Red Bus Diary, Tim J. Veling

Red Bus Diary Tim Veling was born in Masterton, New Zealand. He has lived in Christchurch since 1991 and gained a Masters in documentary photography at the University of Canterbury in 2006.

Receiving several travel and academic scholarships in 2004, Tim spent time in Europe researching contemporary documentary photography exhibitions and practice. He was a contributor to My Place, the record-breaking exhibition and subsequent book of photographs and text created for the 2003 Christchurch Arts Festival.

Red Bus Diary Tim Veling

A Place in Time 21st Century Documentary Project

University of Canterbury, School of Fine Arts in association with

Published by Hazard Press Ltd P.O. Box 2151, Christchurch, New Zealand www.hazardpress.co.nz with assistance from

The Red Bus Diary Exhibition was part of

First published 2006 Copyright Š 2006 Timothy Jaap Veling The author has asserted his moral rights in the work.

This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Infringers of copyright render themselves liable to prosecution.

ISBN 1-877393-21-5 All photographs copyright Š Timothy Jaap Veling Photographs, text and design concept by Timothy Jaap Veling Design and page layout by Aaron Beehre Photographs produced at Crewtown Studios, Addington, Christchurch Printed in New Zealand by Spectrum Print Ltd

For my parents, Ib Glover and Peter Veling

We sit reading the morning paper over coffee, not talking. Sun streams into the room through large bay windows highlighting strands of brown hair that hang loose over her forehead. Leaning toward her across the table, I take her hand. She looks at me. Ghosted in a wash of light, she smiles. Lifting my camera and finding focus, composing, I photograph as her silhouette creeps slowly up the wall.

“Tim, put your camera away,” she says after I’ve taken several frames.

“I want to remember what you look like,” I retort. “You always take the same photo,” she replies, covering the lens with the palm of her hand.

“Just sit with me,” she whispers.

* * * A bowl of coffee sits on the bar in front of me. The girls are working.

Olivia, Lucy, Liz and Rebecca. Jack sits sipping a pint of Monteiths Black beside me. I glance over the daily horoscopes. Conversation and clatter reverberates around the room. At my back a large mural copy of Aphrodite covers the wall, quietly observing the surroundings with me. Rebecca walks behind the bar and pours a glass of wine before carrying it out to a table in the dining area.

I look up from the paper and she smiles as she hurries past.

“Don’t tell her I said so,” Jack says gulping the last of his drink and placing the empty glass on the bar in front of him. “I think she’s taken a liking to you, Tim. She’s a good girl. Has a heart of gold, she does. And that smile!” I laugh Jack off and tell him the drink is affecting his senses. He places a five-dollar note on the bar and Lucy refills his glass. She has beautiful long blonde hair. When she first started working at the café she used to wink at customers. One night a drunk customer made a joke about it and I haven’t seen her do it since. She’s pretty but shy. I enjoy talking to her across the bar.

Liz is eighteen years old. I try and avoid coming here when she’s working. She’s happy to see you one minute then short of patience the next. I hand my bankcard to Olivia to pay for my coffee. What can I tell you about her?

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She’s tall and wears her hair tied back in a ponytail. She’s worked here forever. I can’t imagine the place without her but tonight is her last shift before she moves to Wellington. I’ve liked her for as long as I can remember. The way she looks at me has always made me feel like I’m retarded. I settle my bill then stop to give her a farewell hug.

“Take care of yourself,” I say, my cheek against hers.

“You too,” she replies, pulling away from me. She stands tall, back straight and hands cupped at her waist. We look at each other for an awkward moment before I turn and walk out of the café. From the footpath I look inside through the window and wave a final goodbye.

She doesn’t see me. I button my jacket and walk home to bed.

* * * I meet Dad at five o’clock. My parents divorce papers lie flat in an envelope on top of the bar. Dad buys me a coffee. He has a gin and tonic.

I’m fourteen years old. It’s my first visit to the café but everyone knows my father’s name. He’s been stopping here everyday after work since mum left and we moved into the area. I remember when the building used to be the local T.A.B rooms, echoing to the sound of racing commentary.

The sound is now cool, urban jazz. I feel comfortable amongst the hum of people. At home there’s silence. Dad sits quietly on the front porch chainsmoking cigarettes.

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Thursday morning, early. As usual I sit at the small table on the front porch with a cup of coffee and a bowl of Weet-Bix. The sun is already high enough to raise a decent shadow. Across the road an elderly man, his back slightly hunched, works in his garden. He’s wearing a navy blue dressing gown, tartan-patterned slippers and Gold-Top socks. He rubs his elbows and a pained expression seems to cross his face. While tending to his roses he looks up and catches my eye. I look away but gradually my eyes wander back to him.

I watch as he limps towards his front door with a bunch of freshly cut flowers, stops, holds them to his nose, close his eyes and sniffs the bouquet before disappearing inside. Bishopdale is a quiet sea of red brick homes. Pylons stand high above orange roof tiles, power lines sag between them. At night I hear them buzzing. The old man seems typical of the people around here, uninteresting. I change and get ready for work.

* * * The bus makes its way slowly through the after work rush hour traffic. The day over, I sit staring past my own reflection at life going on a metre or so below me. Kids congregate in front of the Timeout video game arcade. People line the city sidewalks, talk on cell phones and do last minute shopping before closing time.

Interior lights flicker on. Through shop windows I see people mopping floors, counting daily takings and eating fast food dinners. It’s my favourite time of day - that short moment when the light is both inside and out. As the sun slowly fades, blinds are turned and curtains are drawn. The footpaths become dark and the interiors transmit an inviting glow. A traffic jam slows then stops us altogether for a few moments. In Hagley Park, a misty heat rises from the backs of hunched bodies that heave against padded tackle bags. Then the bus jerks back to life, edging its way down Riccarton Road. I’m carried slowly past the city’s largest shopping mall and

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into suburbia. Tall fences hiding box shaped houses line each side of the street. Evening joggers stride over long patches of grass divided by concrete driveways. The bus pulls to the side of the road to pick up more passengers. A middle-aged man wearing a McDonald’s uniform gets on and sits beside me. I shuffle over to give him more room. He rests a chilly bag on his lap then smiles politely.

“I used to work at McDonald’s,” I tell him.

“I only just got the job,” he replies, turning to look me in the eyes. The familiar smells of vegetable oil and onions fill the air surrounding him. “I’ve been sick, had problems with me prostate and that. Had to have that fixed of course, so I lost my other job.

I just started this very week and it’s been good so far. I’m working with a really good bunch of people.” I turn towards the window to cough.

“Sorry,” I mutter. “I’ve got a sore throat.”

“Huh, if that’s all you have to moan about then life can’t be treating you that badly,” he replies.

“I suppose it’s what you get from traveling on busses,” I say. “I wish I had a car.” He shakes his head and scans the people sitting around us.

“I’ll tell you something,” he says. “When I was sick I thought my time was running out. I don’t have any family you see, so I got my neighbour to build a huge birdcage in my living room. I didn’t want to die alone, so I figured I’d surround myself with budgies to keep me company. Here, have a look at this.” He unzips the seal of the chilly bag. Through a small gap, I peer down at a pale blue bird.

It hops on the plastic lining, looks back at me and chirps. “It’s okay,” he tells me, zipping the bag up. “I punched air holes in the sides so it can breathe.” He moves the bag carefully on his lap. “Anyway, my point is this little guy is the last one in my care. I’m giving him away. I’ve found a good home for him. Go on, ask me why.”

“Okay, why?” I reply.

“Because now that I’ve been given a second chance at life I realize it’s no fun talking to something that can’t speak back. Sure, birds

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can chirp and peck at me fingers, but they can’t spin a yarn. See what I’m saying?” I shake my head. He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Look, I know people who ride busses all day. They say paying three dollars for a ticket is cheaper than staying at home.

So, instead of being cold and by themselves inside, they’re outside taking part in things. What I’m saying is, you could drive a car around town and it might be more comfortable, but who you gonna talk to and what are ya gonna learn that you don’t already know?

Think about that, boy.”

A few stops later he gets up and rings the buzzer. Before picking up his cooler bag he puts a hand in his pocket and pulls out a strip of cardboard. “Here, have this,” he says looking down at me.

“What is it?” I ask as he places it in my hand. He picks up his bag and steadies himself as the bus breaks to a stop. The doors open.

“A concession card,” he replies, edging away. “Use it to take a look around.” Two kids push past him to get to the exit. He turns and follows them before pausing in the doorway to look back at me.

“Take a different bus every day. Keep your eyes open. When it’s used up, get yourself another,” he says. The driver looks impatiently at us in his rear vision mirror. “When you reckon you’ve seen enough, come and talk to me about it.” He points at the Golden Arches embroidered on his shirt pocket. “You know where to find me.”

He steps outside.

I watch him walk up the street carefully holding the bag in both hands as the bus pulls back into traffic. I look down at the concession card in my hand. There are four holes punched in it and six rides left. A significant gift. I put it in my pocket. I don’t have anything planned for tomorrow. Maybe I will take a trip somewhere.

Tonight, I’m looking forward to spending time in front of the television.

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I get off the bus and head to Bishopdale supermarket. It’s become a Thursday night ritual to buy chocolate to eat while watching ‘The Sopranos’ – my favourite television show about a family of New Jersey mobsters.

Fake cobblestone walkways are deserted but for a teenage boy who collects abandoned trolleys from the car park. A light wind carries a dull hum from the Farrington Road pub. The boy pushes his train through the supermarkets automatic sliding doors, locking them behind him. I can see the last of the evening shoppers filing through the checkout inside.

“Sorry, we’re closed,” he tells me through the glass as I approach.

“I only want to buy a block of chocolate!” I plead. He shrugs and disappears from view.

Momentarily at a loss, I stand there wondering where the nearest block of chocolate might be found. The sound of a saxophone coming suddenly from a window above surprises me. It’s notes hang on the edges of nostalgia. A keyboard and drums join it at the start of the fourth bar.

“Come up and have a look,” someone says behind me. I turn to see a man in his seventies, arm linked with a lady of similar age, walking towards a small side door. They stop for a moment. “Sequenced dancing,” he says. “It’s a heck of a good time.” I’m reminded of the budgie man’s advice. The Sopranos starts in fifteen minutes. It’s a toss up. I could pass up the offer and spend the night alone, or go up and see what it’s all about. I decide to have a quick look.

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Upstairs, I find myself in the Bishopdale Community Hall standing on well-worn carpet next to a corkboard covered in community notices. In front of me elderly couples dance like spectres over polished wooden floorboards. Dressed for the night, a group of ladies in their sixties sit cooling themselves with paper fans against the far wall. One couple glide past me as if on a cloud of air. They look into each other’s eyes affectionately. The man wraps his arms around the woman, her chin resting on his shoulder. I watch as he drops his right hand and delicately gropes her behind. She laughs out loud, grabs hold of his wayward hand and moves it back to her waist.

She has a red rose in her hair. The man looks up at me and flashes a dry grin. It’s my elderly neighbour. I avert my eyes.

Moving further inside I have to navigate around a raffle table. For a fifty-cent ticket you can win a kitsch Kiwiana tea towel (first prize), chocolate biscuits and a meat pack (second and third). I’m welcomed to the Riccarton Dance Club by James and Joy. James has a comb over haircut and wears a pin-striped shirt with a stiff, starched collar. Joy has a round face and her wrinkles seem to swallow her eyes when she laughs.

“Well, I’ll tell you something,” says James. “We’ve been dancing together for sixty years, been an item for fifty-five and married for fifty!” He slaps his thigh. Joy puts her hand on his knee, leans into him and pecks him on the cheek. “Three nights a week we dance.

The equivalent of walking ten kilometres, the doctor reckons.”

Joy closes the raffle takings tin, locking it with a key that she places in her breast pocket. “Time for a dance,” James laughs, offering Joy his hand, leading her past me.

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I scan the room for an empty seat. A man taps a vacant chair beside him, beckoning me over. As I approach, he clears away an empty Quick-eze packet and a bag of Fisherman’s Friend breath mints.

He wears thick-rimmed glasses with huge lenses.

“You’re not off to photograph the war in Iraq, are you?” he asks, pointing at my camera at the same time. The music stops and he pauses to applaud.

