Bleak City

by Marisa Taylor

  There was also no point wanting to wash the house or water the car or the garden because there were water restrictions. It was still unclear what the earthquake had done to the city’s aquifers, whether they were being polluted by sewage leaking from broken pipes, and everyone was being asked to conserve water. So no car washing or garden watering. It had annoyed her to see a neighbour a few doors down washing his car, even leaving the hose running as he soaped it up. She wanted to get in his face and tell him how inconsiderate he was being, not thinking about anyone around him and the fact that they, too, would like to wash their cars and houses, water their gardens and just enjoy a little bit of normality. She hadn’t, and it scared her that what had stopped her was that she had Jack with her. She didn’t want to be that type of person, who took their frustrations out on everyone unfortunate enough to be in her way. She needed to get away. But she had been back less than a week. And if she did go, she wouldn’t want to come back.

  Lindsay and Kevin had discussed staying in Timaru, enrolling the kids in school there. Even if Kevin’s current jobs had been interrupted, they would need to be completed eventually. Things were starting to happen repair-wise and soon there would be more work. Kevin needed to be in Christchurch for that. She didn’t want to be away from him, she would miss him, and the kids would miss him. And now that they were back in Christchurch, Alice had come home. Alice had come home! She had missed her baby so much, and so much was going on with her. Ben for one thing. And she had decided not to go back to university, to leave it for a year or so and see about work, earning some money. When Lindsay pointed out that a lot of people had lost their jobs because of the damage in the city, Alice told her she already had a job, she was working at a nearby café. There was an open café? They should go!

  Lindsay was easily distracted. Alice quickly got her back on track, saying she would be able to help with the kids. Lindsay was doing a lot of paperwork related to the damage to the house, and she needed the extra support, Alice said. That was true. Plaster cracks subjected to repeated earthquakes continued to shed powder. She considered duct taping them up, but then couldn’t be bothered because there was no duct tape and she would have to go to the supermarket, but then she remembered she hadn’t been able to find duct tape the last time she went looking for it in a supermarket, and so she would need to go to a hardware store to get some and she couldn’t think where there was a hardware store that was open, that still existed.

  So there they were, living in a broken house with broken pipes, three adults and two little kids, one who they had struggled to toilet train just two years earlier. Olivia and Jack didn’t like the portaloo idea at all, even if it was right in front of their house. Lindsay wondered how people with kids coped when the portaloo was several houses a way, especially little ones who sometimes don’t plan their toileting all that well.

  ‘The pipes take our poos away and make sure they can’t make anything dirty,’ she explained. ‘But they’re too broken for us to use.’

  ‘But the toilet flushes,’ Jack said. ‘And the poos go away.’

  ‘It might be going, I don’t know, to a bad place.’ A bad place? Really? She didn’t want to have to explain sewerage backing up, flowing on people’s sections. She tried again. ‘The pipes are broken and the poos could get into the river and kill all the fish.’

  ‘There aren’t any fish in the river,’ Jack said. ‘Alice told me that. She said the river is so dirty from all the businesses that hardly anything can live in it and that’s why we never see any fish.’

  Lindsay shot the filthiest look she could manage at Alice, which, given her state of mind, was probably pretty bad. Alice just raised a single eyebrow. Lindsay remembered the first time she had done that, when she was just three weeks old and feeding, the way Alice had looked up at her and cocked her tiny little eyebrow. She had inherited that from her father. Lindsay had never been able to master the eyebrow cock and felt, sometimes, like something was missing from her emotional repertoire because she couldn’t master that single querying mannerism. As a baby, the eyebrow cock had been sweet, but now it was infuriating. How dare Alice try to foster a sense of environmental awareness and responsibility in her children? Why had she left university? Why was she working in a coffee shop? They hadn’t had that conversation properly yet, Lindsay had been distracted by... something.

  The portaloo was fine during the day. Mostly. Hot days were smelly days, even if the loo had been pumped out just that morning, and there was one day, their second day back, when Lindsay found herself lurching out of the portaloo retching, the combination of the smell and the heat so overwhelming that she hadn’t bothered to properly zip up her pants and just stumbled up the driveway and back into the house.

  Fortunately, Olivia was back at school, so that was one less portaloo-averse person for her to worry about during the day. But there was no way she was going to expect her kids to go out to the portaloo at night.

  For nights, there was the chemical toilet. The City Council had distributed chemical toilets free of charge to parts of the city that had badly damaged pipes. But with three adults and two children in the house, the chemical toilet filled up quickly and had to be emptied at the poo tank that had been installed down the road, about twenty houses away. There were chest-high poo tanks dotted all over the neighbourhood and sucker trucks coming around regularly to empty them.

