In Her Mothers' Shoes

by Felicity Price

  Rose sensed the atmosphere becoming tense.

  ‘Let me show you the garden, Mrs Lowe. George, perhaps you and Constable Jennings would like to help yourselves to more tea and cake?’ She led the way out the veranda door to her parents’ big garden.

  ‘This is good. There is plenty of room here for putting the perambulator outside in the afternoons.’ Mrs Lowe turned to Rose. ‘I hope that is what you are planning to do? Baby needs lots of fresh air. No matter what the weather, baby should have at least one nap every day in the fresh air.’

  ‘Yes.’ Rose wasn’t so sure she’d be putting her baby out in the rain, hail and frost, but didn’t raise it.

  Glancing across at her parents’ side of the house, she glimpsed her mother standing back from the sunroom door, clearly trying to be invisible. She waited until the Grey Invader was ahead of her then turned back and waved.

  ‘Well I dare say that will do for today,’ Mrs Lowe said when they returned to the veranda. I’ll see if I can drag Constable Jennings away from the sponge cake.’

  Rose thought she could detect a trace of a smile on Mrs Lowe’s lips.

  ‘I’m glad he liked it. Are you sure I can’t tempt you…?’

  ‘No thank you. If I accepted all offers of cake and scones, I’d never fit into babies’ rooms as tiny as yours.’

  Rose could have sworn that was another smile. ‘No,’ she said, smiling in return.

  ‘You’ll find that, once baby arrives, there will be another unannounced inspection, rather like this one. After that, the Department tends to leave it up to the Plunket nurse to report anything untoward.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rose could hardly contain her excitement. Mrs Lowe had said ‘Once baby arrives,’ not ‘If baby arrives’. That must surely be a good sign.

  ~ ~ ~

  George was sitting in the passenger seat of her father’s car looking miserable. Suddenly, he sneezed. ‘I’m sorry, Rose.’

  She drove the car through the gates of Essex Maternity Hospital. Backing onto the maternity home known around the town as a refuge for fallen women, it was located just a short drive from home in Essex Street in a long, white weatherboard building that had seen better days.

  The hospital administrator rang for a nurse, who showed them to a waiting area in a corridor.

  Rose smiled at the familiarity of the uniform, the crisp white pinafore nipped in at the waist, the starched white cap. It seemed such a long time since she’d worn it, when she’d just graduated as a fully registered nurse, imagining in her naivety that she’d wear it forever.

  ‘The nursery is in there,’ the nurse told them. ‘Sister will be out shortly to take you in.’

  George sneezed again.

  ‘Oh dear, I’m afraid you won’t be able to go in there with a cold like that,’ the nurse said.

  ‘But we’re supposed to be taking her home today,’ Rose said.

  ‘I don’t think Sister would approve. I’ll see what she says.’ The nurse disappeared into the nursery leaving Rose and George waiting anxiously outside.

  After a few moments, another nurse came out.

  ‘I’m Sister Marks,’ she said to Rose, shaking her hand formally. She then looked suspiciously at George. ‘Nurse has told me you have a nasty cold, Mr Stewart.’

  ‘Yes, I fear so.’ George put his hand to his mouth, trying to suppress a cough.

  ‘Then I’m sorry but it would be wrong for you to take the baby home with you today.’

  ‘Oh, but …’ Rose felt crushed; she should have known better.

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s not fair to expose a newborn to germs in her first few days. I can’t let you take her until Mr Stewart’s cold is better.’

  ‘I’m sorry Rose.’ George looked abject. He knew how much this meant to her – to both of them.

  ‘Can we at least see her, then?’

  ‘You can come in, Mrs Stewart, of course. You can hold her if you like.’

  ‘Yes, please.’ Rose looked across at George, who was staring at the floor, then followed Sister Marks into the nursery, tip-toing past a row of little cots to one in the far corner with a pink blanket tucked neatly into the sides. Lying there on her back, big blue eyes gazing about her, was the dearest little girl with curly dark brown hair and a chubby face covered with tiny spots and blotches.

  ‘Her complexion will soon clear,’ the nurse said when Rose approached the cot. ‘She’s also got a small pressure mark on her forehead – it’s hidden by her wee bonnet - but that will go quick enough.’

  ‘Is the pressure mark from …?’ Rose hesitated. She wasn’t sure how to put it. ‘Was it a difficult birth?’

  The nurse shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I mean, the young mother, is she all right now?’ As soon as she said it, Rose realised it was a stupid question. Of course the mother wasn’t all right. How could she be all right when she’d just given her baby away to another woman, the baby she’d carried for nine months and delivered after a hard labour? Rose had seen women giving birth when she was a nurse; she knew how painful it could be. And she knew how emotional the mother became after delivery.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Stewart, we’re not allowed to say anything of the mothers.’

  ‘Of course, I should have remembered that.’

  ‘Would you like to hold her now?’ The nurse unwrapped the blanket and sheet and picked up the baby, covered her with a shawl and handed her to Rose.