“No,” I say. “It’s just a habit. I take it everywhere.”

“Let me tell you something of war,” he says, ignoring my explanation. “Back in Canada I used to hunt fox. They’re smart animals. When a mother fox hears danger, she runs away and leaves her pups. This may seem strange at first, but it’s actually quite smart. You see, she’s leading danger away from her young - protecting them by putting herself in the firing line.” He pauses, nods and looks me in the eye. “You understand what I’m talking about, son? America is the mother fox. Europe knows this well.

Those countries know the mother fox will sacrifice herself for them.”

He leans back in his chair, crosses his legs and pops a breath mint into his mouth. “I suppose you’re too young to have children of your own,” he says. “You wouldn’t yet understand what it is to have someone dependent on you. I was a sergeant in the Canadian Army for twenty-five years. People depended on me for many things. My wife, she was a great support. She died last September and now I live alone – do all my own cooking and cleaning. I come along here to meet people and try to share something of myself. One has to feel needed. And no one likes to feel alone, after all said and done.”

From across the room a lady waves at him. Standing, she holds the sides of her blue floral dress and curtseys. “Looks like I’ve found myself a partner,” my Canadian friend says getting to his feet.

Leading her onto the floor, three stepping in the crowd, he gives me a sly thumbs up behind her back. They dance with grace and gusto and I forget about The Sopranos.

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Back on the front porch with my coffee and Weet-Bix, I spy the old man across the road checking his mailbox. He’s whistling a tune I recognize from the dance club. Finding nothing in the mail, he makes his way towards the rose bush at the front of his garden, bends down and sniffs the flowers. Without lifting his head, he looks up and grins at me mischievously. I wonder if he scored, if the lady he was dancing with is waiting for him inside. Last night I was ready to stay home and watch television. I can hardly remember the last time I touched a girl. What does that say about me? Something makes me remember the concession card. I reach into my pocket and put it on the table in front of me. Ten minutes later I pick it up, grab my camera and head to the bus stop.

* * * “What does it mean when a woman gives you a hug on Valentines Day?” Dad asks. We sit at our usual table in the corner of the café. He rubs the thin grey stubble on his chin while staring absently beyond the area of the bar. “Do you think that means she’s interested, or is she just being polite?

It’s been so long mate, I’ve forgotten how these things work.” Angela appears from out back. Dad turns to me. “Do you think I should send her flowers?”

He bites his fingernails while at the same time crossing then uncrossing his legs.

“I suppose so,” I reply hesitantly. I dip my head and stir my coffee.

* * * The bus exchange is the hub of Christchurch’s public transport system. Inside, long lines of wooden chairs face a screen that flashes route names and estimated departure times. People wait to be transported out of the city and into the suburbs, away from congestion and working life. There is the heavy smell of diesel fumes and sweat. Conversations take place in low muffled voices.

Outside the exchange, people stand smoking. The footpaths are

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covered in cigarette butts, fast food wrappers and spit. Every morning council workers clean and hose down the concrete. I stand at the top of a flight of stairs that leads down to the main terminal.

The Sumner bus is the first to be called. I take my place in line with other commuters at gate B1.

The bus is almost full when a man and boy get on at the beginning of Ferry Road. The man takes a seat up the front, behind the driver, while the boy takes the last remaining seat beside me.

“Don’t talk to anyone,” the man yells back at him. The boy raises his right hand and gives him the fingers. “You little bastard!” the man shouts before turning and laughing to himself. It’s a couple of minutes before the kid taps me on the shoulder. I look down at him. His face is covered in patches of pale ointment and he coughs without covering his mouth.

“I’ve got a great big house down there,” he says, eyes beaming up at me. I guess he’s about six years old. He sits kneeling on the seat looking over my shoulder and out the window at a row of new threestorey town houses. “That’s it there,” he says pointing at them.

“I know you, you live down here too. That’s your house, that cardboard box!” He giggles and scratches his face with one hand, pointing at a pile of rubbish bags on the side of the road with the other. I raise my camera to take a photo of him. “No!” he yells, pushing it away. “Not with this stuff on my face. Piss off!” The man turns and leans into the aisle of the bus.

“Is he annoying you?” he asks me. “Does he need sorting out?”

I shake my head and the man turns away. A woman in the seat in front of us moves to look at the boy.

“You’re a wee cutie aren’t you,” she says. He scratches his face and shakes his head. “What’s that on you’re face?” the woman asks.

The boy sneezes and wipes his nose on his forearm.

“I’ve got chicken pox,” he replies. The woman gasps and covers her nose with the palm of her hand.

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“Stay away from me!” she says. “I haven’t had it before. You shouldn’t be on the bus!”

“Dad took me to the doctor,” the boy tells her. “I don’t feel sick now anyway, just itchy.” I snap a couple of photos through the bus window before he talks to me again. “Have you ever been to Denny’s for breakfast?” he asks. “Don’t. It’s crap! Have you ever been to The Cabbage Tree? That’s crap too.” The man turns around again and yells back at him.

“Hey, ya little shit! Get ready. This is our stop.” The boy stands up.

“Where would you like to go for breakfast instead of Denny’s or The Cabbage Tree?” I ask him before he gets off.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “Somewhere happy.”

* * * “I got it wrong, mate,” Dad says nonchalantly as we sit eating microwave dinners on the porch. “I sent Angela flowers. Now she’s awkward. I went into the café on the way home and she said thanks but I could tell she was embarrassed. I think it’s best I give the café a rest for a couple of weeks to let it be forgotten.”

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On a ride to Cashmere I’m intrigued enough by the name of a bar to stop and have a look. ‘Rendezvous.’ The publican is a middle aged, short woman with round cheeks and suspicious eyes. She wears a bright pink, hooded jersey with “Angel” written across the chest.

An elderly lady sits with her legs crossed on a tall stool right in the middle of the bar. I take a stool beside her and she acknowledges me by raising her pint of lager a couple of millimetres. She wears a tartan scarf, green velvet dress and black stockings. Glasses with lenses the size of saucers sit on the end of her nose. A Vietnam vet sits at the other end of the bar drinking red wine out of a whisky tumbler. He has long nose hairs, coarse like number eight wire, and his eyes bulge when he talks. “Poor Helen Clark, she’ll die trying,” and “Old Winston, just the ticket. Chase those Chinese out of here with a bullet.” Gambling machines hum and beep behind us.

The clatter of coins falling into a collection tray signals a big win.

A ratty looking man wearing an oil-stained red cap joins us at the bar.

“The only good cunt that’s ever been in parliament is Guy fucking Fawkes!” I drink a pint of Speights Old Dark. I haven’t eaten all day and it takes me halfway to my limit. I can’t compete with these guys.

Rendezvous is a foreign land. Next door is another. The T.A.B. betting agency is full with punters who stand, heads tilted back , looking up at television sets fixed high on the walls. The commentary reaches out onto the footpath where I’m standing.

Inside, betting forms lie scattered over high tables.

“You can’t come in here with that around your shoulder,” a man tells me, pointing at my camera. He’s five feet tall, has a moustache and wears jandals, socks and navy blue track pants. He stands loose with his hands in his pockets and flashes a friendly smile. I hesitate.

“Either come in and make a bet or wait outside,” the man says, turning his back on me. Feeling out of place, I leave and walk towards the bus stop. I’m a long way from home.

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While traveling home I receive a text-message invite to watch a friend’s band play at Main Street Bar. The promise of free beer lures me back out onto the streets from the Central Exchange and through Cathedral Square. Approaching the bar, I see a homeless man with a rucksack slung over his shoulder limping across the road. He takes a seat in the gutter and reaches into the bag to pull out a pouch of tobacco. Behind him, a man and woman sit inside at a window table drinking wine by candlelight. Passing them on the way in I smell her perfume. It reminds me of Rebecca.

Acquiring a drink I find a table. Closing my eyes, I lose myself in the lingering melancholic notes of a trumpet, bass and keyboard. As the music descends into blue improvisations I begin to think about the man sitting outside. I wonder if he has anywhere to sleep. The bar begins to empty when the band nears the end of its set. I look out the window at the man still sitting in the gutter by himself. I sit by myself in the middle of the room. The man turns and our eyes meet.

He frowns. I feel lonely. I decide to join him.

He smokes Port Royal rollies with no filters and rolls them with yellow shaking fingers. He has a nervous twitch, scrunches up his face and blinks repeatedly.

“You from around here?” I ask him.

“Yep, are you?”

“It’s getting cold, do you have anywhere to sleep?”

“Yep, do you?”

“Can I take your photo?”

“Yep.” We sit together for twenty minutes without exchanging another word. I find comfort in his company.

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The next day I ride a bus to Sumner and walk up the hill to a favorite park bench overlooking the city. My camera’s slung over my shoulder. Dark clouds roll onshore. I can see Kaikoura, a lone surfer and the sea slowly swelling, as if breathing, like an enormous animal.

* * * It’s a warm day, the easterly is unusually absent and the afternoon is beginning to feel humid. I wait to catch a southbound bus at Northlands Mall, a great sprawling metropolis of undercover shops and cafes. It’s the school holidays and I’m flanked by mobs of children loaded up on popcorn, Coke and Tangy Fruit lollies bought from the local Hoyts movie theatre. One boy shoots at passing cars with a plastic BB gun. People stand holding yellow Pak ‘N Save shopping bags full of groceries. Cars compete for parking behind us and the shrill voice of an aerobics instructor fights with the sound of traffic on Main North Road.

Papanui is a working class suburb. The once white houses that line the main road into town have an honest quality about them.

They have low fences and modest front gardens. The bus carries me through Merivale, past trendy suburban bars and fashionable boutique clothing stores into the city. I continue through on the same route, down Colombo Street towards Cashmere and the Port Hills. The line ends on the opposite side of the city from which I started. Stepping out of the bus, I sense I’m amongst old money.

A group of people sit drinking wine on a terracotta-tiled patio that overlooks the city and a small dog yaps at me through the tinted glass of a yellow Subaru station wagon.

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Backtracking on foot, I stop a few kilometres on at a block of shops. The red bricks of the building are crumbling with age. Silver lettering on one of the store windows glitters in the low afternoon sun, drawing me towards its entrance. It’s a locksmiths. Inside, shelves bow under the weight of recycled locks and door handles on the back wall. Dust and dried leaves line the edges of the floor.

Ice cream containers full with uncut keys are stacked four deep behind the counter. A TV flickers old war documentaries beside an antique stovetop kettle and gas camping cooker. The shopkeeper flashes a toothless smile when I walk in the door.

“First customer of the afternoon,” he tells me. A cigarette smoulders in an ashtray beside the till. His smile disappears when I tell him I’ve only come in to have a look. “Five years ago I used to have foot traffic past my shop,” he grunts. “Not anymore. This area is really fucked. I’ll tell you now, I don’t have a single regular customer.

Business halved for me in June, 2004. God knows what actually caused it, but I have my own suspicions. I think it’s those ads you hear on the radio, “Buy now, pay later.” They’re on the TV as well.

People buy things they don’t need because they don’t have to produce the money up front. Then all of a sudden the period of grace is up and it starts disappearing out of their account automatically. Things have to start going on the plastic and there’s nothing left over for simple things. People have no bloody patience anymore. No sense of moderation.”

We watch a group of Asian school kids walk past on the footpath outside. He shakes his head. “That’s another thing. You never used to see an Asian around here either. Now they’ve taken over.

I suppose I’m a racist, but they’re a difficult lot to deal with. Take my ex-landlord. There was a real cunt. A Korean, he was. He used to come in here, six or so young fellas with him, and try intimidate me into giving up the lease. Each time I told him to fuck off. I’m on the lease, and until that runs out, he can answer to me.” He picks

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his cigarette up out of the ashtray. It’s extinguished and burnt to the filter. He tries to relight it, fails, then pulls another out of a red Marlboro soft pack. The extra effort irritates him and he swears under his breath. “This country has become a real joke. Look at what that slut prime minister of ours has done to it. Look at the air force. What fucking air force! That bitch lay down on the runaway in protest against the government buying the Sky Hawk jets in the seventies. What did she do when she got in power? She scrapped them! The cunt! That’s the problem with this country, a government working to its own agenda and not for the good of every New Zealander. The Maoris call me racist? I call them racist! Fuck! I reckon I’ve as much right to be here as them but I’d be told to fuck off if I asked for a business grant. If a Maori asked for one some P.C. pen pusher would write them out a cheque, no questions, and try to persuade them to take another. It makes me sick. I’ll see what happens. If business doesn’t pick up I’ll have to give up my shop.