  Kevin emptied the chemical toilet every night when he came home, before getting in the shower. Because he truly believed in hygiene, he had a set of protective clothing just for that job. He put on his wet weather gear: raincoat, waterproof pants, gumboots and elbow-length plastic gloves, spread a tarpaulin set aside specifically for the chemical toilet in the back of his van and carried the chemical toilet out to the van. He drove down to the poo tank and emptied the toilet, then drove home, restored the chemical toilet to its rightful place in front of The Toilet That Should Not Be Used and proceeded to soak his raincoat, his pants and his elbow-length gloves in a dilute bleach solution. So that they would not get gastroenteritis. Then he would get in the shower. Each morning, before he went to work, he would take his raincoat, his waterproof pants and his elbow-length gloves out of the laundry sink and leave them on the clothesline to dry during the day so he was ready to repeat the whole process again when he came home from work. Lindsay thought he was being over the top. But, he argued, no one in the family was getting sick, so it was working. She hadn’t heard of mass gastro outbreaks elsewhere in the city due to poor chemical toilet hygiene, but she decided it was best to keep silent on that.

  The chemical toilets were just camping toilets, and it seemed the City Council had cornered the market on them, buying up every available chemical toilet In The World and distributing them, free of charge, to certain parts of Christchurch. Sachets for treating the contents of the toilet were being distributed regularly so that households could treat their own waste. Lovely. And they were lovely, the blue crystals in the sachets were an intense blue, like that of a Ceylon sapphire.

  Lindsay needed to sort out Jack’s bedroom. The walls had been damaged, there were so many cracks along them that she and Kevin wondered what the room was trying to spell out, what message it was trying to deliver. Leave Christchurch? The plaster in the closet was cracked and crumbling, coming loose and was all over the place, on Jack’s clothes and in his shoes. She hoped she would be able to rescue them. The shoes, maybe, but she didn’t think she could ever wash the clothes enough to feel they were free of plaster dust. She hated the way the stuff felt on her skin, like it was sucking the moisture out, and she didn’t want to take a chance on leaving enough embedded in Jack’s clothes that it irritated his skin. Jack was sleeping in the second bed in Olivia’s room and they were niggling at each other, in spite of the fact that they had been just fine sharing a room in Timaru for the last few weeks. But now that they were home, they were getting territorial with one another. She could hear them arguing with each other over what they were going to watch on
TV, then Alice interrupting them and making them watch her pick. That was Finding Nemo, which she had loved as a kid, and both Olivia and Jack loved it too. But then they were arguing over who got to sit where, and so Alice separated them, one to either side.

  It was warm outside, so she opened the window to air the room out, which took more than a little effort, and she had to be careful, she didn’t want to break the frame or the glass, because then she would have to get a glazier in and that would be just another thing on the list of things that needed to be done. The windows were tending to stick on that side of the house, and Lindsay worried if that meant the frames had been twisted. Did that mean there were problems with the foundations? Kevin hadn’t said, but there were a lot of things he wasn’t saying about the state of the house. She wished he would just tell her, the worrying about what might be was getting to her. If it was bad, at least she would know, and be able to deal with it. After all, they had insurance, if the house was so badly damaged that it needed to be rebuilt, the insurance would take care of all that, as well as where they would live while the house was being rebuilt. But they hadn’t yet been assessed and didn’t know if they would be going over the EQC’s $100,000 cap.

  It was a dry day, so Lindsay stripped Jack’s bedding, threw the sheets and duvet cover in the washing machine and put the duvet inner and pillows on the washing line to air out, careful to keep them away from Kevin’s toilet emptying gear. She pulled the red rubbish bin up alongside the open window of Jack’s bedroom to make it easier to toss out the rubbish. It was heavy, all that broken plaster, and with the exposed laths Jack wouldn’t be able to use the closet, so she used a bungee cord to tie the doors shut. She vacuumed the floor and wiped down the walls, which resulted in the room smelling much less dusty, but she really wanted to air it another couple of days, then give it a good vacuum again before setting it back up for Jack.

  From the lounge, she heard the end of Finding Nemo, then some music. She checked in on the three of them. Alice was playing videos off YouTube on the laptop, just funny things that were making Olivia and Jack laugh.

  ‘We’re going to go for a walk,’ Alice said. ‘Just down to the river, then I’ll come back and make dinner.’

  Lindsay said that would be fine, just to make sure they all had jackets on and to be back in time for dinner. Lindsay went outside to bring all of Jack’s bedding back in and was distracted by the state of the garden. It would do her good to put in a few minutes pulling out the weeds she could see from the kitchen window. A few minutes turned in to half an hour and she had cleared the beds at the back of the house, which she couldn’t actually see from the kitchen window but that she always thought about. Because they were right there, under the window she was looking out of. She went out to the washing line and grabbed the washing.

  If Alice wasn’t home, Lindsay didn’t know what she would do, trying to keep up with the house, the kids, the paperwork and the sheer exhaustion. She would be struggling to cook, that was for certain, and resorting to takeaways.

  Cooking was pretty much Alice’s thing now, she had learned a lot from her great-grandmother in the weeks she had stayed with the old woman. Lindsay had always found the great-grandmother aloof and disapproving, and Andrew had been almost frightened by his grandmother, at the very least, intimidated. But Alice and the old woman had clicked, and Lindsay wasn’t sure if she felt comfortable about that. There was something cunning about her, and Lindsay didn’t want Alice to pick that up, or be exploited by it.

