Reflections on My Parents (Mallorca Years)

My dad left South Africa in a hurry—fleeing the authorities in the yellow Porsche, his Danish passport in hand, leaving my mom and me behind to sell the house and wrap things up. I remember missing him terribly. He'd never been particularly involved—certainly not a hands-on father in the modern sense—but he was kind. He never shouted, never hit me. And when you're five, that’s enough to make you long for someone.

When we finally arrived in Mallorca, I was desperate to see him again. He greeted me with that small gold coin—the Quarter Eagle I’ve mentioned elsewhere—a quiet gesture that said far more in hindsight than it did at the time. I was in awe of him. Always had been. He was already 48 when I was born, a successful man by any standard: yachts, planes, a thriving photo empire across two countries. I was very much a symbol of his virility—maybe even a product of his midlife crisis—but that didn’t change how much I loved him. And I think, in his own way, he loved me too.

When we moved into Campo de Rosas—our jerry-built villa held together with more optimism than good building practices—I became his caddy. He’d taken up golf, having already been an exceptional tennis player back in South Africa. As with everything else, he approached it with ambition: he was going to be a single-digit handicap within the year. I loved walking the course with him. I was there the day he hit a hole-in-one on the fourth at Son Vida. Although “hole-in-one” might be a generous term. He completely shanked it into the pine forest, it hit a boulder, ricocheted between two bunkers, and rolled neatly into the cup. It was a catastrophe with a miraculous ending. Which, come to think of it, might be the most accurate summary of his entire life.

We played chess together—him without a queen, me with all my pieces, and still he usually won. I still have that old chessboard. And of course, he introduced me to the noble art of backyard bomb-making. But then Kirsten entered the picture, and his attention—slowly at first, then completely—shifted elsewhere. He started spending nights away. Then three nights a week. Then more. And that hurt. More than I understood at the time.

My mom tried to compensate. She arranged for us to visit her sister Val in New York one summer. I’ll tell that story elsewhere, but it’s worth saying here that while my father was distracted by his affair, my mother did her best to keep things whole. To keep me whole.

She was too protective. That much is clear to me now. But what choice did she have? She landed in a foreign country, was immediately told—by my father’s mistress, no less—that her husband was already spoken for, and she should just go back to South Africa. She had no support network. No friends. Just me.

So she focused everything she had on me. She read me Tolkien and James Herriot and Watership Down, curled up on the couch in that echoing house, while the rest of her life quietly collapsed. I loved those moments, and I loved her. But I think I also knew, even then, that I needed to push past it. When I got my motorbike, that was my first real taste of freedom. Of escape. And the guilt that came with wanting to be away from her sadness—that was the start of a lifelong emotional balancing act.

Still, when she finally made the decision to leave Mallorca, to go back to South Africa for her own survival, I didn’t hesitate. I had a great life in Mallorca—school, friends, the motorbike gang—but when she said it was time, I said, “Of course, Mom.” Because I loved her. Because I saw she was the one being hurt. And because somewhere deep inside, I knew that sticking with her was the right thing to do.

Later, after we returned to South Africa, her emotional dependence on me deepened in a way that became difficult. Unhealthy, even. But we’re not quite there yet in the story. For now, this is about Mallorca.

And in those years, my parents were like two planets slowly drifting apart, and I was caught in the middle—gravitationally tethered to both, trying to stay in orbit, trying to be the good son, even when the center couldn’t hold.