Fuck it, I’ll move to Aussie. I don’t feel Christchurch is my home anymore. We’ll see what happens. Only time will tell.”

Conversation at an end, he pulls up a seat and sits in front of the TV. He leans forward and turns the volume up. Outside, I can hear the sound of bombs and machine gun fire from twenty metres down the road.

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Girl in central city exchange: “Fuck that cunt, babe. All men are pigs, we already knew that!” She wears a pink tank top. It’s a cold night and her nipples point underneath the thin material. Navel exposed, her oversized gold belt buckle reads “Love.” The word “Hate” is tattooed on the small of her back.

* * * It’s been threatening to rain for days and low grey clouds hang ominously over the city. I’ve been bussing to the city outskirts then walking back into town through the quiet streets of the suburbs.

It seems I’m the only person brave enough to venture outside. After hours of solitary wandering, I come across a group of Pacific Island children playing outside a community church hall on Linwood Avenue. Two women dressed in traditional patterned pacific clothing sit watching over them from the steps of the building. They each have a paper plate piled with food resting on their knees and a clear plastic cup filled with coke beside them. They nod hello when they see me. I feel a tug on my jersey and turn around to find a young boy staring up at me.

“Hey, Mister. What’s that?” the boy says pointing at my camera.

“It’s cool, eh.” I bend down and to show him how it works. He looks through the viewfinder and plays around with the knobs and buttons. He wears dress pants and a V-neck jersey over a white collared shirt. His hair has been styled with gel and shimmers a greasy kind of wet in the overcast light. “Hey, that’s cool,” he says.

The women on the steps laugh at him.

“Hey, mate. I wouldn’t let him play with your stuff if I was you.

He’ll break it,” a girl says joining us. Several other children follow her over. “He’s only fresh come from Samoa. He can’t even speak good English yet.” I feel hands patting the pocket of my jeans where I keep my wallet. The boy with greasy hair looks up at me.

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“What’s in there?” he asks. Another boy stands behind me and opens my shoulder bag, pulling out my light meter. “What’s this do?” he asks, handing it up to me.

“I’m from Los Angeles, America,” the girl says before I can explain.

“No, you’re not,” another girl calls out from the church door way.

She runs over and joins us. “You’re from Aranui, Christchurch.”

The second boy reaches up and grabs hold of the camera that hangs from my neck. I bend down to increase the slack in the strap and the first boy reaches into my pocket and pulls out my wallet.

“Hey, Mister. You’re cool, eh,” he says inspecting it. I reclaim my wallet and stuff it back into my pocket before he can look inside it.

He stands close at my right side, his left hand reaching around my back. “Hey, your bag’s cool,” he says. I walk slowly backwards, out of the surrounding group. The two women sitting on the steps get to their feet and call out.

“Hey you kids. You leave that man alone!” The children run back towards the church doors. The boy with the greasy hair stops and turns to look at me before disappearing inside.

“Hey, Mister. It was cool meeting you, eh,” he says before closing the door behind him.

* * * Riding down Main South Road, I’m amazed by the front garden of a block of pre-fabricated flats. Colorful flowers and bright green hedges sculptured perfectly into ovals grow in harsh contrast to barren neighbouring sections. This is Hornby. I’ve always thought it a dreary area, seemingly more flat than the rest of the city and more depressing as a consequence. As my bus stops at traffic lights, I watch an elderly man work in the garden. He stands hunched with grass clippers in hand, trimming the edges of the lawn. He wears a white polo shirt, pleated pants and cream shoes. I decide to stop and introduce myself. I press the buzzer.

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“Your garden is immaculate,” I tell him while shaking his hand.

“Funny you should say that,” he replies. “Just today I got a certificate in the mail for second place in the City Street and Garden Awards. When I got this place I promised myself I’d keep the garden tidy but that I wouldn’t enter any competitions. Then, out of the blue, I find I’m second place in a competition I didn’t even enter! It’s a joke, really. I’m retired, but I suppose you could say I’m a professional gardener.” He belly laughs and scrunches his shoulders. “The guy who got first is the person I buy most of my plants off. Maybe he wouldn’t have sold them to me if he knew I’d give him such a run for his money. Next year I’ll knock him off his perch, you wait. I’ve got a sniff of victory so now there’s no turning back.”

Invited inside, we sit at his kitchen table. Like his garden, everything is in perfect order. He tells me to take my shoes off before stepping through the door. He does the same, replacing them with a pair of maroon slippers kept beside the doormat.

“Something smells nice,” I say.

“My son’s coming around to watch the rugby tonight. I’m heating up some pies and sausage rolls for half time,” he tells me.

Beside the door stands a wall unit, its shelves stacked with albums and family photos. Pictures of his younger self hang on the walls.

In one of them he sits on top of a horse, dressed in a jockey’s outfit.

Beside it is a framed, faded yellow newspaper cut out. The photo is of him lifting a trophy above his head. Rugby team photos flank the two, and a small black and white wedding portrait hangs below them.

“My son’s rugby mad. He was a good player in his day too. When my wife was alive he used to come over and talk rugby and only rugby.

She’d say “Jeez, can’t you talk about anything else?” He’d always reply “you’ve got a short wick today haven’t you old lady?” We used

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to laugh about it, me and my wife. I mean, I’ve cooked breakfast for him every Saturday since he left home. He’s nearly fifty years old!

Before each game he shows up at eight o’clock, sometimes with a few teammates. They’re big eaters. I cook them good food too. Steak, eggs and chips. I’d hate to think how much money it’s cost me keeping his team fed over the years. I enjoy helping out though. It lifts the team’s spirit and it’s good to have a buzz in the house.”

Back outside he swaps his slippers for gardening shoes. Black stone panthers guard the path from the driveway to the front door. An ornate wrought iron table sits beside a covered gas barbeque on the porch and a pink porcelain swan peers at me over the top of a rose bush.

“I’d better get back to the garden before it starts to rain,” he says.

“But I’ll tell you one more thing before you leave. I’ve lived here in Hornby for most of my life. I lived in Riccarton with my wife and family but after she passed away I decided to start over back here.

It’s where I grew up, it will always be home.” He picks up his clippers and gets back to trimming the lawn edges. “I’ll win that competition next year,” he says as I walk down the driveway. “Mark my words.

I’ve seen this section go from an overgrown patch of grass to winning prizes. How about that! Winning a prize just for making myself feel at home. It’s amazing.”

* * * We sit outside talking on the front steps. A light drizzle mists the air but it stays warm. The conversation has stopped. We lean into each other. She has her knees together, elbows resting on them with her chin cupped in the palm of her right hand.

“I’ve got work tomorrow,” she says quietly, getting to her feet. “I better get going.”

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Westmoreland is a ghost town with neatly trimmed lawn edges and solar powered garden lights. I climb the hill in search of people to talk to but find no one. Sitting, eating my lunch in the gutter at the top end of the road, I see someone looking at me – I can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman - from a nearby house. It’s a two-storied stucco building with a pillared entranceway. The person stares down with binoculars from an upstairs window. I wave and they draw the curtains. I finish my lunch and walk back to the bus stop. Someone has scribbled over the timetable with a black permanent pen.

West-bore-land.

* * * Foot traffic in front of the supermarket. A mass of woolen hats, checkered windbreaker jackets and steel capped boots. Seagulls circle above me as I finish my sandwich. A crane loads containers onto a ship in the distance. Pokey weatherboard cottages line the streets. I’ve always wanted to live in Lyttelton.

Tony, Kirsty and Nathan sit on a bench beside me.

“Hey, bro. Do you have a light?” Tony asks. I don’t smoke but we get to talking anyway. “We’re waiting for the old man to put money in my account so we can pay for some petrol,” Nathan tells me.

He wears a bright orange hooded jersey. A skateboard rests on his lap and an unlit cigarette hangs from his lips. He tells me he’s eighteen years old. “We put thirty dollars in the car before but my card got declined. We could get money from the bank in town, but the attendant wouldn’t let us drive off to get it. She was a real cold bitch. Just said, “No fucking way.”” Kirsty sits on the back of the bench with a hand resting on Tony’s head. She’s flawlessly made up and wears label denim’s and matching jacket. She tells me she’s seventeen. Tony is Nathan’s older brother. A grey jersey hangs loose

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from his broad shoulders. He wears black three-stripe dome pants unbuttoned to mid-calf and jandals on his feet. I offer to shout the three of them a drink at a local bar.

We sit outside overlooking the harbour. Two Japanese girls occupy a table next to us. In broken English, one of them asks Nathan to take a photograph of the two of them holding pints of Guinness in front of the view. Using her digital camera, he lines them up and takes the photo. The girls bow in thanks. He grins at them then rolls a cigarette at our table.

“We’ve only met two good people in Christchurch,” Tony tells me.

He raises his glass and takes a sip. “You’re the third. Cheers, bro.”

He looks down at the bottle in his hand and picks at its label. “I’ll be honest with you. I moved down to Christchurch from Auckland to keep out of trouble. I’ve done time. Never again, mate. A new life from here on in,” he says. He lifts his eyes and gives a faint, nervous smile.

Nathan gets to his feet and rolls around the decking on his skateboard.

The hood of his jersey covers his eyes. He buys a pack of matches from the bar, lights his cigarette and takes a seat beside me. His leg twitches restlessly under the table.

“Just a question, bro. Do you smoke pot?” he asks me.

“Not today,” I reply. Tony and Kirsty look at each other out the corner of their eyes. The atmosphere is suddenly uneasy.

“Tony doesn’t smoke at all anymore. Kirsty won’t let him because of the baby,” Nathan says.

“Do you guys have a child?” I ask. Tony looks at Kirsty, who stares over the harbour wistfully. No one answers my question and we fall quiet for a minute. I wonder if the silence signals the end of our time together.

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“It’ll happen when it happens eh, bro,” Tony says eventually, looking back down at his drink. Kirsty places her empty glass on the table and suddenly sits straight in her chair.

“We’re going into town to have a look around,” she tells me, changing the subject. “The money should be in Nathan’s account by now so we can pick up the car. Do you want to join us? It’s nice to talk to someone normal for once.” Nathan flicks his cigarette butt onto the wooden decking.

“Yeah, someone who isn’t fried on P,” he laughs.

The money seems to have come through. To my surprise, they drive a Saab with tan leather seats and all the extras. Nathan sits rolling a cigarette beside me in the back with his muddy feet resting on the armrest. Kirsty sits up front and Tony drives.

“Nice car,” I say.

“It’s our old mans,” Tony replies. “A cop pulled us over the other day and said “this is a flash car for you young guys to be driving.” He radioed to check it wasn’t stolen. I told him the car’s a piece of shit.

You should have seen his face, bro!”

On High Street Nathan drags us into a hippie shop to look at bongs, lighters and other drug paraphernalia. He calls for me to join him at the counter.

“Check this pipe out, bro,” he says. The shop assistant’s a tall, lanky guy wearing a bead necklace and an orange, silk poncho. He takes the pipe out of the cabinet to show me. Tony and Kirsty stand their distance, whispering between themselves. As Nathan explains the pipe’s selling points to me, the attendant walks out from behind the counter.

“You look familiar,” he says to Tony, who avoids eye contact. “Yeah, I know you. From Auckland. Remember?”

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“I’m a different person now, bro,” Tony says quietly, taking a step backwards. Kirsty takes hold of his hand and Nathan disappears towards the back of the store.

“Same as me, man,” the assistant replies, nodding his head. “It’s not worth it anymore eh? I moved down here to get away from the scene.” Nathan hurries past us towards the door and Kirsty leads Tony outside before he can reply. I’m left at the counter with the pipe still in my hands. The attendant repositions himself behind the display, takes it from me and places it back in its box. “I’d stay away from that shit if I was you,” he says, looking outside at the three of them waiting for me. “You don’t know where it will take you.”

