by Lily Hammond
But that was a thought for another day. Or never, Clemency thought, remembering the job set up and waiting for Eliza over on the West Coast of the country, mile upon mile away.
Eliza turned to her at the suggestion of seeing each other again, and this time the smile on her face was wider. She nodded, and leaned towards Clemency, putting a hand on her thigh and letting it rest there.
‘I’ll talk to Ruth,’ Clemency said. ‘See how much time we have.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I enjoyed your company today very, very much – you know that, don’t you?’
Eliza patted Clemency’s leg with the hand she’d left lying there, enjoying the closeness of the gesture. She believed Clemency. She saw the truth shining there in her deep-sea-green eyes.
Clemency had come upstairs with a pot of tea, two cups and saucers, and a small plate with thick slices of cake on it. She’d put it down on the table with the inlaid pattern of silky wood, and squatted down in front of Eliza, her eyes wide and worried. Eliza had wanted to tell her there and then that there was no cause to worry anymore because whatever a Greymouth was, she wouldn’t be having anything to do with it, but she didn’t have any way of saying all that, so she’d simply smiled as best she could, and leaned forward to kiss each arching eyebrow over each worried eye.
‘That’s better,’ Clemency had said, looking into Eliza’s face as though trying to read everything there. ‘You look a bit better – you gave me a real start, turning white like that. I thought you might faint.’ She spoke softly, and Eliza knew she was not making fun of her but had been truly worried.
Clemency stood up then and went to the window, drawing the sash down. ‘I’ll pour us some tea, what do you say – and then I’ll explain everything.’
Eliza nodded. She was still interested in knowing what a Greymouth was, and why she was supposed to be going to one, but she sat there, certain too that it was something she would not be going along with.
And she was a grown woman, after all. She could make her own choices, could she not?
The thought made her wince, however. She might say such things, in a voice inside her head all bold and confident, but she knew she was dependent still on the generosity of others. On Ruth and Maxine who let her sleep in the little room with the spaniel picture on the wall, and who shared their food with her. If not for them, where would she go? She had nowhere yet, and so she kept quiet, kept her own council, thinking she would puzzle it out.
So, she nodded, wanting Clemency to go on, to tell her more so that she would know, and could think about it.
The tea had been good, and when Clemency passed her a piece of the cake, her mouth watered, and she discovered she was starving. Clemency had laughed.
‘Our activities have made us hungry,’ she said, biting into a piece of the cake too.
They smiled at each other and were silent for a long time, eating their cake in a sort of conspiracy together, as the rain tap tapped against the window and the blue eiderdown glowed in the dim light where they had lain together and made love.
At last though, Clemency put her plate down and wiped the crumbs from her mouth. Her heart felt a heavy weight of regret and she knew she shouldn’t have taken Eliza to her bed. She should have resisted the siren call of the young woman, not listened to the imperative of her own body, awake and wanting with a fury as it had.
Not when a relationship between them was unthinkable, could go nowhere, and especially not, she thought, looking into Eliza’s face, when Eliza was so young, so vulnerable. Clemency felt old, and grubby, and knew that even though she’d only given into impulse, she’d taken advantage of Eliza in an unforgivable way.
It couldn’t happen again.
‘Ruth has found you a job,’ she said, briskly and businesslike, a tone that jarred against the intimate scene. She tugged her silk dressing gown down over her knees and wished she’d dressed. Eliza had taken her coat off, and her threadbare blue dress was misbuttoned. It hurt Clemency to look at it.
Eliza made no reply, simply stared at Clemency, the last bite of cake sticky between her fingers.
Clemency cleared her throat and carried on. ‘It’s in a laundry, so you’ll be pleased about that.’ She looked down at the hands that had smoothed over her own skin, touched and explored her and wanted to shudder at the thought of them made rough and raw by work in an industrial laundry. But, she reminded herself, it was work that Eliza knew, and was apparently competent at.
‘How did you start doing laundry work?’ she asked, impulsively.
Eliza looked at her in surprise. She had always done laundry work. When her father had lost his job on the farm and gone instead to New Zealand, her mother had found work at the laundry, and Eliza had been eighteen, and gone along to work with her. She had made no decision, she had simply begun working.
Clemency gave a small shake of the head. How silly of her to even ask. She could imagine it. Eliza’s mother would have got her the job.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was probably insensitive of me.’ She reached for her teacup to hold, to give her hands something to do.
‘Anyway, Ruth has contacts all over the island, in hospitals, since she was a nurse, years ago, during the war, and for a while afterwards too.’
Until the Matron at the hospital had found out that Ruth was involved, intimately, with another woman. She’d been summoned to Matron’s office; Clemency knew from hearing the story straight from Ruth when it happened. The woman had barely been upset where she sat behind her big desk, and she’d handed Ruth her week’s wages owed and told her she had to leave. If only Ruth and her lover hadn’t been so public about it, she told her.
But Ruth had been popular amongst staff and patients alike, so Clemency could well believe that she’d been able to pull some serious strings on Eliza’s behalf. But she didn’t tell Eliza all of this. Ruth’s story was her own, not Clemency’s to share.
