In Her Mothers' Shoes (25 page)

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.

‘There you are Em, there’s your first job as a grandmother.’ Aunt Doris grinned at Rose’s mother Amelia – whom she and Lottie always called Em – with what Rose suspected was a touch of malevolence.

‘Goodness, it’s a long time since I’ve had to deal with one of those. I think I’ll pass,’ her mother said. ‘Good luck, Rose!’

Rose took her upstairs to the nursery. The towelling changing cloth was laid out on a small table, ready for its first use. She’d practiced often enough on a stiff-limbed doll; could she manage it with a real baby?

Terrified of hurting her, she settled Katharine on the soft cream towel, whereupon she started to cry.

‘Shhh, little one. It’s all right.’

The baby cried louder.

She undid the two nappy pins on either side so the nappy was laid flat, ready for removal. But unlike the doll, the baby wriggled constantly, kicking her legs at just the moment Rose was going to remove the dirty nappy.

The smell was revolting. Rose thought for a moment she was going to be sick. What sort of a mother was she, if she couldn’t cope with a little baby poo? She wiped the wet flannel across the baby’s chubby white bottom, whereupon the crying reached a crescendo and Katharine stomped her tiny, bootie-clad foot down in the mess, covering the new white wool in sticky yellow-brown poo.

‘Oh, no!’ She was so stupid; she should have seen that coming. Any mother would have known to watch out for it. Quickly, she plucked off the bootie, dropped it in the bucket to deal with later and reapplied the cloth to the wee bottom several times until she’d cleaned every last ounce of the mess. The flannel joined the bootie in the bucket then she folded up and whipped out the dirty nappy with one hand while holding the baby’s legs with the other, dropped the dirty nappy in the bucket, and plucked a clean nappy from the pile. At that same instant, Katharine gave another mighty kick and dislodged the baby powder and nappy pins off the side of the table onto the floor.

‘Oh dear, this isn’t going too well. How am I supposed to pick them up while holding on to you? I don’t think I can.’

After pausing for a moment, trying to work out how to manage this seemingly insoluble problem, she figured she’d have to let the baby go, dive down to pick up the things off the floor and bob up again, hopefully before Katharine plunged off the side of the table. She was terrified. She’d only been a mother for two short hours and already she was incompetent. Luckily, her plan worked.

‘There you are, my sweet. All done.’ The talcum was applied, the clean nappy was pulled up just the way she’d practiced, all she had to do was fix the jolly pins into the cloth – a task that was apparently impossible, as the layers of thick white towelling puckered up into an impenetrable mass that the pin simply refused to pass through.

It hadn’t been this difficult practicing with the doll. But then the doll didn’t wriggle and cry the whole time.

‘Ouch!’ She didn’t know nappy pins could hurt so much. Twice. She could feel tears of frustration pricking against her eyes. Meanwhile Katharine kicked and cried, her little face turning quite red with the effort, making the small oval birth mark on her temple and all the tiny milk spots blend into the background. She looked quite fearsome. Kate was terrified.

After much manoeuvring, Rose finally snapped the second pin into place, pulled on the woollen pants and picked up this wee stranger who was by now bellowing so loudly she thought she’d go deaf.

‘Let’s find you another little bootie to wear. We can’t let your foot get cold.’ She fetched another one from the drawer, put Katharine back down on the table, tied on the bootie, and carried her downstairs to the kitchen, where she found her mother busily heating a bottle in a double boiler. The baby continued to cry lustily; quite different from the sweetly compliant baby at the tea party.

Rose’s mother held out the warmed bottle. Katharine seemed to sense it because the crying reduced to an occasional whimper. ‘Here you are, dear. All ready for Katharine’s first feed.’ Then she turned to her new granddaughter and smiled, with a wistful, far-away look. ‘She’s so beautiful Rose, even when she’s been crying. She looks just like you did when you were a baby.’

‘You can’t mean that?’ Rose thought her mother must be trying to make her feel Katharine was really hers. But Katharine would never look like her, would never be her flesh and blood. Rose faced a lifetime of never knowing what her daughter’s mother was like, or whether Katharine would follow any of her birth mother’s traits and characteristics.

She wondered how it must feel to have to give your baby away to strangers and never know how she would fare. She’d asked again at the hospital, trying once more to find out whatever she could about the mother. But they’d refused to tell her a thing. And the Department was just as tight-lipped. All she could discover was that the mother was about eighteen, was from Wellington, and had returned without seeing her baby. It made her shiver with fear – and guilt – just to think about it. Blocking it from her mind, she clutched Katharine closer and made a quick, silent promise that she would never let her down.

‘It’s true,’ Mother said. ‘I wouldn’t tell you wrong.’

‘But she’s not my …’

‘Hush. She is.’ Her mother looked so certain, so joyfully certain, that Rose thought she could almost believe it.

She took the bottle gratefully and turned to go back upstairs, then hesitated. ‘Do you think I should take her back in the sitting room with the aunts and feed her there? Or should I take her upstairs again to the living room?’

‘Whatever you think is right, dear.’

‘Well, they said I should establish a routine right from the start.’ Rose took the bottle and held it up to her daughter. ‘Is this what you want?’ Katharine started to wriggle and cry again. ‘I’m not supposed to feed her for another fifteen minutes yet.’

‘Heavens, dear, I wouldn’t worry about a few minutes either way. Surely it’s not as regimented as that?’

‘The Matron at the hospital said that routine was important. She said “Baby must not dictate to you. You must remain in charge.” I don’t like to disobey at the very first feed.’

‘I’m sure you’ll find by the time you get settled with her in a chair, your fifteen minutes will nearly be up.’

A burst of laughter drifted through from the sitting room.

‘I don’t like to leave them on their own,’ Rose said. ‘Perhaps I’d better feed her in there, so they can see her?’

‘Don’t worry about them. They can keep themselves amused.’

Rose took the baby upstairs, which was just as well. Katharine proved as difficult feeding as she was having her bottom cleaned. She refused to settle and rejected the rubber teat every time she held it in front of her, turning her head away and crying all the more fiercely.