‘Can I say who’s here?’ the receptionist said, reaching for the phone. There was an edge of disdain in her voice, and she studied Alice the way someone might study an enemy, sizing them up, assessing their strengths and weaknesses. Alice wasn’t used to be examined in that way, of seeing someone try to determine how she fit into their agenda. She decided not to play.
‘Alice,’ she said, ending her single word firmly, indicating there wasn’t more to come.
The receptionist looked at her sharply, waiting for more, but Alice wasn’t going to give her full name, that would give the game away. She simply stared back.
‘Alice who?’ the woman finally said, the edge in her voice sharpening up a notch. Alice couldn’t understand why she was being perceived as a threat, but then realised: every second Tuesday afternoon for three months Andrew had been going out of the office for lunch. The receptionist wanted to know who his regular lunch date was. Was it normal for receptionists to be so nosy about the people they worked for? To feel so possessive of them?
‘Just Alice,’ Alice said, keeping her voice even and non-threatening. ‘Andrew knows who I am.’ She gave what she hoped was a knowing smile, and the receptionist looked down and away, uncomfortable in the presence of her apparent rival. Bizarre.
The receptionist dialled the number, said only, ‘Alice is here to see you,’ and Alice noticed that her voice softened, that of someone wanting to please. At this point, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the woman had added ‘darling’ to the end of her message.
The receptionist hung up, then said, ‘He’ll only be a minute, you can wait over there.’ She pointed towards a sofa placed to look out onto the city, over the bare branches of the trees lining the river, stretching up into the grey sky.
‘Thanks,’ Alice said and remained standing at the reception desk, looking down at the receptionist. She wasn’t blocking anyone’s way, so why not?
It was only a minute before Andrew was walking down the hallway towards her, pulling on a raincoat. She met him halfway, over the receptionist’s objections, and kissed Andrew on the cheek before turning to walk alongside him out into reception. Andrew stopped at the reception desk, where the receptionist smiled up at him, demurely, like some wife-in-waiting in a Jane Austen novel. To Alice’s surprise, Andrew smiled back broadly. ‘I’ll be back in an hour, Kate,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Kate,’ Alice called back as she and Andrew walked away towards the lifts. Andrew gave her a funny look while they waited, but then the bell rang and the doors slid open. They said nothing inside. Alice was thinking about him flirting with the receptionist, because that was what it looked like to her. Why would he flirt back if he wasn’t interested? When he talked about his second family, he seemed happy enough, well as happy as Alice’s mother was with Kevin and the little kids. But who could tell? The next door neighbours seemed happy until the day the husband left to move in with some woman he had met through his job. ‘I know what it’s like,’ Alice’s mum had said to the wife. How had she known? Was Alice’s dad someone who would cheat? Who had cheated?
At the building entrance, they both stopped, pulled their hoods up and zipped their raincoats, readying themselves for the outdoors. ‘Where to?’ Andrew said.
‘Japanese,’ Alice said. ‘Just around the corner. The one we went to before.’
Andrew nodded. ‘Sure.’
Outside they walked quickly, keeping their heads down until they reached the restaurant. There was only one occupied table, which was typical for a winter weekday in Christchurch. The weather discouraged people from coming into the city and encouraged the city’s workers to stay in their warm, dry offices.
A waitress seated them at a table for two by the window and before they could ask there was a pot of tea and two cups on the table. Alice was grateful for the hot drinks, said thank you and quickly poured them both cups. She wrapped her hands around the hot cup and watched as Andrew browsed the menu. Alice had already decided, she was having the same thing she had last time they were there, but she glanced down at the menu as though there were other choices she was interested in. She wanted to observe his reaction to what she was about to say.
‘She’s got a thing for you,’ Alice said.
Andrew looked up from the menu, then around the restaurant, confused.
‘The receptionist. Kate.’
‘She’s like that with everyone,’ Andrew said dismissively. He looked back down at the menu.
‘Not with me she wasn’t,’ Alice said.
‘Everyone male,’ Andrew said. So he did see it.
‘It’s not exactly a great idea to flirt with someone like that,’ Alice said.
‘I wasn’t flirting.’ He folded the menu and put it aside. She had annoyed him.
The waitress interrupted them and they ordered, handing back their menus. Andrew poured more tea for each of them.
‘Yes you were.’
‘No I wasn’t. How are your studies going? Holidays in a couple of weeks, isn’t it? Lots of studying to do before exams start?’ His voice was light, he definitely wanted to move on from the topic of Kate or flirting or something there he wanted to avoid. Which was probably normal for any man talking to his daughter. Maybe.
Alice took a sip of her tea. ‘I’m looking forward to a break,’ she said.
‘Plans?’
‘I’ll work,’ she said. ‘Save up for next year.’ But in her head it was niggling. She wanted to know. ‘Did you cheat on Mum?’
He was sipping his tea when she asked and nearly choked on the mouthful. ‘Wait, what? Is this about me flirting with the receptionist?’
‘So you were flirting?’
He sighed deeply, exasperated. ‘No, I wasn’t. And even if I was, it was nothing. There’s nothing wrong with flirting, and I wasn’t flirting.’