‘The only vacancy she could find – and I imagine it was a stroke of luck, really, with the way things are at the moment – is in Greymouth.’
Eliza’s clear face clouded then, and she frowned at Clemency.
‘Greymouth is a town on the West Coast of the South Island,’ Clemency said, wondering if Eliza even really knew where she was, which part of the world she had washed up on like a piece of flotsam. Likely not, and that realisation made Clemency’s head hurt. She went back to thinking about Greymouth. ‘It is quite a nice place, with a wide river called the Grey – hence the name of the town, as the river empties into the ocean right there where the town is.’ She stopped and swallowed. ‘And so, there’s a place for you in the laundry at Grey Hospital, and Ruth has also organised a nice room for you at a quality boarding house.’ She stopped talking, wincing at the sound of her own voice, and how her tone had become more awkward and patronising the more she’d gone on.
Eliza gazed at Clemency in alarm. Another boarding house? She shuddered and dropped the piece of cake onto the plate in her lap. She shook her head. She wouldn’t be going to another boarding house. Not one like the one she’d been at, with the landlady who had emptied Eliza’s purse of so many silver coins.
‘It’s all right,’ Clemency said. ‘Ruth won’t have got you a place with someone who runs anything less than the best establishment.’
Eliza stopped herself from shaking her head again. She trusted Ruth and wanted to believe what Clemency just said. The thought of another boarding house made her shaky though, and when she looked down at her fingers, they were quivering in her lap. She lifted them and rubbed at her temples where a headache burst into life, the pressure of it all pushing at the inside of her skull. She lowered her face into her hands. How was she going to manage this?
Clemency put her cup down with a clatter and looked at the young woman, her face pained. She fought against the urge to take Eliza into her arms.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘It will all work out, you’ll see.’
Eliza closed her eyes and looked so miserable that Clemen
cy slid out of her chair and onto the floor before her. She put her arms around Eliza and kissed her soft thick hair. Eliza leaned against Clemency, her cheek against the smooth silk of Clemency’s dressing gown. She clung to Clemency’s words, putting them with pictures in her head that had nothing to do with boarding houses in a town by a river, or any laundry or hospital. Maybe if it were here, in this town, she would take the job. But it wasn’t, and she didn’t want to go.
In the motor car, she looked across at Clemency.
Yes, she smiled, she would like them to see each other again.
And by that time, maybe she would have worked out how to make Clemency understand what she wanted to do.
Eliza turned back to look out the window and watched the waves come in.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘I brought you something to eat, and a nice hot cup of tea,’ Riley said, letting herself into the room Clemency called her studio and putting the tray down on a small table. She sat herself down in an adjacent chair while she was at it and eyed the door that led to Clemency’s bedroom. The bed was visible in the slice of room she could see through the doorway, and she pressed her lips together at the sight of the twisted bedsheets.
Clemency lifted her head in surprise. ‘Isn’t it near enough to dinner time?’ she asked.
‘You missed luncheon,’ Riley told her.
‘Oh.’ Clemency sighed and straightened, putting down the loupe she’d been examining a photograph with. Leaning against the table, she eyed her housekeeper and surrogate mother with unease.
‘What do you want to say?’ she asked, knowing the forthcoming conversation was unavoidable. Riley was sat upon the seat in a manner Clemency knew meant she would be unmovable until she had said whatever it was that she’d come to say.
And Clemency was pretty sure she knew what the topic would be.
Riley gathered herself up, pushing out her chest in its clean blouse and apron, and reminding herself she had the right to the questions on her mind.
‘I want to know exactly what you think you’re doing, my girl.’ She kept her voice soft, just the way she’d practiced down in the kitchen while waiting for the kettle to boil. Blessedly, Dot was out. She’d sent her out to run some errands – and told her to take her time. She hoped she hadn’t made a mistake, taking on Dot full time. Not everyone would be a good match for this particular household, she knew. But Dot had managed not to say a word about today’s goings-on, so perhaps there was hope for her yet.
Riley looked over at Clemency, standing against her high table, neatly and fashionably dressed again and looking like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She shook her head.
‘She’s a child,’ she said.
‘She is twenty-two years old,’ Clemency replied. ‘Hardly a child.’ She was tiring of this conversation already. ‘And at thirty-five, I am hardly an old fossil, you know.’
Riley wasn’t about to be put off. ‘She’s younger than her years, on account of her affliction, and you know it.’
Clemency picked up the jeweller’s loupe she used and turned it over in her hands. ‘I admit, she seems to have had, not so much a sheltered life, but a confined one, perhaps.’ She pursed her lips. ‘A narrow one.’ She turned and put the loupe back on the table and folded her arms under her breasts. Under her clothes, she could suddenly feel the pressure of Eliza’s hands on her skin, the tickle of her lips.
‘She’ll be easily hurt.’
With a sigh, Clemency stood up and walked over to the doors leading out to the upstairs porch. The day was dark, the weather closing in again, rain clouds tucking themselves like heavy blankets over the house. She couldn’t see Port Chalmers beneath her. A heavy mist had drawn a curtain across the view.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you are right, and perhaps it was a mistake that I went to bed with her.’ There was movement in the mist and a fat woodpigeon landed on a tree branch below her. She sighed. ‘I should have had more self-control.’ A short laugh. ‘Eliza took me by surprise.’