In front of the shop a group of people stand gathered around a rusty old Toyota. Hip Hop music sounds from its stereo. A teenage boy sits in the front passenger seat with his feet up on the dashboard and the windows down. Nathan gravitates towards him. Begrudgingly, Tony follows Nathan over and tells him to hurry up. Kirsty and I take a seat in the car.

“What a waste,” Tony says when they rejoin us. “A three hundred dollar skate board and you swapped it for a fucking joint!” Nathan winks at me before leaning forward between the seats.

“You won’t be angry when you see what I’ve got,” he replies, pulling two gold necklaces and a silver ring out of his pocket. “For you, bro,” he says. He sits back, lights and draws deep on the joint.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Tony says. Nathan laughs and slouches in his seat. Kirsty winds her window down and stares quietly out the window with her arms crossed. Tony shakes his head. “I think we’d better head home now, bro,” he tells me, looking back at Nathan in the rear vision mirror. Near the bus exchange, he pulls to the side of the road to drop me off.

“It’s nice hanging out with someone normal for once,” Kirsty says as I get out the car.

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“Thanks for the drinks, bro. That was a really good thing to do.

I appreciate it,” says Tony. Nathan sits with his eyes closed. I say goodbye to him but he doesn’t respond. Tony writes his cell-phone number on a piece of paper and hands it to me. I tell him I’ll call and hang out with them again. I close the door and wave goodbye as they merge back with the traffic.

Home, I send a text message to say thanks for the company. It’s returned to me. The number doesn’t exist.

* * * Rugby fever. I walk against a stream of British and Irish Lion’s rugby supporters on Cashel Street. The city is a wash of red and blue jerseys, the occasional black clad Kiwi amongst them looking out of place. A Maori Kapahaka group, its members adorned in flax skirts, performs traditional song-and-dance routines outside a department store. A loudspeaker plays sound effects and music from the New Zealand movie, ‘Whale Rider’. Megaphones blare sales pitches for discount jewellery and perfume from various shops. A salesman walks amongst the foot traffic trying to coax people inside. A young man, hanging out the window of a white van stopped at the traffic lights, yells at me.

“Hey, mate. You wanna buy a Lion’s supporters flag for five bucks?”

“No thanks, bro,” I say. “I’m going for the All Blacks.”

“Fucking oath, mate. Me too! I’m just out to make a quick buck!”

The lights change and the van moves with the traffic, a sample flag flying from its radio aerial.

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It’s early afternoon at the café and Dad’s reading the sports section of the paper. We sit in the courtyard with a coffee each and bowl of French fries between us. A gargoyle fountain spits murky green water into a shallow pond.

“Hey, Pete. How’s it going?” a woman asks leaning out a window. Dad finishes reading his sentence before looking up. He smiles.

“Any better and I’d be lethal,” he jokes. She joins us outside. Sitting down, she crosses her legs and places her handbag next to her. She has olive skin, dark shoulder length hair and long, tinted eyelashes.

“I see you everywhere,” she says. Dad folds his newspaper and places it at his side.

“I think you’re following me,” he replies. He leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, dips his head but looks up at her timidly. I move inside and leave them to talk. Through the window I watch them. She laughs at something he says. Dad shakes his head. The conversation stops and she leaves without having ordered anything.

“Who was she?” I ask as we walk towards the car park.

“I can’t remember her name,” he replies. Sports talkback sounds from the radio when he turns the ignition. We’re halfway home before he says another word. “She wanted to know if I’d join her for a drink this evening,” he says, breaking his silence.

“The All Black scrum hasn’t looked this good in years,” the radio announcer declares. “Australia will need to play above themselves if they’re to win in the front row tonight.”

“And?” I press for his answer.

“Dunno,” he says. “I think I’ll listen to the game on the radio and get an early night instead.”

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“What are we doing, Tim?” she asks. The condensation on the inside of the car window drips onto the dashboard. I watch the shadows of water droplets trickle in intricate patterns under the light of the street lamp. She moves in her seat to face me.

“I don’t know,” I reply. It’s a lie. My hands are shaking. I open my mouth to tell her how I feel about her but stop because my voice is about to break.

I take a deep breath. “I wish you weren’t leaving, Rebecca,” I manage to get out. It’s not quite what I want to say but I hope she will fill in the blanks.

“I have to. It’s something I have to do,” she replies. A long moment. I touch her cheek, run my fingers to the bottom of her ear then down her neck.

“I really like you,” I say. She closes her eyes and tilts her head.

* * * Bishopdale Mall. Brown cardigan and arms crossed, a cigarette hangs from his mouth, half smoked but extinguished. He has a long craggy face and winks as I approach.

“See that girl over there? She’s a good stick, a friend of my daughters,” he says. “Hey love, come over have your photo taken with me,” he yells at her. She giggles but keeps walking. Cigarette employed like a conductors stick between thumb and forefinger, he launches into conversation. “My wife, she’s resting after getting an electric shock from a vacuum cleaner at work. She turned blue! Her boss told her to go home and have a lie down, didn’t even write a report!” Picking from a pouch of tobacco, he rolls another cigarette then places it behind his ear. “Well, got to see a man about a dog,” he says, edging away. “Can’t keep ‘em waiting can I?”

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People soak up the mid-day sun on café terraces beside the Avon River. The Strip, Christchurch’s social hotspot, is alive with activity.

Suited men and women converse over coffee and lunch. Cabs queue along the side of the road. It’s Friday afternoon and I’m prowling around town with my camera when I spot a workmate.

Mike is a meek, lanky man. He holds himself with reserve, hands in pockets, shoulders forward, staring at his feet as he walks.

There’s an awkwardness about him that’s emphasized by his slender appearance. I call his name and he joins me in the shade of a shop awning. He offers to buy me a drink.

We claim a table at the front of an espresso bar. The weather outside is turning. Grey clouds roll over the city and a muggy heat is carried indoors with the wind. Before long, the earthy smell of first rain on hot concrete wafts inside. Mike sits slouched. He lifts his coffee to his lips with one hand while stretching his free arm along a metal rail that lines the wall. After placing the cup back on its saucer, he licks a line of steamed milk off his top lip then looks up at me. Tired, the skin around his eyes and cheeks contracts into a half smile. I ask what’s on his mind.

“I’m going to buy a new television tonight,” he says. “Jen’s been trying to talk me into getting one for a long time. We didn’t bring much furniture with us from England. I haven’t settled yet. I’m not surrounding myself with things I like and it makes Jen nervous.

I get the feeling she thinks I’m hanging onto the past by not building our life here.” After sipping the last of his coffee, he rubs his hand over the top of his head and stares vacantly over my shoulder. “I don’t know why I feel buying a television is such a big deal. It’s not the money,” he says. A shaft of sun breaks through a hole in the clouds outside. “Sometimes I think I should leave Jen and the kids. I love them, but I wonder what they could be and do if I wasn’t around.” A waiter clears our table and Mike nods thanks.

“I hold them back by being the way I am,” he continues. “They’d be happier without me.”

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The bus to work stops ten minutes walk from my gate. Along the way, an alleyway leads me between properties, over a river and out onto a short dead-end street. A large tree stands on the corner, towering above the footpath and surrounding buildings. Its bark is textured like tanned, leathery skin. I once saw a fantail building a nest in its branches. From the bottom of its thickset trunk, roots have forced their way up through the concrete footpath. This year, the tree lost its leaves on the first day of autumn. They didn’t turn yellow then brown before dropping to the ground, instead, hailstones the size of marbles dropped from the clouds and stripped the branches before nature could run its course. What remained was a skeleton. The following morning, walking out of the alley, I remember looking up at the tree’s spindly limbs. The sky was a backdrop of dismal grey. I took a photo. A memento. I wondered; how do you say goodbye to someone you love? Autumn leads to winter. Then spring. Now, the branches are covered in bright green leaves. I pause to admire its new canopy then make my way around the corner towards the bus stop and work.

* * * Mike said goodbye to his family in a letter. He got out of bed early and told Jen he was going for a walk. At mid-day his two children would return home from a friend’s house. While Jen read in bed, Mike made his way to the garden shed. He taped a note to the outside of the door before locking it behind him. ‘Don’t go inside.’

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“I don’t know if someone’s playing a joke,” the secretary whispers as I arrive at work. “They’re saying that Mike’s dead, that this morning he killed himself.” I look past her, outside at blue sky and the rooftops of neighboring buildings. The air conditioner hums as it labours to lower the morning heat. “That stupid man,” she says.

“And on such a beautiful morning. The first day of summer.”

* * * That evening, I pass back under the shade of the tree. Sun streams down, diffused by leaves, casting a patterned shadow over me. Only last week its branches were still bare. For four months I approached it in anticipation of the new season, a new beginning. Mike took his own life this morning. Perhaps there was something I could have said. Should have said.

* * * She lies beside me on the couch, breathing deeply in the moments before sleep.

I move the hair from her eyes, brush it behind her ear then rest my hand on her shoulder. Traffic outside the living room window cuts through a film of wet on the road. Ten minutes pass in silence. I think about her leaving and how I will feel when she’s gone. “I’m still here, Tim,” she says softly.

* * * I’ve passed the cemetery many times. Today I felt curious. A dog barks as I near the gate. I see its huge snout and yellow teeth through a gap in a wooden fence. Although I’m safely out of its reach it still scares me and I move to the other side of the pathway.

In the middle of a row of headstones I see a single withered rose wrapped in cellophane lying on the grass. I bend down and read the note attached to it.’I still miss you. Love Frank.’ I place it on the nearest headstone.

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Back at the entrance I watch an old man. He collects milk from his letterbox. A pagoda archway covered in a dying creeper stands above him. I take a photograph.

“I’d like a copy, please,” he tells me. “Something to send my daughter in Australia, to prove I’m still alive.” He hobbles back towards the house with his milk bottle held in a wire basket. The dog starts again behind me and I turn to see a council grounds keeper pushing a wheelbarrow full of rubbish out to a truck on the street. On top of his barrow is Frank’s rose.

* * * Following the river, I walk under shelter of weeping willows that line its bank. Light rain patterns the Avon with circular ripples.

I arrive at Mike’s house at one o’clock. There will be no funeral for him in New Zealand. His body has already been sent back to England. This is my only chance to say goodbye.

I have a picture of Jen in my head; tall, black hair and thin lips. It’s way off. As I climb the driveway towards the door I catch sight of her sitting alone on the porch. Fragile, with round shoulders, fair skin and hair, she holds a cigarette like its only purpose is to keep her hands busy. She looks up when I approach. I’m the first to arrive.

“I was afraid this would happen,” she says. Her voice trails off nervously. “I don’t know you, but you know who I am. I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.” I introduce myself and give her an envelope containing photographs I took of Mike during our visit to the espresso bar. She takes it apprehensively, passing a freckled hand over it before leading me inside to the kitchen table.

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Her two girls sit with us. The oldest rests her hand on her mother’s leg while she looks through the prints. The younger girl stares at me. She has Mike’s eyes, wide and submissive, they shimmer like dark, wet pebbles. After she’s finished looking, Jen holds one of the prints against her chest.

“This is my Mike,” she says softly. “You got him. He’s right here on paper. This shows a part of him he didn’t know how to talk to me about. You can’t imagine what seeing this means to me.”

She slips the photographs back into the envelope and the children leave the table to play in the rain. “Some people have said they’re angry with Mike for what he’s done,” Jen says staring outside at her two girls running and laughing in the yard. “I’m not angry. I don’t understand how he felt, but I know he couldn’t see any way forward.

I can’t imagine how much pain he held inside of him to do such an extreme thing. It makes me realize how important it is to live for the little things in life. It may sound corny, but I’m sure some good will come of this.” She pulls a cigarette from a packet, stands and walks to the door. She strikes a match and lights it behind cupped hands.

Her children bounce a ball against the garage door then throw it up towards a netball hoop. Jen shakes the match out while watching them. Her cigarette smolders between her fingers and we stand without talking for several minutes before she raises it to her lips.

A long stem of ash drops to the ground. “Mike was so indecisive,” Jen finally says. “I never liked to push him into making decisions.

He would have known he was going to do this for a long time.

To think he had the confidence to do something so final is amazing.

Life can end in an instant. You’ve got to live in the moment and enjoy the journey it takes you on.”

