Bleak City (21 page)

As far as Alice was concerned, the Royal Commission hearings were a depressing end to a surreal and stressful year. She thought she had dealt with the stress of the quakes pretty well, overall, but lately she had found herself crying at random things. Buildings disappearing she hadn’t previously thought she had an attachment to, art works appearing on random walls around the city, paradise duck babies in the river going through the city. Little things, little hints of normality and beauty making appearances among the rubble.

She was looking forward to getting out of the city, to being somewhere else where she could work through everything she had experienced in the past year. Lindsay was, strangely, keen to stay. They had swapped roles lately, Lindsay being the mum once again and taking care of Alice. Alice said she wanted to go to the West Coast with Andrew and Michelle for a couple of days before Christmas, they were staying with Andrew’s cousin Rebecca and her husband Dan at a house on a lake. It would the closest Michelle and the kids had been to Christchurch since February. It still wasn’t clear when they would be moving back.

Sean and Charlotte were going over to the lake as well, and Alice was looking forward to spending some time outdoors with her cousins. Alice had been reluctant to bring this up with Lindsay in case she felt slighted because Alice would be spending holiday time with Andrew’s side of the family, but Lindsay surprised her when she said she should go for longer, have a good break. No, Alice insisted, she would go over for two nights then come back in time for lunch on Christmas day.

‘We’ll go up Rapaki afterwards,’ Lindsay said. ‘Work off all that food.’ Before the February quake, the Rapaki Track to the Summit Road had been the family’s favourite trail up the hills, but since February, it had been closed because of rockfall. The track was opening up again the Friday before Christmas, the day Alice would be driving to the coast.

After coming back to Christchurch for a couple of days, she was going to spend a week in Timaru with Ben. She had told him she wanted to go to Sydney with him and they were going to make their plans.

As for the lake, the adults had gone over a couple of days earlier, and Alice was to pick up Sean and Charlotte and drive across to the coast. Although she got away from home at eleven, Sean and Charlotte hadn’t even started packing, and they would be away a lot longer than her. She had brought them lunch from the bakery in Woolston, thinking that they would all just scoff that and get going. Not a chance. Yes, they did scoff their lunches, but it would be a while before they got themselves sorted. Alice settled down in the kitchen, made herself a coffee and started to flick through news websites on her phone while waiting for the two of them to get their act together. Nothing to see, it was close to Christmas and so the media had given up its usual pretext of reporting on serious matters.

Soon Sean came through and asked her what she was looking at.

‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘What’s Charlotte doing? When will she be ready?’

Sean shrugged. ‘She’s on her phone.’

Alice texted Charlotte to hurry her up. Charlotte texted back a photo of her middle finger, then a selfie of her face twisted, her eyes crossed. ‘You know, we should just leave her behind,’ Alice said loudly to Sean. ‘There’s food here, she’ll be fine.’

Alice knew Charlotte better now than she had last year. In the last few months, she and Sean and Charlotte had spent more time together, and Alice no longer thought of Charlotte as the selfish brat from last summer. She wasn’t sure if Charlotte was no longer the same person she had been a year ago or if Alice simply knew her better. People had changed because of the quakes, Alice knew she had changed, maybe Charlotte had too. Alice asked Sean.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, after thinking for a moment. ‘She’s easier to live with, those few months after the September quake she was a pain in the arse, angry over everything. So annoying.’

‘Where was she during the quake?’ Alice said. It was either something people talked about right away when they first met up after the February quake or it came out gradually, when someone was ready to talk about it. Alice tended to be in the first category. But Charlotte didn’t talk about the quakes.

‘At South City with Nana,’ Sean said. ‘The only thing she’s ever said is that Nana screamed a lot.’

‘You didn’t hear from your mum for a while, did you?’

Sean nodded. ‘It wasn’t until that night, when she finally arrived home. She had left her phone in her office and couldn’t go back in, so she just had to walk home. Lottie was really upset.’

Charlotte walked into the kitchen and slapped a half-full backpack onto the benchtop. ‘You two ready?’

‘That’s all you’re taking?’ Sean said.