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
‘Where’s this coming from? Did your mother tell you something?’
‘No, she never says anything about the two of you.’ Alice realised he had just said that there was something to say on the topic, and Andrew realised it too. He sat back in his seat, resigned.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s why we split up.’
‘Who with?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I’m sure it mattered to Mum.’
‘Of course it did, but after all this time,’ he said, ‘it really doesn’t.’
His tone was final and the look on his face set, challenging her to continue, warning her not to. It annoyed her, especially as she recognised the tactic she used on her mother when Lindsay was trying to get something through to her by repeating the same thing over and over again. Alice knew that being direct with Andrew wouldn’t work, just as it never worked for her mother. She needed to try a tangential approach.
‘More tea?’ she asked. He was surprised that she had given up and he looked at her suspiciously. But he pushed his cup across the table. She filled it and he took it back, then sipped from it.
‘The questions eleven-year-olds ask are much easier,’ Andrew said.
‘Well I’m not eleven,’ Alice said sharply. ‘You need to get used to that.’
Andrew nodded. Their meals arrived, and starting to eat gave them both the opportunity to collect their thoughts.
‘Was it Michelle?’ Alice asked.
‘No, it wasn’t Michelle,’ Andrew said, without looking up from his lunch. ‘It’s not relevant so I’m not going to talk about it.’
She felt her face start to go red. How could he just shut her down like that? Andrew didn’t seem to notice, just kept tweezing up bits of chicken with his chopsticks and directing them into his mouth. Was he unaware? Or ignoring her the way she would ignore her mother when she didn’t want to ‘talk things through’? Alice felt the words boiling up inside her and wanted to smack him with them.
‘You guys split up and changed the direction of my life,’ she said. ‘I think it’s relevant. Was it serious? Or was it just a f
ling? Why did you get to walk away from being my dad?’
‘Alice,’ he said, looking up at her, bewildered at her obvious anger. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘Like what?’
‘I wasn’t trying to get away from you. I was just...’
‘Immature? Confused? Blind and mistook some other woman for your wife?’
Andrew sighed, appearing to wish he was anywhere but where he was, having lunch with his daughter, who couldn’t help but ask difficult questions about why he had gone missing from her life.
‘It was Vicky,’ he said, giving an embarrassed shrug.
‘Vicky?’ Alice said.
‘She lived in the neighbourhood, she was going to university and nannied part-time. She would pick you up from kindy and look after you until me or your mum got home.’
‘The nanny?’
‘It wasn’t an ongoing thing.’
‘That’s such a cliché,’ Alice said. She could feel her anger spinning out of reach of her ability to control it. She tried to reel it back in, only to find it skipping off again. ‘You’re such a cliché. You’re probably screwing the receptionist, too, you’re such a cliché and that’s what clichés do.’
‘You’re being unreasonable,’ Andrew said. ‘Calm down.’
As is so often the case when men speak that pair of words to women, the effect was the opposite of that intended. Alice stood up from the table, grabbed her handbag and raincoat and prepared to stalk out of the restaurant. But that would leave him to pay for her lunch, and she didn’t want that, she didn’t want anything from him, so she stopped at the till and paid for her half-eaten meal, fumbling at the eftpos machine and then fumbling again as she wrestled her way into her raincoat before fleeing out into the rain.
4:35
September 2010
Andrew had sent her a text message the evening after their last lunch together, just the words ‘I’m sorry’. Alice hadn’t yet replied. She wasn’t sure how to or if she even wanted to. She wanted to ask what he was sorry for, cheating or not being there for a decade, but wasn’t sure either answer would make a difference for her. She didn’t know what she wanted from him, certainly she wanted to move on from the superficial lunchtime conversations, but she didn’t want the out-of-control argument of their last lunch to be the way they dealt with each other. And, she had to admit, she was probably the one who was out of control.
University holidays started and Alice was working for Kevin. She needed to save money for her next year if she wanted to keep flatting, which she did, she was enjoying the taste of independence. She was studying for an hour before work each morning, during her lunch break and then again at night, and the rhythm of prepping, painting and cleaning up gave her the mental space to turn what she was learning over in her head, make better sense of it all. It had worked for her mid-year exams and she was feeling comfortable about the end of year ones. Not over-confident, just comfortable knowing that if she kept up her routine she would do all right. No need to panic, just keep learning and it would all be in there, waiting to be retrieved.
Alice’s flatmates were all away and she was enjoying the quiet. It reminded her of the years when it had just been her and her mother, before Lindsay met Kevin. Not that Kevin’s appearance in their lives had made things worse, in many ways they were better. But there was a camaraderie between mother and daughter that had changed, and Alice was never sure if that was just part of growing up or if she had actually lost something when her mother remarried.
Between work and study and getting home to see her family every few days, Alice didn’t have much time left to think about what she was going to do about the situation with Andrew. She had mentioned to Lindsay that there had been an argument, but she didn’t say what about and Lindsay didn’t pursue it. Lindsay had always seemed reluctant to say anything about Andrew, either positive or negative, but she hadn’t discouraged Alice from getting in touch with him.
