Bleak City (29 page)

‘Yeah, I know,’ Kevin said. ‘I’m just saying that not everyone has a mate who knows a guy who can get you a kitchen and bathroom cheap.’

A few weeks later, Neil and Heather had moved out of their house for repairs, their expectations high, riding on the good result for Sonya’s flat.

Now Kevin was under their house in the crawl space, clad in disposable overalls, looking like a crime scene technician. Even though he was slender, he was finding it difficult moving around under there, they could hear him grunting and coughing as he moved along. Occasionally he swore as something went wrong. It was slow going. The house was starting to smell dusty, they would have to air it out once Kevin came back up through the manhole.

Finally he passed up the digital camera and the torch, then pulled himself up. Neil and Heather were silent as Kevin removed the coveralls, rolled them up into a ball. Heather tucked them into a plastic supermarket bag, which she tied closed.

‘I’ll put the jug on,’ she said. She needed the distraction. If it was good news, Kevin would be telling them right away.

In the kitchen, they sipped at their coffees and Kevin showed them some of the photos from under the house. There were several cracks at different points in the foundation.

‘We’ll have to get someone to have a look but I think what they’ve done is glued the cracks on the outside, but not all the way through,’ Kevin said. ‘There’s one just near the corner of the kitchen we should have a look at from the other side.’

They all went outside to the area Kevin had mentioned. There was a faint trace of the repaired crack beneath the paint that covered the skirting foundation. Kevin bent down and scraped away at the soil below the repaired crack, scooping out handfuls of soil and revealing that the crack continued below the ground, unrepaired.

Heather felt like she was going to cry and Neil spat out string of words, including a couple Heather had seldom heard from his lips.

‘That’s putting it mildly,’ Kevin said.

‘That’s what this repair programme is supposed to be for,’ Neil said. He put an arm around Heather’s shoulder. ‘To stop the cowboys from doing cowboy work like this. Instead we’ve got this, this, I don’t know what you’d call it. Amateur hour.’

‘I heard someone call it being fletchered,’ Kevin said.

‘Fletchered,’ Heather said. ‘It would almost be funny if it wasn’t happening to you.’

‘If it’s any comfort,’ Kevin said, ‘I don’t think you’re alone.’

‘No, that’s no comfort,’ Heather said. ‘What do we do?’

They decided that Neil would call Fletchers on Monday, bypassing the unresponsive project manager, and let them know the work hadn’t been done properly. Whether that would get them anywhere remained to be seen.

Kevin helped them go through all their paperwork, which went some way to getting their thoughts in order, but overall Neil and Heather weren’t feeling very good about whatever process they would have to go through to get their house fixed. Properly.

Later, Lindsay and Alice dropped by with the rest of the grandchildren. Alice had picked Cody and Ella up from Sonya’s earlier in the day, and they had been playing with Olivia and Jack for the afternoon.

‘They have to be home by six,’ Alice said. ‘But that gives us time for an early dinner.’

Heather was pleased to see Cody and Ella, she had missed them once they moved back into their own home. Although Sonya seemed to be all right with them seeing more of their grandparents, it was still only about once a month. Not enough as far as Heather was concerned. They were lovely children who got along well with the younger Olivia and Jack.

There was mention of buying a couple of hot chickens, but that was drowned out by the children’s requests for fish and chips. Fish and chips it would be.

Alice took the children through to the lounge to keep them amused while Kevin and Neil went to get dinner. Heather and Lindsay cleared the dining table of their EQC paperwork.

‘What’s the story with the house?’ Lindsay said.

‘Foundation’s not been repaired properly, looks like,’ Heather said.

‘In what way?’

‘Cracks glued on the outside only.’

They talked about options. Lindsay said one of the mothers at school had a house where all the plaster cracks on the inside of the house had been painted over. The repair of the cracks was on the scope of works, but it hadn’t been done. ‘You should get a lawyer,’ Lindsay said. ‘Let them take care of everything.’

‘But that costs money, and we still don’t know what’s going to happen with the section. We may have to choose between a lawyer for the section or for the house.’

