“Helen, can you get the Christmas crackers out of the car please? They should be in a New World bag with the serviettes.” I close my eyes. We’re meant to be at my uncle’s bach in an hour. If I can just stay hidden in this bedroom for a little longer, Mum might think I’ve already gone.

“Helen? The crackers!” I crane my neck forward to avoid tangling my hair in the top bunk above me and shuffle my body back towards the wall. I should go out there. I should be excited – after everything, I’m finally here.

“HELEN!” Her voice pierces the thin wall. She isn’t giving up.

I wasn’t at home for Christmas last year. I was in London, with friends, at a tiny flat in Camden. We sat around eating slices of cheap ham and getting exceptionally drunk in ‘Santa is my Ho’ jumpers from Primark. Someone lit their crepe-paper crown on fire with a candle, and as we slammed our plastic glasses of cheap red wine together and cheered, I felt gloriously and overwhelmingly free.

But in the year that followed, things went from bad to worse, and as another London December loomed I found myself desperate to come home.

As I battled through the sideways rain and inhaled other people’s body-odour on the tube, I’d close my eyes and imagine myself on the beach, next to Mum, eating a boysenberry trumpet.

I just had to get that far, I thought. I just had to get to Mahia.

Mum opens the door. “Helen?”

“Sorry, I was just...” I turn away, focusing on the curtain’s dull orange stripes.

“Is everything ok?” She tilts her head.

“I feel weird,” I stare at a pinprick of light on the floor. “Like I’ve flown all this way, but I’m not even home.”

“Right,” she says. “We’re going for a walk. I want to show you something.”

We walk out the front door and along the knobbly gravel road, crossing sticky tar-seal and thirsty grass, until we reach the stucco façade of Mokotahi Hall.

“Why are we here?” I ask.

“This is where your Grandparents met. This is where our lives began.”

…

1955 would be the best year yet. It was New Year’s Eve, Joy was 16, her legs were nice and brown, and she had a date with Michael Watson.

What she didn’t know was that Michael would arrive to pick her up with his older brother Kevin in tow. She didn’t know that the twinkling sea would leap into Kevin’s eyes when he smiled at her. She didn’t know how much she would enjoy the sound of Kevin whistling ‘Auld Lang Syne’, the notes swirling into the burnt orange sky as they walked along the road towards the Mokotahi Hall.

She didn’t know that her life was about to change. That she would go to the dance with a friend, and leave having met the only man she’d want to dance with for the rest of her life.

…

Mum turns to her right. We walk along the scorched footpath, past the pub where my cousins and I play pool and smoke Marlboro Reds from the vending machine when the adults have gone home to bed.

We walk across biddy-bid strewn grass and the salty slope of the boat harbour, until wild grass becomes hard-packed dirt and we arrive at the base of Mokotahi Hill.

…

One year, Mokotahi was a competition. My cousins had decided. The whole summer would be defined by how many times you could go up in one week.

The first morning, Dad and I woke up early. We climbed it three times in one go. If we could go up three times on day one, we said, imagine our numbers by day seven.

The next morning, we woke to muscles that’d aged 70 years overnight. Each step, each movement, each breath – a jarring reminder of our over-exuberant entry into the inaugural Mokotahi nationals.

We spent the rest of the week needing help to get off the couch, grimacing as we stood. To get outside, we lowered ourselves onto our bums and edged our way down the stone steps at the front of the bach.

We lost the competition - obviously - but each time Dad hobbled past to get a beer from the chilly-bin, he would wink at me and shake his head in disbelief.

“Three times in one go Freddie,” he would say, “three times. The real Mokotahi champions.”

We agreed, it was worth it.

…

Mum steps onto the dusty white footpath. I look over the road at the dairy. Colourful ice-cream signs sit plonked on the footpath outside.

…

Everyone knew the camp ground dairy gave the biggest scoops. We had a shortcut. We would climb over the sagging campground fence, jump over the miniature train tracks and hop across the bark beneath the tyre swing. We would weave through rows of sun-bleached tents, dodging wayward tent-poles and tightrope-like strings, until we reached the carpark. Soft grass would give way to tiny gravel daggers, and with a final push past the showers and the bait shop, we’d be there.

A Bubble’O’Bill for Annie, a chocolate scoop for Katie, and a goody-goody-gum drops and passionfruit masterpiece for me.

“Wait – and a pineapple Fruju for Dad! And a surprise for Mum…something orange she said.” Someone would always remember, just in time.

Slowly, steadily we would wander home. Chocolate tangled in salty hair. Milky rivers trickling down sunburnt arms.

…

The sand is flecked with sundried seaweed, crunching under our feet with each step. We come to the base of a path leading up to the road.

Mum squints, looking up at the beach grass. “How many times have we been up and down this?”

…

One summer, my sister and I got lost. We were playing on the beach, directly in front of the path. Our path. We knew how to get home. Up path, cross road. Easy.

But, when it was time to leave, the beach had changed. Where was our path? Where was our grass, our driftwood, our dune? The world was a giant sandy blur.

Was that our path? Was that our path?

We held hands, panic rising in our little chests. Some paths looked like our path, but they twisted to the left, or stopped halfway up. There was no way home.

But - there was a man. We could see him pipi hunting in the shallows, twisting and turning his feet into the slurping sand. He was the only other person on the beach. Was he going to be our new dad?

The kind pipi-hunter asked us our names, who we were with, who owned the bach we were staying at. We remembered to tell him it was Gran and Grandad’s bach. That Gran wrote books and Grandad had a big red tractor. He listened and nodded and thought for a while. “That will be Kevin and Joy Watson,” he smiled.

He walked with us until we could see the gentle left-right-left of our path, and the grey peak of the bach poking out above the mountains of grass.

“Just remember, girls – you’re never really lost in Mahia. No matter what, your path will always be right there. In that very same spot. Every single time.”

…

Mum looks down at the sand. “This is where your Grandad had his first heart attack. Right here – as he was cleaning glass off the beach on New Year’s Day. He used to come down here and hunt around after bonfires and parties. He couldn’t stand the thought of someone hurting themselves on his beach.

“It was terrifying – we couldn’t imagine a world without him. Luckily, we didn’t have to. His heart was made of strong stuff, you know. Family, music, whiskey and faith. And Mahia. Always Mahia.”

Her face softens.

“We brought him up here for a weekend. His last Mahia weekend before he died. God, he loved it so much, Helen. He would sit and listen to one of us on the piano, eyes closed, and just smile. For him, being here meant being home.”

…

Mum and I stand and savour one last moment of sun-drenched quiet. She turns to me. “Mahia is more than just a place Helen,” she says. “Mahia is your history. It is in your blood, your bones. You will always have a place here. When you are here, you are home.”

I look at Mum. She stands elegant and proud, gently relaxed in her own skin. I know what she is saying is right. But, it’s not just the driftwood speckled sand, or the pipis hiding in the shallow sea. It’s not the graceful curve of Mokotahi’s spine, or half-melted chocolate bars from the camp store.

When real life is hard, I go to Mahia in my mind. But I never go alone. She is always right there with me.

“Mahia is my place,” I say. “But you – you are my home.”