Bleak City (50 page)

She needed to make decisions. No one was putting pressure on her, no one but herself. At first, after she left university, Lindsay had tried to talk to her about why she had decided to do so. But it always felt like Lindsay was trying to talk her into going back, so Alice discouraged those conversations. She did talk to Gerald and Sylvia about it, they didn’t really seem to judge one way or the other, but she could only get so far, she wasn’t sure herself why she had decided to leave university, it was more a feeling that staying was no longer possible. Now, four years later, she had worked in a café, in the insurance industry and for her grandfather’s building company. After all that, the only thing she knew for certain was that going back to university and continuing with her engineering degree was not an option.

She had started running more often over the summer. She had found it hard to go more than once a week the last couple of years, working full time, feeling so overwhelmed by the circumstances Lindsay and Kevin found themselves in and looking around, seeing other people in the family going through similar things. But Charlotte had pestered her to make the time and lately they were running three nights a week and Sunday mornings.

It was Sunday morning and Charlotte met Alice at the house. Charlotte had her restricted licence and was enjoying the freedom of being able to drive herself anywhere she wanted to go. Charlotte wanted to run the City to Surf, the annual walking and running event that started in the city and finished at the beach, but since the quake it had started in the southwest of the city, at Pioneer Stadium and ended at Ferrymead. So not the City to Surf, more like the Spreydon to Ferrymead, which just didn’t sound right to Alice. She was holding out for the return of the real thing, she told Charlotte, she would see it as normality finally returning to the city. Charlotte didn’t feel as strongly about doing the ‘right’ City to Surf as Alice did, but she understood why Alice did and said yes, they would do the first real City to Surf together, and until then, they would just keep practising.

Alice wondered why they hadn’t taken the start of the event back to the city centre. The city was open, after all, and there was a lot happening, new buildings going up all the time, it was looking great. She thought it might be because of the state of the eastern suburbs. The City to Surf drew publicity, and having people running through suburbs that were still in a woeful state following the quake would reveal the lie of how well the rebuild was going.

For the morning, Alice and Charlotte had decided to go up the Rapaki Track and back down the Huntsbury Track. It was about ten kilometres all up, but there was a café at the bottom of the hill that did a pretty good brunch.

They left Charlotte’s car near the café, then started towards the road that led up to the track, their warmup. The day was going to be hot, and they were starting early to avoid overheating.

At the gate that marked the start of the track, Alice and Charlotte began jogging up the hill. The day warmed up quicker than expected and when they reached the saddle that looked down onto the Avoca Valley and the estuary, they stopped to take a drink. They sprinted to the top of the track, where there was a slight breeze.

On the run down, Alice told Charlotte she had decided not to go back to finish her engineering degree.

‘Everyone expects me to,’ Alice said, ‘but you’re not surprised. Why not?’

‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte said. ‘I just can’t see you doing it.’

‘Well what can you see me doing?’ Alice said. ‘Because I could use some help in that area.’

‘Why? Aren’t you going to stay with Gerald?’

‘For now,’ Alice said. ‘But I need to figure out something else, I don’t think I want to be filing paperwork and making phone calls forever.’

‘Well what then?’

‘I don’t know,’ Alice said. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Hey I still have a year of high school to go,’ Charlotte said. ‘I don’t need to make up my mind for another year.’ Charlotte had failed her exams the previous year and was repeating Year 13. But she had switched schools and was feeling much better about the change.

‘If you don’t make up your mind, there’s always accounting!’ Alice said. Charlotte’s parents were both accountants.

‘No way!’ Charlotte said and sprinted ahead of Alice.

Alice caught up to her.

‘You know what I hate about now?’ Charlotte said.

‘What do you mean by now?’

‘Now. This part of my life,’ Charlotte said. ‘I hate that I have to make a decision about what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life.’

‘Do you?’ Alice said. ‘I mean, what says we can’t change?’

Charlotte thought about that for a moment. ‘You’d have to go back to university, get another degree.’