‘I wish I’d stayed at uni,’ Lindsay said. ‘Finished my degree, then I’d be a bit more useful now.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t,’ Heather said.

‘But you were so set on me going to uni, making something of myself.’

Heather was quiet, considering if that’s how it was at the time. ‘There was an opportunity,’ she said at last. ‘University was still relatively cheap, I wanted you to take advantage of that.’

‘The way you didn’t,’ Lindsay said. There was a hint of accusation in her voice, but it wasn’t matched by her gaze. She looked amused more than anything.

‘You know the sixties bypassed Christchurch,’ Heather said. ‘I think it was the eighties before girls going to university became a real option.’

‘On this side of town anyway,’ Lindsay said. ‘What would you do? Right now, if you could have your very own university degree, what would it be?’

‘Law,’ Heather said. ‘Definitely law. It would come in handy right now.’

Lindsay laughed. ‘You and half the people in this part of town,’ she said. ‘That would make for some very crowded lecture theatres.’

‘Has Alice said anything about going back to uni?’

‘Not something we talk about,’ Lindsay said. ‘She gets defensive.’

‘Because she feels you expect her to go back,’ Heather said. ‘She feels that pressure. Maybe the same way you felt that pressure?’

Lindsay shook her head. ‘No, I’m not applying pressure. I just want her to do something that has a future. This job she has now, that’s going to wind down, the rebuild’s only going to last so long.’

Heather raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you sure about that?’ she said. ‘If there are other places like ours, there’s going to be years worth of work, repairs of the repairs, and so on.’

Lindsay shrugged and smiled at her mother. ‘If I was Alice’s age, would you want me building a career in the insurance industry?’

‘No, I wouldn’t,’ Heather said slowly. ‘But I would be very careful about letting her figure things out for herself.’

‘You mean the way you’re letting me figure out the raising of my own daughter for myself?’ Lindsay said.

Heather knew she had gone too far. She felt something needed to be said, but she didn’t know how to say it. That was the thing with Lindsay, they usually had a fairly easygoing relationship, until Heather stepped across a line she was never good at seeing. Whereas with Sonya, the line was clear, there was a very short list of topics they could discuss without entering the conflict zone.

‘There’s Dad and Kevin,’ Lindsay said as Kevin’s van pulled up the driveway.

Relieved at the end to the conversation, Heather went through to tell the others dinner had arrived.

That night, when Heather was trying to fall asleep she found herself thinking not of the house but of her daughters, and of what she had expected from both of them. When they were growing up, Heather was certain that she only wanted them to be happy, but now, looking back, she could see how she had, maybe, been a little heavy-handed in how she had tried to guide them. She could see this now, because she could see Lindsay doing the same thing with Alice. That was the difficulty of being the mother of daughters, how did you separate your own distant dreams for yourself from wanting the absolute best for them? It was difficult to balance seeing the pitfalls of their choices with knowing it was good for them to figure things out for themselves. It had been so much easier with Jason, he had always been interested in his father’s line of work, and training as a mechanic had been a foregone conclusion. Heather had been more anxious about Jason making a mistake over who he married than over his choice of career.

Heather had always been prone to worrying, while Neil had been the bright, cheery one, able to make her laugh. Whatever they had gone through in the four decades they had been married, they had always been able to look forward to the future, to see that what was going on would pass.

Neil had been more and more quiet the longer they were back in the house. She had found herself more often in his usual role, trying to be light and cheery, making him laugh, making the future look bright. She found it tiring, she was running out of reasons to be upbeat and cheery. When he finally brought up the possibility that there was something more wrong with the house than the few items they had during the inspection, it was clear he had been thinking about it for some time, given the lengthy list of faults he described.

She tried telling herself the house wasn’t important, in the end, her family was. That was true, her family was more important to her than anything else, but they did need a place to live that wasn’t going to, in the long run, wear down their health and drain their finances. The house was demanding attention she would rather pour into her children, her grandchildren and her parents, and she didn’t think there was going to be an easy solution. Nothing was easy, especially now that they had been fletchered.

