unmistakable.
Vince Mahoney had proved eager to meet, indeed had invited her to his home on Hackthorne Road. âJust watch out for the road cones,â heâd said.
Heâd not been wrong. The cones along Cashmere Road around Princess Margaret Hospital were a forest of dwarf orange, reducing early-evening traffic to little more than walking pace. Liquefaction had spurted from the Heathcoteâs banks but Annie saw none of the wholesale inundation thereâd been in the east.
On Hackthorne Road the damage to buildings seemed arbitrary. One stone-built 1920s house, which any real estate agent would have dubbed a residence, was an obvious write-off, its front porch sagging down the hill, its walls rent and ruined, its roof line skewed. But two doors up stood Vinceâs weatherboard villa, trim, recently painted and apparently undamaged.
âI know, I know,â he said when Annie commented. âIâve been embarrassingly lucky. I lost a bit of crockery and the books felloff the shelves and that was about it. Iâve made a donation to the mayoral fund as a sort of half thank you, half apology and half guilt offering. If you can have three halves, that is,â and he grinned and looked straight at her. âIâm so pleased to meet you, Annie.â
The books were back on the shelves now and everything was impeccably in order, with a sense that that was how it always had been.
âItâll be nice to talk of something other than the quake,â he said. âHereâs something for you to look at while I fetch the drinks.â And he handed her a picture frame with what looked like a scrap of golden paper pinned behind the glass, and a cellophane booklet of perhaps a dozen photographs. Most were black and white, the rest in colour that had faded to tints. All were of her father. Had Vince put it together that day specially for her?
Here he was by a stream in flared jeans, on the apex of a tin roof, sitting back against the brick chimney and clutching a beer, pillion on a motor scooter, smiling with that inner radiance, his arm draped over the shoulders of Vince on what looked to be South Brighton beach, both of them wearing old-fashioned swimming togs, like cut-off shorts. And Annie felt an ache in her chest that wasnât far from pain.
She had no photos of her father. Not one. Mum had got rid of them, burned them, down the end of the garden at River Road. Sheâd hauled out everything associated with her father and flung it on the fire, smoke and little smuts of ash rising overthe fruit trees and Annie had just stood and watched from her bedroom window, holding the curtain to the side of her face. The curtain was pink with a paisley pattern.
âI can get copies made, if you like.â Vince was standing before her holding out a glass of wine.
âOh, would you? Oh, yes, please.â
âWhat do you make of the thumbnail sketch?â
âThe what?â
Vince gestured at the picture frame. Behind the glass was what turned out to be, on closer inspection, the front of a Benson & Hedges cigarette packet, and in the space below the brand insignia Annie could make out a few lines or indentations in the gold surface.
She shrugged.
âItâs a cat. We were in the pub, the Zetland, because they didnât ask too many questions, and someone wondered why a thumbnail sketch was called a thumbnail sketch so Rich drew that with his thumbnail. I kept it in my wallet for years.â
Annie looked at him.
âThey were the best days of my life, Annie. Everything since has been dull in comparison.â
All Annie knew was what Vince had told her on the phone. How theyâd been friends at school but then Vince had gone south to varsity while her father had gone up to Auckland and that had been that, all over.
âBelieve me, Annie, you donât want to know what a blameless career in stainless steel looks like. I had a marriageof sorts, two nice kids, one
Vince Mahoney had proved eager to meet, indeed had invited her to his home on Hackthorne Road. âJust watch out for the road cones,â heâd said.
Heâd not been wrong. The cones along Cashmere Road around Princess Margaret Hospital were a forest of dwarf orange, reducing early-evening traffic to little more than walking pace. Liquefaction had spurted from the Heathcoteâs banks but Annie saw none of the wholesale inundation thereâd been in the east.
On Hackthorne Road the damage to buildings seemed arbitrary. One stone-built 1920s house, which any real estate agent would have dubbed a residence, was an obvious write-off, its front porch sagging down the hill, its walls rent and ruined, its roof line skewed. But two doors up stood Vinceâs weatherboard villa, trim, recently painted and apparently undamaged.
âI know, I know,â he said when Annie commented. âIâve been embarrassingly lucky. I lost a bit of crockery and the books felloff the shelves and that was about it. Iâve made a donation to the mayoral fund as a sort of half thank you, half apology and half guilt offering. If you can have three halves, that is,â and he grinned and looked straight at her. âIâm so pleased to meet you, Annie.â
The books were back on the shelves now and everything was impeccably in order, with a sense that that was how it always had been.
âItâll be nice to talk of something other than the quake,â he said. âHereâs something for you to look at while I fetch the drinks.â And he handed her a picture frame with what looked like a scrap of golden paper pinned behind the glass, and a cellophane booklet of perhaps a dozen photographs. Most were black and white, the rest in colour that had faded to tints. All were of her father. Had Vince put it together that day specially for her?
Here he was by a stream in flared jeans, on the apex of a tin roof, sitting back against the brick chimney and clutching a beer, pillion on a motor scooter, smiling with that inner radiance, his arm draped over the shoulders of Vince on what looked to be South Brighton beach, both of them wearing old-fashioned swimming togs, like cut-off shorts. And Annie felt an ache in her chest that wasnât far from pain.
She had no photos of her father. Not one. Mum had got rid of them, burned them, down the end of the garden at River Road. Sheâd hauled out everything associated with her father and flung it on the fire, smoke and little smuts of ash rising overthe fruit trees and Annie had just stood and watched from her bedroom window, holding the curtain to the side of her face. The curtain was pink with a paisley pattern.
âI can get copies made, if you like.â Vince was standing before her holding out a glass of wine.
âOh, would you? Oh, yes, please.â
âWhat do you make of the thumbnail sketch?â
âThe what?â
Vince gestured at the picture frame. Behind the glass was what turned out to be, on closer inspection, the front of a Benson & Hedges cigarette packet, and in the space below the brand insignia Annie could make out a few lines or indentations in the gold surface.
She shrugged.
âItâs a cat. We were in the pub, the Zetland, because they didnât ask too many questions, and someone wondered why a thumbnail sketch was called a thumbnail sketch so Rich drew that with his thumbnail. I kept it in my wallet for years.â
Annie looked at him.
âThey were the best days of my life, Annie. Everything since has been dull in comparison.â
All Annie knew was what Vince had told her on the phone. How theyâd been friends at school but then Vince had gone south to varsity while her father had gone up to Auckland and that had been that, all over.
âBelieve me, Annie, you donât want to know what a blameless career in stainless steel looks like. I had a marriageof sorts, two nice kids, one
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