by Fleur Beale
I saw a convoy of huge cranes heading into the central city. I wouldn’t let myself think about why they were needed.
Puddles of grey liquefaction stretched right across the roads. I abandoned my socks after I’d waded through the first one.
The danger of high buildings falling faded as I reached the suburbs. Now the danger was of stepping into a deep hole hidden by the horrible liquefaction.
I walked past houses shoved off their foundations. Past people sitting outside, too stunned to move, too frightened to go into their wrecked homes.
As I drew nearer Ireland Street, I sped up. Our house would be all right. It had survived September. It would be fine. I slowed down again. The turning into Ireland Street was just ahead. What if…
A woman ran past me, looked around frantically, then clambered over a collapsed stone wall and started sloshing through liquefaction towards the house, shouting, ‘Roger! Where are you? Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have left you all by yourself!’
She’d left a kid at home by himself?
‘Can I help?’ I started picking my way through the sticky mess.
She gave a sob. ‘He’s so little. My husband said he needed to get used to being outside and now he could be dead. Roger! Come on, darling. Mumma’s home.’
This wasn’t making any sense. ‘Um, how old is he? Has he got a favourite hiding place?’
She stared at me as if I was the crazy one. ‘I told you – today’s the first day he’s been outside.’ She started squelching towards the back of the house.
I yelled, ‘What’s he look like? Can he walk?’
She didn’t even turn around. ‘Of all the stupid questions! Did you ever meet a puppy that couldn’t walk?’
‘Well,’ I muttered, ‘it’s pretty stupid to expect me to know Roger’s a dog.’
She heard me and came sploshing back. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m just so worried. Roger! Tell Mumma where you are!’
‘Listen!’ I waded closer to the house. ‘I think he’s under the deck.’
She just about fell headlong into the liquefaction, she was in such a hurry. ‘Roger darling, it’s all right. Come out now. Come to Mumma.’
I bent down to look under the deck. All I could see was his head and his terrified eyes – he was up to his belly in gunk. He whimpered when he saw me. ‘Hang on, Roger. We’ll soon have you out of there.’
Mumma just stood there, wringing her hands. I had to shout at her to get her to listen. ‘Have you got an axe? Or a crowbar? Something we can use to take boards off?’
That got her attention. ‘We can’t do that! The house isn’t damaged. We can’t just start ripping it up!’
I couldn’t be bothered arguing. It seemed that shock took people in different ways. Selina from the square became calm. Ian was polite even though he might have been dying. I felt better if I could do something. So I took off the bathrobe and crawled under the deck. Liquefaction up to my elbows, halfway up my thighs.
‘Hey, Roger. It’s okay, buddy. You’re in a bit of a fix there, old fella.’
There can’t be many things as sad as a puppy stuck in liquefaction. Roger didn’t take his eyes off me as I crawled towards him. I reached out to give him a tug, but my hand got the most slobbery licking ever. ‘Okay! You’re pleased to see me. I get it!’
I had to get both hands under him to haul him free. He rewarded me by washing my entire face with his tongue. Oh well, one way to get a clean face.
I wriggled backwards with him in my arms. Mumma seized him, mud and all, smothering the un-gunky bits of him with kisses. Roger might be a terrier, and very possibly his coat might be white. Bits of it, anyway.
I sat on her steps, clear of the mud. ‘Can I have something to wipe this stuff off?’ No point asking for water. We’d been without water for days after the September quake, and this one had to be worse.
She stared at me, horrified. ‘But I’ll leave mud on the floor if I go inside!’
I’d had enough of her. ‘Fine.’
I got to my feet, but she thrust Roger into my arms. ‘Sorry! I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Wait here. Please.’
I sat down again and Roger and I had a good chat. I swear he smiled at me. ‘You’re quite sweet, you are,’ I told him. He needed a good clean-up too.
Mumma came back with a pink towel. ‘It’s one of my best ones. You deserve the best.’
I choked up, but shook my head. ‘S’okay. I’m glad we found him.’
I cleaned the stinking muck from my arms and legs as well as I could and put the bathrobe back on, glad of its warmth even though by now it was an artistic mess of blood and mud.
