The financial risk of the rebuild was being transferred from EQC and insurers to the homeowners of Christchurch. Lindsay could see that happening in their own lives.
The riskiest thing that could happen to Lindsay and Kevin was letting the repairs go ahead based on the current patch-it-up scope and then the repairs going badly as more and more damage was discovered. If the repairs ran on long enough, Lindsay and Kevin’s temporary accommodation allowance would run out, leaving them paying mortgage and rent while waiting to move back in. Even if the managed repair went well, Lindsay and Kevin would need to keep a very close eye on every step of the process, which would be as exhausting, if not more so, than the last five years. That was transferring the risk onto their children, who needed their parents’ attention. Olivia would be a teenager and at high school in another three years. Lindsay had missed out on too much with all her children because of having to deal with the insurance issues.
Most insurance companies were cash settling rather than managing repairs. Although Lindsay and Kevin’s insurance company had made them a cash offer in 2013, it hadn’t been enough to repair the house. And when Lindsay and Kevin hired their own engineer, the insurance company has taken that cash offer off the table, insisting they would get a managed repair. But now it seemed all the insurance companies wanted claims off their books and cash settling was the trend. Managing repairs was proving too expensive when homeowners insisted they be done properly, and cash settling was a way of transferring the risk of unknowns back to the homeowner.
If there was an offer, would they take it? The offer, especially based on the current scope, wouldn’t give them enough money to fix the house properly.
The EQC and insurance companies had been paid money to take on the risk of a natural disaster, yet their efforts weren’t going into meeting their obligations. Instead, they were furiously shovelling the risk back on to the people of Christchurch.
To the Grave
October 2015
Suzanne had thought she would feel relief once Marjorie was gone, but instead her mother’s death had emptied everything from her heart and filled it with grief. She struggled to understand this, it had always been a contentious relationship, fraught with conflicting emotions for Suzanne. Her efforts to please her mother had never met with her love, or even the merest sign of approval.
It had happened quickly. Yes, Marjorie had been growing more and more frail, shrinking into an even tinier woman than she had been for all her adult life. At ninety-four years of age, it was obvious she wouldn’t be around much longer. But it had still been a shock to find her asleep in her favourite chair, eyes closed, facing out towards the stream. Well, asleep was what Suzanne had thought at first.
Andrew had been appointed Marjorie’s executor, which had provoked some mumbling from Suzanne’s younger sisters at the funeral, and from Tony, Suzanne’s son. No doubt there would be some arguments over Marjorie’s estate, but Suzanne didn’t care. They were arguing about things and things didn’t matter, not when someone who had been there Suzanne’s entire life was now gone. Strangely, though, Marjorie’s will had been clear that it should be Suzanne who went through her personal effects and determined who they should go to. She had been entrusted with something deeply personal, and that trust was very unlike her mother.
Suzanne had never thought of herself as a bad daughter. She was never rebellious when she was young, even though she had been young in the sixties, when rebelliousness was all the rage. As she grew older, she did her best to look after her mother, especially once her father had died. But it was never enough, nothing she had done ever gained Marjorie’s approval.
In the years since the quakes started, Marjorie had changed, almost softened, but it had been towards Andrew’s daughter, Alice. Suzanne had been jealous, she realised that now, and had judged the girl harshly as a result. Suzanne was her mother’s daughter after all, judging and weighing people, determining whether or not they deserved a role in her life. How could it be that a girl who had nothing to do with the Moorhouses for so long could gain Marjorie’s attention when Suzanne, who had been attentive and dutiful for so many years, could not?
She found a photo in her mother’s belongings, tucked into the back of an old book. It was of a girl and a young soldier and the back of the photo said ‘Kathy and Walter, October 1940’. They looked happy. The girl looked like Alice. She must have been Marjorie’s sister or cousin.
The family knew little of Marjorie’s background. The only family member she had ever mentioned by name was her brother Edward, who had died in the war when he was only nineteen years old. All the others had died in the Blitz, but Suzanne knew no names. Marjorie’s views of the world had been shaped by the war, that was clear, even if Suzanne was never party to the details. Marjorie had always refused to vote, saying governments only served themselves, as evidenced by the way they sent young men off to war, killing them outright or sending them home so damaged they would have been better off dead. They couldn’t make her vote and be part of their game, choosing one side over the other.
It had seemed to be the loss of her brother that had grieved her the most, even in light of the loss of the rest of her family. Yet here was this other young soldier with someone who was clearly related, the first glimpse Suzanne ever had of someone on Marjorie’s side of the family.
She went to see Gerald at his office and showed him the photo.
‘She does look like Alice,’ he agreed, smiling. ‘Such a lovely girl, I wonder who she was.’ He turned the photo over and read the inscription. ‘It’s Mother,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘The girl is Mother. Mother was Marjorie Kathleen. She must’ve been known by her middle name at some stage.’
‘So who was Walter? I thought she said her brother was Edward.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. You know more than I do if you know her brother’s name.’
