In Her Mothers' Shoes (8 page)

‘Leave your case in the hall,’ Miss Mayhew instructed as Lizzie pushed through the heavy swing door and found herself standing in a high-ceilinged entrance, wood-panelled to waist height and painted above that in a sickly pale yellow, the colour of thin custard. Black-framed photographs of stern-looking women in flowing nurses’ veils and short capes were the only adornment.

‘Our matrons,’ Miss Mayhew said when Lizzie paused to study them. ‘Fitzgibbon House is an institution with a long history of caring for young women in unfortunate circumstances. There have been many wonderful matrons in charge over the years. You will meet Matron Waldron now.’ She ushered Lizzie towards a wooden door, knocked and, when a reply came from inside to enter, opened it and indicated she should go in. ‘Miss Hamilton to see you, Ma’am.’

Lizzie hesitated, wondering if perhaps she should curtsey, such was the formality of the introduction.

‘Well, come in, child. Don’t loiter in the doorway.’

Hesitantly, she approached the heavy-set wooden desk over by the window. Behind it, standing silhouetted against the light, was a large woman wearing a white dress topped with a white starched bib and apron; on her head perched a stiff white cap with small white wings either side, making her look as if she were about to rise heavenward. There was no welcoming smile. Her thin lips were clamped in a frown of disapproval, her eyebrows arched in censure.

‘Do sit down,’ she said.

Lizzie did as she was told. The last time she’d felt like this was after the lunchtime episode at school two months ago when she’d taken off to the art gallery without permission and received a lengthy dressing down from the headmistress. Her closing line still haunted her: ‘Really, Elizabeth, we would have expected better from you.’ The hard wooden chair in front of the matron felt very similar to the one in the headmistress’s study.

‘Miss Elizabeth Hamilton.’ The matron was studying a white card on her desk with some details printed on it. ‘Due date March the twenty-fifth.’ She looked up and a thin attempt of a smile forced her lips apart to reveal a startling gold front tooth.

‘Yes.’ Lizzie couldn’t help staring; she’d never seen a gold tooth like that.

‘You’ll find you get along here if you follow all the rules and don’t cause any trouble,’ Matron continued. She then proceeded to outline a long list of these rules, which included a strict timetable: up at six, communal showers, an early breakfast in the dining hall followed by work – in the kitchen, the garden, the laundry or the sewing room – lunch, more work, two hours of leisure and mild exercise before dinner, then quiet reading and board games until lights out at nine. ‘And no talking after lights-out, we strictly enforce that.’

It seemed she was a prisoner – there was to be no walking to the shops without a permission slip and only limited supervised trips to town, mainly to go to the library. The rest of the time, she was restricted to the grounds of Fitzgibbon House.

She swallowed down the homesickness threatening to overwhelm her, longing for her room overlooking the chestnut tree in the back garden, the lawn sweeping to the edge of the hill before dropping down to the thickly wooded dell she and Jerry had played in before he decided he was too big to play with girls, even his sister.

She pictured her bed as she’d left it, neatly made with the fat eiderdown, its roses cascading down each side of the bed to reach the green patterned carpet. Her favourite pillow, feathery light, that somehow just knew how to smooth itself round her face each night, an empty space on top of it where Mr Ted had once reigned over his domain.

Now she knew how the third formers had felt at Marsden, coming in from the country and leaving behind all that was familiar. Now she knew for the first time how it was to be deeply homesick. She clutched the purse her mother had given her – one of her own, no longer needed, it was of dark brown leather, the same colour as her sensible shoes. Her mother was always insistent that shoes and bags should match.

‘Pay attention please, Miss Hamilton.’

Hearing her name, Lizzie started. ‘Oh, sorry.’

Visiting hours, Matron explained, were on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

‘I won’t be expecting any visitors, Matron. My parents are in Wellington and I don’t know anybody in Christchurch.’

‘I see.’ Matron Walden studied her notes.

‘May I phone home sometimes?’

‘You may only make phone calls after receiving permission, and any calls out of town must be made collect. You may write letters, but all incoming and outgoing mail will be checked first by me.’ She studied the list on her desk then looked up again. ‘Do you have any questions, Elizabeth?’

‘Do I have a room of my own?’ she ventured.

‘Good heavens, no, you will be in a dormitory with five other girls. There are six dormitories, and they are all full. You were very lucky to get a place here, young lady. We’re very busy.’

Matron rang a little brass bell on her desk and Miss Mayhew reappeared.

‘I’ll take you up to your room,’ she said. ‘Follow me.’

Lizzie lugged her suitcase up the stairs. Miss Mayhew opened the door to reveal two neat rows of perfectly made high iron beds, each covered with sheets and two thick dark grey woollen blankets. At each bedhead was a neat row of pillows in cases so pristine they might have been soaking for hours in Mrs Mullen’s Bluo whitener. The off-white walls were now smudged with grey; the woodwork chipped and worn. Beside each bed was a narrow set of cupboards, all but one covered with photo frames, books, brushes and combs.