Mumma came out to the road to say goodbye, holding Roger in her arms. I gave him a rub under his chin. ‘Bye, old fella.’
They were still watching when I got to my corner. Roger gave a yipping bark when I waved.
There was liquefaction in our street too, great lakes of the evil stuff.
A whole entire corner of the Jaffries’ house had gone, exposing the lounge. Nothing was left on the walls. Liquefaction covered the lawn. The foundations of the Chans’ house had been punched up about half a metre on one side right under the two youngest kids’ bedroom. The house looked okay except it was on a wicked tilt.
Nobody home in either place that I could see. I hoped I wasn’t the only one here right now. I couldn’t stand not knowing if we still had a home, or if it was just a pile of sticks.
I began running.
I sprinted through the sludge, forgetting to be careful of holes, turned the corner. We still had a house. The walls were upright. The roof looked okay. Blake’s bedroom window had a jagged hole, but apart from that it seemed fine.
I didn’t have my key. It was in my backpack and I hadn’t remembered to pick it up after I’d taken it off to help Ian in Cathedral Square.
There was a spare one stashed in a fake rock by the garage, but the garage had taken a massive sideways hit and there was no sign of the rock.
A big crack ran the length of the step into the house. I eased myself down onto it. I didn’t want to go inside. I didn’t want to see the mess the earthquake had left us. I didn’t want to be by myself.
I checked my phone. No messages from Dad or Blake. My head sank to my knees. My legs were filthy. My feet stung. The earth shook.
I should go and check on the neighbours. Five minutes. I’d go in five minutes. I just needed to stop shivering.
‘Lyla! You okay?’
It was Blake, dirty like I was, worried like I was. I threw myself at him and for the first time in years we hugged, holding each other tight.
‘The parents?’ he asked, still keeping hold of me. ‘You heard anything?’
‘Mum. She was rescuing people in Cashel Street. Haven’t heard from Dad.’
His arms fell away from me. ‘Me neither.’ He pulled out his key. ‘Your mates? And Greer?’
‘Katie and Shona were okay. They were going straight home. Not sure about Greer. Shona didn’t know where she’d be.’ I pulled the robe tight around me. ‘Were you at uni when it happened? Are people okay?’
Blake nodded. ‘There’s only a bit of damage from what I could see. Didn’t hear of any casualties.’ He put the key in the lock. ‘You ready for this?’
‘Yeah. It’s cold out here.’ There’d be no way of getting warm inside, though. We’d had to wait a few days in September before water and electricity worked again.
It took both of us to wrestle the door open. The entrance hall didn’t look too bad, although the bookcase had shed its five shelves of books, just like last time. The mirror was on the floor with a wide crack running across its back. We stepped over everything.
In the lounge the TV lay facedown among the DVDs. Pictures hung askew, but at least they’d stayed on the walls. The nest of small tables lay on a pile of Dad’s car magazines. ‘Blake – Dad was going to Fazazz. It might have collapsed. He might…’ I gulped.
He stepped over Mum’s beloved house plants lying in a
mess of spilled dirt on the carpet. ‘Nah. It was nearly one o’clock when the quake hit. He’d have been on his way to meet Mum for lunch. You know where they were going?’
I shook my head. We should have asked.
Blake gave my back a pat crossed with a bash. ‘Come on. Nothing we can do about the parents except wait for them to turn up. Bet they will, too.’ He headed for the kitchen and stopped, shaking his head. ‘September all over again.’ He booted the dishwasher door shut.
He was right, damn it. It was stupid to worry. It didn’t make anything different. I kicked stuff out of my way – rice, flour, sugar, pasta, something red – paprika? Chilli powder? A bottle leaked oil into a spill of yellow mustard.
‘Watch it, Lyla! That stuff’s full of busted china.’
I picked my way to the sink, turned the tap on. Nothing. September all over again with the water situation too. The emergency water container was intact. We each downed a glass of water – and jumped through the roof when the landline rang. It was a plug-into-the-wall job with the handset attached to a cord and it worked without electricity or internet. Dad – and heaps of other Christchurch people – had bought one after September.