Although the first land zoning announcements were made in June 2011, it wasn’t until fifteen months later that the first red zone offers were made to people who didn’t have insurance: fifty percent of the 2007 rateable value of the land. Some of these people had bare sections, which couldn’t be insured so had no EQC cover. Others didn’t have insurance for various reasons, from deliberately choosing not to have insurance to having missed payments due to illness or other difficult situations; these people were offered nothing for their houses.

Alice’s grandparents finally received the news that their section was red zoned, but they hadn’t received an offer. But the news of the half-price offers came on the heels of the discovery of the poor state of repairs to their house and both were looking stressed, like they hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a long time. Alice and Lindsay decided to arrange a family dinner for the weekend so everyone could spend some time together, take their minds off what was going on with houses, land, city. Lindsay wanted to have a barbecue, but although technically September was spring, the weather was too unpredictable to guarantee a barbecue wouldn’t result in one miserable man cooking meat in what passed for shelter just inside the open garage. Alice persuaded her to do a big roast meal instead, and arranged for Heather to do salads and Sonya and Carla to do a dessert each.

Alice was looking forward to having the family all together for an afternoon, even though it would be somewhat chaotic, squeezing all the adults around the dining table and keeping the children amused in the lounge. Kevin had set up a card table for the four kids in the lounge so they didn’t have to endure all the adult talk. Hopefully it wouldn’t rain so they could run around outside.

Then, just an hour before the others were due to start arriving, Sonya texted Alice to say she wouldn’t be able to make it. There was no explanation, just that she wouldn’t be coming, and her cancellation irritated Lindsay, whose dark mood started to grate on Alice. ‘I’ll go over, see what’s going on,’ Alice said.

‘No, just forget it,’ Lindsay said. ‘I’m tired of being the one trying all the time.’

Alice insisted, she would be able to bring Cody and Ella back.

Sonya looked like she hadn’t slept well. She was still in her pyjamas and hadn’t taken off her makeup from the day before, her mascara and eyeliner dark smears under her eyes.

‘I’ve hardly slept,’ she said, turning away from the door and walking through to the kitchen. Alice shut the front door behind her and followed. Sonya had the jug on to boil and mixed two instant coffees. ‘Cody and Ella are in their rooms, I’ve told them to do some reading, I need it quiet.’

‘What happened?’ Alice said. She sat down at the dining table.

‘Up too late,’ Sonya said. ‘Couldn’t stay asleep.’ The jug finished boiling and Sonya poured the coffees, handed one to Alice, then sat down at the dining table.

‘Anything in particular?’

Sonya shook her head, although Alice didn’t know whether that meant there was nothing specific or that it wasn’t anything Sonya wanted to talk about. Whatever was going on, Alice wasn’t going to pry, it seemed to her that if people really wanted to talk about something that they would, if you spent enough time with them. That was certainly the case with Charlotte, now that she and Alice were spending more time together.

‘Sometimes I think I need to get out of this place,’ Sonya finally said.

Alice looked around. ‘The flat or Christchurch?’ she said.

‘Christchurch,’ Sonya said.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Dunedin,’ Sonya said. ‘It will be good for the kids to be closer to their dad, Cody’ll be a teenager next year, can you believe it? He needs his dad. And I’m thinking about doing some study.’

Sonya worked at a clothing shop, a job she had been in ever since Ella had started school. Alice had never thought of her wanting an alternative. But these earthquakes had shaken people up, made them think about their lives, where they were, where they were going. ‘What would you do?’

‘I’m thinking nursing,’ Sonya said. ‘I should be able to get a student allowance, help with the kids, and they’re at a good age for me to do some study, especially if we’re near their dad.’

‘When?’

Sonya shrugged. ‘Just thoughts at the moment. A lot to do to get there.’ She seemed overwhelmed at the thought of everything she would have to do to pack up and move. ‘Probably just dreaming,’ she mumbled.

‘Well check it out,’ Alice said, trying not to sound too perky and pushy, which is what Lindsay would do if she knew Sonya was making some plans for her future. Lindsay would push too far. ‘You don’t have to decide today. Hey can I take Cody and Ella? That way you can just rest for the afternoon?’ Alice said.