In fact, Thora, like Charles, belonged to the period of my life when, despite one or two short-lived relationships with both men and women, I first fully embraced the freedom and independence that came with being single. I had never been greatly interested in sex – though I had never completely shut myself off from it, especially during the years spent with my former boyfriend – but while living in Wellington I realised that sex, for me, was largely irrelevant. I’d given it a go but then moved on in the same way that I might test, and ultimately reject, a new hyped-up perfume. I didn’t long for intimacy and was quite satisfied with the broader social contact I enjoyed through colleagues at work, flatmates and friends. I didn’t want a partner and had never felt any maternal urge, and my dream, if I had one at all, was to save enough to buy a small home of my own, a place where I could live exactly as I wished. I suppose if I had to attach a label to myself it would be ‘spinster’, a word that is seldom owned or used with enthusiasm or pride. I became a single woman by choice rather than as a response or reaction to hurt and disappointment, failed relationships or lack of options.

Though my sexual relationships steadily dropped by the wayside, those Aro Valley years were memorable for the number of perfumes I accrued: Shalimar by Guerlain, Christian Dior’s Dune, Calyx from Prescriptives, Lancôme’s Magie Noire and Calvin Klein’s Obsession. Later, during long periods of unemployment, I had no spare income and was reduced to wearing my own concoctions or a syrupy fragrant oil sourced from an ethnic market stall that I think may have been a blend of patchouli oil and ylang ylang. It was sweet, a little grassy, with a smell that brought to mind over ripe bananas. It was called something like Rainsong and left brown stains on my skin, collars and cuffs.

In the early nineties I was lucky enough to be offered a ticket to a Nina Simone concert, which was part of the arts festival taking place in the city. I spent hours preparing for the event by playing my flatmate’s copy of ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’. I didn’t particularly like the song, but it had suddenly become a hit in the late eighties and had made its way into all my friends’ music collections. It wasn’t until later that I discovered the reason for its sudden revival. It had been featured in a commercial for Chanel No. 5 and, as a result, had climbed to the top of the charts in Britain and Europe. Anyway, the song was upbeat and helped get me in the mood for going out. To my disappointment, the concert was anything but upbeat. The atmosphere on stage struck me as tense, and it seemed to me that Simone would have preferred to be anywhere in the world but Wellington.