Bleak City (42 page)

A month after the February quake, Alice had spent an evening on YouTube watching news footage from the day of the quake. It was surreal, the alarms in the background, the wreckage she herself had walked through. It must have seemed surreal for viewers on the day: a city in New Zealand without water, without power, without a properly functioning cellular network. Fallen buildings, people dead, dying, crying, not knowing what to do.

Now, nearly three years later, watching the interviews, she wondered if she would forever be struggling to grasp what had happened in Christchurch. What must it be like for those who had lost people? For people whose injuries had permanent effects? She could walk away from Christchurch and forget it had ever happened, but those people would always wear the scars, in their hearts or on their bodies, and she felt that it would be wrong to ever forget.

The man whose wife was in the CTV building was offered a seat on an air ambulance going back to Christchurch. It had flown a sick child from Christchurch to Starship Hospital. There were no other flights down, all the commercial flights had been cancelled. Flying in to Christchurch, he could see the smoke in the city, the smoke Alice had smelled that day. He never saw his wife again, but he kept calling her cellphone, leaving messages so that if there was a chance she was still alive, she would hear his voice. He wanted her to hear his voice. It was unbearably sweet, and Alice sniffed back tears, wiped them from her eyes and cheeks.

Alice wondered about the child who had been flown up to Starship, how for its parents the day of the quake was much less about the quake, it was about their ill child. Were both on the flight with the child? Or just one? Was that one then in the position of worrying about the other parent, still in Christchurch? For them, the quake was just background noise, another complication in an already complicated day. So many stories, Alice was starting to realise, all different, all painful for different reasons, and she could never hear them all, bear them all. It was too much.

The office was quiet for the morning, the usual uncomfortable silence hanging between Alice and Suzanne. Gerald had hired Alice to take over the running of the office, guided by ‘the old pros’, as he called them. Together, Suzanne and Sylvia had been running Gerald’s office for over a decade, and they had it running smoothly. The systems Alice was learning were well organised, it was easy to find what she needed to find and, unlike her time at Southern Response, she didn’t feel compelled to reorganise things so they made sense. Alice enjoyed the work. There was a lot of contact with the workers and suppliers and it was interesting seeing people’s dreams for their repaired homes coming together.

But she didn’t enjoy working with Suzanne, who, for some reason Alice couldn’t figure out, had taken a dislike to her. Alice had asked Sylvia what Suzanne’s problem was, but Sylvia couldn’t come up with anything concrete. ‘She doesn’t adapt to change well,’ Sylvia finally said, but why she should take that out on Alice was mystifying, especially as from how Suzanne and Sylvia both talked, they both wanted to work less. Surely training up Alice quickly would let them achieve that goal sooner?

It wasn’t that Suzanne was openly cruel or vindictive, it was that she was less than helpful. If Alice was working on something she hadn’t done before, she had to pry every detail out of Suzanne, whereas if Alice was training someone, she would point out to them the pitfalls rather than waiting for them to fall in. Alice had a hard time reconciling the lovely grandmother Charlotte described and the formidable woman she shared an office with.

‘It’s about time,’ Suzanne said, a firmness in her voice Alice was used to hearing directly only at herself. She glanced over to the meeting table in the centre of the room, wondering what it was that she had only just now accomplished to Suzanne’s satisfaction. Suzanne was reading the newspaper. Alice stayed at her desk, sipping her coffee, watching Suzanne, whose mouth was set in a grim line, her eyes drawing together in a scowl.

‘What?’ Alice asked quietly, curious at what had perturbed Suzanne but unsure whether she really wished to engage in conversation about something unpleasant.

Suzanne looked up from the newspaper and across to Alice, her blue eyes gazing into Alice’s. ‘Police are looking into what charges they can press over the CTV building,’ she said.

‘That is about time,’ Alice said, scooting her chair over to the table and then trying to read the newspaper article upside down. Suzanne spun the paper around so Alice could read it properly.

‘If nothing can be done to hold someone in the engineering profession accountable for that building,’ Suzanne said, ‘then there’s not really much point having a professional body setting standards, is there?’