Riley raised her eyebrows. ‘You are telling me she seduced you?’
This time, Clemency turned and looked at the older woman. ‘I’m trying not to tell you anything, actually,’ she said with a wry twist to her mouth. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, and surprised herself with a sigh. ‘Ruth has found her a job.’ Clemency turned back to the window and felt the memory of Eliza’s lips on her skin again. She stared out of the window. ‘It is in a hospital laundry. In Greymouth.’ There was a pang in her chest, and Clemency pressed a hand there, realising she would miss Eliza and her wide-eyed infatuation with the world and everything in it.
Riley’s shoulders loosened for a second then tensed again. ‘That’s a long way for her to go on her own. She’s barely settled in here.’
Clemency turned and looked again at Riley. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. It’s Maxine’s idea. They’re only sending Eliza over there to get her away from me.’
‘Oh, come now,’ Riley said. ‘That’s not true, surely? The girl needs work, to be able to support herself.’
Clemency shook her head. ‘As much as I love Maxine, I see her hand in this. She was furious with me, the first time I took Eliza out.’ She sighed and ran her fingers through her short hair. ‘They’re doing this to separate us. Maxine saw it coming better than I did.’
‘Perhaps that’s a good idea, to head things off before they get serious.’ Riley said, waiting a beat before doing so. ‘She seems a girl who would lose her heart quickly.’
A small smile twisted Clemency’s lips. ‘And I am not?’
Riley leaned forward and poured tea into the cup, then stood up. ‘You are not a girl any longer.’ She looked across at Clemency with affection. ‘Perhaps not an old fossil, but definitely not a girl.’ Smoothing her hands down her apron, she smiled again. ‘Now drink your tea and eat the sandwich. It’s egg and cress, just as you like it.’
The door closed behind Riley and Clemency stared at the dark, panelled wood for a moment, before going over to the chair and throwing herself down into it. Tipping her head back, she stared at the ceiling.
Why did everyone think it was Eliza in danger of losing her heart?
Why not herself?
She touched a hand to her chest, feeling the organ in question beating. It was steady, as though unperturbed by all the goings-on, as Riley had put it.
But it had not beat so quietly and slowly earlier. That afternoon, in the bed, it had beat like quicksilver, thrumming away under the skin. It had not been quiet and sedate at all.
She prodded her fingers at her ribs, then dropped her hand to sway in the air over the side of the chair.
Eliza was going away. The thought pinched at her with regret. Was it better that way, as everyone kept so thoughtfully pointing out to her?
She conjured Eliza’s face and looked at it, and her heart was suddenly pained, as though something sharp had sliced into it.
It was, Clemency decided, a good idea for Eliza to go away, since there was no chance for something meaningful and lasting to blossom between the two of them.
And since her heart seemed inclined towards the idea.
She sat up, sighing, and reached for the cup of tea. She stared at the sandwich. Egg and cress, Riley had said. She’d made her favourite, cossetting her like a child. The irony was not lost on Clemency, and she left the sandwich there, sipping at the tea instead.
Her own words repeated themselves to her.
Since there was no chance for something meaningful and lasting to blossom between them.
Clemency was ready for meaningful and lasting. The loneliness that had dogged her the last months was painful. It nipped at her wherever she went, whatever she did.
The tea was hot, strong. She held it in her mouth a moment before swallowing.
But Eliza, as absolutely enchanting as the woman was, could not possibly be the right one. Maxine was correct on that, as much as it pained Clemency to say so. They were too different. She needed to look elsewh
ere.
The cup clattered on the saucer when she put it down with a hand that shook slightly, slopping tea into the fine china. She got up and cast herself over to the window again, looking outside, then down at her watch.
It was near five o’clock, and she remembered, startled, that she had an appointment at her studio in town scheduled for five-thirty.
Libby Armstrong looked at her watch also and tucked herself further off the footpath. George Street was busy, and she’d amused herself for the first ten minutes with people-watching. Clemency Westerly had told her about having the Leica camera shipped over from Europe at the beginning of the year, the one with the coupled viewfinder no less, and Libby looked at the men and women rushing past and wondered what it would be like to take candid photographs of them. She tipped her head to the side and decided she would be interested in trying it, despite her it being studio work she had worked hard to be competent at.
Speaking of the studio, it was above her, and the door was locked, and Clemency was late. Libby checked her watch again, but only a very few minutes had passed. She pressed herself back against the door, out of the flow of pedestrians and scowled. She was hungry and should have eaten before leaving the hotel room. But she was hoping for Clemency to take her to dinner, had even put on a suitable dress for an early dinner in one of the hotels thereabouts.
Thinking about Clemency Westerly made Libby’s stomach flip. They would make a lovely couple, she believed. Both of them tall, blonde; they would be striking together. And there was the matter of their work. The two of them in the same career – they could make a name together. Libby flushed. More of a name. Clemency was doing perfectly well here. Still, Libby thought, and she drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head back; together they could go even further.