Bleak City (2 page)

Cold winds off the Pacific Ocean batter the city of Christchurch every winter, blowing their bitter breath across the Canterbury Plains from the east and south. During Alice’s first winter away from home, these winds carried more moisture than the ground could absorb, filling gutters and leaving pools of water that persisted even on dry days. The air was always wet or damp, never dry, never warm. In her cold flat at the end of each day, Alice despaired. She would tuck down into her bed, weighed down by her duvet and two blankets. Why had she thought leaving home was a good idea? There she would be warm and dry, maybe studying in the lounge in front of the wood fire rather than spending as long as she could each day in the warmth of the university library.

Alice was eighteen, nearly nineteen, and in her first year at university, studying engineering. In high school, her maths and physics scores were excellent and her teachers had encouraged her to study engineering. It was good advice, better than she got at home. Her mother had completed a single year of a law degree, sitting her exams while pregnant with Alice, and the only real advice she offered was ‘Don’t get pregnant’. Her stepfather was a painter and plasterer and had done trade courses at the local polytech. University was, he said, an alien planet he knew nothing about. Alice enjoyed her courses, they were hard work, satisfying when she got it right, motivational when she didn’t.

She saw her family at least once a week. She had worked with her stepfather in his painting and plastering business during weekends and school holidays since she was fourteen, and she continued to work with him on Saturdays if he had too much work on, which he often did.

On those evenings when she buried herself in her bed trying to stay warm, she told herself being away from home was a good thing, she was getting along better with her mother and was missing her little sister and brother, rather than finding them annoying.

Living with people she wasn’t related to and learning about how they looked at the world made her think about her own world. That was another good thing, maybe it was helping her to grow up? Mature? Whatever it is that people do in those years when they’re not really teenagers any more but they’re not adults either. At first, she couldn’t put her finger on what was missing, only that something was. Whatever it was, it made her restless, as though the ground under the feet of her life wasn’t nearly as stable as she had grown up thinking it was.

After a couple of months away from home, Alice had decided to look up her father. It wasn’t hard finding him on the whitepages website, after all, his surname was the same as hers and Moorhouse wasn’t all that common. He was listed with an M, for Michelle, his second wife. She did remember that much, him remarrying while he lived in Auckland. She had seen him a couple of times while he lived there, flying up to stay with him for long weekends. He and Michelle had moved back to Christchurch and she had seen them once after that, then nothing. At first, she asked her mother when she would see him again, but after months of non-specific answers, she stopped asking.

She decided it was best to ring him one evening, but each day she would talk herself out of it, her stomach pitching with the weight of the decision. Should she just leave things as they were? Finally, though, her curiosity overwhelmed her caution and she made the call.

A woman answered and Alice could hear children in the background as the woman called for Andrew. More brothers and sisters? She wasn’t ready for that. She was about to hang up, concluding that calling was a mistake, when there he was, an oddly familiar voice on the other end of the phone line.

‘It’s Alice,’ she said.

‘Alice.’ It was all he said, drawn out, like he was mentally flicking through all the Alices he knew.

‘Your daughter,’ she said, cringing, wishing she had thought to hang up when the woman answered. Or not call at all.

‘Yes, I know,’ he laughed. ‘I’m just surprised. I didn’t think...’

‘I’d like to see you,’ she blurted.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘How about lunch one day next week? I’m in the city. If you’re nearby, of course. Where are you?’

‘In Christchurch,’ she said. She told him she was at university, what she was studying and where she was living. And there didn’t seem to be much else to say at that point, so they agreed to meet the following Tuesday at a café near his office, not too far from the Central Library.

It was an awkward meeting, and short, just long enough for each of them to study one another’s features, looking for commonalities and differences. She had his hair, dark and curly, although the length and weight of hers pulled the curls out into waves. His eyes were darker than hers, as much grey as blue. Andrew was working to a deadline he had forgotten about the night she called, and he said he didn’t want to cancel on her or postpone them meeting up. But it was a start, and for the next few months they settled into a pattern, meeting for lunch every second Tuesday at different places near the law firm where he worked.