  The second the nurse lifted the baby up, she started to cry, but as soon as Rose held her in front of her face and made contact with those big staring eyes, the baby stopped crying and gazed at her.

  ‘Hello Katharine,’ she said, ignoring the red spots and the bright red birthmark. ‘You’re beautiful to me.’ Rose held the tiny form, careful to cradle her head in the crook of her hand as she’d been taught.

  Unexpectedly, she felt a warm rush, as if her blood, her entire being, was surging towards this tiny baby, wanting to make it her own. It was such a strong, overpowering, uncontrollable urge she was frightened. It felt as if she might drop Katharine any minute.

  ‘Are you all right?’ The nurse must have noticed her hesitancy.

  She pulled the baby closer to her and held tight, lifting Katharine’s head up so she was looking straight into her unfocused, unblinking, trusting blue eyes. Rose took a deep breath. There was the most wonderful smell of new linen and baby soap. ‘I wish George could hold her.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. Not yet.’

  ‘We’ve waited so long for this day.’

  The nurse visibly softened. ‘Tell you what, I’ve just the thing.’

  She hurried over to a set of drawers at the far end of the room, rustled around for a few moments, disappeared out into the corridor then reappeared with a bewildered-looking George in tow. Ushering him over to a spot beside the door, she handed him a pair of field glasses.

  ‘There. You can see your new baby girl close up now,’ she said, smiling. ‘Just don’t come any closer.’

  George accepted the binoculars and held them to his eyes.

  Rose held the baby out towards him.

  ‘Look, Katharine, there’s your new Daddy.’

  George took a moment focusing the glasses. ‘I say, Rose, she’s lovely.’

  Katharine started to cry.

  ‘It’s getting near time for her four-hourly feed,’ the nurse said. ‘I’d invite you to stay and feed her, but with your husband …’

  ‘It’s all right, I understand.’

  ~ ~ ~

  Rose drove George back to the bank then took herself home. She’d learnt to drive as soon as they’d arrived back in Christchurch; she didn’t trust George’s driving skills any more after a frightening incident up north where he’d nearly driven off the road.

  Driving lessons with her father had required infinite restraint. Fastidious, far from patient, Jim Stewart was known for his meticulous attention to detail. Even after his retirement nearly twenty years ago, he’d remained finicky,
criticising her mother’s housekeeping if it didn’t meet his strict criteria and complaining over the newspaper about the way the Mayor was running the city. He’d become an inveterate writer of letters to the editor, exclaiming with displeasure whenever another letter-writer disagreed with his point of view and hurrying to his study to pen a reply.

  Doubling the clutch was the hardest task to grasp. Rose didn’t think she would ever get it right and her father’s brusque impatience didn’t help. Every time she crunched the gears, he’d grunt and throw his hands in the air, which only made her more nervous and crunch the gears again.

  ‘I’ll never get to my club at this rate.’ He blocked his ears at the terrible grating noises under the floor.

  Rose pursed her lips. She’d had enough. ‘I can fix that for you, Father,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’ll drop you off at the club and drive myself home.’

  ‘But you can’t drive.’ He was spluttering now.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ What she meant was, she’d be fine without him, but she didn’t say so.

  He looked across at her, scratched his head, opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, scratched his head again and said, ‘All right then. But if you crash the car…’

  ‘I’m not going to crash the car. And if you telephone home when you’re finished at the club, I’ll come and get you.’ She spoke firmly, brooking no argument.

  Still looking perplexed, he agreed then sat in silence as she drove him along Park Terrace, turned left by the Museum and dropped him at his club overlooking the Avon River. He didn’t even comment at the noise when she changed down to turn the corner in front of the Museum and only winced when she did it again outside his club.

  Shaking his head and muttering ‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ he climbed down from the car, gathered his hat from the back seat, put it on and walked the short path up to the imposing oak and glass doors with their gold-embossed ‘Members Only’ lettering.

  Rose watched him enter then, with a determined expression, put the car into first and slowly let go the clutch. At the corner, she managed the complicated double compression of the pedal without any problems and from there it was easy.

  She smiled to herself as she drove back down Park Terrace and followed the Avon home.

  Back inside the flat, empty-handed, with George at work, Rose spent the rest of the afternoon trailing disconsolately around the house, returning again and again to the tiny nursery, trying to find something to do. She had arranged everything so she could be completely free to enjoy their new baby for the afternoon.

  Her mother, who had planned an afternoon tea party with her two sisters to show off the new baby, put the aunts off ‘until further notice’ and tried to console Rose with a gift of the tin filled with queen cakes, intended for the party.

  ‘I’ll make something else for the homecoming,’ her mother said. ‘Queen cakes must have been unlucky.’

  But Rose didn’t want to eat. She didn’t want to do anything.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was three days before George got rid of his cold.

  ‘Welcome to your new home, Katharine,’ Rose’s mother said as she carried her new baby up the steps to the front porch. ‘And welcome to the new parents,’ she added as George came up behind Rose, carrying the tiny bag of the baby’s belongings from the hospital.