Alice glanced up from the article. ‘No, there isn’t,’ she said, looking back down. ‘It says IPENZ hasn’t yet determined whether or not there was a professional breach.’ Alice turned the paper back around to face Suzanne. ‘It’s disgusting, really, that after three years, no decisions have been made.’

‘You were doing an engineering degree, weren’t you?’ Suzanne said. Alice felt uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

Alice nodded.

‘Why didn’t you go back?’

Alice thought about the many reasons why she had decided to stop studying back in 2011. Even if she knew the definitive reason, the moment when she had decided she wasn’t going back, would she tell Suzanne? ‘It was hard keeping going with study after the February quake,’ she finally said. ‘The roads, the temporary lecture theatres, just everything taking so long.’ It sounded weak, even to her.

‘Hmmm,’ Suzanne said. ‘It is hard to start studying again once you’ve stopped.’ Her tone was dismissive and Alice felt her own doubts about her decisions sweep over her. She flushed.

‘That’s not...’ Alice said.

‘It’s exactly why I don’t want to see Charlotte lose her momentum,’ Suzanne pushed on. ‘She did very well last year, should do just as well this year, as long as she stays motivated. People who take a year off between high school and university too often end up taking off another year, then a decade, then the whole of their lives.’

‘I don’t...’ Alice started to say.

‘She needs to work hard at her studies,’ Suzanne said, apparently oblivious to Alice’s protest. ‘She has a good future ahead of her, she can be anything she wants.’

Alice couldn’t remember Charlotte ever talking about having a year off. She did know Charlotte was having trouble settling in to her last year of high school. Sean had moved into a flat and Charlotte wasn’t happy about being home alone, waiting for her parents to come home, then figuring out ways to avoid them when they were home. The insurance claim had not progressed and her parents couldn’t get any information out of EQC as to when they could expect a decision of one sort or another. They had tried to get their insurance company involved as they were sure their house would be overcap, but the insurance company said they had to wait for EQC’s decision. Did Suzanne know how unhappy Charlotte was? Was it worth trying to tell her? Probably not. One thing Alice had noticed about adults in the last couple of years was that they never took the problems of young people seriously. And Suzanne was no different. If anything, she was worse.

Suzanne went home at lunchtime, leaving Alice to run the office alone for the rest of the day. That was okay, there was plenty of work and Alice felt like she flew through it without Suzanne lurking in the background, judging her every move. Before long, it was five o’clock and time to go home.

Roadworks on the way home meant traffic was slow, leaving Alice to crawl along in second gear. She ended up behind a bus that was advertising the All Right? campaign. All Right? was a mental health awareness programme that had started around the second anniversary of the February quake. The three-year anniversary had been at the weekend and there were posters all over the city saying it was all right to grieve, to feel frustrated, to feel blue every now and then, to feel overwhelmed some days, or to feel pretty stoked. They were trying to cover the whole range of emotions people might experience while recovering from a disaster, to make people realise it was all normal. Alice had certainly felt all those things the buses, bus shelters and random posters were talking about. And she thought she was all right, but what Suzanne had said about not getting back on course with her university degree was bothering her.

Alice knew she wasn’t going back to university. The engineering profession no longer appealed to her. It wasn’t just the role engineers had played in the deaths in the city, it was also that some engineers seemed happy to recommend cheap repairs or dismiss damage as historic because they were getting so much business from the EQC and insurance companies. IPENZ was investigating one engineer working for EQC because numerous people had laid complaints about how he would show up for a brief inspection of a property and then dismiss damage as historic or claim the home was a leaky home, when the homeowners had clear evidence that the home had no weather tightness issues before the earthquakes. But that process was taking a long time, and Alice felt sorry for the people whose lives were on hold while IPENZ deliberated. Were those people All Right?