It was Dad’s parents ringing now, all the way from the Sunshine Coast. Blake grabbed it first. ‘Oh hi, Nana Lilith. Yeah, it’s big. No. Just me and Lyla. Mum’s okay – well, she was when Lyla saw her just after. Haven’t heard from Dad.’
A squawking panic erupted from the receiver. My brother rolled his eyes at me. ‘Yeah, we’ll call you. But listen, Nana – you know what Dad’s like. He’ll be right in there helping people.’
He’d only just put the phone down when it rang again. The Wellington grands this time. ‘Mum’s okay. Lyla talked to her just after…No. But the phones are jammed…Lucky you hadn’t taken off. Yeah, we will.’
He hung up. ‘Dad’s going to be fine, Lyla. They’ll be home at some stage, both of them.’
I swallowed a hard knot of fear. ‘I know. I just wish…’
He gave my back another brotherly swipe. ‘Yeah. Me too.’
The idiot quakes were so random – one house in a street could be almost undamaged and everything else unliveable. It looked like this time we were the lucky ones – at least we could live in ours.
I bent to start putting things back, but Blake stopped me. ‘First things first, Lyla. We’ll check on the neighbours. All this can wait. It’s not going anywhere.’
Oh. Yeah, of course. My brain seemed to have seized up. Not good, Lyla. Time to get with the program.
We divided Ireland Street between us. I’d do Natalie’s house next door. Next on my list was Mrs Malone, then the Prof. Then, oh joy, tucked in the curve of the cul-de-sac, was Matt Nagel’s place. A catalogue of Matt’s past sins was vivid in my memory – the way he’d hide to jump out at me on dark winter evenings, pelt me with rotten fruit in autumn, let down my bike tyres. All those things still made me spitting mad…I shook my head. Suck it up, Lyla. There were people in town risking their lives right now. I could take Mr Thinks-he’s-so-smart Nagel.
I jabbed at my phone yet again just in case I’d somehow missed a text from Dad.
‘Leave it, Lyla. You’ll flatten the battery.’
I’d forgotten. We had no electricity to charge phones. ‘Come on. If we’re going to do this we’d better get started.’
‘We need gumboots,’ Blake said.
We both stared down at our filthy legs. I shrugged. ‘No point.’
‘Enjoy wading through liquefaction and sewage, do you?’
I hated it when he came over all big-brother-ish, and I hated it more when he was right. I picked my way across the passage to the laundry. Chaos reigned. I had to excavate the boots from under a heap of clothes, washing powder, brooms and mops. The washing machine had again migrated across the floor, and the dryer hung askew on the wall. I grabbed our parents’ boots while I was at it.
I staggered back to the kitchen, laden with eight boots. Blake had retrieved a packet of wipes from the mess. He wasn’t as mucky as I was, but between us we used up the whole packet.
He said, ‘You realise we’ll need to resurrect the long-drop too.’
I screwed up my face. ‘Crap. The long-drop situation all over again.’ Also known as the trek out to the far corner of the backyard to answer calls of nature.
He patted my head. ‘Don’t worry, sis. It’s a man’s job.’
Usually, a statement like that would make me explode all over him – not this time. He was welcome to dig out the stinky hole.
We didn’t bother trying to wrestle the door shut when we left the house.
Natalie and the boys weren’t home, but they’d probably be able to live in their house – it looked in about the same state as ours from what I could see on the outside. The back door gaped open. Inside, there was the same old shambles we had. I retrieved the notepad she kept by the phone from the clutter on the floor and tore a page from it. Come to ours. Lyla.
I took the pen and notepad with me and waded towards the two houses at the end of the cul-de-sac. The ground was lower here and both places were swimming in liquefaction. All I could see of Mrs Malone’s garden was the tops of red flowers drooping into the gunk. It was going to break her heart. I waded up the path. It wasn’t easy – broken concrete tilted every which way. I hoped she wasn’t home and injured, or…If she was okay she’d be out with a shovel, swearing and digging. It wasn’t fair to wreck an eighty-two-year-old’s garden.
