Incident near Kaikoura

It was my turn for the front seat. Childish, I know but siblings are like that even when we're all adult size. I leaned against the window with my cardigan folded into a pillow and watched the road roll out in the headlights. Occasionally I could see the whitecapped waves which edged the dark beach below. My brothers and sister were dozing in the back, their quiet niggling silent at last. I tried not to jostle Mum. It had been a long day from an early start at our uncle's place in Hawke's Bay, to a kindly-provided dinner at Dad's friend's home in Lower Hutt– feeding six of us and seven of them, quite a feat – and on to the ferry. How is it that the ferry timetable is always inconvenient? Leaving Wellington in the early evening meant driving from Picton to Christchurch in the dark. Who knew when we would reach the flat that my brother and I shared with two other students, to find makeshift beds for everyone so that the final four could drive home to North Otago the next day.

It had been a week of travel to attend my older sister's wedding in Auckland. It felt like a Herculean challenge rather than a celebration, getting us all there, feeding us along the way, shaking out our finery, finding an iron, tying the boys' ties, turning up to make a good impression.

I wasn't sure who was the least happy about the wedding, my mother or my father. My grandmother had said it outright. 'He's a Chinaman,' she said, as if we hadn't noticed. 'The children will be half-castes.'

I didn't mind at all that my sister's fiancée was Chinese. I found it interesting and he had been quite friendly when I joined them as a little sister/chaperone on a road trip in his VW to the West Coast. He even allowed me to drive for a while. But I did think it was ridiculous to go to such a fuss to get married: white dress, bridesmaids, the whole thing. It was the 1970s after all.

Half dozing I looked back on the event. My sister had worked hard, alongside her sisters-in-law to make everything lovely. The food was a bit exotic – Chinese mainly – and my father was surprised there was no alcohol served, in deference to the groom's Salvation Army family.

'A dry wedding? Whoever has a dry wedding?' he asked. Not his Irish family for sure, although he himself hardly drank.

But in deference to the bride there was a priest and my sister looked lovely in white with her long brown hair curled into ringlets.

I should probably have made more effort. I wore a long yellow dress with daisies appliqued along the hem and brushed my blond hair down straight like Joni Mitchell.

I was musing along these lines when the car's headlights suddenly went out. For a millisecond I marvelled at the velvet depths of darkness, then the car twanged into the fence just as a train roared past, mere feet away from us. The car stalled and as the guard's van was swallowed into the night we were enveloped in silence. If anyone had screamed it was lost to the roar of the train and now we were stunned.

The headlights came back on and my father started the car, steering back on to the road. There was no shoulder to pull over, he just kept driving.

'What happened?' asked my student engineer brother, who of course would want to know.

'Lights fused,' said my father grimly. 'Ok now.'

I wanted to ask if everyone was all right but I also wanted to preserve the silence. I could feel Mum tense as a rock beside me.

In Kaikoura Dad pulled over and got out to look at the damage on his side of the car. Mum wanted to see, so I unfolded stiffly into the frosty breeze and held the door open for her to go past me to stand beside him. I hoped it wasn't bad. I could feel her shock turning to irritation and I was too tired to listen to the blame she would pour down on his head. I put my cardigan on and walked up and down a bit to warm up.

Then somehow we were all back in, heading down the road to Christchurch. The streetlights of the city seemed welcoming after the long, dark, lonely road. I don't remember how we got everyone into beds for what remained of the night. My brother and I were 'home' at the flat, ready to start the winter term, and in the morning the rest of the family left for the last leg of the journey back to Otago.

Years later I mentioned this incident to my brothers, commenting that it was amazing the way the crash into the fence jolted the fused headlights back into life. My brothers laughed heartily at my naivety. That was not what happened at all, they explained between chortles. It seems that Dad had noticed it was starting to rain and reached out to turn the windscreen wipers on. Side by side on the dashboard, were two identical round buttons; one was the knob for the wipers, the other for the headlights. Exhausted from the long journey, he seized the wrong one and turned the headlights off. Quick as a reflex, he steered into the fence to avoid going over the cliff into the sea, while turning the lights on again. From there, it all unfolded as I remembered.

Astonished, I stared at my brothers, who in unison quoted our Dad, 'Don't tell your mother!'

I joined in the laughter. Good one, Dad.

But now, fifty years later, I think about my father, still in his forties, about the same age that my son is now, tired, driving through the darkness with his family in the car, making a small mistake.

And I think of that moment of horror when he realised he could have killed us all. What self-control to keep the peace, stick to his story, get us all safely home.