‘The girls are all at work now. You will meet them at morning tea, which is at ten on the dot.’ She looked at her watch. ‘In half an hour. I suggest you unpack your things then come downstairs to the front hall. I’ll get one of the girls to meet you there.’

Lizzie looked around. ‘Which is my. . .?’

‘That’s your bed there.’ Miss Mayhew pointed to one at the end with the empty cupboard. ‘That’s your uniform hanging up beside it. You are to put it on before you come to morning tea. Is that understood?’

‘Yes.’ She studied the shapeless grey smock drooping from its hanger and couldn’t stop pulling a face at it.

That brought a sniff of disapproval from Miss Mayhew. ‘They come in one size only and are washed every Thursday. You get whichever one is allocated to you.’

Suddenly, the Marsden uniform, with its heavy gym frock and increasingly tight blazer, its ugly hat and ridiculous gloves seemed not so bad after all. If only she could be wearing it now, running through the corridors to classes, laughing with Julia, not a care in the world.

‘You should unpack,’ Miss Mayhew continued. ‘You may put out your personal items as the other girls have, but there are to be no photos of boys. D’you understand?’

‘Yes, Miss Mayhew.’

‘Good.’ Miss Mayhew nodded and disappeared.

She sat on her bed and surveyed what was to be her home for the next five months. 

Where was Peter now she needed him? She flushed recalling the last time they’d met. She’d put on her newest dress, pulling the crossover top low to expose more neckline, and sneaked into her mother’s bedroom to use her makeup. More than anything, she hated her freckles - they made her look so juvenile. Peter would think she was much older, much more sophisticated if they weren’t so obvious and the only way to tame them was the application of a coat of her mother’s Elizabeth Arden foundation, smoothed carefully across her cheeks, chin and nose, until the offending brown dots had disappeared. A smear of her mother’s lipstick, a dab of her Shalimar perfume and all she had to do was slip out the back door while her mother was busy with her National Council of Women meeting in the sitting room. She borrowed a pair of her mother’s shoes, which she’d carried in her bag all the way into town and on to the Newtown terminus, only putting them on as the tram pulled up at the last stop. Climbing down to the pavement in them had required considerable skill, involving clutching onto the handrail as she negotiated the steep steps.

She walked slowly from there to the tramway office, practising what she was going to say. The makeup and the shoes made her feel as if she were acting a part, as if she really were the sophisticated lady she was pretending to be.

‘Yes, Miss?’ The man behind the office window looked pleasant enough.

She plucked up all her courage and said, ‘I’d like to see Peter Williams, please.’

‘Is he expecting you, Miss?’

‘No. Please tell him Miss Hamilton is here to see him.’

The man looked a bit taken aback, as if he didn’t know what to do next. She smiled her most winning smile, pretending she was her mother asking a favour of the concierge at a posh hotel they’d stayed at in Auckland once.

The man fiddled with some papers on the desk below, scratched his head and said, ‘Very well, then, Miss. I’ll see if he’s in.’

Lizzie was reasonably certain he would be. It was just before two in the afternoon, when she knew the conductors and drivers changed their shift. No matter what route he was on now, he should be in the big smoko room he’d talked about, chatting with his fellow trammies. She waited by the reception window, her heart beating loudly, trying to quell the uneasy feeling in her tummy.

A few moments later, Peter appeared, coming out of a door further along the tram shed and walking slowly towards her, stubbing his cigarette out under his foot. He looked annoyed.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said when he was close enough to be heard. ‘You can’t come and interrupt me at work. I’ll never hear the end of it.’

‘I had to Peter. I had to see you again.’

‘Yeah?’ He looked at her as if he was studying an irritating midge.

Lizzie faltered for a minute. ‘I wanted you to know that I’m going to have a baby. Your baby.’

‘Yeah? How do you know that?’

‘Because the doctor said . . .’

‘No, I mean, how do you know it’s my baby?’

She looked at him earnestly. ‘Because there’s no one else, Peter. I’ve never done it with anyone else. It’s your baby.’

‘Yeah? That’s what all the girls say when they’re in the family way. Try to nail it on the nearest poor sod they can find.’ He was looking away towards the door he’d come out of, his eyes flickering to her and back to the tram shed.

‘But it’s true, Peter. There’s no one else. You know that’s true.’

‘No I don’t.’

‘But you were my first. You know you were.’

He shoved his hands in his pockets, his face hard set. ‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I was your last. For all I know, you’ve been off with others now you’ve had a taste for it. I bet that’s what you done.’

‘I wouldn’t! There’s only been you.’ She reached out to him; he brushed her away.

‘Look, Lizzie.’ He spat out her name as if it was poisonous. ‘I don’t believe you. And I don’t want to see you again. Do you understand?’

‘But I thought we could get married and . . .’