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With her body against mine I felt suddenly scared and nervous.

“I’m not ready for this,” I said. I pulled away from her, embarrassed.

She sat above me, her body a dark profile in the dim light. I didn’t know what else to say.

“It’s okay,” she whispered, but it didn’t feel it. I grabbed the unused condom I had opened and left the room. I flushed it down the toilet before glancing at myself in the bathroom mirror. Naked, the collarbones at the base of my neck jut sharply beneath my skin. I took a deep breath. My bare chest stretched then contracted in the reflection. When I look at myself I see a boy.

What’s a man supposed to look like?

“I’m sorry,” I said, rejoining her. She wrapped her arms around me and we lay together.

“It’s okay,” she repeated. I tried desperately to think of how to explain myself but couldn’t find the words. She fell asleep before me. I lay staring at the shape of her shoulder concealed under the bedspread and the pale skin of her cheek in the dark. With each breath, deep and slow, the sheets rose and fell above her. She stirred, rolled on her side and turned her back to me.

* * * It’s busy for a Monday, a different crowd than usual. People stand at the bar, spilling out into the restaurant. I pause in the doorway and contemplate how best to cut through the swarm of socialites before weaving towards the till. While waiting to be served I catch sight of a woman wearing a black, backless dress. She stands with the stem of a champagne flute pinched between her thumb and index finger, her pinky a redundant hook at its side. A man wearing a salmon coloured tie approaches and whispers something in her ear. She laughs then raises her drink to her lips and takes a large gulp. Finished, she places the flute on a table next to her and links arms with the man. They navigate through the crowd towards the exit. When they escape from view, my eyes return to the woman’s

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empty glass. Red lip prints stain its rim. Beside it sit four others, each smeared with a different shade of lipstick. I turn to face the bar and Lucy waves for my attention from behind the coffee machine.

She lifts a cup and raises her eyebrows. I nod and before long she places a drink in front of me. Before I can ask how she is, another customer steals her attention.

A suave-looking man with dark, grey-flecked hair, he leans against the bar and ogles her as she bends to pull two Heineken’s out of the fridge. When she stands to pop the bottle caps, he averts his eyes. Realizing I have caught him perving, he raises his hand to his mouth to speak secretively.

“Plenty of that around on Cup Week,” he says slyly. I’d forgotten it was Cup Week. It explains the uncharacteristically busy Monday night. Lucy presents him with his drinks then leaves to attend to someone else. “The races, that’s the place to be tomorrow,” the man says, bending his knees and leaning into me as if divulging classified information. “Hundreds of nice fillies to looks at, and none of them horses.” He mischievously rubs his hands together and forms a tight-lipped smile. “Are you going?” he asks after taking a sip out of each of his beers. “It’ll be a good one.” He scans the people surrounding us at the bar. Aphrodite peers down from the wall, watching the clientele silently. My fellow bar fly shows no such restraint. “Now that’s what Cup Week is all about,” he says gesturing towards a group of women beside us. They wear fancy hats and short skirts. I finally admit I’ve never been to the races before. He seems to flinch at my revelation then without comment waves for Lucy’s attention. “Get this man whatever he wants and put it on my tab,” he tells her. They look at me. I ask for a Heineken.

“Do yourself a favor, save your money tonight and use it to go to the track tomorrow,” he says, keeping an eye on Lucy as she turns to get my drink. “Now you have no excuse. I expect to see you there.”

He picks his drinks up off the bar and disappears into the crowd.

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The bus drops me outside Addington Raceway. A loudspeaker blasts from inside of the grandstand. The gravelly voice of a male announcer echoes through the bowels of the concrete building.

“Green really is the vogue colour this year. Combined with simple, functional design, today’s best-dressed is sure to be the picture of sophistication and elegance.” In front of the grandstand entrance a hot dog cart conducts a roaring trade. Half dipped in tomato sauce, each battered sausage is consumed with the utmost caution.

A woman wearing a lacy white dress bites into her lunch and washes it down with a swig from a plastic cup full of bubbly. I follow a group of middle-aged men through a tunnel and into the grounds.

The main stand is packed to capacity. Groups of men and women mingle on the grass in front of me. Two women, sunglasses like bug eyes and skin day-glow orange, strut through the crowd. The wind picks up and their hands quickly move to clutch their substantial hats. As they pass me I follow them with my camera. A number of the men beside me give them their full attention. Clean-shaven and dressed for the occasion, they look like conservative real-estate agents. Beer in hand, one breaks their circular formation and yells after the women.

“Hey love, show us ya vagina!” The women continue on and no one bats an eyelid. The men raise a toast with their plastic cups.

From the main stand I move to the Lindauer Lawn. On presentation of my ticket, I’m free to roam the area off limits to common folk.

The lawn itself is covered with a teeming mass of what appears to be the well to do. Somewhere in the distance horses race around a track but these people wouldn’t know it. Hands, encrusted in jewels, gesture flamboyantly. Cell-phones ring and neck-ties flap in the wind. I feel a hand clasp hold of my right buttock. Turning around, I’m confronted by a woman in her late forties, her hair styled in a classic, gray bob. She smiles, eyes hidden behind fashionable shades.

I take her photograph.

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“What’s it for?” she asks demurely. I struggle to think of an answer.

Pointing my camera at people and things has become an automatic reflex over the years.

“I suppose I’m making myself a visual diary,” I finally say. She takes her sunglasses off. Her eyes are snake-like slits in the bright light.

“I could give you something for your visual diary, that’s for sure,” she says, laughing. A tense moment passes before she replaces her shades on the end of her nose and leaves me standing like a stunned mullet.

The Bird Cage is a fenced off arena beside the Lindauer Lawn.

There, men, women and beasts strut side by side. It’s also where the fashion contest is decided. Women walk around the perimeter of the compound holding numbered boards like those flaunted by bimbos between rounds at a prize fight. They parade past me in single file.

One leggy girl wearing a black and white ensemble doesn’t walk so much as balance atop stilt-like stilettos. Her belt length skirt causes a sensation amongst the men beside me. Mistaking me for someone he knows, a red headed man of around my own age gestures towards her and whispers in my ear. His breath is a mix of cigarette smoke and wine.

“I bet she’d be an animal in the sack,” he slurs. I can see her behind swinging in the reflection of his Ray-Ban glasses. Realizing he’s confided in the wrong person, he turns and repeats himself to a mate on his other side.

If green is the fashionable color of the season, this group of women aren’t up with the play. Only one of them wears the color of envy, and ironically, she’s not the one left wanting at the award ceremony.

As the losers sulk their way out of the Bird Cage and into the bar, she takes hold of a microphone and gushes thanks to all the people involved in making her outfit, giving special mention to herself for possessing a passion for functional accessories.

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As the day draws to an end, rubbish accumulates and tension builds.

The main event is called and the crowd stands for the national anthem. The Maori version, played first, is accompanied with a barely audible murmur before the words “God of Nations” cause an eruption of patriotic singing. Trumpets sound and horses bolt the gate. Five minutes later and it’s all over. Celebrations flank commiserations. More drinks are poured. Composure is lost.

I push through the revellers and escape towards the bus stop.

* * * I’m surprised to see my bar fly benefactor as I pay my fare. He sits splayed out on the seat usually reserved for the disabled and elderly.

“What a day,” he says when I sit beside him. “It was like I was at my university graduation ball all over again. I mean, let’s be honest, Cup Day isn’t about the horses. It’s about finding yourself a loose member of the opposite sex and being seen by the right people.” He closes his eyes and places a hand on his stomach as the bus rounds a corner. A disconcerting groan follows and I edge away from him in anticipation of the worst. With several deep breaths he regains composure. “I pashed one girl and got another’s number,” he boasts with a grin. “Anything less would have been a disappointment.”

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A park in St Albans: “My daughter turned eighteen last week,” one man says to another. They sit cross-legged, each holding a takeaway coffee. Taking a sip, the second man nods in silence.

A black Labrador dog chases seagulls in the park. “She had her friends over for a sleepover.” He sneezes and accidentally spills his coffee. He stands and moves to wipe his hands clean on the grass before retaking his seat.

“What are your daughter’s friends like?” the second man asks.

He takes another sip of his coffee then stares vacantly at his feet.

The father lets a languid sigh.

“Mate, they make me feel old,” he eventually replies.

* * * Over the months, a routine has developed. I wake around ten and make my way to the café an hour later. After sharing conversation and drink with Paul - Monteiths Black is the only beer that doesn’t make him feel bloated - I catch the bus into town and walk around the central city. Sometimes I get caught in the flow of people and end up drifting for hours. Other times I jump onto the first bus I see and get off when something interesting catches my eye. At night, I dream about the smallest details from my travels. The boy on the bus with solemn cheeks and eyes of melancholy, his stubby fingers clutching fantasy picture books. An elderly woman, her back curved like a hook, licking furiously at an ice cream before it melts and ruins her leather gloves. A motorbike accident, fearful eyes piercing mine, a bruised body flat on the street. In my head these things lead lives of their own. Sometimes I find them hard to sit with.

They change me.

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At Eastgate Mall I transfer from the Orbiter onto a bus headed back into the city. After paying the driver, I make my way to the middle of the bus and claim the only free seat. It hasn’t been a good day.

My camera failed during the morning, its light meter giving false readings. Low black clouds cover the sky and light is marginal anyway. With reason enough to head home early, I look vacantly out the windows as I ride down Linwood Avenue.

Yesterday, I’d gone to the doctor.

“So, how’s life?” she asked as I took a seat beside her desk. Suddenly, and for no reason that I understood, my eyes began to water and my voice quivered.

“Sorry,” I croaked, wiping my eyes. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”

“Fuck, Tania!” a man says loudly behind me and I’m instantly back in the bus. Most of the passengers are kids on their way home from school. They share Walkman headphones and sing along with the songs on the radio. “I saw you take six when I only had three.”

“So fucking what?” a woman replies.

“Look at you! You’re falling asleep in your seat, people are going to know you’re not right. Fucking pull yourself together!”

A boy in front of me calls out to his friend at the back of the bus.

“Hey, Simon! Isn’t that your girlfriend?” Simon leans over the person beside him to look out the window. Outside, a girl waves up at him.

She wears a different uniform, a green jersey and tartan kilt instead of his maroon.

“One of many,” Simon calls back to his friend, laughing.

The conversation behind me continues.

“That’s it, though, isn’t it Tania? You’re only little and I’m fucking three times the size of you. You give one pill to a baby horse and that’s enough for him. He’s only little. You have to give three or four

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times more to an adult horse to calm it down because he’s bigger.

You’re only little and I’m big. Do you see what I’m saying?”

My father had driven me to the doctor. I was going to bus home, but when I walked outside the surgery I found him waiting in his car.

He sat with the window down. Five cigarette butts lay on the road beneath him.

“Just a check up, was it?” he asked as the car pulled away from the curb.

“Yes,” I replied. He turned the radio to sport talkback. Monotone voices declared the All Blacks will be the next world cup champions.

“She’s put me on anti-depressants.” Dad turned the radio off.

“Do you think you need them?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. Silence. He lit another cigarette and turned the radio back on.

“They never did anything for me,” he says.

Behind me, Tania is saying she just wants to feel good. Her voice trails off into a mumble.

“Yeah, fuck. You’re feeling good but I’m not feeling nothing,” the man tells her. “Anyway, why is this relationship all about what you fucking want? I saw you take more when you thought I wasn’t looking and that says it all to me, Tania. You’re selfish. There’s no trust with you and me. All I want is love, sex and good times, but you’re giving me none of it. Because there’s no fucking trust!” The bus goes quiet as the man lifts his voice. The boys in front of me remove the headphones and turn to look at the couple arguing.

“Fuck you! I can’t trust you either. And besides, I don’t want to have sex with you. You make it such a fucking ordeal. You don’t even think I’m sexy. You make me feel like I’m shit and ugly.” The boys laugh quietly between themselves.

“Don’t be fucking stupid, Tania. If I thought you were an ugly pog I wouldn’t be with you! The only ordeal worth speaking of is you sitting there nearly falling asleep while I’m feeling fuck all.”

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“Here then, asshole! Have the last three. If that makes you happy, fucking have ‘em.” And then Tania is quiet.