‘That’s what they tell you at school, but most of the people I’ve been working with have never been near university,’ Alice said. Her friends from uni, from that first year, had finished their degrees and quite a few of them still didn’t have reliable jobs. So not only were they doing the type of office work that Alice was doing, they were also paying off student loans. Although not going back to university in 2011 had almost been an accident, something she had only half decided, it had turned out better for her, because she knew, without a doubt, that engineering was not for her, and she had discovered that while earning money, not while accumulating student debt.

‘I don’t think my parents would be too happy if I didn’t go to university,’ Charlotte said.

‘Do you want to go?’

‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte said. ‘I don’t want to do commerce. That’s what Mum and Dad want me to do.’

‘What do you want to do?’ Alice said.

Charlotte shrugged uncertainly, but there was a glimmer in her eyes. She had something in mind. ‘I’m really enjoying my writing courses.’

‘No one makes a living writing,’ Alice said, and cringed inwardly. It was something her mother would say.

‘I’d mix it with something else,’ Charlotte said. ‘I’m thinking of doing a science degree, then I’d go to Otago, they have a science communication course. Maybe do science journalism.’

‘Wow, you’re really serious about this,’ Alice said, surprised at how well-formed Charlotte’s plans were.

It was time Alice started formulating her own plan.

The Canterbury Home Repair Programme run by Fletcher EQR and the private insurers’ project management organisations were, in theory, supposed to make the recovery process easier for the region’s homeowners. The idea was that the insurer, or EQC in the case of the CHRP, would manage everything, get the job done and get people back into their homes as soon as possible. But as the months and years passed, it was clear to Alice that this strategy had been put in place to contain costs for the insurers and EQC, not to make their customers’ lives better.

In February, Lindsay and Kevin’s insurance company had sent a builder to tender for the repairs to the house. During the site visit, Kevin pointed out damage that the builder didn’t seem to be aware of. They had heard nothing more about temporary accommodation, a conversation Lindsay said it would be difficult to have, about how this insurance company was going to force them to move out of their house and carry out repairs they didn’t agree with.

Alice had broached the idea of making a Privacy Act request to the insurance company for their file, and Lindsay and Kevin had both agreed to go ahead with that. Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the information, which the insurance company had twenty working days to supply.

In March 2015, one insurer started telling its customers they would be cash settled, that there was no longer the option to be put into their managed repair programme. This was especially upsetting for those who had recently been made overcap, just holding on to hope that their dealings with their private insurer would be better than those with the EQC. For those people, being told they would be cash settled after all that time fighting EQC to get their houses assessed properly was a bitter conclusion to the whole sorry saga.

‘That wouldn’t be too bad,’ Lindsay said, when Alice told her about the cash settlement news. It was the end of the day and Lindsay and Alice were making dinner. ‘After so long, at least a cash payment is a way out of whatever hell their insurance company is putting them through.’

‘Yes, but will people be paid enough to repair their house properly?’ Alice said. The guy across the road was in that position, as was one of Neil and Heather’s neighbours.

‘But how do you fight that?’ Lindsay said. ‘If the insurance company says they’re going to repair, you can’t really stop them, if they say they’re going to cash settle... No, you can’t fight these companies, they’re going to do what they want.’

‘You know there’s a Facebook group for TC3 people?’ Alice said. Lindsay had agreed to apply for their file, but it was clear that she didn’t think it would do any good. Alice hated that Lindsay had given up. She needed to know that they weren’t the only ones struggling with bullying insurers.

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Lindsay said. She left the room to go through to the lounge, where Olivia and Jack were arguing over something. ‘Hey!’ Alice heard her say, then, ‘Play nicely or I’ll have to come back through here again.’ Alice cringed as Lindsay strode back through to the kitchen. There were only soft voices from the lounge.

‘That was a bit harsh,’ Alice said, keeping her voice soft. ‘Especially holding the knife.’