Lindsay and Kevin were having trouble finding a structural engineer to do an assessment of their house. They had told their insurance company they wanted to get an independent report done on the house, which the insurance company had agreed to, but any engineering firm they got in touch with had a waiting list months long. In the meantime, the insurance company kept putting pressure on them to give them the report. Surely the insurance company knew very well how hard it was to schedule an engineer’s visit in Christchurch?

Between the pressure the insurance company was applying and the difficulty of finding an independent engineer, Alice was worried that Lindsay and Kevin wouldn’t get a fair deal from their insurance policy, that the house wasn’t going to be repaired properly. And if that was happening all over Christchurch, it would be a long time before the city would be all right once again.

Lindsay had been awake on and off through the night, aware of the vast volumes of rain falling on the city, listening to the steady patter on the driveway outside the bedroom window. The house she and Alice had lived in before moving in with Kevin had a steel roof, and Lindsay had loved listening to the rain falling on it, something she had missed in this house, with its heavy concrete tile roof. It was the only thing she didn’t like about the house when they moved in. Now? There were the cracks and the dust, the sloping floors, the jammed windows, the back door that wouldn’t stay shut unless it was locked. She still liked the house and looked forward to the day when it would be fixed, although that picture was getting harder and harder to hold firmly in her mind.

The rain had slowed by six-thirty when Lindsay got up to go to the toilet and put the jug on. She was sitting in the kitchen sipping at a coffee when Alice came through.

‘The street’s flooded,’ Alice said.

‘No way,’ Lindsay said, standing up and putting her coffee on the table.

‘Way,’ Alice said. ‘Come see.’

Alice’s bedroom was on the front of the house facing the road and Lindsay went through to look out. It was true, the road was covered in water and there was even water up the start of their driveway. How far up the street did it go? Lindsay had grown up in this part of town and remembered the occasional high tide or heavy rain that caused the river to flood and creep up the streets, but never as far as this. She couldn’t remember it ever going higher than the half dozen or so houses closest to the river. A car passing by was going too fast and sent a wave washing up driveways. That would not be appreciated closer to the river.

She made Kevin a coffee and took it through to him, gently nudged him awake.

‘The street’s flooded,’ she told him, then repeated herself as he started to wake up.

‘No way,’ he said. He pulled himself up in bed and swallowed a mouthful of coffee. He stepped out of bed and pulled aside the curtains. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘I wonder how your parents are.’

Lindsay hadn’t thought of that and immediately went back into the kitchen to call her parents. The river had broken its banks there, too, but it hadn’t reached their house. Well that was something, at least. Over in Avondale, the Bennetts were fine, which was a relief. Lindsay’s grandad was increasingly frail and her grandmother was finding it difficult looking after him. Although their street and a good part of the section were flooded, the house was not. One less thing to worry about for the day.

Kevin came through, dressed up warm. ‘I’m going to drive around and have a look, check on your parents and grandparents.’

‘Grandma and Grandad are okay,’ Lindsay said, putting down the phone. ‘Mum and Dad, too, but the water’s pretty high. Hopefully it won’t keep raining.’

‘We’ll check on all of them,’ Kevin said. ‘See for ourselves.’

Lindsay nodded. Lindsay’s grandparents had a habit of minimising any difficulties they were having, it would be good to see that everything was okay with their own eyes.

Alice came through to the kitchen and said she would go, too, but Lindsay said no, she would go, Alice could stay home with the kids. It looked like Alice was going to protest, but then had second thoughts.

They took Kevin’s work van, with Kevin driving. He backed slowly out onto the road and turned to go away from the river, towards Neil and Heather’s house. Getting out onto the main road wasn’t a big deal and the road to Neil and Heather’s was clear. But as Heather had said, the river had broken its banks and the road around the corner was flooded.

Neil was outside the house and he, Lindsay and Kevin walked along the road to the bridge across the river. ‘It’s going down,’ Neil said. The rushing waters were a thick ripple of brown. ‘It was much higher two hours ago. We’ve been very lucky, but a lot of places downriver have had water through them.’

‘Is it the quakes?’ Kevin said. ‘Is it because the land is lower? I thought this side of town was a bit higher rather than lower.’