Bleak City (33 page)

The track went uphill for about five hundred metres then looped down across a stream that ran down a wet, mossy gully, rocks towering above the track. The track looped back over the bluffs and they were soon in a rhythm, going steadily along. Alice stopped to take off her long-sleeved top, the day was getting hotter and she was starting to really sweat. The others marched on ahead of her and in the still silence she could hear a high-pitched peeping. She peered off into the trees to see if she could locate the source. There, about shoulder height on the downhill side of the track, two tiny birds were hopping up the trunks of trees. She called to Sean, who turned and came back.

‘Riflemen, I think,’ Alice said, pointing. Sean took his lens cap off his camera and took as many shots as he could. He hoped to get a decent one, he said, but it would be difficult because they were so damned fast.

The others had stopped and come back. ‘I can hear more,’ Liam said. He was the oldest of Alice’s half-brothers, thirteen now. He was looking up the hill off the other side of the track. ‘There,’ he said, and there was another one, closer. Sean took more photos.

‘I hope you brought a spare card,’ Charlotte said, ‘or there’ll be no space left for any interesting stuff we see further up.’

They spent a few more minutes watching the tiny birds going up and down trees. The feathers on their upper bodies were a rich olive colour, which surprised Alice, she had half-expected a drab grey-purple. Then she realised why, she had only really seen riflemen before on the old two dollar notes her mother had kept when they had been replaced with coins, before Alice was born.

‘We better get a move on,’ Rebecca said. ‘We’ll never get there at this rate.’

The beech forest ended and the track started to drop down to the riverbed. The river meandered through a wide valley, alternating water-filled channels and shingle beds. The track went up through a grassy field that was growing on one of the shingle beds where water had not flowed for many years, orange markers picking out the path. They headed up towards the bush-clad mountains, a strong wind coming down the valley making them work, although the uphill incline was slight.

About an hour later, the track went up a steep bluff. At the top, they had to climb down one-by-one, but once they were past that, it was an easy walk to the first hut. It was a small tin hut, only six bunks with a fire and a tiny kitchen. There were seven of them, but they were prepared, they had brought tents as even if the hut was empty at least one of them would need to be sleeping outside. Two bunks had already been claimed, so they decided they would all tent. The weather was warm enough and there wouldn’t be much rain overnight. The only hazard of sleeping outdoors was the sandflies that descended on them when they stood still for more than a moment.

Back in Christchurch in the airconditioned office, Alice missed the fresh air of the mountains, the open spaces, the river flowing off into the distance, its separate ribbons meandering across its wide stony bed. She scratched furiously at another sandfly bite, this one on her knee. Out there in the mountains, nothing was expected of Alice except that she keep her legs moving. Here, though, back in real life, there was a whole list of issues to deal with and none could be solved as easily as just smacking a tiny black fly into oblivion. She was expected to have the answers that would help claimants make major financial decisions, decisions she had never made for herself. She had never owned property, had never made an insurance claim, she was simply a bystander in the whole process, watching her family work through their claims, making what she hoped were the right noises when they were frustrated over how long the process was taking. She knew how frustrating the whole process was for her family, so she tried to always follow up with the claimants she dealt with, even if there wasn’t much she could tell them.

Someone was saying her name, snapping her out of her thoughts. ‘Ali?’ She looked up at the shape standing over her desk. It was Kylie, another one of the claims officers. ‘We’re going to the ale house for lunch, first day back and all, wanna come?’

‘Sure,’ Alice said. ‘Give me a minute to finish up what I’m doing.’ She didn’t have anything more to do right at that moment, but it would give her a chance to pull her head together. Some fresh air would be welcome.

Lunch at the pub was less boring than sitting at work through her lunch break waiting for emails that weren’t going to come until next week at the earliest. Her co-workers talked about their holidays and not liking being back, it seemed that’s the way everyone felt coming back to work the first day of each working year, flat and worn out. Only Jessica was enthusiastic, but she was enthusiastic about everything insurance, she planned to make her career in the industry. She seemed to believe the ads with the catchy songs, the ones that said insurance helped people recover from disaster, that it kept people moving. It looked to Alice more like insurance slowed people down and held them back, but maybe that was just the post-holiday fug she was enveloped in that was making her feel that way.

