by Lily Hammond
'I've brought you some breakfast. Are you feeling any better?'
It wasn't her mother's voice, and Eliza's eyes flew open to blink at the woman standing in the dimness beside the bed. She opened her mouth, startled, but of course no sound came out, so she closed it again and squinted instead, scooting up against the pillow and looking around.
'Do you remember where you are?' Ruth asked, putting the tray down on the dresser and moving to draw the curtains. 'It's a beautiful day out,' she said, chattering away to put the girl at ease. 'Can you hear the birds?' She cocked an ear to listen, her lips curving in a smile at the lovely but somehow awkward song. 'That's a tui making that racket,' she said affectionately, drawing the windowpane up a few inches the better for their new guest to hear. 'It's a rather wonderful bird -- looks black with a little tuft of white under his chin, but as soon as you see him in the sun you realise he's not black at all, but green and blue and purple.' She turned back towards the bed and smiled again.
Eliza blinked at the bright square of the window, listening to the lady talk, and tilting her head at the same time to catch the birdsong. It rang out again and she smiled, surprised and delighted as the bird seemed to clear his throat and then announce in a clear voice three separate notes.
'Do you like it, Eliza?' Ruth asked, watching the girl.
Eliza's eyes widened at the sound of her name and she gaped at the woman as she came to sit beside her on the narrow bed.
'That is your name, isn't it?' Ruth asked. 'Martin – he’s the young lad who discovered you on the beach, also found a handbag with some papers in it.' She paused and her face softened. 'Are you Eliza Sparrow?'
Eliza nodded vigorously, her heart singing suddenly at the sound of her own name. How long had it been since she'd heard those simple syllables spoken by another? It seemed an eternity. She hoisted herself higher in the bed, a move that made her head throb suddenly and she touched her fingers to her temples with a frown.
'Yes,' Ruth said. 'You'll have a headache today, I should imagine. If you keep nice and quiet though, and rest, you'll be as right as rain in no time.'
Eliza returned her hand to the bedcovers and nodded, chewing on her lip. She frowned tighter, wanting to ask if she could stay wherever it was that she was, but her mind was too fuzzy to figure out how. She simply stared at her rescuer instead.
'I'm Ruth. And I'm very pleased to meet you, Eliza. You must have been having a very hard time for the last few weeks.' Ruth nodded as she spoke and reached for the tray, setting it up over Eliza's lap as she spoke and noticing how the girl's eyes widened and how she licked her lips at the sight of the hot breakfast.
'I want you to eat as slowly as you can,' Ruth said, knowing that probably wasn't going to happen. 'You had a tough day yesterday, but everything is all right now.' She patted the blankets over the girl's knee. 'You're welcome to stay here as long as it takes to find you a permanent place. We're not going to make you leave. Unless you've somewhere to go?'
Eliza realised the last was a question and shook her head, gently at first, then more emphatically, despite the way it made her temples pound.
But then she had a terrible thought and looked wildly at the woman. She couldn't remember what she'd said her name was yet, so she looked around the room, looking, looking for her handbag.
And there it was on the dresser. She pointed to it, and the woman followed her finger and picked it up, giving it to her.
Eliza's heart beat frantically in her chest as she fumbled with the clasp. Outside the tui called out again, crisp, clear notes, but this time she didn't hear him. The blood rushed between her ears and her head pounded. She grappled with the bag, trying not to upset the tray on her lap, and felt the tears spring to her eyes.
'Here,' Ruth said, watching the struggle with a pained heart. 'Let me.' She took the bag gently from the girl. 'You sip some of that tea while it is still hot, and we'll see what we have in here, shall we?'
Eliza immediately stopped her struggling and nodded, obediently picking up the cup and swallowing some of the liquid. It was hot, strong, good. She calmed a fraction. This was a nice place, and the lady in front of her had a kind face, with large grey eyes that turned down a fraction at the edges. Perhaps that was only why she had a sad look, Eliza thought, then decided that wasn’t it. The woman’s lips were pale but mobile and when she wasn’t speaking, or trying to cheer Eliza up, they drooped down at the edges too. Eliza wanted to know why, but most of her mind worried over her own situation and her hands shook as she held the teacup and took another sip.