Lindsay sighed and gave a half-hearted laugh. She brushed a strand of hair away from her face with the back of her hand. ‘I’ll make it up to them, make a pudding,’ she said. ‘Or...’ She glanced over at Alice.

‘I’ll make a self-saucing pudding,’ Alice said. ‘Chocolate or caramel?’

‘Chocolate,’ Lindsay said. She preferred Alice’s caramel pudding but knew Olivia and Jack liked the chocolate version best. ‘I’ll go and get some ice cream to go with it.’

Alice put a frying pan onto the stove, started to heat it up and added some oil.

‘What do you mean a Facebook group?’ Lindsay said. She tipped the vegetables she had chopped into two pots, one for carrots and broccoli, the other for potatoes.

‘A bunch of TC3 people post stuff to the group,’ Alice said. ‘It’s a closed group, so people who aren’t part of it can’t read the posts.’ She put the chunks of beef and the sliced onion into the hot oil and stirred, then walked over to the dining table where she had left her bag when she arrived home. On her phone, she searched for the group and showed Lindsay its landing page. They couldn’t see anything but the cover image and a list of members.

‘You can see everyone who’s in the group,’ Lindsay said.

‘Yeah, but you have to be a member to view the posts,’ Alice said. ‘It could be useful. Over two thousand members, probably going through a lot of the same things as you guys.’

Lindsay shook her head. ‘No, people would be able to see that I’m a member. Can you do it?’

Alice thought about it for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I used to work on claims, there might be Southern Response people in the group whose claim I’ve worked on.’

‘That would be a problem?’ Lindsay said.

‘I don’t know,’ Alice said. ‘Could be. But you should join.’

Lindsay thought about it for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘The insurance company could find out we were in it. And that might just make things worse.’

That seemed wrong to Alice, that Lindsay should worry about the insurance company disapproving of them trying to understand what was going on with their claim. But she had pushed Lindsay far enough, so left it alone. She would wait and see what came of the Privacy Act request, and maybe that would help Lindsay and Kevin decide what to do next.

‘If you were offered a cash settlement, would you take it?’ Alice asked, changing the subject. She stirred the meat and onions, which were starting to brown up.

‘I still want a managed repair,’ Lindsay said. ‘I think. I don’t want the hassle of dealing with foundation repairs, not when we’ve paid – and are still paying – insurance to take care of things like this.’ Lindsay often pointed out that they were still paying full-price on insurance as though the house were undamaged while getting truly awful customer service.

‘But?’ Alice said.

‘I don’t know. A cash settlement would mean this is all over with, at last, and we could get those muppets out of our lives.’

‘But you couldn’t fix the house,’ Alice said. ‘Not with what they’re offering now, based on the current scope of works.’

Lindsay shook her head. ‘No, we couldn’t,’ she said. ‘Not without taking on a bigger mortgage. And who knows where that would end? If the land’s really bad, this place could be a bottomless pit.’

Alice nodded. No doubt that thought had crossed the minds of the insurers, which was why they were suddenly so keen on cash settling people. The cost of foundation repairs on TC3 land were enormous, especially if there were problems with the water table, which was the case for a lot of properties in eastern Christchurch. For Lindsay and Kevin’s house, there seemed to be little point in pouring all that money into what would be, in the best of circumstances, a renovated state house. But it wasn’t her house, and she could only help them get as much information as they could to make a good decision. If a good decision was at all possible given the corner their insurance company had forced them into.

Heather could hear a bellbird. The sky was brightening at the start of the day and there, in among the usual dawn chorus of blackbirds and thrushes, was a bellbird. For all the years they had lived in their house near the river, Heather could remember only a few occasions where she heard the rich, melodic song of the native bellbird. In the last year, though, she heard them regularly, along with the occasional squeak of a fantail. She wondered if it was the residential red zone further north. Most of the houses had been cleared from the red zoned land and nature was taking over. If native birds were doing well there, maybe they were spreading to the still-inhabited suburbs. Christchurch was changing, in ways good and bad. Everything was changing.