Bleak City

by Marisa Taylor

  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.

  The Excess

  April 2015

  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.

  Heather stepped out of the bed, moving slowly to avoid disturbing Neil, who was snoring softly. She put on her walking clothes and headed outside. She walked towards the front of the section, following the sound of the bellbird, searching for it in the trees along the fenceline that faced onto the road. There in the kowhai tree, the slender olive green bird gave a call far louder than seemed possible for such a small bird.

  It was cold and soon the mornings would be bitter. Heather had been walking each morning since the start of the year, part of her programme for taking care of herself, building up her fitness following her bypass as well as looking after her mental health. So fa
r it was working, but Heather didn’t like being outdoors in the cold, it would take real effort to get up each morning, especially once the days started getting shorter. But that problem was a few weeks away, Heather would deal with it when it arrived rather than worrying about it now. She was trying to focus on dealing with the problems at hand, rather than becoming mired in what could go wrong.

  She headed along the river towards the hills. Her usual walk was a zigzag through the neighbourhood’s streets, but it was getting too easy, and today she would add a bit of hill in. Her first hill goal was getting over a slight rise without having to stop for breath, and once she had achieved that, she would try some of the hill walks up the valley, towards the Summit Road.

  She had to pause once to catch her breath while going up the hill. At the top, she stopped to look out down Port Hills Road towards the Heathcote Valley. She and Neil had planned to spend their retirement there, in a house built to their design, on the section they still owned but could do nothing with. It was a dead dream, Heather accepted that now, and she was starting to think what they might do once it was all over, the issues with the house, the problem of the section. Her mother was nearly ninety and in the months since Heather’s father had died, was looking it. Her house was too big for her, and Neil and Heather had talked about having her move in with them. Heather didn’t like the idea, as having her move in then out again, should re-repairs ever take place, would be too stressful. But none of Heather’s sisters seemed inclined to want to take their mother in, and none of them was near enough to be of help on a regular basis.

  There had been good news a few weeks ago, which helped Heather’s mood enormously. The Supreme Court had decided in favour of the Quake Outcasts, the group of red zone landowners who had taken the Government to court over its fifty percent offers on bare land. The half-price offers had not been lawfully made, the court ruled, and the Government had been directed to reconsider their decisions and make new offers. Although it wasn’t over yet, the end was in sight, Neil and Heather would finally receive an offer on their red zoned section, one that would be more than half of the 2007 value. The Supreme Court had given the Government no leeway for further excuses. It had taken such a long time, over eighteen months since the High Court had first ruled against the Government, but finally seeing a just decision gave Heather hope.

  Their house re-repairs still weren’t sorted, but there was progress there, even though it didn’t directly relate to their house. The Ministry responsible for building standards had been asked to survey houses where the owners had questioned the quality of foundation repairs. The results had been disturbing. Of the fourteen houses inspected, there was only one that actually met the required standards. Another hundred houses would be inspected to see if the survey findings were part of a wider problem. Once the results of that survey were complete, Neil and Heather had decided they would approach EQC once again.

  Heather turned and walked back down the hill. She heard a runner’s footsteps coming up behind her and slowing down. It was Alice, who stopped. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but some curls had come loose and hung around her sweaty face. She leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees, gasping for breath.

  ‘Gran,’ she managed to gasp out.

  ‘Good run?’

  Alice nodded, gulping in breath. ‘Really pushed myself.’

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Heather said.

  ‘No, I’ve done enough, I’ll walk with you.’

  They headed back towards Neil and Heather’s house.

  ‘Got some stuff from the insurance company,’ Alice said. ‘They said it’ll be a few more weeks before they can give us the full file.’ Alice had helped Lindsay write a request to the insurance company for their file, and they had been waiting over a month for the information to start coming through.

  ‘Anything useful?’

  ‘All stuff we already have,’ Alice said. ‘But I was thinking, with the building consent, shouldn’t Mum and Kevin have a copy of that?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Heather said. ‘The consent was applied for on their behalf. Don’t they have it?’

  ‘No,’ Alice shook her head. ‘The claims manager was supposed to let them see it before making the application but he never did. And things were so hectic then.’ She paused.

  Heather nodded. She had still been recovering from her surgery at the time. She hated that she had been such a burden, had so worried everyone in her family. She wouldn’t let that happen again.

  ‘Call the council,’ Heather said. ‘They shouldn’t have any problem giving you a copy. Well, giving Lindsay one anyway.’