The job was fine for now and she would stick with it for another year or two. Southern Response would only be around for another couple of years, their only purpose was to settle claims, another insurance company had taken over the other policies. Although she had found it difficult getting used to the way things were supposed to be done, she was starting to feel more on top of things, more like she was contributing something positive to the rebuild.

That didn’t change the fact that she still wished it was the holidays. Alice missed the outdoors, the clean air free of fumes. Throughout the earthquakes, she had escaped into running. It cleared her head, helped her to sleep better. It had kept her sane. She would go for a run after work that night. It would be good for her to get into that space where nothing was expected of her but to keep her legs moving.

Early in 2013, the media reported that the Minister for Earthquake Recovery had ignored his officials’ advice over how much to offer the owners of red zoned vacant land. CERA had recommended that these people should be offered the full 2007 rateable value, the same as those with insured properties. The Minister, however, said that recommendation wasn’t an actual recommendation but ‘initial thinking’. The fifty percent offer was made to avoid the ‘moral hazard’ of the Government acting as a safety net for the uninsured. It just made Alice’s grandparents feel like they were being punished for not having insurance that didn’t actually exist. No insurance company in New Zealand offered policies for bare land.

Alice was discussing the state of the city with her grandfather, Neil. It was late Friday afternoon and the second anniversary of the February quake. She had texted Charlotte to say she didn’t feel like doing anything that night, but then found, on her way home, that she wasn’t quite ready to go home. She had detoured to Neil and Heather’s instead.

‘I read this book a couple of years ago,’ Alice told Neil. ‘It was about these two cities that co-exist, they occupy the same space, but the citizens of each city choose to ignore the crossover. A kind of mental conditioning.’

‘You mean you see the city as being like this?’ Neil said. ‘Like the divide between east and west?’ If you lived on the western side of Christchurch, you could almost forget there had been an earthquake. But if you drove over to the east, it was a different story. The roads in the east were still a mess, there were road cones and road works everywhere, red zoned land was being cleared and there were temporary stopbanks along the lower reaches of the Avon River, near where the land had dropped in the quakes, making houses more prone to flooding.

‘Kind of,’ Alice said. ‘But I was thinking about me going to work and there are people there who don’t really have an idea what it’s like for people still living in broken houses or dealing with roadworks all the time. They stay over the western side, never even go into the city. And then there’s the city we live in and the one Gerry Brownlee thinks he’s rebuilding.’

‘The one full of carpers and moaners, you mean?’ Neil said, an eyebrow raised.

‘Yeah, that’s the one,’ Alice said, laughing. She stood up and walked over to Neil’s bookshelf, ran her fingers along the spines of all the books. ‘Recommend anything?’ she asked. ‘What’s this guy like, Ian Rankin?’

‘A bit dark,’ Neil said. ‘Set in Edinburgh.’ He stood up and reached for one of the books in the series. ‘This one,’ he said. ‘It’s not the first but it’s a good starting place.’

Alice flipped the book over and read the back of it. It would be good to have something to bury her head in for the weekend.

Some of Alice’s workmates had finished before lunchtime so they could go to the memorial and have the rest of the day off, but Alice stayed on. She didn’t want to go to the memorial and be reminded of that day. And it annoyed her that after two years there still wasn’t actually a memorial for the families of the dead to visit. The 185 chairs were poignant, but the installation had happened in spite of, not because of, the efforts of those in charge of the rebuild.

Those who remained at the office were silent at 12:51, and Alice had found it difficult not to start crying. She wondered how long it would be until she stopped feeling the sting of that day.

‘Stay for dinner?’ Neil asked. ‘Your grandmother’s making plenty.’

Alice thought a moment. ‘Okay,’ she said.

‘Let your mum know,’ Neil said, getting up and walking through to the kitchen. ‘Ali’s staying for tea,’ she heard him say.