‘You knew her middle name,’ Suzanne pointed out. ‘I can’t believe I’ve never known that.’
The door opened and Alice said hello, came in and sat down in front of her computer. Gerald passed the photo to her.
‘This is Mother as a girl,’ Gerald said. Suzanne and Gerald peered intently at Alice to see if she would notice the resemblance.
‘Looks like Charlotte,’ Alice said and passed the photo back to Gerald.
‘Suppose it does, too,’ Gerald said, examining the photo once again. ‘We think she looks like you.’
Alice put her hand out and Gerald handed the photo back. ‘Suppose so,’ she said. ‘Charlotte and I get asked if we’re sisters.’
‘Look at the inscription,’ Suzanne said, and explained about Marjorie’s middle name.
‘Who’s Walter?’ Alice asked.
‘Her brother, we think,’ Gerald said.
‘No, that was Edward,’ Alice said. ‘She talked about how much she missed him.’
Suzanne felt that twinge of jealousy once again, that Marjorie had discussed these things with Alice. But she pushed that feeling to the back of her mind, her curiosity winning over her jealousy. ‘Is there any way we can find out for certain?’
Alice turned to her computer, brought up a webpage and typed in a search. ‘A friend of Mum’s has done some family history. Apparently a lot of British birth records are available online for free. What was her maiden name?’
‘Reeves,’ Suzanne and Gerald said at the same time. They only knew that because there was a Reeves Road in the neighbourhood they had grown up in.
Both of them stood behind Alice, watching what she was doing. She entered a search for Marjorie for births over the space of two years. There weren’t many results, and they each listed the mother’s maiden name. ‘From that we can search for her brothers and sisters,’ Alice said. She changed the search and the results showed five children: Marjorie, the oldest, then Edward, Gwendoline, Charles and Elizabeth.
‘No Walter,’ Suzanne said. ‘So who was Walter?’
‘No ide
a,’ Alice said, shaking her head.
Gerald was studying the photo and looked for a moment like something had occurred to him. He glanced over at Suzanne.
‘What?’ Suzanne asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said. He passed the photo back to Suzanne. ‘You keep it,’ he said. ‘She wanted you to have it.’
He was right. Marjorie had been specific about who should go through her belongings. ‘But why wouldn’t she tell us if she was going to leave this behind for us?’
‘Of course she never told us, that would be revealing a weakness,’ Gerald said.
It made sense. ‘But why leave the photo?’
He thought for a moment before answering. ‘Because she couldn’t bear to destroy it.’
It made no sense. She studied the photo once again and glanced up at Alice, who looked as happy as this young girl had been so many decades ago. That was what Marjorie had seen in Alice, a reflection of her former self, of someone she had left behind.
She asked Alice to email her the address for the website they were looking at, maybe she could find out more about Marjorie, about her parents or even her grandparents.
At home, Suzanne placed the photo up against her bedside lamp. She wanted to have it close. Marjorie had kept it all those years, and Marjorie had specified in her will that it was Suzanne who should go through her personal effects.
That night Suzanne couldn’t get to sleep from turning over in her mind all the questions she had about her mother’s family. She turned on the light and examined the photo again.
In the lounge she turned on her computer and visited the website Alice had sent her the address for. This time, she searched only for her mother, under her maiden name, from her date of birth right up until the end of the war. Listed were her birth, as expected, and two marriages. Two. The first was in the second quarter of 1940, to Walter Finlay. Finlay was Gerald’s middle name. Suzanne had always wondered where it came from, and now she knew. The photo was from a few months after her mother had married Walter Finlay, who must have died in the war. Marjorie had kept the photo for all these years because she had loved him and couldn’t bear to let him go.
The webpage was still open, listing Marjorie’s birth and her two marriages. Suzanne had always thought her parents were married in 1942, but the website said 1943, in the second quarter. Suzanne herself was born in September 1943, the end of the third quarter. Fancy that, all those years Marjorie and Bill had celebrated the wrong anniversary, saying they had been married a year longer to avoid admitting to a wartime indiscretion. Suzanne laughed, and then stopped short.
She searched but could find no deaths for a Walter Finlay that made sense, given what she knew. It seemed the free database didn’t list deaths in combat, so she googled for lists of British soldiers who died in combat. There was a war graves website, and she entered her search terms.
There were only a handful of results, so she quickly found what she was looking for. Walter Finlay, age 23, husband of Kathy, died on the 16th of February 1943, seven months before Suzanne was born. Had Marjorie ever told Bill? She had married him under her maiden name, so possibly not. But there was no way of knowing now, and it no longer mattered.
Suzanne felt relief. Her mother’s attitude had never been about her, it had been about what she had lost and couldn’t bear living without.
Options
November 2015
Neil and Heather had finally received the payout for their red zoned section in October. A month later, Heather still wondered if she was going to wake up from this cruel dream and realise they still owned a piece of land they could do nothing with. The first few mornings, she checked their bank account while making cups of tea, admiring the substantial jump in their balance and wondering what they could do with it. On the fifth day, she resisted the temptation, to keep doing so would be obsessive and she needed to keep an eye on her tendency to obsessive thinking.