I turn to look at them when we reach the end of the line. They sit hunched in their seats, propped up against each other. The woman’s eyes are blood red and glazed over. The skin of her face is pale and wrinkled, her strawberry blonde hair coarse and fizzy. She fumbles with a soft pack of cigarettes while getting to her feet. The man has a long gaunt face. His eyes are hidden under the hood of a tattered rugby league supporters jersey. A long tuft of hair grows from his pointed chin and he wears fingerless leather gloves with the Harley Davidson logo stitched on the back of them. They exit ahead of me and I watch as they stagger out into the exchange. The woman lights a cigarette inside, attracting the attention of a security guard who moves to escort her out of the terminal.

“The fucking things are starting to work now,” I hear the man slur.

“Finally… I feel numb.”

* * * There’s two of them. The first with bleached blonde hair, spiky. He’s dressed in tattered baggy jeans and a red jersey with USA printed on the chest. His mate is clean cut, wearing stylish rimless glasses and a white shirt. Tall and thin, he stoops to pay his fare. They join me at the back.

“Good idea, mate,” the blonde one says to his mate. “There’s always something happening on the bus. Someone’s bound to be interested.”

The lanky guy weighs me up out the corner of his eye. I turn to him and he looks away. A minute later his friend leans over to me.

“Hey, mate. Are you looking to score?” he asks.

“Score what?” I reply. Lanky stares out the window pretending not to listen. His friend pulls away and sits straight in his seat.

“It depends what you want,” he replies quietly. We ride past the

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university and I press the buzzer to stop outside Burnside High School. It’s three o’clock and a group of uniformed teenagers push past me as I get off. From the road I see a girl take my place in the back seat. Lanky moves over to talk to her as the bus pulls away.

* * * Rain dots the concrete and goose-pimples prickle the bare skin of my arms. It was thirty degrees when I woke this-morning. From an oppressive north-westerly wind to a blustery southerly, the weather turned abruptly, dragging blanket clouds with it across the city. Walking through the Arts Centre, water trickles like soggy tears down stone walls. I join a group of Asian tourists under the shelter of a tram stop. While contemplating where I might find a warming cup of coffee, a white limousine pulls to the side of the road in front of us. Ribbons stretch over its bonnet. Tinted windows keep the passengers hidden until the driver, dressed in a navy blue suit and hat, leaves his seat and opens the passenger door. The tourists beside me start talking excitedly and pull cameras out of their pockets. Thinking something must be up, I cock the shutter of my Leica and hold it at the ready. A wedding party files out of the limo, black suited men, bridesmaids in blue, and finally the bride in white. Flashlights fire furiously beside me. The groom waves at us then wraps his jacket around his wife’s exposed shoulders. She shivers, her teeth clattering. A photographer appears out of another car and with slow, accentuated speech directs them into formation in the middle of the road. The Cathedral looms in the background, its pointed spire a vivid presence in the gloomy skyline. More snaphappy onlookers congregate on the opposite side of the road and the procession is photographed from all angles.

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Perhaps the cliché is true. A camera is a kind of passport, an excuse to be part of something or go places you normally wouldn’t. For a month last year I went about my travels without pulling my camera out its bag. I rode the busses and wandered the streets like a rudderless boat but saw nothing that inspired or grabbed me. I didn’t engage with people, look hard at details, or feel connected to what I saw. Worst of all I felt lost in myself. I had nothing to hold onto at the end of each week, no strip of negatives or stack of prints with which to order my thoughts.

Forcing myself onto a bus after an extended visit to the café, I held my camera for the first time in weeks. Low winter sun, pale gold reflections on dirty windows. I sat opposite an elderly woman who wore a knee length, oilskin jacket. She held a white handkerchief between cupped hands. The bus was empty but for the two of us.

We rode towards the city with Led Zep’s “Rock ‘n Roll” screeching on the driver’s portable radio. Approaching Hagley Park the woman suddenly put her fingers in her ears and started shouting.

Her words were nonsensical, indeterminate squawks and groans.

She rocked backwards then forwards in her seat, tensed her neck muscles and gasped violently for air. Her eyes looked skyward, helpless. The bus driver turned to look at her in his rear vision mirror. I caught his eye and he gave a gentle smile before returning to concentrate on the road. I found focus, composed the woman within my frame, waited for the right moment then pressed the shutter. A single tear ran a trail down her cheek and fell to her shoulder. She wiped then closed her eyes and further raised her voice above the music. I stole another photograph. Soft and honest, her face and body isolated from the peripheral, she looked different through my viewfinder. I saw a quiet sadness, insulation and a feeling of helplessness. I couldn’t put my camera down. As I watched and photographed her, my heart grew heavy. I felt I had seen myself and it left me exhausted.

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The photographer stands before the wedding party. With his lens pointed at them, he yells while looking through the viewfinder.

“Smile!” It’s a redundant request. They stand with arms linked, full of faith and possibility. The groom stands proud, his toothy grin as white as his bride’s dress. He fishes for her hand and their fingers knit. As misty rain falls from the sky the procession takes shelter and I find myself inside of their group. My presence isn’t questioned. At arms length from the bride, her cheeks the colour of contentment, I sense her fever for the moment. As the paid photographer leaves, I take over his role and follow them as they file back into the waiting limousine. After the last person has squeezed into the back seat and closed the door, the happy couple lean towards the open window and wave at me. I drop my camera to my waist and return the gesture as they drive away. Standing alone in the middle of the road, I take pleasure in the damp air. I no longer feel cold.

Reflections cast in puddles on the ground shimmer with each gust of wind. Behind the clouds, blue sky lurks. I go in search of a coffee.

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A muddy path leads us to an inner city apartment block. Paint peels off the buildings weatherboard exterior. It’s a starless night, bitterly cold and sleeting. At a bar earlier in the evening, I watched a local punk band play an energetic set. Steamy windows blocked a view of an outside terrace that was covered in slushy, white ice. The bar was packed full of head-bangers with pierced eyebrows and noses. At the end of the set I struck up a conversation with the band’s bass player.

After talking about some of my bus travels, she invited me out to a party she was heading to.

“Come in out of the cold,” Alice says, opening the door. She follows me inside, closing it behind us. Drum and bass beats reverberate down the hallway. It’s a student flat, damp and musty smelling with mould and mildew staining the yellow wallpaper. Snow and skateboard posters hang above minimal furniture. Alice leads me into the lounge where people sit on the floor drinking and talking.

A dj stands behind a pair of turntables with a crate of records at his feet. A group of girls sit in a circle at one end of the room talking and giggling amongst themselves. They look to be my age and are all dressed in fashionable puffer jackets, skate shoes and jeans. One of them looks familiar. She has rosy cheeks. Alice introduces me to three guys sitting squeezed onto a two-seater couch at the opposite end of the room. They pass me a beer. One of them pops its cap with his lighter. He has long blonde dreadlocks and three spiky piercings in his right eyebrow. Beside him, his friend sits rigid, eyes hidden under the peak of a faded red baseball cap. The third guy tells me he’s studying marketing at university but he doesn’t like it.

He’d rather be touring with his punk band.

“What’s the name of your group?” I ask.

“You wouldn’t have heard of us, we’re pretty underground,” he replies.

“What other bands do you sound like?”

“They’re pretty alternative, I don’t think you’d know them.”

Yawning, he turns to talk to the guy beside him.

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I catch the eye of the girl with the rosy cheeks. She gets to her feet and moves to join me.

“Do you remember me from high school?” she asks, sitting down and crossing her legs. I do. Her name is Jayne. An old friend of mine, Scott, had a crush on her. One Easter in front of everyone outside the canteen, he presented her with a gigantic chocolate egg and pink rabbit. I used to find Jayne overly girlish and coy, which used to annoy me. I made fun of her and talked to her like she was stupid. I hope she’s forgotten.

“You guys seem like a tight group of friends,” I say, nodding towards the circle of girls. ”We are. Everyone here looks out for each other. We all go to the same church. Everyone here except you, that is.”

Another girl breaks away from the circle and joins us. She has long blonde hair with dark brown streaks. She holds herself coolly and has guarded eyes. Jayne introduces us.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asks while shaking my hand.

She looks at Jayne then turns back to face me. Jayne smiles and looks me in the eye. “You should join us tomorrow,” she says. “Come to church with us. I think you could learn a lot.” I excuse myself to grab another drink from the kitchen.

I stand with a beer in hand, leaning against the door-frame. Alice has taken over the turntables. Trucker hat turned backwards, one headphone pressed against her right ear, she uses her free hand to slide and turn knobs. She kills the rhythm. I notice a Jesus Fish sticker on a window behind her and a dog-eared bible resting on top of copies of Fear and Loathing in Las-Vegas and American Psycho.

Jayne and her friend have claimed the couch for themselves. The three guys now sit on the floor at their feet. Jayne sits low in her chair wearing one of the guys baseball caps. He reaches up to steal it off her but she evades him, lifting and propping herself up on the back of the couch. A snowboard hangs nailed to the wall above

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her. Someone has spray painted ‘Happy 21st ’ on it with black, tag lettering. Under the board hangs an imitation road sign with a strike through a circle. Inside the circle is a cartoon picture of a penis riding a skateboard. Bold text beneath it reads ‘No Bone Zone’.

I drop my gaze from the sign to Jayne underneath it. She places the guy’s hat back on his head, leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. Looking up and seeing me alone, she then stands and walks over to join me. We watch the group of girls on the other side of the room playing drinking games.

“So, Tim…” she says, breaking the silence. One of the girls turns to us. She sees me looking and quickly averts her eyes. The other girls laugh. “Will I see you at church tomorrow?” Jayne asks.

“I don’t think so,” I reply.

Alice walks me to the bus stop.

“I hope you enjoyed yourself. You’re welcome to hang out anytime,” she says. “You know where to find us. It would be great to see you at church some time.” The bus seems to take forever.

* * * “My name’s Gregg and I’d like to talk to you about life.” I sit with him on the footpath in front of the supermarket. Shopping trolleys rattle behind us. Fendalton Mall is a small strip of shops. Elderly women wearing cherry red lipstick and high heel shoes clack past us carrying bags to their cars. Gregg is wearing a shiny black shirt with a soft collar that flaps in the wind. His gelled hair is styled into clumpy wisps. He asks me to fill out a questionnaire titled ‘Why Some Good People Won’t Go To Heaven’. After marking my answers he laughs before quickly turning serious. “I hate to tell you this, but you aren’t going to heaven. You’ve scored ‘good’ but you’re definitely no saint. When you die, where do you think you’re going to, Tim?”

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“To hell?” I reply.

“That’s right, mate. It takes a lot of courage to admit it, but you’re going to hell.” A deep furrow forms in his brow. “But it’s okay.

You have a saviour. Take this home and read it.” He hands me a flyer that’s printed to look like a million dollar bank note. I put it in my pocket. “Take the right road and you’ll be a rich man. Heaven or Hell? It’s the million dollar question,” he tells me before we part.

I buy a can of Coke at the supermarket and on a whim present the teller with the fake currency. No smile. She looks at it in puzzlement then hands it back.

“Do you have any real money?” she asks. “This isn’t worth anything.”

* * * I drop into Merivale Mall to buy film and chemicals. The car park is full with four-wheel-drive trucks and supermarket shopping trolleys. Middle-aged couples walk hand in hand, browse the aisles of European design shops, sit in cafes and mingle in wine bars.

Sullen children trail behind parents in the supermarket and a string quartet plays in the middle of the mall. I’m dressed in jeans, skate shoes and a tattered white, smiley face t-shirt. After buying what I need I sit and watch people as they move around me. My camera rests on my lap. For some reason I can’t bear to lift it to my eye.

A woman approaches and tells me I’m not permitted to photograph in the mall without permission from Head Office. She waits at my side in case I choose to ignore the rules. I stand up and she follows me to the exit. Outside, I turn back and look up at the mall’s terracotta coloured façade. It casts a long dark shadow over me.

I don’t belong here.

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I can’t see more than five metres in front of me. A thick haze of smog hangs in the air. Cones of light project down from roadside lamps.

Skeleton trees stand naked and silhouetted in the muted light. I like this time of year, the low sun and reflections cast off slick roads.