‘Don’t need to,’ Alice called after him, following him through to the kitchen. ‘I was going to go out with Charlotte but texted her earlier to let her know I’m having a quiet night.’ She asked her grandmother what she could do to help.

‘Nothing, love,’ Heather said. ‘All under control. At least something is. Are you not feeling well, is that why you’re not going out with Charlotte?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ Alice said. ‘Just felt a bit odd because of today. The anniversary. So what’s not under control? What’s happened?’

‘Nothing really, just been talking to your mum today about the engineer’s visit. Sounds all backwards, what’s happening with them.’

At the end of 2012, Kevin and Lindsay had finally had the geotech work done. They had a scope of works and once the geotechnical report was done, their repair would be a major step closer. It looked like 2013 would be their year. But then their new project manager had made an appointment. This project manager told them that their foundation didn’t need replacing, that technology had advanced so considerably that the cracks only needed to be glued. Kevin and Lindsay had objected, and the project manager had agreed to get a structural engineer to look at the foundation. That was fine, they said, they would wait to see what the structural engineer’s report said.

They were surprised to receive a revised scope of works only a week later, before the structural engineer had visited. The scope no longer said their house would be lifted and its foundation replaced, now it said they had a number of cracks that could be glued. A few days later the structural engineer visited, along with the project manager. The engineer poked his head down the manhole, didn’t bother going under the house, and after the visit, Kevin went outside to clear the letterbox. The project manager and the engineer were in front of the house discussing how the cracks could just be glued. Kevin came back inside, disgusted. The engineer was just ticking off the project manager’s opinion, Kevin said, wasn’t doing a proper assessment at all.

‘The engineers are supposed to determine the strategy, not the project managers,’ Alice said. ‘The way their one’s been done is real cart before the horse stuff.’

‘I’d say more arse backwards,’ Neil said.

‘Language, Neil,’ Heather said.

‘I think they need a lawyer,’ Alice said. ‘Someone who can make sure their claim’s done right.’

‘Lawyers cost money, love,’ Neil said. ‘But I think you’re right, it might be the only way to get their claim back on track.’

‘That’s what Mum thinks, too. But Kevin’s not willing to accept that, says to just wait and see what the geotech report says and go from there.’

‘How long will that take?’ Neil asked.

‘A few months?’ Alice shrugged. ‘All the sampling was done in December, so maybe April, May at the latest.’

‘Everything takes such a long time,’ Heather said. ‘Including this chicken.’ She had taken the chicken out of the oven to see if it was done, but the juices were not yet running clear. She touched the chicken, pulling her fingers back, then touched it again, keeping her fingers on it. ‘It’s barely warm,’ she said. She checked the oven, then threw the oven mitts on the kitchen bench in disgust. ‘I switched the oven off instead of putting it up when I put the chicken back in half an hour ago. Dinner will be a while.’

Neil moved towards her, gave her a peck on the cheek. ‘Been in Christchurch too long, love,’ he said. ‘Turning off the oven before the chicken’s cooked. Bit like Kevin and Lindsay’s engineering report.’

Heather and Alice laughed. ‘I’ll put it back, it’ll be about half an hour, can everyone wait?’

Neil and Alice nodded.

‘So Ian Rankin,’ Alice said. Neil and Heather were in better moods than they had been for a while. They had been struggling to make progress with getting their repairs looked at, but had recently been given the name of a foundation specialist who could look at their place. They would have to pay for it, but it seemed worth it, if it could cut through all the red tape they encountered every time they tried to get EQC or Fletchers to look at the state of their repairs.

‘Ian Rankin’s a good choice,’ Neil said. ‘Lots about corruption in his books.’

‘I’ve never thought of New Zealand as a corrupt place,’ Heather said. ‘But lately...’

‘We’ve always known about the old boys’ network,’ Neil said. ‘That’s a kind of corruption.’

‘That’s not corruption,’ Alice said. ‘Corruption’s bribes, kickbacks, that sort of thing.’

‘In every situation there’s always someone who has an advantage,’ Neil said. ‘One group that prevails. But when it’s always the same group of people having the advantage over everyone else, that’s corruption.’