Two of Alice’s flatmates were back from their holidays when she arrived home from work Friday afternoon. Ben and Chloe had decided, in her absence, that they were going out for Thai food that night, which was fine by Alice. She had been busy for two weeks solid and could use a break. There was a place in the city that had good food and, more importantly, was cheap, so they walked into the city, stopping at Ben’s mates’ place to pick up a few more people. Alice could tell it was going to turn into a boozy night, which she wanted to avoid as she did have to work the next day. After the Thai place, she and Chloe walked home together, watched a video and crashed into their respective beds at around eleven.
Alice heard Ben stumbling around about an hour later and she got up to find him sprawled on the sofa. She heaved him upward and walked him down the hallway, dumping him across his own bed, where he would have to clean up his own mess in the morning. It was her sofa, given to her by her grandparents, and no way was he going to be spewing on it. She went back to bed and quickly fell asleep.
She knew right away what she was hearing when she woke because the bed was moving, just slightly, but she was a light sleeper, she tended to notice what was going on in the house. The sound quickly became louder, like a train coming towards the house, and she leapt out of bed. She crouched down in the corner by the doorframe and put her arms over her head as the sound of the roar surged and the house began really shaking, up and down, up and down, and Alice could see the shapes of things around the dark room being thrown up then tossed off her desk and dresser, could hear furniture slamming into walls and glass breaking elsewhere in the house, and everywhere, the thud thud thud of the house itself being shaken. She heard something falling on the roof and closed her eyes, hoping for it to end, somehow, then something smashed along the side of the house. There was the sound of more glass breaking.
The sound of the earthquake eased and the shaking stopped. Alice stood up from where she had wedged herself against the doorframe and reached up to flick the light switch and survey the damage. Nothing. The power was out. She fumbled her way to the side of her bed, where her cellphone had fallen down between the bed and bedside table. It was 4:37. She wrote a text to her mother, fumbling the phone and mistyping. It seemed like an eternity to simply say she was okay and to ask were they. The phone was showing network service, so hopefully she would hear something back quickly.
The phone had a torch function that Alice used to find some shoes. She pulled the door open and shone the torch out into the hallway. Now that the door was open, she heard Chloe crying. The house felt cold, and Alice could feel a breeze coming from the lounge. She picked her way through the doorway into the lounge, where she saw the night outside where most of the wall had been. Most of the brick wall of the lounge had fallen, both inward onto the sofa and outward onto the driveway. She heard another quake heading for the house, which started to shake again, but stopped within seconds. More bricks fell onto the driveway and plaster dust fell from the ceiling. Alice stepped back into the doorway, she felt safer there.
Alice called out to Chloe, who called back saying she was okay. ‘Put shoes on,’ Alice yelled. Then Chloe was beside her, sniffing, trying not to cry.
‘That was so scary,’ Chloe said. She was shivering and Alice put an arm around her.
‘Do you think it was Wellington?’ Alice said, and immediately regretted it, because Chloe began to panic and start crying again, her family was in Wellington. Alice gave her the phone to try calling them, she would call her own family afterwards. She wondered about her parents, if the quake had scared Olivia and Jack. They were only five and three, they would either be terrified or see it as a big adventure.
Someone answered Chloe’s call. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, her voice high-pitched and shaky. Then, ‘We’ve felt a big quake here, we thought it was you.’
‘It must be local,’ Alice whispered. Chloe shook her head furiously, but the gesture meant nothing to Alice. She decided it was best to be quiet, just wait until Chloe had finished her call.
‘Well I’m
okay,’ Chloe said. ‘But the house is a mess.’ They heard another quake approaching and braced themselves as the house started to shake. ‘There’s another one now,’ she said, and her voice broke. ‘No, it’s stopped. I’m okay.’
Alice didn’t think she was. Chloe said goodbye to whichever of her parents she had woken and said she would call them later. Chloe passed the phone back to Alice. ‘There’s a message,’ she said.
It was from Alice’s mother, who said they were all okay. Alice took a deep breath, relieved. More rumbling, then shaking.
‘Ben!’ Chloe said, and they moved as quickly as they could to the bedroom at the end of the hallway and banged on Ben’s bedroom door. There was no answer. They opened the door and walked into the bedroom, stepping carefully. Books had slid from the desk onto the floor, landing on the shoes and clothes that were normally there. Ben was draped over the bed crossways where Alice had left him, snoring softly. Alice gave him a shove in the arm, which resulted in a mumbled grunt, but no signs of true consciousness.
‘Typical,’ Chloe said, and turned to leave the room. They heard the roar of another approaching quake and froze, but it didn’t last long, and there was no movement from Ben.
‘Let him sleep, I suppose,’ Alice said, shrugging. Her phone rang. It was her mother. ‘I’m fine,’ she said, ‘but the wall in the lounge has collapsed. I don’t think we can stay here. And I don’t think I’ll be able to get my car down the driveway.’ Her mother had been in touch with Alice’s grandparents and great-grandparents and everyone was fine, but scared. Lindsay said once they got the kids settled, Kevin would pick her up. They had power at home, but from what they had heard on the radio, not many in the city did.
Bleak City Page 2