Karangahape Road smelled.
Once upon a time it stank of heavy, sickly incense swung by a writhing procession of Hare Krishnas, turning the footpath ice-block orange outside Rendells and George Court’s every Thursday night. Virginia remembered the sight and smell of them perfectly, along with the tinny, tinsel sound of their tambourines. That was the only time the Setons went walkabout on K Road: Thursday nights, before they abandoned it altogether for Friday nights at Lynn Mall, past Waikumete cemetery, just ten minutes drive from home.
Later, when she was a teenager, the odour became more subtle and greasy, fried food from takeaway bars wafting through the open car windows, speeding past the Pink Pussycat on the way home from occasional strained family outings to see musicals at the Mercury. And the Mercury itself had its own scent – audience smells of sweat and powder, freshly applied lipstick and melting ice-cream, part of the indelible aroma of her adolescence.
There was still a touch of chip-and kebab-fuelled grease about the street, and traces of incense, too, lingering in the acoustic-tiled India Emporium. But it was traffic and coffee you could smell up and down the length of the road – not as long as it once seemed, elbowing Grafton and Grey Lynn out of the way, but really just four bridged blocks.
It was Sunday morning, and Virginia had driven in with her father to see Rob’s new place and meet the elusive Lia, who looked, as it turned out, neither Chinese nor Samoan.
‘If you ask me, she looks about fourteen,’ muttered Jim, peering obediently into the hot-water cupboard during the tour of each of the apartment’s slight rooms and narrow closets. The ninth-floor apartment was hermetically sealed, pale and still and new inside, like a suite in a hotel.
‘So pleased to meet you, Ginny,’ said Lia, squeezing Virginia’s arm. She was an olive-skinned waif, not even half Rob’s height, Virginia thought, despite her spiked hair and thick-soled shoes. She peered up at Virginia, intent and curious, as though she couldn’t quite make out the family resemblance. ‘Has Rob shown you the terrace?’
‘I thought it was a fire escape,’ said Jim, and Virginia nudged him.
‘Jinx, did you see the tukutuku panel?’ asked Rob. ‘And the koru tiles in the bathroom? We like to buy Maori art and design.’
‘And Samoan,’ added Lia, glancing sideways at Rob. ‘You have to be careful, you know,’ she told Virginia. ‘If you’re buying tapa cloth to take back with you. There’s a big difference between Tongan and Samoan.’
‘Fijian,’ said Rob.
‘People don’t realise,’ said Lia, her voice bright.
Jim asked if anyone was planning to put the kettle on, but after some cajoling from Lia he agreed to go out to a café. They strolled back along K Road to St Kevin’s Arcade (bit scruffy, Jim told Leeander when she got home) and turned their chairs to face the giant palm trees of Myers Park.
Virginia watched her father sipping frothy coffee from a white bowl, bobbing his head in and out like a child dunking for apples, oblivious to the splashes on his face. He was telling Lia about catching the tram to school along Karangahape Road and down Queen Street, past the park. Lia stared back at him with a slight frown, nodding, her teaspoon suspended in the air.
‘Do they still have the lift in George Court’s?’ said Jim.
‘I remember that,’ said Virginia. ‘The lift attendant would slam the cage doors shut and announce each floor. Not that there were many floors to go to.’
‘It was really something, that lift,’ said Jim. ‘It went right up the centre of the shop.’
‘They’re apartments now, Dad,’ Rob said impatiently. ‘There was an article about one of them in New Zealand House & Garden; doesn’t Leeander get that? The lift’s gone. Security reasons.’
‘That’s right. I did hear they were turning the place into flats.’
‘Apartments,’ said Rob.
‘I drive this way sometimes, you see,’ Jim said to Lia. ‘If I’m getting onto the motorway at Newton. I know they’re doing some of this up, but it still looks a bit tatty to me.’
‘You know, there are a lot of important and historic buildings in Auckland,’ said Lia, nodding at them, frowning for emphasis. Something about Lia’s manner irritated Virginia; she was treating Jim like an old man and Virginia like a tourist. ‘That café we walked past on the way here, Brazil. You should go in there sometime. It has a vaulted ceiling, you know. It used to be the entrance to the Mercury Theatre.’
‘Café now, is it?’ said Jim. He lowered his lattè bowl; it clanged onto the saucer. ‘Used to be a fruit shop, and once upon a time it was the entrance to the Prince Edward, long before it became the Mercury. First custom-built picture theatre in New Zealand, you know.’
‘Did you go there, Dad?’
‘Quite a bit, to the movies. Crowds of people cramming into that narrow entranceway. Couldn’t be more than twelve feet wide.’
‘You never said anything about it before, all those times we went to the Mercury,’ said Virginia.
‘All those bloody musicals,’ said Rob. He raised his eyebrows at Lia.
‘Nobody asked me,’ said Jim, gazing out at the palm tree. ‘Never came up. And anyway, nobody used to think of those places as historic then. They were just out-of-date, old-fashioned. It’s lucky the Prince Edward didn’t go the way of the Regent and get pulled down. Remember the Regent?’
‘Just,’ said Virginia.
Rob and Lia shook their heads.
‘A lot of changes,’ said Jim, looking down.
‘You should come into the city on a weekend more often, Mr Seton,’ said Lia.
‘Call him Jim,’ said Rob, climbing to his feet. ‘I think I’ll get something to eat. Anyone else? Jinx? Dad? Want to split a panini?’
‘No thanks,’ said Jim. He gulped the last of his coffee. ‘You know, Lia, there used to be a nice little tea room-type place at the top of Rendells. Not a panini in sight, in those days. Though you know what they say: one man’s panini is another man’s filled roll.’
Lia gave Jim a long, tight-lipped smile as though, Virginia thought, he was not only old but quite possibly mentally ill.
From Queen of Beauty.