Those lunchtime conversations became more comfortable, but were never deep, always skirting the topics Alice had started thinking about more and more since the night she first called Andrew’s house and heard the sound of his other children in the background. Why had Andrew been so distant, missing for all those years when he had been less than ten kilometres away? Why hadn’t she been reintroduced to Andrew’s second wife? Why didn’t she know her half-siblings? There were four, three boys and a girl, but she hadn’t met them yet and Andrew never gave any indication of when she would. But they were slowly getting to know one another. After more than a decade of no contact, she told herself, of course it was going to be slow.

The last days of summer had quickly cooled into autumn, which had then faded into winter, grey days, the sky heavy with clouds that dumped their rain until the ground was sodden, and then kept going. The ground was too wet to take any more, and pools of water formed in parks and yards all over the city. Drains clogged with autumn leaves regularly backed up, flooding gutters and sometimes roads.

It was a Tuesday in August and they hadn’t agreed on a place. Instead, Alice was to meet Andrew outside his office at a quarter to one. But it was getting close to one o’clock and there was still no sign of him. Alice was outside, where it was raining and a cold wind from the east made it impossible to shelter from the rain. Her layers of clothes weren’t enough to keep her warm and her feet were icy, in spite of the thick socks and boots she was wearing. Alice went into the building and brushed off her raincoat as best as she could before getting into the lift.

Upstairs, the receptionist took an instant dislike to Alice, carrying out a survey of her from top to waist, which was as far as the receptionist could see over the giant stone reception desk that arced across the foyer. The woman was about a decade older than Alice, maybe as old as thirty. Her long blonde hair had been fiercely straightened and swung like a pendulum as she turned her head. She was wearing enough makeup that Alice could see it lying over her skin, lining her eyes, dusting her cheeks, making her delicate features appear older. Maybe she was closer to Alice’s age than thirty, all that makeup made it hard to tell. The woman’s head came to just above the edge of the desk and Alice pulled herself up to her full height. She said she was there to see Andrew.

‘Can I say who’s here?’ the receptionist said, reaching for the phone. There was an edge of disdain in her voice, and she studied Alice the way someone might study an enemy, sizing them up, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Alice wasn’t used to be examined in that way, of seeing someone try to determine how she fit into their agenda. She decided not to play.

‘Alice,’ she said, ending her single word firmly, indicating there wasn’t more to come.

The receptionist looked at her sharply, waiting for more, but Alice wasn’t going to give her full name, that would give the game away. She simply stared back.

‘Alice who?’ the woman finally said, the edge in her voice sharpening up a notch. Alice couldn’t understand why she was being perceived as a threat, but then realised: every second Tuesday afternoon for three months Andrew had been going out of the office for lunch. The receptionist wanted to know who his regular lunch date was. Was it normal for receptionists to be so nosy about the people they worked for? To feel so possessive of them?

‘Just Alice,’ Alice said, keeping her voice even and non-threatening. ‘Andrew knows who I am.’ She gave what she hoped was a knowing smile, and the receptionist looked down and away, uncomfortable in the presence of her apparent rival. Bizarre.

The receptionist dialled the number, said only, ‘Alice is here to see you,’ and Alice noticed that her voice softened, that of someone wanting to please. At this point, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman had added ‘darling’ to the end of her message.

The receptionist hung up, then said, ‘He’ll only be a minute, you can wait over there.’ She pointed towards a sofa placed to look out onto the city, over the bare branches of the trees lining the river, stretching up into the grey sky.

‘Thanks,’ Alice said and remained standing at the reception desk, looking down at the receptionist. She wasn’t blocking anyone’s way, so why not?

