After my apartment sold, it seemed a good idea to move south, to the island where I was born. My move was a retreat, I knew that, but I couldn’t remain in Auckland after losing both my job and my home; it was too painful. There was nothing keeping me there, apart from a sense of loss that I was afraid might take over my life and become a bitter, twisted comfort.

On the day of the protest, after my ‘performance’ on stage, Thora found me and brought me back to her apartment, and we sat at her table and I told her about some of the things that were important to me: my career, my friendship with Archer, my soon-to-be-taken-from-me home, and my perfumes. I explained that I’d felt deracinated, well and truly lost. I even explained my attempt to recapture myself through a signature scent, as if I might recognise myself through smell. Thora listened and when I stopped talking we sat quietly while I tried to think of something more to add. I rambled on, desperate to fill the space around me. After a while, I grew tired of the sound of my own voice but Thora seemed capable of endless listening. Exhausted, I said, ‘Please talk.’

Thora told me about her years at university. After I knew her, she finished her degree in chemistry and then applied for medical school and moved to Dunedin but fell pregnant in her third year and dropped out. Her son’s father was also a medical student and they stayed together, off and on, for six years but eventually split, ‘and things became dark’. Thora left out the next few years of her story but came back to it again when her son started high school and she returned to university, this time completing a pharmacy degree.

When I said, ‘That must have been satisfying’, Thora nodded but somehow she didn’t look convinced.

‘I moved up here when I took the job at the pharmacy. I needed some time out from a relationship and this job was only meant to be for a year, filling a maternity leave position, but I’m still here, eighteen months later.’

‘You don’t like it?’

She sighed, then replied, ‘No. Yeah, it’s fine. I don’t know. My son is here too. This is his apartment, though you’d hardly know it – he’s never here during the day. I’d like to go back to Wellington at some point. I still own a house there, in Newtown. Also, things have settled down with my ex …’

‘The ex who got you to join the choir?’

‘No. It’s a bit complicated. There’s the choir ex, who’s now a friend, and then there’s the Wellington ex, who I cheated on with the choir ex. I’ve finally managed to buy out Wellington ex, so I’ve got my house back.’