Bleak City (59 page)

More money was finally added to the mental health budget at the start of March, for the Valentine’s Day quake, of course. It felt to Gerald like the Valentine’s Day quake was being used as a way for the Government to do something about the problem the DHB had been trying to tell them about for months without having to admit to being wrong.

Gerald was grateful that his family were, by and large, recovering well. He worried the most about his niece Rebecca, Suzanne’s daughter. She and Dan had filed in court against the EQC and their insurance company, and it was sad that they had to go to those lengths to get the damage to their house recognised. But the fight to get overcap had cost her and Dan their relationship with their daughter because Charlotte had moved out to board with her grandmother. Charlotte wanted to focus on doing well during her first year at university, and she couldn’t do that while living with her parents. He hoped one day Charlotte would understand and would be able to mend her relationship with her parents.

Although it was well into autumn, the days were still warm. Gerald and Sylvia were holding their first family gathering at the house, a throwback to the gatherings Marjorie held each year. Andrew and Liam, Andrew’s oldest son, had taken charge of the barbecue, and the smell of charring meat drifted across the yard to where Gerald was walking along the stream. It was a beautiful place, this city. He sat down in the wooden garden seat his mother had loved to sit in on a summer’s day and looked back towards the house.

The house and yard were noisy with the Moorhouse grandchildren. Soon there would be another one. Their daughter Laurel and her husband had moved back from Sydney, and Laurel was expecting a little girl in the spring. Laurel and Joe had bought the house Gerald and Sylvia had lived in since the earthquakes. It wasn’t their forever home, but it was a start, a house they knew was structurally sound and would hold its value, which couldn’t be said with certainty for much of the city’s housing stock.

Gerald was pleased to have both his children living in the same city once again, but he was saddened at the thought of the city his grandchildren were growing up in. The ugly reality of the rebuild would continue to unfold, and Gerald didn’t like what it said about human nature.

He could see Alice, with Charlotte, chatting to Laurel, who Alice had never met before. Gerald actually hoped Alice would leave Christchurch. Moorhouse Architectural was now being run by a manager, and Gerald no longer had any day-to-day input, but Alice was still there and she did seem to enjoy the work. But she was becoming worn out from the stress of what her family was going through, and Gerald was worried about her.

The Government’s failure to acknowledge the magnitude of the shoddy repairs situation was distressing to Gerald. It meant that buying a house would be a risky business for many years to come. Official figures were that EQC had 5500 houses that required further repairs and another 2300 that needed unconsented foundation repairs reviewed. Through the grapevine, Gerald had heard they were getting over one hundred requests for reviews each week. He couldn’t imagine the pressure it was putting on the people whose houses were affected, who faced going through the whole assessment, negotiation and repair process once again.

A joint statement had been issued just that week as the result of a group of claimants taking EQC to court. The EQC and the claimant group had reached agreement on a number of points of law regarding the standard of repairs. What had happened throughout Canterbury was that houses were being repaired to a pre-earthquake standard rather than to the higher standard specified in the insurance contract. The situation had resulted in numerous arguments between homeowners and the organisations that they were paying to insure their homes. Contractors engaged by the insurance industry had been telling homeowners that what they could expect was that their houses would be brought back to pre-earthquake condition, and any homeowners who pointed out the as-when-new terms of the EQC Act or their insurance policy were labelled difficult customers with unrealistic expectations. But their expectations weren’t unrealistic, they were based on a legally binding contract.

The joint statement was hailed by the claimants’ group as a landmark decision, one that meant many of the claims EQC had handled would need to be revisited because the wrong standard had been applied. The EQC immediately turned around and said the joint statement proved they had been working to the as-when-new standard all along, despite the fact that there were numerous examples of EQC documentation that said homes would be repaired to their pre-earthquake condition. The joint statement
was
a major victory for claimants, but it was apparent that the EQC was going to fight them each and every step along the way. Gerald wondered how hard the District Health Board would have to fight for the mental health funding necessary to help all those poor people recover from their treatment at the hands of the EQC.