  Rose thought she could detect a slight mist on her mother’s steel-rimmed spectacles, a trace of a tear in her eye, but didn’t say anything. Her mother had been asking for a grandchild ever since she and George had married, but with decreasing frequency as the years had passed. It had only been since her return to Christchurch – and the visit of the Grey Invader – that Rose had sensed a renewal of hope. After months of holding back on any mention of babies, her mother had hesitantly broached the subject, a bit like Mrs Lowe: ‘When the baby arrives’, rather than ‘if’. And when Rose had suggested a shopping trip to Ballantynes baby department, it had been impossible for her mother to contain her excitement.

  Neat, petite, always buttoned up to the neck in high collars and demure down to the floor in long, tailored skirts, her unruly, wavy hair pulled back in a tight, disciplined bun, Mother had always been her role model and guide in everything domestic and in understanding and perpetuating the social graces. There had never been any question about it: Rose had always done what her mother decreed. Even when she had desperately wanted to enrol to be a nurse, her mother had said she was too young and, obedient as ever, Rose had trained to be a secretary instead, only taking up nursing after she’d turned twenty-one.

  As she stood on the front porch holding her new baby out to her mother for approval, Rose was overwhelmed with happiness; all she could do was smile.

  Her mother stroked the baby’s cheek with her little finger. ‘She is adorable.’

  ‘I know,’ was all Rose could say.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there, Rose. Come in. Come in.’ Mother hurried her through the door. ‘Doris has just made the tea. And I’ve made louise cake for the party.’ She turned to Katharine. ‘Yes, it’s your first afternoon tea party, you beautiful little girl.’

  In a daze, Rose was ushered into the drawing room she shared with her mother and served tea and slices of cake after Katharine was lifted from her arms and handed to her grandmother and then grandfather. Rose gave her up without protest; she felt as if she were in a dream and she would wake up any moment to see the Grey Invader back again.

  ‘Rose, dear?’ Her mother drew her aside. ‘You’ve forgotten to thank your aunts for their gifts.’

  Returning to her senses, she returned to the party at once to make amends, perching on the arm of Aunt Doris’s chair. ‘Thank you for your beautiful matinee jacket,’ Rose said. ‘Your knitting is so fine. Not like mine. I seem to drop stitches without even noticing.’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ Doris said absent-mindedly. She was absorbed in her new great-niece, all of fifty years younger, who was fulfilling everyone’s very high expectations by gurgling contentedly in her great-aunt’s arms.

  When they’d picked Katharine up from Essex Maternity Hospital, she’d been crying but the journey in the car had pacified her and she’d seemed contented ever since. It was as if Katharine knew how important it was to impress her grandmother Amelia and two aunts, Doris and Lottie. If she kept this up, she’d never be short of babysitters or of a ready supply of crocheted, knitted and hand-sewn garments.

  It was even better that she was behaving so well for Aunt Doris. The maiden aunt could be more than a little prickly at times, but once you’d won her over, she was a staunch ally. Rose was never quite sure whether Doris was her ally or adversary, but she seemed fully engaged with Katharine. She waited until Aunt Doris’s interest was waning.

  ‘It’s Aunt Lottie’s turn now,’ she said, taking her daughter from one aunt and handing her to the other. She was beginning to wonder if she would have any time herself with her baby.

  While Aunt Lottie cradled the baby in her arms, Rose dutifully passed the tea and cake, helped her mother refill the shining silver teapot from the tall silver jug – all the best tea things had been polished for the occasion – and reassured George, who was worried about establishing Katharine’s routine in her new home.

  ‘It’s only twenty past three,’ she said. ‘She’s not supposed to have her next feed until four and she’s wide awake. She’s fine.’

  ‘Of course she’s wide awake. She’s being passed from pillar to post,’ George said, looking quite pleased, nevertheless, that his daughter was the centre of so much attention. ‘But shouldn’t she be having her afternoon sleep?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Rose said, feigning authority. She really didn’t have the faintest idea. She’d read the Truby King book from cover to cover, but there was no chapter on the etiquette for the first day you brought your baby home from the hospital, especially when it was the first time you’d fully met her.

  Aunt Lottie was signalling her over. ‘Can you please take her
now, dear? I’m not as young as I was.’ Lottie, as tall and thin as Doris was short and plump, had never been overly fond of children, had never had any of her own although she and her sea-faring husband Donald had been married forever, whereas the maiden Aunt Doris was positively besotted with babies.

  Rose took Katharine back and snuggled her into her shoulder, breathing in the newness of her, the scent of Pears soap and talcum powder, rubbing her cheek against the soft two-ply baby wool of her tiny knitted bonnet. Her daughter wriggled in her arms and straightened her tiny body, cried out a few times then relaxed back in her mother’s arms.

  Suddenly, Rose was aware of an overpowering odour.

  ‘Oh dear, I’m going to have to change her,’ she said.