Ruth delved into the handbag. There was little enough in it, only the sheaf of papers, and a raggedy red coin purse. 'What is it you want from here?' she asked, pulling both things out and setting them on the bed.
Eliza gnawed at her lip, set the cup down with a frightened little clatter, and picked up the coin purse. Its clasp was cold under her fingers.
A breeze puffed in through the window, and a square of sunlight crept up onto the bed as if in sympathy and to keep them company.
But Eliza was too busy to notice. Her fingers delved into the small purse and felt around.
The tears came back as she pulled her fingers out holding only some copper coins. All the silver ones, the shillings, were gone; she didn't even know where. Her skin broke out in a cold sweat and she shivered.
Ruth reached across and closed Eliza's fingers around the coins in her palm. Her voice, when she spoke was quiet, as warm as she could make it.
'You don't need to worry,' she said. 'You don't need to pay anything while you're here.'
Confused, Eliza looked around. The room was small but, now that she examined it, did not resemble the mean little room she had been living in under the eaves of the boarding house. Here there were pictures on the walls, and Eliza wanted to climb out of the bed and look at them, tracing a finger along the frames as she took in every detail. She looked away, at the dresser. A vase stood upon it, filled with flowers. A smile curved her lips and she pointed at the vase.
Ruth glanced at the flowers. She'd brought them in earlier, while Eliza was still sleeping.
'They're sweetpeas,' she said. 'Maxine grows them in our garden, along with a whole array of vegetables.' She smiled fondly at how Maxine tended the garden with a fervour boarding on obsession. 'We grow most of our food here, and once you're stronger, and if you want to stay, we'll be very glad of your help with it.' She grinned. 'There are always weeds to pull, carrots to thin, potatoes to dig up. It's never-ending!'
Eliza looked down at her fingers, now curled around the coins, and shook her head in astonishment. She didn't know what to do.
But Ruth did. She stood up and smoothed the patch of sunlight on the bed.
'You eat up your breakfast, Eliza, and if you feel strong enough afterwards, you can come downstairs for a while.' She gave a little stretch and yawned. She'd been up for several hours, although that was fine – she'd always been a bit of an early bird. For a while this morning, she'd lain in the double bed she shared with Maxine – they’d moved Eliza to this room here before turning in for the night – and watched the sun rise, the way it threw shadows upon Maxine's face. She liked to watch Maxine sleep, though she would have hated Maxine to know she did it.
Maxine was the open, gregarious one. Ruth knew she liked to keep most of her thoughts quietly her own, not that she had any secrets. Watching Maxine in the early morning was when she let herself feel the fullness of her love for her partner, her wife. Otherwise, during the day, there wasn't time to feel it so strongly, because it swamped her, this deep, broad love of hers. It ran strong, and when the dawn glanced in the bedroom window with its blushing, apologetic face, she would gaze upon Maxine, sometimes pressing a hand to Maxine's chest so that she could feel the rise and fall of her breath and match her own to it. And the full force of her affection would sweep through her, leaving her dazed and dazzled.
'Right,' she said, coming back to herself, and smiling at their newest guest. 'Eat up. I'l
l be in the kitchen, if you want to come down afterward.'
Eliza swallowed, and the buttery aroma of toast leapt up to tease her senses. Suddenly her mouth watered, and she was ravenous.
She nodded, then nodded again, a flood of feeling rushing through her veins and lighting her up from the inside.
She was safe, sang the voice in her head, and it sounded like her mother, reassuring her. She was safe.
Everything was going to be all right.
Chapter Seventeen
Clemency stepped out of the offices of the Otago Daily Times with a grim satisfaction. There, she thought. She'd done it.