Gerald had wished, for a time, that Andrew would get more involved in helping claimants. He had done such work for his grandmother, but, Gerald knew, it wasn’t the type of work he enjoyed. Then Gerald watched a news story in which one lawyer talked about burnout. This man had done a lot of work for Christchurch claimants, but reached the point where he could no longer function. It almost broke him, he said. No, it was best for Andrew to focus on his family.

Liam had finished school at the end of the previous year and was working as an apprentice for Moorhouse Architectural, under a builder Gerald had considerable respect for. Gerald saw in the boy a growing love of putting things together that he recognised from his own youth. He had considered keeping one foot in the business to help train Liam, but in the end he realised it was time to finish up. He would be seventy later in the year and had already put off retirement for too long.

Building was a good career choice. The fallout from the shoddy repairs crisis was going to be bigger than the leaky homes crisis of the early 2000s. That had cost the country $10 billion, this creaky homes crisis would cost much more. Gerald hoped that this time, the industry could learn from the mistakes it kept on making and recognise that cutting corners always cost more in the long run.

‘You’re deep in thought,’ Laurel said, startling him. She fell heavily onto the seat beside him and pressed her shoulder up against his.

‘Enjoying having everyone together,’ he said, bumping her shoulder back.

‘I can’t believe how grown up Charlotte is,’ Laurel said. ‘She was barely past my knees when I went to Sydney, and now look at her, she’s all the way up to here.’ She indicated a point just below her shoulders.

They both laughed. ‘Yes, she’s tiny,’ Gerald said. ‘But don’t underestimate her, she’s as strong-willed as Mother. What do you think of Alice?’

‘I like her,’ Laurel said. ‘I’m surprised how much she and Charlotte are alike, given they’re second cousins rather than cousins. They hang around a lot, so maybe it’s just that familiarity thing.’

Gerald nodded. ‘No, they are quite alike. I think it’s because they’re both like Mother.’

‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ Laurel said, and Gerald laughed with her. Suzanne had told Laurel her secret, and in the months since she and Joe had moved back, Gerald had talked to Laurel about feeling like he was only now starting to understand his mother.

‘I mean in their own ways,’ Gerald said. ‘They have her strength of character...’

‘You don’t have to explain, Dad,’ Laurel said. ‘I get it.’

‘Get what?’

‘You miss your mum.’ She put her arm through his and snuggled in close.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘I really do.’

In November 2015, a group of claimants called the Anthony Harper Action Group had filed a claim against EQC seeking clarification of how EQC was interpreting its underlying legislation. In April 2016, the two groups were able to reach an agreement. They released a joint statement and court proceedings were stopped.

The Anthony Harper group hailed the joint statement as a landmark. At last, they said, it was clear that houses were to be repaired to the as-when-new standard, not to a pre-earthquake standard. The EQC said they had been doing this all along, flying in the face of the reality experienced by thousands of Christchurch homeowners. There were numerous examples of EQC newsletters and media statements referring to the pre-earthquake condition homes would be repaired to.

Both parties were saying different things. Alice knew who she believed.

Gerry Brownlee, the Minister for Earthquake Recovery who had oversight of the EQC, was out of the country when the announcement was made. He was also the Minister of Defence and it seemed he preferred being in Iraq to staying in New Zealand and answering questions about the EQC. Ian Simpson, the chief executive of the EQC, was also, apparently, nowhere to be found and let some Acting Chief Executive speak for him on the six o’clock news.

‘Does he actually believe what he’s saying?’ Lindsay said.

‘Does it matter?’ Alice said. ‘The statement is clear, the standard is as-when-new, and we can use that in getting Grandma and Grandad’s repair sorted. Jase and Carla’s too. And think about it, if this truly was vindication for the EQC’s position, wouldn’t Brownlee and Simpson be crowing from the rooftops about it?’

