The mistress of mendacity ‘T

Out of my head

rim latte?’’ ‘‘How did you know that?’’ I reply sheepishly, for I am rarely in this particular cafe (not that it isn’t excellent). Either I drink far too much coffee or the young woman has a sharp memory.

‘‘I remember,’’ she says. The personal touch is a winner in the hospitality game, and a comfort for me amid streets teeming with strangers as half of Christchurch descends on Nelson.

The buzz is invigorating. We are lucky to live in a town where staying put is still a grand holiday.

Cutting my caffeine intake is on the resolution list, mostly because I like to start the new year with a laugh. Revved up on java and a flick through Urbis magazine – another reliable laugh in visiting the Noddyland that some architects inhabit where functionality comes a poor second to form – I continue my saunter down Hardy St, crossing Trafalgar.

‘‘Oi,’’ an old friend hollers as she nearly runs me over driving the wrong way out of one-way Church St, and parks on the yellow line outside Dick Smith.

‘‘Long-standing friend,’’ I should say, because she is not old. She fizzes with second youth for reasons we won’t divulge in order to preserve her anonymity.

‘‘Um, Fran,’’ I say as she leaps from the car, ‘‘I know you are a new person these days but you still have to observe the laws governing the rest of us.’’ ‘‘Who’s Fran?’’ she quips. ‘‘The name I’ll give you to protect your identity.’’

‘‘That’s very post-modern of you.’’

‘‘Yeah, I’ve just been reading Urbis. Seriously though, you’ll get a ticket.’’

‘‘Oh, I don’t care about that,’’ she says. ‘‘I’ve talked my way out of hundreds of them.’’

Turns out she is a literary genius in writing letters to get off parking tickets. And expired warrants. And long-dead registration stickers. ‘‘They send me reminders, but what is that – bits of paper.’’

She tosses her hand in the air, and I imagine a reminder notice in it being cast into a pile on her kitchen bench.

I am ready to agree that we are all drowning in bits of paper, actual and electronic. When the traffic tickets arrive, Fran sharpens her quill, which she uses to stab the keys on her laptop.

Migraine, sick relatives, medical emergency – she’s used the full catalogue of excuses. Bleeding child – running with a bleeding child in her arms for dramatic emphasis. An epileptic dog has been her Get Out Of Jail card more than once. She is particularly proud of the epileptic dog.

At this point I am honour-bound to read out her rights.

‘‘Stop right there, mate. I have to warn you that this conversation may be recorded for use in a column.’’

‘‘Huh, like I care,’’ she replies with a verbal swagger. Her verbal swagger is quite intoxicating.

She swivels her head slightly to spot the approach of a parking ‘‘Nazi’’ down the street, and calculates her window of grace. I am in the presence of greatness.

Fran was slapped with a $400 double fine recently – deceased WOF and Rego – which was particularly unjust because she had just that minute returned from ‘‘treatment’’ in Christchurch.

The ambiguity in her letter is

‘‘An epileptic dog has been her Get Out Of Jail card more than once. She is particularly proud of the epileptic dog.

the touch of a master. Truly skilful liars toss out a teaser word or phrase, and the reader concocts the lie by inference, in this case expanding ‘‘treatment’’ into a full surgical procedure. Knowing Fran, it may have been a pedicure.

In any case, the treatment worked. She credits university with instilling this vital life skill. Her frequent absences on sybaritic field trips involving motorbikes and beaches had to be explained. Hence the note-writing to appease her academic minders.

Some years later, she met a woman who had been an administrator at the university. ‘‘You’re not the Fran Smith?’’ the woman asked, incredulous.

‘‘Well, I’m none-to-thrilled with the stupid alias that Bob has dumped on me, but yes.’’

The woman zeroed in for the kill. ‘‘You do realise that we kept files on every student’s excuses, and yours was bulging. Your grandmother died five times.’’

She underestimated her foe. Fran’s expression softened. ‘‘I come from a large Maori extended family,’’ she cooed, leaning confidently towards her accuser with brass-neck that could make her prime minister.

Genius – boxing her in by playing the PC card. I congratulate Fran, though she’s slightly affronted: ‘‘I do! I do have a huge whanau branch in the tree, as you know.’’ She flicks her eyes sideways, not as a fibber’s giveaway body language, but to check on the ‘‘Nazi’s’’ advance.

Containable, evidently, because Fran gives me a Happy New Year hug and sails off to go shopping.

I need to get our surreal encounter down while it’s fresh, so scamper to a nearby cafe. ‘‘Trim latte?’’ say the barista as soon as I’m in the door. ‘‘And a date scone.’’ I nod sheepishly.

‘‘We haven’t seen much of you lately,’’ she adds without a trace of irony.