THE PRODIGAL RETURNS

It is, I imagine, rather like when one of your kids leaves home… Tears as they promise to ring every week and not to get into trouble and then the sudden feeling of loss when they drive off with all their possessions and you close the door and walk back into an empty-feeling house…

Well that’s sort of what it felt like in July 2005, when I sent off the final chapter of the authorised biography, Peter Jackson: A Film-makers Journey, to my publishers…

I thought Master P J Book would be home in time for Christmas - we'd talked of going to the London premiere of King Kong together; but December came and I waited in specially, but there was no sign of him…

Then, no word for months on end. But now - well over a year later - I hear that P J Book is on his way home, at last…

He's not here yet because first of all he's got to stop off in New Zealand to go to some sort of "do" that's being thrown for him... A well-meaning friend (who knows how much I missed P J Book when he went away) suggested I should enter a competition in the daily newspaper The Dominion Post and maybe win myself a ticket to the party...

While I was debating that suggestion, someone sent me an invitation - well, an e-mail attachment of an invite - but in the end I thought, "No! Supposing I accept: I'd have to buy myself an air-ticket, pack a suitcase and cope with a twelve-hour flight to the other side of the world. Besides, do I really want to meet young P J Book when he's being interviewed in a crowded theatre and being distracted by all those admiring fans? No, no... We go back way too far to want to share the moment of our reunion in such a public way..."

So I decided to wait here...

But it won't be long now... One morning, there'll be a knocking of the knocker and a ringing of the bell and P J Book will be there on the doorstep, all wide-eyed and smiling - eager to come in, hoping to be admired, desperate to be loved…

So, will we embrace?

Will I let him show me all the photographs that have been added to his 600 now-properly-printed pages? Will I say how frightfully grown up and sophisticated he looks in his fancy new DJ (dust jacket)?

Probably....

After all, parents really are terribly forgiving…