It was only a minute before Andrew was walking down the hallway towards her, pulling on a raincoat. She met him halfway, over the receptionist’s objections, and kissed Andrew on the cheek before turning to walk alongside him out into reception. Andrew stopped at the reception desk, where the receptionist smiled up at him, demurely, like some wife-in-waiting in a Jane Austen novel. To Alice’s surprise, Andrew smiled back broadly. ‘I’ll be back in an hour, Kate,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Kate,’ Alice called back as she and Andrew walked away towards the lifts. Andrew gave her a funny look while they waited, but then the bell rang and the doors slid open. They said nothing inside. Alice was thinking about him flirting with the receptionist, because that was what it looked like to her. Why would he flirt back if he wasn’t interested? When he talked about his second family, he seemed happy enough, well as happy as Alice’s mother was with Kevin and the little kids. But who could tell? The next door neighbours seemed happy until the day the husband left to move in with some woman he had met through his job. ‘I know what it’s like,’ Alice’s mum had said to the wife. How had she known? Was Alice’s dad someone who would cheat? Who had cheated?

At the building entrance, they both stopped, pulled their hoods up and zipped their raincoats, readying themselves for the outdoors. ‘Where to?’ Andrew said.

‘Japanese,’ Alice said. ‘Just around the corner. The one we went to before.’

Andrew nodded. ‘Sure.’

Outside they walked quickly, keeping their heads down until they reached the restaurant. There was only one occupied table, which was typical for a winter weekday in Christchurch. The weather discouraged people from coming into the city and encouraged the city’s workers to stay in their warm, dry offices.

A waitress seated them at a table for two by the window and before they could ask there was a pot of tea and two cups on the table. Alice was grateful for the hot drinks, said thank you and quickly poured them both cups. She wrapped her hands around the hot cup and watched as Andrew browsed the menu. Alice had already decided, she was having the same thing she had last time they were there, but she glanced down at the menu as though there were other choices she was interested in. She wanted to observe his reaction to what she was about to say.

‘She’s got a thing for you,’ Alice said.

Andrew looked up from the menu, then around the restaurant, confused.

‘The receptionist. Kate.’

‘She’s like that with everyone,’ Andrew said dismissively. He looked back down at the menu.

‘Not with me she wasn’t,’ Alice said.

‘Everyone male,’ Andrew said. So he did see it.

‘It’s not exactly a great idea to flirt with someone like that,’ Alice said.

‘I wasn’t flirting.’ He folded the menu and put it aside. She had annoyed him.

The waitress interrupted them and they ordered, handing back their menus. Andrew poured more tea for each of them.

‘Yes you were.’

‘No I wasn’t. How are your studies going? Holidays in a couple of weeks, isn’t it? Lots of studying to do before exams start?’ His voice was light, he definitely wanted to move on from the topic of Kate or flirting or something there he wanted to avoid. Which was probably normal for any man talking to his daughter. Maybe.

Alice took a sip of her tea. ‘I’m looking forward to a break,’ she said.

‘Plans?’

‘I’ll work,’ she said. ‘Save up for next year.’ But in her head it was niggling. She wanted to know. ‘Did you cheat on Mum?’

He was sipping his tea when she asked and nearly choked on the mouthful. ‘Wait, what? Is this about me flirting with the receptionist?’

‘So you were flirting?’

He sighed deeply, exasperated. ‘No, I wasn’t. And even if I was, it was nothing. There’s nothing wrong with flirting, and I wasn’t flirting.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘Where’s this coming from? Did your mother tell you something?’

‘No, she never says anything about the two of you.’ Alice realised he had just said that there was something to say on the topic, and Andrew realised it too. He sat back in his seat, resigned.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s why we split up.’

‘Who with?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I’m sure it mattered to Mum.’

‘Of course it did, but after all this time,’ he said, ‘it really doesn’t.’

His tone was final and the look on his face set, challenging her to continue, warning her not to. It annoyed her, especially as she recognised the tactic she used on her mother when Lindsay was trying to get something through to her by repeating the same thing over and over again. Alice knew that being direct with Andrew wouldn’t work, just as it never worked for her mother. She needed to try a tangential approach.