The advertisement would be going out in the next day's edition, and again on Friday's and Saturday's. She allowed herself a brief, buoyant hopefulness that a suitable candidate would write in response.
But now what? A motor's sudden tooting and the shriek of brakes startled her, and she blinked as a brown dog narrowly escaped getting caught under the motor car's tyres. It loped across the road and up a side street as though nothing had happened, and Clemency breathed out, turning more calmly than she felt on her heel and walking along the street to where her own motor was parked.
It was stuffy in the Ford, and she picked up her notebook from the passenger's seat and fanned it in front of her face, getting up a tepid little breeze. She rolled down the window a few inches and sneezed on a sudden lungful of dust.
With a sigh, she tore off her hat and flung it down, then opened the notebook and turned to the list she'd penned late the night before when she'd been unable to sleep.
Her bedroom overlooked the harbour and there'd been a moon in the radiantly clear night sky, and she'd told herself it was this great silvery brightness that brought her from a fractious sleep into wakefulness.
Maybe it had been. She'd lain there, the sheets on her bed freshly laundered, smooth and hot against her flushed skin. The thought of wearing clothes to bed had been anathema, and she lay there for a long moment, looking at the bleached glass of the window, idly stroking a hand down the curve of her own waist.
Somewhere outside the house, an owl called, low and urgent, and she found herself throwing back the covers and stepping onto the floor, padding over to the window with its curtains still drawn, the glass letting in the glow of the moon, the call of the owl.
Below, the harbour gleamed awash with argent light and she stood there, leaning against the window frame, brooding over the view.
The moon spun its silvery dreams over the gentle heaving of the sea, and Clemency thought she'd never felt so alone. Her loneliness crept icy fingers along her feet, up her legs, spread over her thighs, froze her belly and moved up her spine. She closed her eyes and imagined her skin against another’s, soft and warm, and her hand moved to press fingers between her thighs, seeking out the warmth there and stroking the small ember of heat there to fire, until her breathing rasped out against the cold glass in front of her, and she bent towards it, her heart beating faster, staccato against her ribs, and she was slick against her own fingers, the flame of arousal spreading its heat outwards, thawing her until she burned, crying out with the force of her own brief fire, and washing up against the view of the harbour, breathless, panting.
And more alone than ever.
She closed her eyes, drew in a long breath and let it out in one jagged exhale, her shoulders slumping. Turning, she had pulled on her dressing gown and belted it tightly around her waist, the tops of her thighs wet and cooling. She sat at her desk and forced herself to think. The lamp switch had been loud when she clicked it on, and the amber puddle of light cleared away the slinking moonlight. She’d picked up a pen and forced herself to work.
The list was in her lap now, and she frowned over it. If she was serious about this new mission of photographing the ordinary and the suffering, then a start must be made. Permission to visit the work camps must be obtained. She pressed the pen point to the paper beside the entry on her list.
There were other words in her notebook, other places to visit. Businesses such as the one she'd run up the stairs to the day of the unemployed men’s march. She tapped the nib of the pen against that one, knowing she and her camera would likely not be welcomed by the men who sat behind the largest desks, their folders and files in neat piles.
Seacliff, then. The asylum. Perhaps she could visit there, talk the director into showing her around, letting her camera see everything.
Or again, perhaps not. She closed her eyes and pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead.
The orphanage. Maxine had given her that idea, and Clemency opened her eyes and looked at the note in her book. The hand that had written it had shaken slightly and the ink had blotched and spread over the thick paper.
An orphanage would let her in, surely. They would be glad of any publicity, would they not? Clemency didn't know. She capped the pen and leaned over to put it in the satchel she carried around. The notebook went back into it too.
Maxine and Ruth. They would let her photograph the women there. Wouldn't they? Would the women want her camera following them around? Prying into their lives?
She started the motor. She could always ask. Her hands gripped the steering wheel, slick with sweat. What was wrong with her?