‘Mum took most of my stuff,’ Charlotte said. She poured herself a glass of milk and started drinking, giving herself a milky moustache. Charlotte’s hair was a lot shorter than it had been. She had it all cut off without warning a few months ago, ended up sporting an edgy asymmetrical cut that framed her face and drew attention to her eyes, which were the same blue as Alice’s. The interest in the edgy cut had lasted only a couple of weeks, it needed to be straightened every day to keep control of the curls, and she quickly decided to grow it back out. Longer was easier, she said.

‘What’ve you been doing all this time?’ Sean said.

‘Filling up my iPod,’ Charlotte said. ‘Don’t wanna get bored.’

Alice rolled her eyes, Sean rolled his back, while Charlotte sipped slowly at the rest of the milk. ‘Let’s go,’ Alice said, ‘before it gets dark.’ She slung her handbag over her shoulder and walked purposely towards the front door. Sean followed.

‘You’re so serious now that you’re nearly twenty,’ Charlotte called after her.

‘Leaving without you,’ Alice called without turning back.

Charlotte flew out the front door ahead of Sean, who locked up behind them.

The day was warm and sunny, the sky blue and crisp. The roads were reasonably clear, despite being so close to Christmas, so they made good time to Springfield, where Charlotte started complaining about the lack of cellular coverage as the signal dropped away.

‘Who are you texting?’ Sean asked. ‘Why aren’t they doing stuff with their family instead of texting you?’

‘No one,’ Charlotte said. It was her friend Lucy, Alice guessed. Although Alice had never met Lucy, she knew a lot about her from the photos Charlotte posted of the two of them on Instagram, and would recognise her if she ran into her at the mall. Which was likely, Lucy seemed to spend a lot of time there. Alice was sure she hadn’t been like that at fourteen, mall and clothing-obsessed. Maybe if she had, she would have better fashion sense now. Or maybe she was beyond help, it was difficult to tell, she hadn’t yet developed those critical faculties.

‘Well this No One will be okay with there being no signal,’ Alice said. She sounded like her mother.

Charlotte huffed and from the driver’s seat Alice could see her turn her head to stare out the window at the passing countryside. There was a smile on her face, clearly she was messing with them.

They were starting up the road towards Porters Pass. She was looking forward to the top of the pass, when the road swept down between the tussock-clad hillsides, it was like driving into a new world, the golden tussock low against the grey shingle of the eroding mountains. It was her favourite part of the road, a world away from the rubble and rough roads of Christchurch. Charlotte commented on the beauty of the pass, echoing Alice’s thoughts.

The tussock-clad mountains started to give way to the rocky outcrops of Castle Hill. ‘Can we stop?’ Charlotte asked as they came up to the turn off to the Castle Hill walkway. ‘I need to pee.’

‘You know there’s no coverage there?’ Sean said.

‘Don’t stop then,’ Charlotte said.

Sean rolled his eyes at Alice.

‘I need to pee,’ Alice said. ‘And I’m sick of sitting.’

In spite of the sunny day and it being December, it was cold outside. It was high up in the mountains, after all, but it was still a surprise after all the sun burning through the car’s windows. Charlotte quickly got back into the car and closed her eyes, leaning her head against the window.

‘Aren’t you going to pee?’ Sean said, tapping on the window. Charlotte scowled, but didn’t reply.

After going to the loo, Alice walked up to where Sean was reading an information board that marked the start of the track. The track went up to a bunch of rocky limestone outcrops. Alice had been up the track years ago, as part of a school trip. She didn’t feel inclined to go for a walk at the moment, all she wanted was to get somewhere where she could have a swim. But she asked Sean anyway.

‘Wanna go up?’

‘Nah.’ He shrugged. ‘It would just annoy her, us taking so long. And then we still have over an hour in the car with her.’

They walked back to the car and got in.

‘About time,’ Charlotte said.

Alice and Sean said nothing. Sean connected his phone back up to the stereo and cranked up the volume. Charlotte may have been saying something about his choice of music, but it was simply too loud to hear.

Soon they were crossing the Waimak, then the road entered the southern beech forest that marked the point that had always said to Alice that it wasn’t long until they reached Arthur’s Pass. She turned down the music to ask if they needed to stop. Sean said yes, he was hungry.

‘You had a pie two hours ago,’ Alice said.

‘It was a small pie,’ he said.

‘Charlotte?’ Alice said, glancing back. Charlotte’s phone had beeped a bit and she had her head down reading.

