-blown crush, which didn’t help things mentally, but there you go.

Her parents—Bernard and Dilys—had bought a finca in Alaró back in the ‘70s. My dad could never understand it. If it wasn’t coastal, it didn’t count. But I loved it. Alaró had this rough charm to it—honest, a bit scruffy, full of character. I stayed out there a few times that summer and completely fell for the place. Still love it now. I was just there again in February, and it Sally owns it now and has maintained and added onto it beautifully.

By the fourth summer, things had shifted again. This time, we stayed at my dad’s place in San Agustin—with him and Kirsten. A big rental apartment with far too much adult tension floating around. I’d had zero contact with Kirsten for the first few years. Now she was part of the equation. My mum pretended to be civil, which somehow made it worse. She couldn’t resist the sniping, the digs, the little sideways comments. 

But it was still Mallorca. Still the island that held my childhood in its bones. The place where the weather was always perfect, the water always clear, and the people endlessly complicated.