Trekking. All rugged up in thermal under clothing, complete with scarf and gloves. I enjoy wandering through Shirley, making my way into town via Wainoni and Marshlands Roads. A seat on the side of Queen Elizabeth II motorway seems like a good place to eat lunch.

A plaque beside me speaks of local heroes killed during World War One. Later I catch a bus heading towards the city from Hampshire Street in Aranui.

The driver is new to the job. While maneuvering down a side street he scrapes the side of a council rubbish truck, gouging a hole in the side of the bus. Flustered, he stops in the middle of the road and jumps out to inspect the damage. The driver of the truck laughs from his cab.

“Don’t worry about it, mate,” I hear him console. “There’s a reason why they put the most rundown busses on this route. This kind of thing happens all the time around here. If you aren’t the one who puts a scratch down the side of it, some bloody vandal will be.”

A crowd of school children have gathered on the footpath, laughing and pointing at the damaged panel. We continue into town at a snails pace.

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She has curly red hair, a freckled nose and sits with a group of friends on the back seat. The bus stops to pick up a woman who struggles with two small children.

“Bum no babies!” the girl at the back yells.

“With a mouth like that she must be top of her class,” a man beside me mutters. The woman with the children looks shocked. The girl laughs and repeats herself loudly.

“Hey, I’ve had enough of you. Be quiet,” the driver says.

“Shove it up ya bum!” the girl retorts.

The driver pulls over and walks to the back to tell the young loudmouth to get off. When rid of her, we move forward to pull back into traffic. She runs up beside the driver’s window and pulls the fingers.

“Kids today!” a woman behind me says. “No respect.”

* * * Ben’s the first person I meet in New Brighton. He sits on a bench under a palm tree, yelling at someone hidden in a shop doorway.

“You’d know all about it,” he says, shifting his attention to me as I approach. “Memories. This place has gone to the pack. Nothing left but memories. You’ve got a camera. For me, photographs are to help you remember. It hurts when you lose something as irreplaceable as photos.”

He’s in his forties, has wiry, dark hair, a square chin and squinted eyes. He wears a tattered sports jacket with a Canterbury First XI monogram embroidered on the breast pocket.

“I used to hang out in town. I like sitting, just watching life around me. You can learn a lot by watching. By looking. I was forced out here when the council did the square up. People might walk past me and think I’m a bum, a drunk, or something like that. I used to have a good job and house, but not anymore. I squandered it all.

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No one stops to give me the time of day or think to ask what my story might be. Especially the council – they like to sweep people like me under the carpet.” He reaches into a canvas bag and pulls out a plastic rigger of beer. He twists open the lid and takes a sip. Beside us, a woman rummages through a rubbish bin looking for recyclable cans. Ben replaces the lid on his drink and puts the bottle back into his bag. “I read a lot,” he continues. “I’m smart enough to realize I have to live by my decisions and take responsibility for my own actions. I used to be into cricket, you know. Yeah, I saw the world thanks to cricket.” He flattens the jacket over his chest and shows me its embroidered pocket. “I went on a world tour when I was in my twenties and played against Sir Richard Hadlee and Lance Cairns.

Those memories are all upstairs. They’re pictures in my head. But they’re fading fast. I didn’t take a camera on tour. I thought I’d let the others take the photos and get copies off them when we had a reunion. Of course the reunion never happened. Or maybe I wasn’t invited. I got to drinking and was dropped from the team.” He pauses to survey the surrounding shopping area. The footpaths are empty. For Lease signs hang in every second shop window. He shakes his head sullenly while getting to his feet. “Keep that camera of yours loaded. A good photo is something worth holding onto.

Things change quickly.”

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She lifts the camera to her eye. I stand with my hands in my pockets, yellow scarf wrapped around my neck and faded beanie covering my head. I look at her and she takes the photo. The camera whirs and spits out a rectangular sheet of paper. Polaroid color. It fades in from nothing, the shadow areas first, subdued and cold, then the highlights and skin tones. Soft focus, washed out and ghostly. My eyes are a dull blue. She slips the photo between the pages of her travel diary then packs it into her bag. I suddenly realize I don’t have a photo with the two of us together.

* * * “Hey, you in the beanie,” a girl yells out at me. I stop to look over a wire fence. On a school playground jungle gym, I see a fair-haired girl duck for shelter behind the wooden wall of a fort. Another girl, hanging from monkey bars, swings through the air over a pit covered in bark.

“Hello?” I call back to them. The girl’s head slowly lifts back above the wall, followed by her freckled forehead, eyes and the top of her nose. She stares down at me.

“Are you a hippy?” she asks. The other girl swings off the monkey bars and lands on the wooden decking below the fort. She laughs at her friend’s question then turns to me to listen for my answer.

“Because you look like one!” she calls out as I open my mouth to reply.

“Yeah, you need to shave your face!” the other girl adds. The two of them giggle as the girl slides down a pole from her hiding place to join her friend. “And I can smell you from here!” she says.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” a woman calls back to them from behind me. Holding hands, the two girls turn and run towards a block of classrooms. “No need to worry, mate. You don’t smell,” the lady says, buckling an infant child into her car. “Although you could do with a shave.”

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“Tim, after your mother and I divorced I flew to the other side of the world and walked through blizzards and storms to find a girl I once loved. Do you remember? I found her. It wasn’t meant to be for us but I’d get on another plane if I thought it might lead to being close to her again - to feel like I did back when I knew her. I have no regrets, but I still think about her.

I followed my heart. That’s what matters.”

* * * It’s been raining all week, coming down in sheets and flooding the roads. I’ve been riding the busses through until the end of each route then using my transfer to go straight back to the city.

There’s not much to see around town except for council workers unblocking drains and gutters. On Tuesday, riding the Orbiter past Princess Margaret Hospital, the bus pulled into a stop for a young woman. She was standing drenched in the rain, metres away from the shelter. As the bus approached, I saw a man sitting under the shelter roof, his feet extended out on a metal bench in front of him.

He leaned against the wall, hands buried in the pockets of a long brown trench coat. On the ground under his feet was a pool of vomit.

When the bus stopped, I sat above him. He looked up at me, his eyes concealed under the brim of a flannel hat. When I rode home he was gone and the rain had washed the vomit away.

* * * Rebecca looks vacantly out the window. A gigantic koru-patterned airplane tail breaks a view of the Southern Alps. The sky is clear and a thin layer of frost covers the ground. A lone Boeing climbs to altitude in the distance but everything else is still.

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“I can’t wait to hear the sound of the engines,” Rebecca says. “To feel the plane move forward and know that when I step back outside, nothing will be familiar. From that moment I’ll have no actual plans. I could do anything I want with my life.”

I don’t reply. I feel empty. I miss her already.

* * * The bus is running late. I stand sheltering from the rain with a boy.

He’s wearing blue mittens and a striped pompom hat.

“I hope it snows tonight,” he says with eyes beaming. “Last year I made a snowman that was nine feet tall!” He puffs his chest out and crosses his arms, smiling ear to ear. “And if it does, I won’t have to go to school tomorrow,” he says with excitement as the bus pulls up.

I follow him on, am hit by a rush of warm air as I step up inside.

“Looks like you’ll get your snow tomorrow Alex, what do you think?” the driver says to the boy as he rummages through his bag to find money for the fare. He places a dollar coin on the dish with his mittened hand.

“I hope so,” he replies. “That’s why I’m wearing these.” As we travel towards the city it starts to sleet. The boy sits with his face pressed against the window, staring up at the clouds.

* * * We stand in the middle of the Air New Zealand terminal delaying final farewells. I hold Rebecca in my arms. My eyes are closed because I don’t want her parents to see me cry. I press my cheek against hers, run my fingers through her hair and wish secretly I had never met her. As she pulls away I catch a smell of her perfume. The scarf wrapped around my neck was hers.

This morning, after unraveling it from her neck, she wrapped it around mine. It carried a scent that coloured and merged with my own. A final boarding call sounds. I stand with her family and watch her clear security before riding an escalator, slowly out of sight.

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Maria was a mirage. Appearing suddenly beside me, she faded and disappeared as quickly as she came. Long blonde hair, blue eyes and green tartan jacket. It was a Saturday. She was tall and her voice was soft. I forget how the conversation started but we talked for over half an hour. I went home with her phone number.

A taxi driver once told me - realizing he was transporting a brokenhearted cargo - the quickest way to forget a girl is to find another.

He relayed this clichéd advice with well-practiced self-assurance. I was surely not the first person he’d felt a need to console that night.

His thick-fingered hands gripped hard on the steering wheel and he threw the cab around corners aggressively. His I.D photograph smiled vacantly from the dashboard but beside me his droopy brown cheeks hung with an air of depression. It was three in the morning. The stale smell of smoke mixed with the lavender scent of a deodorizer. I was drunk but rapidly sobering up.

“There’s no use crying over spilt milk,” he said as we pulled up outside my house. “Forget the last girl, she’s just a notch on the bed post.” I paid my fare and he dug into his money belt to find me change. “Myself, I learnt long ago that relationships only end in disaster. I used to enjoy working because I didn’t have to hear the missus nagging in my ear. Then one day I got home and she’d left.” He passed me a hand full of silver coins along with a personal business card. “If you ever need a taxi, I’m your man,” he said pointing out a cell-phone number scribbled on the back of it. “Taxi Pete, they call me. Any time of the night or day, I’m available. The conversation’s free but you can pay for everything else.” He looked at me, his cheeks now taut with a strained, desperate smile. I got out of the car and walked towards the house. Behind me, he made a uturn and beeped his horn twice before driving back into the night.

139

Dinner and a movie. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She sits low in her seat beside me, rimless glasses rested on the end of her nose, laughing. We’re front and centre with the entire row to ourselves.

I glance at her out the corner of my eye. The light reflected from the screen dances in muted colors across her face. She stares up, transfixed, before turning and looking back at me. She smiles with raised eyebrows and rests her hand on the armrest between our seats. I look at her slender fingers, long and feminine. I want to hold them in mine but can’t bring myself to it. Maria is here beside me but I’m thinking of Rebecca.

After the movie we walk to the bus exchange. The room is busy but quiet, the veneered chairs disheveled and in broken formation.

As the last of the evening sun fades outside, the grey walls of the room suck the character out of the evening. Maria, her jacket’s green collar set against the fair skin of her neck and chest, her warm voice, is the most colourful person in the building. The conversation is easy and I’m surprised to find myself laughing.

My bus arrives first and I get to my feet and say goodbye.

“I’ve enjoyed myself,” I tell her. “If you want to hang out again give me a call.” She remains seated, a soft grin aimed up at me, silently nodding.

As the bus pulls out of the terminal, I look out the window towards where I left Maria sitting. She’s gone. The scarf Rebecca gave me feels itchy against the stubble on my jaw. I take it off, place it on my lap and look down at it regretfully. I get the feeling I won’t see Maria again.

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In Sumner, I sit beside an elderly man at the bus stop.

“Usually I’d be down at the RSA this time of day, but it’s too cold to be out around town isn’t it? Better to stay home where it’s warm and have a few quiets instead,” he tells me. A Liquorland shopping bag rests at his feet. I can see a bottle of fill-your-own Kentucky Gold Bourbon through the opaque plastic. “I’m a real home body in the winter, what about you? Why are you out here in the rain? Don’t you have a nice girl to go home to?”

“I’m working on it,” I confide in him.

“Me? I’m divorced. She was my first and only love. That was many years ago,” he says with a melancholic shake of his head. He stares down at the bag beside his feet and sighs. “Living by yourself is the absolute pits. Every man needs a good woman, if only for the company. Would you believe that they reckon there’s two times more females in New Zealand than men? I suppose that’s good news for the both of us, what do you reckon?” He flashes a forced grin.

“I liked the freedom of living by myself at first but it got hard when my friends started pairing off. All of a sudden I was the third wheel.

My ex and I are best of friends now – I still see her after all this time - but it will never be anything more. It’s a shame, it is. A real bloody shame.”

Our bus arrives and we vacate the shelter. He takes a seat behind the driver while I pay my fare.

“If you find a girl worth her pinch, don’t let her go,” he says as I walk towards the back of the bus. “Treat her right and be honest with her. Take it from me. Otherwise you’ll end up old and alone.”

