It's funny what catches your eye; I'd been sitting within two feet of her for half an hour, but I didn't spot her bright red hair until we started talking about the mountain.
I had come to New Plymouth to visit my friend Vincent, and to break the usual day-long haul up the island to Auckland. He'd told me to watch out for the mountain on the long road west from Wanganui, but all I could make out in the gathering murk was an indistinct rise in the land. I turned inland at Hawera, bleak houses under bleaker skies, and as the road rose across the mountain's curve I began to appreciate its size and strength. When I could lift my eyes from the wet and narrow road, I caught glimpses of snow and rock gleaming through rifts in the clouds, and at last, as I was coasting down the motorway into the city, I had one brief vision of the peak from tip to toe, green and brown and white. Then a traffic light turned red, and the moment passed.
Vincent made me dinner, and with parochial pride in his voice offered to show me round the city centre. I was ready to be disappointed, but discovered that New Plymouth was well supplied with art galleries, parks, pedestrian malls, and the other urban requirements. We tried a pub, retreated from the band's interminable cover of "Knocking on Heaven's Door", and finally found a quieter bar. We talked like men who don't yet know each other well, and at length I turned the conversation round to the mountain: how impressive it was, and what it felt like to live in its shadow. "Is it extinct?" I asked; Vincent didn't know, and that's when she turned around.
"Probably not. We're not sure when it last erupted quite possibly within the last two hundred years. I wouldn't be fooled by that tranquil appearance! Hope you don't mind the interruption, but Taranaki is my specialist subject, and I'm always encouraged when other people show an interest." And I learned that Taranaki was a young volcano, the latest in a series that had risen up and fallen away at quarter-million year intervals, and that her name was Sandra, she was doing a doctorate on its volcanic processes, she worked at the visitor-centre part-time, and why didn't I drop by tomorrow?
Driving out to the National Park the following day, I could see the remnants of the earlier cones lying discarded to the west of my route, and imagined the beauty I saw before me crumpled away while another cone towered in place of Kapuni and Hawera. But I was not yet accustomed to thinking in such intervals, and put the image behind me as I pulled into the carpark. The visitor centre was impressive, though I could have done without the pictures of volcanic fury considering I was standing atop the results.
I found Sandra preparing a slide-show for tourists. At 11.30 sharp, a coach pulled up outside and a gaggle or is it a flock? trooped in. They sat and watched Sandra's presentation, and, having looked through the slides, I sat and watched Sandra as she pressed buttons, waved a pointer, and spoke. She had done this many times before, yet I could hear a surprising passion in her words, and realised that Mt. Taranaki meant much more to her than an academic study or a part-time job. Had she had been born in its sight?
The tourists left for their lunch. "I really enjoyed your lecture," I told her.
"Did you? I think it's pretty boring myself, but we aren't allowed to frighten the tourists."
"Well ... I could tell you love the mountain."
"Could you?" and she shot me a sideways glance. It's hard not to glance sideways at someone standing beside you, I suppose. "You must have been listening carefully, then. Are you doing anything this afternoon?"
Auckland, Schmauckland. "No, not really."
"I'm leading some of the more adventurous tourists part-way around the mountain in half an hour. Want to come along?"
Auckland I can do without, but lunch is rather more indispensable, so I was glad when she pointed me at a sandwich. We ate in a poky back room while the tourists roughed it, eating packed lunches on the bus or on the grass outside. Then we lined them up two abreast and set off to the round-the-mountain track. (I suppose I shouldn't be sounding so superior about these tourists. Though I'd arrived in a car and they in a bus, I from hundreds and they from thousands of kilometres, were we really so different?)
My mild antagonism was soon dispersed by the glistening life of the bush, the joy of walking, and the pleasure of listening to Sandra and throwing in the odd query or comment. The more I heard, the more impressed I became, and I got the chance to talk with her while the tourists made the best of a particularly scenic photo opportunity.
"Why does the mountain mean so much to you?"
"It's funny ... I grew up on a farm just over there, and could never understand why no-one else seemed to feel its presence. My parents would talk about its effect on the weather they called it Egmont in those days or what they'd do if it erupted, but it was always just a thing to them. They weren't alive to it, but I always have been. Isn't it marvellous?"
"Yes, I suppose it is."
"I know it is. Ever since I was small, I've known that I wanted to devote a part of my life to the mountain. I guess that gave me the options of artist or scientist, and I've always inclined to science."
"Would you be offended if I said it sounds like you've found your God?"
"Not offended, no; I've heard worse. But I feel uncomfortable at the idea of appropriating a Maori god. Maybe it's my destiny I've found?" She smiled a little at that, like a montane Mona Lisa; I laughed, perturbing the leaves, and asked what she planned to do when she'd finished her Ph.D.
"Get a research post here, I hope."
"Won't you feel like a bit of a break? See the world, meet people..."
"Fall in love, have kids, and settle down, huh?"
"No, no, I didn't mean that. But ... shift focus for a while."
She smiled again. "This camera has only one F-stop, I'm afraid."
By this time, cameras with a wide variety of focal lengths had captured the scenes laid on below, and we were back on the track. I had little more opportunity to talk with Sandra; when we got back to the visitor centre, she had another slide show, and I had to find a phone, make my excuses to Auckland, and set off on a difficult drive over unfamiliar country with a bad habit of falling down on your car. We exchanged smiles, addresses, promises to keep in touch.
"There's lots of volcanic rock where I live," I reminded her as I stepped into the car.
"Ah, but can you feel it breathe, Brian?" And I watched her scrunch across the gravel and disappear.
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