In Her Mothers' Shoes (30 page)

‘I think you should telephone. You want to be certain.’

~   ~  ~

Later, over dinner, she asked George if the transfer would enhance his prospects at the bank.

He looked anxious, put down his knife and frowned. ‘Getting a transfer to a big city like Christchurch is regarded by my colleagues as going up in the world,’ he said.

‘By your colleagues? Don’t you think so too?’

‘Well, dear,’ George looked abashed, ‘it’s a bit of a challenge for someone like me. You know how I like to take a back seat.’

‘But don’t you want a promotion?’

‘It’s not really a promotion.’ He toyed with the remains of his dinner, pushing it around with his fork. ‘I’ll still be doing the same job, but you get a bit more pay in a big bank like that. There’ll be a lot more commercial customers, big companies coming in to make their transactions. And there’ll be a lot more staff.’

Rose could see he was feeling anxious. She’d noticed how much happier he’d been since they came to Te Kuiti but had put it down to the people he worked with, the small-town camaraderie. But maybe it was the comparative lack of a hierarchy at the bank that he’d responded to. There was such a small staff, and none of these big companies to kowtow to like in Christchurch - the Beaths and Ballantynes, the Wardells, the rural giants like Pyne Gould Guinness. She could remember the famous southern names from hearing her parents talk about them. Soon she would be back there and this time it would be George repeating the familiar names.

Leaving him to think it over, she cleared the table and took the dishes through to the kitchen.

Rose didn’t want to force George into a position he couldn’t cope with, but just the same, she’d hoped he would rise in the bank – to be a manager one day perhaps. She knew such things took time, that George would have to slowly work his way up. But he didn’t even seem to want to begin.

How unlike her he was. She would have liked nothing more than to work her way up the hospital ranks, to become Matron one day or, at the very least the Sister in charge of a ward, with all those tremulous ‘pinkies’ – the trainees wearing pink uniforms until they were qualified to wear white. A pinkie herself for three years, she’d overheard a doctor saying, ‘The salmon are running’, one day on his rounds when she and several others had passed by.

George would never have dared write to the Postmaster, as she had when a pinkie. She’d written the letter because her crystal set, the only way of hearing what was going on in the outside world, was to be subjected to a new license fee. On her salary of forty pounds a year she could never afford to pay such a fee and neither could any of her friends who relied on this primitive form of radio reception for their daily news during the long working hours of the six-and-a-half-day week.

Her year of secretarial training need not go to waste. She composed and neatly typed a letter to the Postmaster General. A fortnight later she’d been called up to the Lady Superintendent – the first time she or any of her friends had faced such an ordeal.

‘Nurse, what have you done?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rose had stammered.

‘You have had the temerity to pen a letter to the Postmaster General. That is completely out of order for a mere pinkie.’

Rose was stunned. How did the Lady Superintendent know?

‘If you had a complaint,’ the Lady Superintendent continued, ‘you should have told the Home Sister and she would have reported to the Sub-Matron, who would have told me. If I thought it necessary to go further, I would have told the Medical Superintendent who would have put it to the Board, and if they agreed, they would have instructed the Board Secretary to write the letter. Not you.’

‘I’m sorry, Ma’am. I didn’t mean to …’

‘However, the Postmaster General has seen fit to grant your request. No individual licenses will be necessary. He has written that one licence will do for the whole home. You may go.’

She had to admit she’d been terrified facing up to Matron; one day she would be Matron then she could terrify the pinkies too.

She decided to ignore George’s fears, his lack of ambition. She didn’t want an argument; she might just have to go along with it – for a while, at least. Until they were settled in. She had plenty of other things to occupy her in the meantime. She had to tell her private nursing patients that she would be leaving and help them find a replacement; cancel the baby shower; tell the Department about their change of address; pack up the house and all their things – they seem to have accumulated so much since they’d settled in Te Kuiti; and say goodbye to all her friends. After six years, that would be hard.

She would have to focus on the end result: having a baby and being close to her mother. Friends were important, but family was everything.

She’d made peach crumble for dessert. She pulled it out of the oven and carried it through to the dining room, where plates and cutlery awaited.

‘I can’t wait to tell Mother about the transfer,’ she said as she served George his plate. ‘She will be over the moon. How soon will it happen?’

‘In two weeks.’

‘Two weeks! My goodness, there’s so much to do. How will we ever manage it?’

She noticed a slight look of irritation on George’s face.

He sighed. ‘The bank will take care of our things.’

‘But we’ll have to pack everything …’

He smiled patiently. ‘All you have to do is think about getting ready for the new baby. You can write yourself a big long list and buy everything when we get to Christchurch.’ His smile warmed. ‘I’d better warn Ballantynes’ baby department that you and your mother are on the way.’