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Olivia polishes glasses behind the bar. She’s styled her hair differently tonight. I tell her I like it but she brushes me off. Liz, Lucy and Simon work in the dining area waiting tables. Liz is in a good mood. She jokes with customers and slips me a coffee when she passes. At ten o’clock, Lucy finishes and joins me for a drink at the bar. She tells me her family is moving to Australia but that she wants to stay in Christchurch to be with her boyfriend. When I finish my coffee, Liz pours me a glass of red wine.

I don’t know Simon very well, it’s only his third shift. He’s tall, has round, narrow shoulders and a dry sense of humor. Olivia watches him from across the room.

“He’s so random,” she confides in me. “I just don’t get him.” At tenthirty, Lucy leaves to meet her boyfriend. Last drinks are called at eleven. The café empties and Olivia locks the doors.

I stay behind and help clean up by placing chairs on top of tables while the others mop the floors. When it’s all done, we sit back at the bar over handles of beer.

“Who’s up for a game of pool?” Liz asks. Olivia and Simon pretend like they didn’t hear the question. “My shout,” Liz continues. She pulls a credit card out her wallet and places it on the bar. “Got this in the mail today and there’s two grand on it waiting for me to spend.”

Olivia turns to me and shakes her head. Simon gulps the last of his beer, gets to his feet and puts his jacket on.

“You’ve twisted my arm,” he says.

“Come on you two!” Liz shouts. “Olivia! We’re going to get you wasted as usual!”

“Okay, but just one game,” Olivia replies. She yawns then tips the last half of her beer down the sink. Simon cleans the empty glasses and we catch a taxi into town.

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The Rock Pool is an inner city bar and pool hall. Olivia tells me it’s a regular after hours hangout for the café staff. Liz buys two teapots.

Simon explains that they aren’t full with tea, rather a cocktail made of plum juice and gin. Olivia passes shot glasses full of the purple concoction around the group and we knock them back in unison.

It’s not long before I’m drunk.

Simon dominates the pool table. He crouches beside the pockets between shots to eye up the angles. I sink only two balls in three games. Olivia and Liz ignore Simon. They sit at a table drinking teapot after teapot and smoking cigarettes. Liz’s cell phone rings.

She looks at the caller I.D. and laughs excitedly.

“He’s meeting me here!” she says, slumping back into her leather chair. Olivia turns to me and rolls her eyes.

“Tod’s coming,” she says with a wry smile. “I went out with his brother. I broke his heart.” She sits straight in her chair, legs crossed, right hand resting on her knee and a cigarette between middle and index finger. She laughs to herself. I’ve never seen her this drunk before. I laugh with her. She stops abruptly, squints and stubs her cigarette out on the tabletop. “It doesn’t suit you,” she says, eyes peering through her glasses.

“What doesn’t suit me?”

“You acting like you’re better than everyone else.”

“How do you get that?” She lights another cigarette and ignores my question.

“You wait for Tod,” she says instead. “He’ll be a real player. I’m over that kind of guy now, but if I was Liz’s age, I’d go for him.” She pauses to draw smoke. We sit and watch Liz line up a shot on the table, lose her balance and grab hold of Simon for support. Olivia takes off her glasses, places them in her handbag and rubs her eyes, yawning. She pours herself yet another shot, knocks it back, then looks at me and rolls her eyes. “Just wait. She’ll lap him up.

I guarantee it.”

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By the time he arrives, Liz is so drunk she can’t stand up. She sits on his knee with her arms wrapped around him. He has curly hair and broad shoulders. Olivia keeps her distance. She plays a game of pool with Simon before introducing herself.

“Remember me? I went out with your older brother.” He shakes his head.

“My brothers had so many girlfriends I can’t keep up.” I watch Olivia walk to the bar, order another teapot, pour and take a shot.

She stands by herself for a minute before returning.

It’s three a.m. when I next look at my watch. We decide to move to another bar and leave Liz and Tod kissing at the table. Outside, Simon hails a taxi.

“I’ve got an early start tomorrow,” he says before getting in.

“I’ll leave you two to it.”

The twenty-four hour dairy has sold out of pies so we walk down Manchester Street with mouths full of Easter eggs instead. We find the Vestry hip-hop bar. I’ve never been here, normally wouldn’t want to, but it’s the only place open. A Polynesian doorman sits beside the entrance on a barstool. He’s all muscle and jaw line, has a shaved head and a thin strip of hair on his chin. He opens the door for us and tells us to have a good time inside.

The dance floor is a mass of dancing bodies hazed in smoke. The dj stands raised above the crowd on a platform.

“Listen to the words,” I shout in Olivia’s ear as we weave our way onto the floor. Lick my pussy, lick my crack. Suck my cock, suck my sac. She laughs, pushes through a group of people and loses me in the crowd. I survey my surroundings. Everyone’s wearing hooded jackets, low-rider jeans and pocket chains. The dj is looked up to like a god with headphones. I find Olivia and we dance until dawn.

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Eating breakfast at Denny’s, a table of Blue Star Taxi drivers sit across from us discussing the night’s events. One of their cabs needs a steam clean due to “some girlie who couldn’t handle her drink.” Another had a quiet night and spent it parked up asleep down Colombo Street. We sit in a window booth looking out over a colourless sunrise. Olivia lights a cigarette and slumps in her seat.

She crosses her arms, takes a drag and exhales slowly. She smiles at me vacantly.

“There are a lot of things that I’d like to do with my life,” she says, starting conversation. “I’d like to be a journalist. I’d like to do something that makes a real difference. The problem is I have no direction. No focus.” She stops to think, leans forward and rests her elbows on the table. The dull noise of a passing train fills the room. “You know,” she says after it subsides. “This is the third time I’ve been drunk this week.” We sit within ourselves for a moment listening to the song on the radio. ‘Welcome to the Hotel California’ “I’m tired,” she says when it has finished. “I could sleep for a week.”

At nine a.m. we call for a cab.

“Come in and see me at work tomorrow,” Olivia says as we pull up to my house. “There’ll be a coffee waiting for you.” I watch as she disappears around the corner, out of sight. The next time I see her I know things will be different.

* * * I offload my camera onto the bar and claim a stool. Olivia places a coffee in front of me.

“As promised,” she says smiling before rushing off to serve a table.

Simon walks out from the kitchen with a new girl in tow. After showing her how to use the till, they move behind the bar.

“This is Tim. He’s one of our regulars. He always has a latte bowl.”

The girl smiles and nods at my camera. She has clear, brown eyes.

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“Do you like photography?” she asks. I tell her about my bus travels.

“You’ve met Rebecca, then?” Olivia says joining us. She places a pint of beer and a tumbler of whiskey on a tray. “She’s taking over my job. I resigned today.”

“What?” I ask.

“Last night I realized I need to try make something of my life,” she tells me, walking back out towards the dining area. “I’ve decided to move to Wellington. In two weeks I’ll be gone.” Simon leaves to clear a table and Rebecca stands alone behind the bar in front of me.

We get to talking.

* * * Dad’s waiting for me in the five-minute drop off zone outside the airports main entrance. He stands smoking, his long thin legs slightly bowed under his own weight. He says nothing but puts a hand on my shoulder when I join him. Jet engines hum behind the terminal. We drive to the café.

Aphrodite seems to stare at me through the windows as we cross the road from the car park. A man stands by himself at the bar reading the paper, sipping from a glass of beer. A group of middle-aged women sit outside talking in the sun. Dad lights a cigarette as we sit at a courtyard table.

“This place is nothing more than memories to me now,” I say, breaking the quiet. “I know what you mean,” he replies wistfully. He lifts the cigarette to his lips and inhales deeply. He holds the smoke for a long time, exhaling slowly out of the corner of his mouth. It hangs in the air around us like a wispy spirit.

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McDonald’s, plastic tables, swivel chairs, Big Mac cartons and a children’s play ground. Parents sit talking, sipping tea from polystyrene cups while kids ride the Ronald McDonald merry-goround. The radio is tuned to Easy Listening Light FM. The U2 song ‘With Or Without You’ plays from speakers in the ceiling. Customers stand five deep behind a line of six cash registers. Outside, the New Zealand national flag flies beside the Golden Arches. The order board above the counter tells me my Kiwi Burger Combo can be upsized for an extra dollar. I stand to the side of the lines and wave to get an old workmate’s attention.

Pak stands behind the burger warmer, boxing Quarter Pounders.

He sees me and waves.

“Hey Boss!” he shouts. “Long time, no see.”

When I first met Pak, he had just moved to New Zealand. At home he was a scientist in a research laboratory. The New Zealand Qualifications Authority doesn’t recognize the training and diplomas he received at home. Five years ago, we were working the same position in the kitchen of the Merivale branch. He was the person who taught me how to toast Big Mac buns and test the temperature of quarter pound patties with a digital probe.

“You’re the Boss,” he used to tell me. “Today, this area is your responsibility. You must be efficient and exact in your job. The customer’s enjoyment and health is in your hands.” In the years since I left Pak has been promoted to management.

With the last of his burgers boxed and in the warmer, Pak leaves the kitchen to join me.

“What brings you here?” he asks. He wears a white shirt, tie and black dress pants. If he didn’t wear a Golden Arches name badge, I would have assumed he worked in a bank.

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“I’m looking for someone who works here,” I tell him. “But I don’t know his name. He’s an older man, probably mid-sixties, who does the early morning maintenance shift.” Pak looks at me quizzically from across the counter. He tilts his head and takes a half step backwards.

“I know who you’re talking about, Boss,” he replies. “But he doesn’t work here any more. He got sick. Too sick to work. He left about three months ago and I haven’t seen him since. He hasn’t even dropped his uniform back. Until he does, I can’t give out his holiday pay.” He eyes the lines of customers that stretch out into the dining area.

“Big Macs to one. Zero Cheese left,” a staff member shouts, taking two burgers from the warmer and placing them on a customers tray.

“I’ve got to get back to it,” Pak says, his attention wandering. “If I see him, I’ll say you were in looking for him.” He stands with an air of doubt. He looks me in the eye. We both nod in unison before he returns to the kitchen.

From the restaurant exit I hear him shouting.

“Six Macs and twelve regulars please, Boss.” A staff member repeats his instructions back to him. “No time to lose,” Pak bellows. “Plenty of people waiting out there.”

The sliding doors close automatically behind me. I pause and stand outside looking out over an empty car park. Wispy clouds glow a strange orange over the city. A box-shaped shopping mall in the distance looks like a miniature concrete Ayers Rock in the fading light. I walk to the bus stop and board the number five, headed into the city. I present the driver with a brand new concession card.

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I would like to thank the following people who played a huge part in making this book possible: Glenn Busch, Hanne Johnsen, Cathryn Shine, Trish Allen, Bruce Connew, Peter Veling, Ib Glover, Gijs and Patty Veling, Maria Veling and Linda Pool, Richard Gardiner, Bridgit Anderson, Aaron Beehre, Simon Ogden, the guys at Crewtown Studios, Tim Chesney, the University Of Canterbury College Of Arts, everyone at the University Of Canterbury School Of Fine Arts, Red Bus LTD, everyone at Hazard Press LTD and Spectrum Print LTD, the staff at Misceo for keeping me caffeinated.

Many others not named here, including the subjects of the photographs and people generous enough to share their thoughts with me, have been helpful in the production of this book, and I would like to express my gratitude towards them also.

Tim Veling

A Place in Time 21st Century Documentary Project

A Place in Time is an ongoing documentary undertaking arising out of the School of Fine Arts, University of Canterbury. Our starting point was the simple idea that, together with a sense of social responsibility, self-awareness is perhaps the most valuable asset a society can possess; that a well informed society is fundamental to the intelligent social and political choices necessary to that societies well-being.

Using photography, audio recording, oral history and documentary writing, we have begun collecting and storing material in the A Place in Time digital archive. Already the collection has a growing historical importance, however our prime intention is that material from the archive be used concurrently to produce works of significant artistic, social, and educational value.

While the work itself focuses on the city of Christchurch and the reality of the lives of a cross-section of its people, we believe its interest and importance will continue to extend beyond its defined boundaries to both a national and international audience.

Glenn Busch Director Bridgit Anderson Manager