‘There’s been another quake,’ she said, looking up. ‘Can we stop?’

Alice pulled into the carpark at the railway station, a pit of dread in the bottom of her stomach. Again? A 5.9, Charlotte said, just over an hour ago. That would’ve been around the time they were coming down Porters Pass. Alice powered up her phone. She had a message from her mother saying they were all fine, her grandparents were fine. Alice tried calling home, but there was no answer. There was no answer at Neil and Heather’s. Next she tried Marjorie, who reassured her it had been nothing really, she had lost a glass that had fallen off the kitchen bench. That was no surprise, all the old lady’s knick knacks were still blu-tacked to their shelves, cupboards bungee-corded shut.

Sean and Charlotte were both talking on the phone, Alice couldn’t tell with who. Sean finished his call, his mate Joe had been at Riccarton Mall where everyone had panicked and poured out onto the streets. People were tired, Joe had told him, people just looked like they’d had enough.

Charlotte was making another phone call. ‘Nanny,’ she said to Sean and Alice, while she waited for the call to connect. ‘Are you okay?’ she said when the call connected.

Alice and Sean could hear the muted buzz of Suzanne’s voice on the other end. Sean gestured at her to put it on speaker, which she did. She was at the office, she said, closing up for the end of the year. She was working for Gerald, helping him out while Sylvia was still in Sydney.

‘It wasn’t too bad,’ she said, but her voice was high enough in pitch that they could tell she had been scared. ‘I’m just going to tidy up then go home and see what the damage is.’

They were just saying their goodbyes when they heard it, even over the phone, a rumble, and then Suzanne was screaming and they could hear sounds of furniture and equipment shaking.

‘Get down, get down, get down,’ they were yelling, and then the rumbling faded into the distance and Suzanne stopped screaming. They could hear her rapid breathing. They felt the earth swell under the car as the wave passed across the island. That would be a six. Once again, Christchurch had a five followed soon after by a six. It wasn’t fair.

‘I’m all right,’ Suzanne said. ‘A couple of things have fallen over, but it’s not too bad.’

‘Are you sure?’ Sean said. ‘Do you want us to come back?’

‘No, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘You keep going, and enjoy yourselves.’

After a few rounds of reassurances, they disconnected the call.

‘Do you think we should keep going?’ Charlotte said.

‘She says she’s okay,’ Sean said. ‘She’d feel pretty stink if we went back.’

Charlotte nodded, but clearly wasn’t happy about the idea of not going back. In fact, she looked like she was going to cry. ‘Can we get something to drink?’ she said, sniffing. ‘Just stay here for a few minutes in case we hear back from anyone.’

‘Okay,’ Alice said, and started up the car. Just up the road they stopped at the general store where Alice and Charlotte ordered coffees, while Sean bought a pie, chips and a Coke. They rolled their eyes at him.

‘Don’t go flatting,’ Alice said. ‘Paying for your own food you’ll never be able to afford your fees next year.’

There were a few more messages from people about the city, Alice ended up copying the same message and sending it in reply. Everyone they heard back from was fine, there didn’t seem to be much damage, and by the time they finished their drinks, Charlotte seemed to feel better about continuing on.

An hour later, they arrived at the lake, where the four parents were sitting on the deck outside the holiday home, the women sipping from glasses of wine and the men from bottles of beer. Andrew stood up, waved her around the corner and started to walk off the deck in the direction of somewhere behind the house. Alice followed his directions and pulled her car up alongside the house, behind Andrew’s and rolled down the window. He leaned in, the bottom of his half-empty bottle tinking on the car door, the smell of the beer coming off his breath and into the car.

‘No quake talk,’ he said. ‘Shell and Rebecca are really upset. Rebecca wants to go check on home, but she also doesn’t want to go back.’

‘Okay,’ all in the car said.

‘We don’t even say where we were?’ Alice said.

‘Nothing. We’ve agreed not to talk about it, it won’t do anyone any good. The kids don’t know, they were all running around so didn’t notice it, and we’re not telling them.’

They got out of the car and walked up the deck, said their hellos to everyone, air kisses exchanged with Michelle and Rebecca, glasses of wine (Alice), beer (Sean) and Coke (Charlotte) pressed into their hands.