Chapter 3.

Christchurch, June 1951

Rose lay back in the deckchair on the veranda she shared with her parents, a clear line of sight to the perambulator nestled under the shiny green leaves of the tall magnolia tree, where her baby was receiving the requisite dose of fresh air the baby book said was compulsory. Her parents had made a point of retreating as soon as their granddaughter fell asleep, suggesting she make the most of this chance for a rest.

Rose closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind. But it was crowded with worry. At this moment, when she should be experiencing sublime maternal joy, or so the book told her, she could only feel guilt and shame – shame at her inability to satisfy a three-month-old baby, and guilt that she wasn’t capable of fully loving her. But how could she? How could any sane human being provide unconditional love to a squawking, wriggling, red-faced picture of misery that was all sweetness and contentment during the day but turned into a determined little demon every night, refusing to settle, refusing to stop wailing, refusing to sleep.

Even her father’s most resolute efforts had failed to make a difference.

‘I’ll see to her tonight,’ her father had said, mounting the stairs to the nursery just the night before last.

As soon as he’d pushed open the nursery door and gone in, the wailing had stopped. Contented gurgles could be heard. Twenty minutes later, she’d heard him tiptoe back downstairs. But as soon as he reached the sitting room door, the wailing broke out again.

‘The child’s impossible,’ her father had said, sinking into his fireside chair with a deep sigh.

George had also done his best. For several nights in a row, he’d put the carrycot in the back seat of the car and driven Katharine round and round the block until the crying stopped and she fell asleep. Sometimes, when he returned home and carefully lifted the carrycot out of the car, she’d stayed that way. More often than not, she’d woken up and started crying again.

‘Once more around the block,’ George would say philosophically, loading the carrycot back into the car.

But he was as tired as she was, catching the bus to work in the morning rubbing sleep out of his eyes and eating his toast at the bus stop just outside the front gate, only half awake.

She spent her days in fear of the new tyrant, worried that the Karitane nurse from Plunket or the Grey Invader would return unannounced and find her out. She had read Plunket founder Dr Truby King’s book
Feeding and Care of Baby
several times but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Her baby didn’t appreciate the rules. Routine was everything, he wrote, a scientific approach was best. Baby should be fed every four hours, never in between.

Katharine didn’t agree. She wanted to be fed just two hours later. Rose would have dearly liked to take Katharine along to see Truby King in those remaining two hours. ‘What am I supposed to do with her?’ she would have said. ‘How can you expect me to listen to my baby screaming with hunger for two hours on end?’

There were to be no cuddles. And, according to the book, Katharine was supposed to poo on cue. But she didn’t take any notice of that either.

Worst of all was at night, when Katharine refused to go to sleep at the appointed time. She wasn’t interested in going to bed when the book said she should and when she finally went to sleep, every night, without fail, she would wake up around two. It was immaterial to her that she wasn’t supposed to be fed at this hour. ‘Baby has to learn to fit with your routine,’ the book said, not the other way around. No feeds in between ten p.m. and six a.m. But at two a.m., Katharine made it clear this was blatantly unfair.

Night-time had consequently become a nightmare. She couldn’t remember the last decent sleep she’d had, and it hadn’t been much better for poor George. It would be helpful if she could take a nap in the afternoon, when Katharine slept for three hours straight, no problem. But it didn’t seem right, somehow, nodding off like that when she should be catching up on the housework or preparing tonight’s meal …

‘Are you all right, dear?’

She sat bolt upright. It was George.

‘What? Was I asleep?’

‘Yes, dear. Completely out to it.’

‘Heavens, you’re home from work. What time is it?’

‘Half past five.’

‘Oh no! Where’s Katharine? Is she all right?’

‘She’s asleep too.’ George started to laugh. ‘It seems the only member of this family to miss out is me!’

Despite the laugh, she could tell George was annoyed, as well he might be, going off to work every morning after another disturbed night. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, George. I didn’t …’

‘Don’t worry about it, Rose. Lord knows, you need it.’ He touched his forehead with his fingers, brushing the irritation away, then rubbed his eyes, blinking into the lowering sun.

She leapt out of the deck chair, worried that Katharine might be fretting for her, worried that she wasn’t crying, and ran across the lawn to the pram. Her daughter was sound asleep.

‘I expect she’s just as worn out as we are.’ George had followed her and put his arm around her waist, bending to see under the pram hood.

‘Do you think so?’ She looked at her husband, at the shadow under his eyes, which seemed less blue, less clear than usual. Then she looked down at her sleeping daughter, her dark eyelashes a soft smudge against her pale closed eyelids, her almost black hair a curly corona under her white knitted bonnet. ‘I wish she slept as well as this at night.’