I was glad of my gummies as I tested each step to make sure I wasn’t going to fall neck-deep into a stinking sinkhole. The front wall of the house leant out at a crazy angle. I made my way round the back. The door was locked. I pounded on it. ‘Mrs Malone! Are you okay?’
No reply. Just as I was wondering whether it’d be a good idea to kick in a window and climb through it, a voice called from the house next door – the one equally drowning in foul stuff.
‘Don’t worry, Lyla. She’s at her grandson’s. I met them just now on my way home.’ There was a cackle of laughter. ‘She was spitting tacks.’
I slopped across to the fence. ‘What about you, Prof? You’ve got a bit of a situation too.’ Prof was old too – older than Mrs Malone, or so she reckoned.
‘As you see, I’m still alive.’ He frowned at the lake in his backyard. ‘I should have specialised in geology instead of mathematics. A geologist would have thought about the ground under his house.’
‘Go to ours. We’ll boil up water for tea when we’re done with checking on people.’
His eyes lit up. ‘I’ll be right there. Don’t worry about the Jaffrie or Chan places – I checked them just now.’
I handed him the pen and paper. ‘Can you leave notes? Tell them to come to ours. The quake hasn’t busted our place too badly except for the garage.’
I wished the Prof had had time to check on the Nagels’ place too. I dithered on the front steps – Matt might look like every girl’s dream with his blond hair and built body but he was so not my favourite fifteen-year-old male. Oh, just get it over with, Lyla Sherwin. I called out the usual, ‘Anyone home?’
I got a response – a groan and a string of swearing.
So Matt Nagel was still alive. ‘Okay! I’m coming in.’
The front door was locked, or maybe stuck – didn’t matter anyway, not with its glass panel cracked to glory. I booted it till it shattered.
I scrambled over everything on the hall floor, following the sound of his voice, then came to a dead stop in the lounge doorway. I could only see half of Matt’s body. His left side from shoulder down to foot lay squashed under what used to be the outside wall. It looked like some of the upper storey was on him as well.
He groaned, then muttered, ‘You took your time.’
I jumped across the rubbish on the floor, my mind spinning. How could I get him free? I wouldn’t be able to lift that stuff. ‘I’ll get Blake. We need two of us.’
He grabbed my ankle with his right hand. ‘No! Just get
me out of here.’
I heard his desperation, but still I hesitated – there was so much rubble, and it looked heavy.
‘Please, Lyla.’
It was the please that clinched it. Matt Nagel had never before used that word around me. I began hauling chunks of timber and plaster from the load pinning him down, working carefully. It was like playing Jenga or pick-up-sticks, except the price of losing was unthinkable.
His face was screwed up with pain and every now and then he’d give a sort of grunt.
The top layer of rubbish wasn’t too heavy, but it had been hiding the heavy beam that had crashed down on him and crushed a little table that somehow seemed to be taking some of the weight – lucky for him. I tugged at the beam. Couldn’t budge it. ‘I’ll have to get Blake.’
Matt’s eyes shot open. ‘Use a lever.’
Give me a lever and I’ll move the world. Somebody had said that or something like it a millennia or two ago. I dragged a wooden dining chair across the floor, bumping it over the rubbish. Sliding the back under the beam, I jammed a chunk of wood under it to act as a pivot, then stood on the legs. The beam lifted slightly.
It wasn’t enough – there still wasn’t a gap between Matt and the beam – but he was wriggling and grimacing, and after long, shaking minutes the top half of him was free.
His leg was still stuck. Even with all my weight on the chair the beam only shifted a fraction. ‘It won’t lift any higher. Can you sit up? It might change the angle or something.’
Matt was groaning, the building was groaning and it felt like the chair was going to crack.
Hurry.
It seemed to take ages for him to sit up. I wanted to lean over to help, but everything felt too precarious and I was terrified that even a small movement would crash the beam back on to his shin and foot.
Finally he was upright. He put his right hand under his left knee and with a mix of wriggling and tugging got his leg out from under the crushing weight then slumped forward, his good arm around his good knee.
I stepped off the chair and stood for a moment, hands over my face while I tried to stop shaking. So close – if that beam had fallen just a few centimetres further in…