There was so much to obsess about in Christchurch, that had been clear when Heather and Lindsay went to a public meeting about the quality of repairs. The meeting had been held in the temporary cardboard cathedral and was packed. It was good for both of them to see that others were affected by the same issues they were experiencing, it wasn’t just their family being especially unlucky. Lindsay said afterwards that she felt less alone seeing all those people in the cathedral.
The Government was ignoring the shoddy repairs fiasco, and the Opposition seemed unable, or unwilling, to really dig into the issues that the foundation repairs survey had raised. A petition had been launched calling for a Royal Commission into earthquake repairs, something the Government insisted there was no need for. But a full third of the surveyed repairs failing was serious, anyone with a brain could see that. Instead, the Government was saying it wasn’t many houses and all could be fixed up for under $1000 each.
That was rubbish. Going by the shoddy repairs to their own house and what had been proposed for Lindsay and Kevin’s house, it was likely that issues with foundation repairs were because the work hadn’t been scoped properly. If the scope of works was wrong, that was the fault of EQC and Fletchers, not the builder, and it should be up to EQC to carry the cost of re-repairs.
There had also been a court action filed by a group of one hundred EQC claimants. They claimed EQC wasn’t meeting its legal obligations to homeowners and wanted the court to make declarations regarding the standard repairs needed to meet. Other issues the group wanted the court to decide were whether EQC was cash settling claims in a manner that left homeowners with enough money to carry out repairs and whether homeowners should be expected to pay for upgrades to electrical wiring and other wear and tear exposed because earthquake repairs were being carried out.
Heather knew the group was in for a long wait before its members finally had options, the way Neil and Heather did now. After all, the Quake Outcasts group action Neil and Heather had benefited from had first been heard in the High Court in 2013, and that had only recently been resolved.
Neil and Heather had agreed they wouldn’t discuss options until the new year, to let them enjoy a holiday without the worry of the section hanging over them. Heather intended to stick to that promise. It held for two weeks, and it was Neil who broke it, bringing home a copy of the real estate book along with the shopping after work one day.
Heather didn’t want to be interested. ‘We can’t afford anything in here,’ she said, ‘not without selling this place, and while the repairs aren’t sorted...’
‘We could,’ Neil said, ‘if we rented it out.’
‘Only if the bank says yes,’ Heather said.
‘If I sold the business, the bank would say yes,’ Neil said. ‘They’d even say yes if we just rented this place out, on the strength of our history with them, and given the business is doing so well.’ That had been one thing that hadn’t gone wrong due to the earthquakes. The city’s rough roads were hard on vehicles and mechanics all over the city never had to worry about a decline in customers, once their workshops were up and running following the quake. He could put the business on the market and see what interest there was.
‘You’ve talked to them?’ Heather didn’t know whether she should be upset that he had gone behind her back, but she realised it was better this way. If the bank had said no, she would never know and wouldn’t be disappointed and upset. She had spent too much time being upset over the past five years.
It was time to retire, Neil said. He was past retirement age, and she had turned 65 a few months earlier.
‘We have two options, love,’ Neil said. ‘Sell the business and use the money from it and the section to buy something new, which might take as long as a year, or rent this place out and use the section money for the deposit on something. Then, when the business sells, pay off a big chunk of the new mortgage.’
‘What do you want to do?’ she asked. Her head was swimming. They had options, two of them, whereas just two months ago they had none. She had spent the last couple of weeks, s
ince the money had been deposited, thinking they needed to wait for the repairs to the house to be sorted. But no, Neil said, they could think about moving on now.
The repairs of the repairs would take a long time, Heather knew that. An appointment had been made for someone from EQC’s Remedial Repairs Team to come and inspect the repairs. It was nice to have progress, at last, but an appointment was no guarantee that they would be listened to, and Kevin was going to be there during the appointment to be their third pair of eyes. But that seemed like less of an issue now, because they had options. Two of them.
‘Let’s start looking,’ she said. ‘See about selling the business, and start looking.’
They decided to go out to dinner to celebrate. It had been a beautiful day, the temperature had been up around twenty-five degrees and they decided to walk to The Tannery, the Victorian-style shopping arcade on the banks of the Heathcote River. The way there was along the river through the suburb of Hillsborough, then through industrial Woolston.
As they were walking along the river, Heather thought about where they might move to. Her instinct was to stay here, close to family, but there was no way of knowing where Lindsay and Kevin would end up as long as their house was in insurance limbo. They had finally received word from their insurance company that they had been assigned a new project manager, who was going to work through all the issues with their scope of works. It promised progress in the new year, Heather thought, but Lindsay was far from convinced. As many in Christchurch had found in the last five years, insurance company promises usually came with hooks.
Jason and Carla were expecting another baby, due in April. Their Addington townhouse wasn’t big enough for little Eddie and another baby, so they had bought a house in Hoon Hay, a suburb near the river but further west, and were moving in at the weekend.
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