Once the Minister was back in New Zealand and asked about the joint statement in Parliament, he said that the information claimants wanted had been on the EQC website all along. Why, then, did so many people find it necessary to file in court when, really, all they needed to do was go to Google? It seemed the Minister thought that eighteen months of earthquakes had rendered the people of Canterbury stupid.

A group called Canterbury Claimants would be holding a public meeting for people who were having issues with the EQC. One speaker was the chair of the Anthony Harper group action, another was the lawyer who headed it up. Other speakers were names Alice recognised, people who had been speaking out in the media in the years since the earthquakes, warning that there was a serious problem with the quality of repairs. Alice and Lindsay decided to go together. There would be information that could help Neil and Heather decide how to proceed with their complaint.

The night of the meeting was windy and cold and the streets around the cardboard cathedral were packed with cars. Alice and Lindsay parked a couple of blocks away. By the time they reached the cathedral, it was nearly full.

They found a couple of seats at the back and squeezed past an elderly couple. The woman smiled tiredly, her frizzy grey hair springing haphazardly from a bun coming loose at the back of her head. Her husband was white-haired and frail, his shoulder slumped. He was crumpling into himself.

At first, Alice found the size of the crowd reassuring. There were so many people in the same position as her grandparents and her aunt and uncle, people who were fighting against the EQC. But then, about half an hour into the talk, she was becoming angry. The way EQC had handled the joint statement worked politically, one speaker said. No one had to admit they were wrong. Really? That was the primary concern here? Not repairing people’s houses the way the law said they should? The wind had started gusting outside and sounded like it was beating against the roof of the cathedral, trying to tear it apart. Inside, Alice was full of churning anger and she could barely sit still. She had picked up a copy of the joint statement when she arrived at the cathedral and now she found herself twisting the sheet of paper into a tight spiral.

On the way home, Alice and Lindsay talked about the implications of what they had learned.

‘The EQC’s going to fight people all the way, aren’t they?’ Alice said.

‘Yes, they are,’ Lindsay said. She was driving, keeping her eyes straight ahead as they drove home through the empty streets.

‘So there’s nothing we can really do for Grandma and Grandad? Or Jase and Carla?’ Alice felt her anger draining away, being displaced by weariness and disgust.

‘We can help them with the proving it part,’ Lindsay said, her voice grim. She was gripping the steering wheel with both hands, as though trying to crush it. ‘They said get everything from EQC, we’ll help them to do that, then we can ask for a review.’

Alice felt energised by her mother’s determination. ‘And maybe that will just do the trick. Stick together, show how determined we all are.’

It was difficult for Alice to get to sleep that night. The wind had picked up once again and kept knocking tree branches against the side of the house. She kept thinking about the city and the promises made about its future in the months after the February quake. People were worn out then, but they knew the quakes had to end eventually. Then there was the 2011 Share an Idea campaign that asked people what they wanted for their rebuilt city. Thousands of people had responded and generated tonnes of ideas. The campaign gave them hope for a brighter city one day, one rebuilt to take advantage of the unique opportunity all the devastation presented. A smart rebuild would make something good out of the bad. But now, five years later, Share an Idea seemed to be dead. If it wasn’t dead, it was well and truly buried, although no one knew where. It was like someone packed all the ideas away into a box and stored it in a warehouse somewhere. It was probably in the same warehouse the Ark of the Covenant ended up in at the end of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
.

Alice thought about all those people in the cardboard cathedral, and about all of those people who weren’t there, the ones too tired to attend or too tired to pay attention to the news and to know that there was a way to fight the EQC. Then there were those who died without having their claims settled.

One day over the summer, Alice and Charlotte had gone for a walk along the estuary shoreline. They ended up talking to an old lady who was working in her garden, deadheading roses. The house was concrete block and her husband had built it fifty years earlier. She loved living by the sea, she said, and she had wonderful views of the estuary.