ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
When his friends describe him, Graham Goodridge is often toted as being a no-frills man.
They assured The Advocate that a sense of humour lay within the 66-year-old former British Marine, it just lays dormant most of the time.
That’s something Mark Donoghue had to learn the hard way.
He started courting Graham’s daughter well over a decade ago and has yet to receive an inch from his father-in-law.
Conch Goodridge and Mark married on the same day winter Olympian Torah Bright won silver in the women’s halfpipe event at Sochi; it was a stinking hot day Royal Betoota Golf Club where they exchanged vowels and signed the registry.
Mark turned to Graham after the celebrant made it official and made a joke.
“I said, as a joke, ‘I’ve got the Conch!’ as a nod to Lord Of The Flies,” recalled Mark this afternoon.
“And then Graham just looked at me with daggers. Like he’d just ran into an Argentine soldier in the dead of night on West Falkland again. Anyway, I guess it was a bad joke. That pales in comparison to what happened to me today, however.”
Mark and Conch had her parent’s over for a barbeque lunch today at their leafy Betoota Heights Californian Bungalow.
Though now Mark wishes he’d just taken them to a nice lunch.
“We planned to have a barbeque, a few steaks and kebabs. Grilled eggplant for Conch. Everything was going along fine. The Betoota Bitter was cold and that grumpy old fuck Graham seemed mellow enough,”
“I was wrong. He came up behind me while I was pouring beer on the grill plate and pulled the tongs from my hand. Never in my life have I wanted to shrivel up and die more.”
Taking charge of the barbeque, Graham looked Mark up and down then let out a sigh.
“Take that fucking apron off, you idiot,” he said.
“Jumping Jesus, you’ve burnt the corn. It’s not even fit for the dog bucket, you’ll fuck its guts if you feed him that corn, you will. Go and put that strong jawline to good use and get me another beer.”
Mark smiled, about-faced and walked back into the house.
More to come.