Clemency shook her head. It was as though she was full of cobwebs! What had happened to her confidence, her decisiveness, her determination? Wearily, she put the motor into gear and glanced behind her to see if the road was clear.
She hadn't slept well the night before. That was all. She needed a better night's rest.
She'd go and see Maxine, who would snap her out of her mood for certain, and then she'd drive home around the road next to the harbour until she got to the house on the hill she'd inherited from her father, and she'd sit there by the damned telephone until she'd made arrangements to get into places – with her camera – that would turn a mirror to the world and show it what it really looked like.
There was no traffic coming and she accelerated onto the street in a puff of hot, dry dust.
'What do you plan to do with all the photographs you'll be taking?' Ruth asked. She leaned over the little table she'd placed under the oak tree by Maxine's bench seat and poured herself another cup of tea. Maxine's was still half full. She topped it off.
Clemency waved a hand into the air that was heavily scented from the jasmine blooming along the fence behind them. 'I don't know,' she admitted, finding a smile stretching her mouth, relaxing now that she was here, with the two people she cared about more than anyone in the world. The terrible loneliness she’d suffered the night before was just a dream, here in the garden, in the sunlight, in company.
She shook her head again. 'You know,' she continued. 'I think I'll just figure that out as I go along.' She sipped at her tea and gazed upwards into the oaken greenery for a moment. 'Perhaps a book would be a good idea,' she mused, bumping up against the thought for a moment. 'Maybe the papers would buy some, for an article, perhaps.' She shook her head and breathed out. 'I don't really care. I just want to get out of that stuffy studio and do something different.' She paused, blinked, ventured a secret. 'Live, I suppose.'
'Live?' Maxine asked, pouncing on the remark. It hurt her to see her friend suffering, and she exchanged a glance with Ruth, who tipped her head to the side and gave a pained smile in agreement.
Because Clemency was suffering. It was plain to see. Only what could any of them do about it? What she needed most could not be conjured from thin air.
'I think it's a grand scheme,' Maxine said, allowing the comment to pass after all. 'You need something more challenging than taking photographic portraits of all the cream of society in their pearls and furs.'
Chapter Eighteen
Eliza watched the door close behind her as Ruth left the room, then, as gently as she could, she put the cup back on the saucer and moved the tray off her knees.
She climbed out of bed and stood tentatively, waiting for the pounding in her head to ease. It did after a long moment,
and she breathed deeply, relaxing in relief.
She wanted to look at the pictures on the wall, and out the window, and everywhere. Picking up a piece of the toast, she tiptoed across the rug, which was a riot of colours, of orange and green and yellow, and soft under her feet, and went to peer up at the first picture.
The toast was cold, but generously covered with butter. She wolfed it down and went back for the second piece, then returned to the picture, touching a fingertip lightly to the glass protecting the water colour. It was pretty, she decided, feeling suddenly rich and happy with a triangle of toast in her hand and a pretty picture on the wall of the room she was allowed to sleep in – without paying anything for it.
Immediately, she vowed that as soon as she got a job, she would give the woman with the sad eyes as many of the silver coins as she earned.
Nodding to herself, she moved on from the watercolour of a pasture and fence and tree, to another, and tipped her head to one side, looking at it. She thought it had been painted by the same hand, and smiled at the little spaniel dog, with its long ears curly with brown fur. She wondered who had made the picture, and a sudden thought dawned on her. People painted pictures such as these, she realised. She wondered what sort of people they were.
Were any of them like her? She looked down at her hand holding the toast, the fingers dotted with golden crumbs. And she shook her head. Her hands had lost the red, chapped skin they'd had when she'd worked in the laundry with her mother, but they still didn’t seem like the sort of hands that made pictures.
The third picture was different, an oil painting, although Eliza only recognised its difference; she knew nothing of mediums, paints, art. She knew little of anything, she thought, popping the last bite of toast into her mouth and brushing her hand across her nightgown before touching the very tip of her finger to the paint and feeling it rough under her skin.