You never forget the holidays you spent as a child. In my case, they were at Herne Bay, Margate or Camber Sands, where you were lucky if it stopped raining long enough for you to leave the chalet, and even then you wore a jumper.
At least you got to see your parents in unfamiliar surroundings, and with people they didn't know. On holiday, your parents were always turning into people you didn't recognise and, I guess now in retrospect, you did the same from their point of view.
What is the point of a holiday apart from being in strange rooms and strange places, seeing other people and your parents with their clothes off? It used to be the opportunity for children to spend extended periods with their fathers, who were at work most of the time and playing cricket at weekends. This has added significance today when it comes to the new, extended, 'overlapping' or 'blended' families.
I hadn't seen my first two sons, the Twins, for most of the summer and when I did, as they're identical, for a moment I couldn't tell who was which. I had to begin to get to know them again - and again, and again.
For a while, I had been thinking that this would be a three-tranquilliser-a-day, full-strength holiday. There was me, my Wife-to-Be, the Twins aged nearly eight and the Little One aged three. On the last holiday I had taken with my parents, as a teenager, I remember fingering my new earrings and vowing: I will never live like this; it'll be different when I do it. But would it be? Now it really was my turn.
'I'm homesick,' said the First Twin as soon as the taxi turned the corner at the end of the street. The Second Twin, whose pockets were conveniently packed with sick bags, whipped one out, used it immediately and handed it to me. It was five in the morning and we were away.
It was a long time since I'd been their age - the beginning of the Sixties. Now no one knows how to bring up their kids. How, I wondered, would we stop this becoming like The Lord of the Flies, or avoid behaviour that would lead them when older to join cults, sniff glue or complain with unnecessary bitterness to their therapists?
My Wife-to-Be, whose good idea it was that we all go away together, announced on the plane: 'This is the thing: we must be kind but firm.'
'Firm but kind,' I repeated. I liked the sound of it. Adults love rules. I thought: if we stick to this rule forever we will survive and be happy.
I told the First Twin that this was how I was going to play it. He warned me that there were boundaries on his side, too. 'On this holiday,' he said, 'you must not say "bom". Not to us, not to anyone. You can't even pronounce it properly. It's not for grown-ups.'
'It's a great and useful word. I need to say it - "bom".'
'Dad, don't embarrass us.'
'Nor you me.'
'And don't start doing that funny thing with your mouth you do all the time.'
'What thing?'
'Don't do it, OK?'
In the autumn, the Little One was going to start nursery. The Twins were going into the juniors from the infants. If middle age had its terrors, being a kid was to live with unanticipated terrors every day.
On the long trip out, each child was afraid of different things at different moments: they staggered their fears - of planes, clouds, dinosaurs, food, explosions - so much so that I forgot my own. By the time we arrived, I hadn't thought about myself for hours and a relief it was, too.
It was sunset in Porto Elounda, Crete, and we were exhausted, in a terrible mood and wishing we were in Shepherd's Bush. Firm but kind I might be, but I resorted to saying that I was 'the boss' and if they didn't enjoy this I would strangle them. Soon, I was telling them they were ungrateful. After all, I'd never been on a holiday where the kids had their own bathroom, fridge, maid, swimming-pool and garden full of pink, blue and red flowers.
'You're only the boss when you're nice,' said the Second Twin, disappearing into his wing of the villa with his brothers. The Twins would, no doubt, be schooling the youngest in something useful, like fighting. Or making that continuous farting noise that the First Twin did with his mouth; it was like being followed around the world by a motorboat.
If the point of a holiday is pointlessness, I knew in the morning when I went outside and saw mountains, the sea, numerous swimming pools, restaurants and a bar that this would be pointlessness without end. The place resembled a stage set. It was, if ever there was one, an artificial paradise. But as artificial paradises go, it was paradisiacal, and nothing but pleasure could happen there.
Not long afterwards, the three of them stood before me, ready for the pool, the Little One in his long pants, armbands and green-rimmed sunglasses, the older boys in swimming-shorts, and so covered in suntan lotion they looked like ghosts or Aborigines about to go into battle.
We soon developed a routine. The Twins liked me to watch them jumping into the pool and the First Twin was very keen for me to hear him 'talking under water'. He has the loudest voice I have heard, and wherever I was in the resort, walking around the bay with the Little One or climbing the rocks with him, I knew where the First Twin was by the sound of his voice.
Soon, they were taken off for the day by the numerous childminders. But I missed them. On their return, one of them said they'd made friends with a boy who pointed out his father, saying: 'You know, I've never seen him smile.' This made me want to look at them all the time, at their skin, so tanned and smooth, their filthy nails and random haircuts, and I would hear the complaints of these aristocrats, these kings - 'You're so cruel, Dad, I wish we were in an orphanage' - even as I filled them with juice, ice-cream and cake.
In return, they got to see me walking around the villa naked, cursing and annoyed. There are certain intimacies that separated families miss out on. The four of us watched in silent fascination as my Wife-to-Be covered her body during the day with suntan lotion and at night with mosquito repellent, until she seemed almost entirely waxen and might burn easily like a candle.
This ritual turned our thoughts to girl questions. They wanted my advice about 'having a girlfriend'. The four of us boys lay on the bed discussing guy matters - all, I noticed, sucking things: thumbs, dummies, bits of old jumper, pens. I suggested they took a woman they liked to the pictures. They went for this, but needed to know what they might say to her. After some discussion, they boiled it down to three satisfactory questions: How old are you? Do you have a boyfriend? Do you dye your hair?
Later, while my Wife-to-Be and I were drinking yellow concoctions with umbrellas in, the boys tried this out on their friends' mothers. It went down a treat.
The rest of the time, the Little One and I would lie on a lounger making up stories and then we'd make sandcastles or run on the sand while the other kids played in the sea.
If I had thought I might get time to read or write, I soon gave up the idea. In the real world, how long do you actually spend with your children without going to do something else? We would, I decided, having been unadventurous so far, go out to sea on a pedalo. And so we four boys set out, pedalling. We might as well have been in the shell of a pistachio nut. We were far out when the Twins began a fist fight over who should steer and the fragile craft began to rock.
On the morning that we drove to the airport I realised we hadn't actually left the resort once, hadn't seen any ancient sites or ruins, hadn't talked to any Greeks who weren't waiters.
Still, we'd had a good look at each other, which was more than enough for all of us. I had been able to make it different from my own childhood. And as I lay back in the taxi, I tried to think of the first line - or is it paragraph? - of Anna Karenina. But I couldn't quite remember. I was too chilled.
Factfile
Getting there: Hanif Kureishi and family stayed at the Porto Elounda Hotel near Agios Nikolaos in Crete and travelled there with Powder Byrne (020 8246 5300). A one-week stay during the school summer holidays costs £2,150 for an adult and £698 per child (under twos are £150 each) when staying in a two-storey peninsula suite. Olympic Airways flights, transfers and B&B accommodation are included.
Activities: The hotel operates three kids' clubs. The creche, pb, is open throughout the season and caters for children up to three years. It costs £200 per child, excluding meals. Scallywags, for those aged four to nine, is free but operates only during the school holidays. The sports-based Zone caters for nine-to-14-year-olds and costs £140 each, excluding meals. It also operates only in the school holidays.
Getting to the airport: BCP (0870 013 4580) offers chauffeur-driven cars to airports all over the UK from £60.
© Hanif Kureishi 2001. Hanif Kureishi's latest novel 'Gabriel's Gift' is published by Faber & Faber (£9.99). To order a copy for £9.99, including UK p&p, call the Observer Books Service on 0870 066 7989.