  Alice had become especially good at vegetables, roasting them or braising them in stock and butter. Lindsay had never eaten such flavourful vegetables, and even Olivia and Jack were getting better at eating their veggies. Lindsay had never been much of a cook, she was too busy trying to work and raise Alice and then, when she married Kevin, keep the house going while also taking on the books for Kevin’s company. So she hadn’t had any skills to pass on to Alice, for which she felt negligent, but she was too tired to dwell on it for long, she had things to do. There was always something more to do.

  The logburner for instance. Damn. It was nearly five o’clock, she needed to get on to that today, to find out when they would be able to heat the house properly. It was supposed to take only six weeks and it had been more than that. She found the paperwork and dialled the number.

  After being passed around to two different organisations, Lindsay still didn’t have an answer. The second man she talked to took her number and said he would check it out in the morning and call her back. She hung up, then realised she didn’t have his name, so she couldn’t follow up if he didn’t ring her back. Damn. She would have to start again in the morning.

  The phone rang again. Hopefully it was the guy, calling back to make sure she had his name and number. But no, it was the police, calling for Alice. Her car had been retrieved from the carpark building she had left it in on the day of the February quake, she would need to bring proof of ownership and ID to get it back. Well it was something.

  After dinner, Lindsay put Olivia and Jack to bed in Olivia’s room for what she hoped would be the last time. Tomorrow she would air and vacuum Jack’s bedroom once again and set it up for him, his books on the shelves, and she would get some crates to stack his toys in. Maybe one of the supermarkets in the city would have something. She hoped so, because there really wasn’t anywhere else to try, unless she wanted to drive north to Rangiora or south to Ashburton.

  Alice was in the kitchen, putting aside a plate for Kevin and putting it into the oven, which she turned on to low. He was having to go out of the city for work, nothing was happening nearby. He was on a job near Rangiora today. Maybe Lindsay could ask him to go to The Warehouse out there, or the Farmers, find something for Jack’s room. She hoped he would be home soon, there was still the chemical toilet business to go through and all the cleaning up after that. So much to do, all the time.

  ‘Why does Jack want to learn how to skateboard?’ Lindsay asked Alice.

  Alice laughed. ‘I showed him that video,’ she said.

  ‘He said he wants to take his scooter down the driveway next door, see if he can jump the hump,’ Lindsay said.

  They both started laughing, then Lindsay pictured tiny little Jack coming off his scooter and disappearing into a crack. She burst into tears. Alice put her arms around her, and Lindsay started really crying, sobbing, feeling her nose blocking up, her sinuses swelling. She would have to stop, but she couldn’t seem to.

  Kevin’s van pulled up, and Lindsay and Alice tried to pull themselves together, but when he came inside, he could see Lindsay had been crying.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he said.

  ‘Jack wants to learn how to skateboard,’ Lindsay said. ‘He wants to jump the hump next door.’

  Alice suppressed a giggle, wiping at her eyes.

  Kevin gave them both an odd look. ‘Suppose I’d better do the loo.’

  ‘I’ve done it,’ Alice said. ‘I did it when Mum was putting Livvy and Jack to bed.’

  Lindsay hadn’t heard a thing. Alice was doing so much for them and it wasn’t right. Lindsay was the mother, and now, when everything to do with the house and the quake was just getting to be too much, her lovely daughter had stepped up and helped them out. She started crying again.

  ‘Mum?’ Alice said, while Kevin stepped forward and put his arms around Lindsay, which just made her cry more.

  Muntsbury

  May 2011

  The night of the big quake, Gerald and Sylvia had moved in with Andrew and his family. After a couple of days, Andrew and Michelle and the children had gone to stay at their holiday home in Wanaka. At that point, Sylvia said there was no reason to stay in the city, it was gone, everything they had known all their lives was gone and she’d had enough of the regular aftershocks. Gerald agreed, and Sylvia packed in less than an hour, proving to Gerald just how desperate she was to go.

  They had flown over to Sydney to stay with their daughter Laurel and her husband. The house was bi
g, they were made to feel welcome and there was no reason for them to leave in a hurry. Gerald’s staff in Christchurch were able to keep up with the emergency repair work that came their way and so there was no need for him to be there, for a few weeks anyway. It was good to be in Sydney, spending more time with Laurel than they had been able to for the decade she had been there. The weather was good and the city vibrant, full of life.

  Gerald had made contact with the insurance company shortly after the February quake and they had said the process would be slow. That didn’t really worry him too much, there was so much damage in Christchurch, he understood that there was a very long queue. Several of them. But by May, Gerald was starting to hear unsettling news from his contacts in Christchurch about how assessments were being carried out by people with no building background. He didn’t like the idea of their house being assessed by an ex-policeman when it needed to be assessed by a structural engineer. Then there was the new Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, CERA, and the legislation that went along with it. The Minister for Earthquake Recovery had been given extraordinary powers and to Gerald that meant only one thing: there was going to be more bureaucracy than ever.