  ‘Good idea,’ Alice said. ‘Did you hear EQC’s started sending out excess invoices?’

  ‘Yes, I did hear that,’ Heather said. Late in 2014, EQC had announced it would start billing for repairs done under the CHRP. That struck people as strange, almost like an afterthought, as insurance companies usually expected an excess to be paid before work commenced. The EQC official line was that it was deliberate policy. It didn’t make sense.

  ‘You know the EQC excess is different from your standard insurance excess?’ Alice said. ‘It’s a percentage of the repair value. So when you get your excess bill, you’ll know how much they spent on repairs. No reason you can’t ask them for a breakdown of costs.’

  Heather stopped and turned to Alice. ‘We could ask,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But we can’t make them give us the information.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ Alice said. ‘Like we’re doing with the insurance company, there’s an Official Information Act that applies to government departments. So when your invoice comes in, you can Oh-Eye-A your scope of works...’

  ‘... and that would give us a way forward with our complaint,’ Heather finished. She was excited. For the first time in her life, she was anticipating the receipt of a bill.

  Telegraph Road

  May 2015

  Long, straight roads run for tens of kilometres across the Canterbury Plains, and it was one of these roads that Charlotte and Alice were driving along at one hundred kilometres an hour. Grassy paddocks and evergreen windbreaks passed by at a blur, the road stretching off to the distant mountains. Freedom to Charlotte was driving these straight roads far away from her everyday life, and if she had enough money, she would just get in her car and drive, fill the tank once again and keep driving.

  ‘It’s the next intersection,’ Alice said, glancing up from her phone. ‘Another four kays.’

  The road they were on was Telegraph Road and in September 2010, the Greendale fault had ripped across Telegraph Road and shunted the northern half of the road east and the southern half west. The shift had been half the width of the road, so the centreline from each side of the road ran into the road edge markings. Charlotte had been reading about the geology of the earthquake sequence for the writing class she was taking at her new high school and she wanted to see what the fault looked like nearly five years after the big quake. She had a GoPro attached to the dashboard to record the trip.

  She slowed the car as they reached the next intersection. There was no one else on the road so they crept along, looking for signs of the big quake.

  Charlotte pulled the car off the road and turned off the engine. She removed the GoPro from the dashboard and stepped out of the car. Alice followed. ‘This must be it,’ Charlotte said, panning the camera across the road ahead of her. There was a slight kink in the road, but what was more noticeable was the displacement of the irrigation ditch running along one side of the road.

  ‘Seems to be,’ Alice said, checking the spot they had stopped at against the information on her phone. ‘You wouldn’t know unless you were looking for it.’

  Charlotte switched off the GoPro and pulled her phone from her pocket. They walked around, looking for further signs of the rupture, but there was only the irrigation ditch and the resurfacing that had been carried out to rejoin the broken road. Charlotte took some photos, just as reminders fo
r when she was writing her blog post.

  ‘You can understand why it’s so hard for scientists to figure out what’s going on in the landscape,’ Charlotte said, turning to Alice. ‘It’s just four years since this, and there’s barely any sign.’

  Alice turned and walked back to the car, pulling her jacket tight about her. ‘We need to get going,’ she said, ‘if we’re going to get back in time.’

  Charlotte followed and they drove back into the city, to Alice’s house. They needed to be back in time to watch the demolition of the police station. Explosives had been set and the demolition was going to be streamed online. Alice’s little brother wanted to go into the city to see the demolition, but authorities were recommending that people stay away, there could be flying debris.

  They reached the Bowen house just in time. Everyone was in the lounge watching the live stream on the television. Charlotte and Alice fell into beanchairs in front of the roaring fire.

  The police station was fifteen storeys high and had been stripped before the demolition, so the sky behind it was visible through the levels, bright as the sun dropped behind the mountains. There was a flash of light and the sound of an explosion, and white awnings that had been draped around the building’s lower levels puffed out. Then... nothing. There was another bang and then suddenly the lower level crumpled and the building fell forward, smashing into the ground. Dust billowed away from the site. Jack and Kevin whooped, punching the air, while Lindsay rolled her eyes.

  Charlotte knew the Bowens were having problems with their insurance company, but in spite of that, they seemed to be able to take a break and have fun with their children. Charlotte’s parents, though, found it difficult to take a break. For four years, they had been consumed over the future of their house and getting out of the clutches of the EQC. When Charlotte had failed her exams at the end of the previous year, it finally became clear to them that something had to change. When she said she wanted to switch schools, they had agreed without argument.