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zoning change and let them profit from the sale of the land. They wouldn’t have ended up in their pokey, damp flat, Greg angry at being betrayed by a man he had thought of as a friend. It ate him up, his son said, and his health had suffered. Their retirement would have been happier if they’d had the opportunity to profit from the land, their land, instead of seeing it line the pockets of a man who had more than he needed, more than he would ever need.
    Marjorie apologised. It was the polite thing to do, after all. She told him she was never privy to any business dealings, which wasn’t true, but he wasn’t to know that. Nor was he to know that it was Marjorie who first became aware of the Drakes’ financial problems and encouraged Bill to ask questions, subtle questions meant to draw Greg out so he would confide in Bill.
    Then there had been Stan and Suzanne. When Stan Watson first started working for Bill, Marjorie had recognised that his charm hid a cunning nature and she had resolved to keep an eye on him. He could be good for the business, but he had to be reined in. Unfortunately, Stan knew how to play Bill and before Marjorie could encourage him to do otherwise, Bill had promoted Stan over the other workers and entrusted responsibilities to him that Bill had previously been reluctant to let go of. Marjorie was looking after the books then and had noticed that materials they were buying in were being charged out at inflated prices, not the usual markup, but actually stated as being something they weren’t. It would increase profits, but it had to be subtle or it would ruin the company’s good reputation. She wouldn’t let that happen, she dreaded being poor again, and she worried about the day when a particularly canny client would notice and call them out on it, she could see it all crumbling away.
    She needed to find a way to control Stan, and it wasn’t long before she found her way in. Suzanne was working in the office, and Marjorie encouraged her to try out the fashions of the day, the miniskirts, the big hair, the dramatic makeup. She was a pretty girl, with Marjorie’s petite build but lighter colouring and the thick blonde hair of Marjorie’s own mother. Soon she had the attention of all the workers, and a few encouraging words from her mother made her realise that her father’s trusted foreman was handsome, that his ambition would provide her with a good life. Marjorie envied the girls of the 1960s. Although they had few choices, they had far more than she had at their age. In an ideal world, she would have encouraged a daughter to get an education and a career so she could support herself and not be dependent on a man, but she had to face facts, Suzanne wasn’t that kind of girl, she was silly, easily flattered, and the few shiny presents Marjorie encouraged Stan to give her were enough to convince her that he was her shining knight.
    Stan was ambitious and had a feel for what people would believe, but he was also a bully, a fact Marjorie hadn’t recognised until it was too late. He enjoyed having power over those less powerful and took pleasure in forcing Suzanne into his mould, his idea of what a wife should be. Their son Tony was very like Stan, in both looks and temperament.
    Suzanne was one of many Marjorie thought about late at night. The truth was it wasn’t the quakes Marjorie was afraid of. It was the past, out there in the dark, waiting for her, the ghosts of those she had pushed and guided into making decisions that suited her during her life in this new country. She couldn’t go back and change anything, but that didn’t matter late at night, wide awake hearing the rumble fade into the distance.
    There were some nights she couldn’t get back to sleep at all, and what haunted her then was people from the deeper past, the people she had left behind when she married Bill and agreed to travel to the other side of the world with him. There were Walter, her first love, and her brother