In Her Mothers' Shoes (31 page)

‘We seem to have it back to front.’ George smiled wistfully and straightened, turning away towards the garden. ‘I wonder what we should do to turn her sleeping patterns around.

‘It’s my fault.’ Rose turned her body into his, wrapping one arm around him while resting the other on the pram’s large metal handle. ‘I should know how to do it, but no matter how strictly I follow the rules, I just can’t get it right. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a mother.’

He put an arm round her and faced her. ‘Nonsense, Rose, you’re a wonderful mother.’

‘No I’m not. I’m hopeless. I can’t get her to go to sleep at night. She’s keeping us all awake, even her grandparents. I can’t expect them to put up with it much longer, not at their age.’

‘They’ll cope. They can sleep all day!’

‘But you can’t. Oh, I’m sorry, George. I clearly wasn’t meant to be a mother or I would have been able to have my own baby.’

‘Rose!’ He pushed her back slightly and pulled up her chin, making her look at him. ‘Why must you always doubt yourself like this?’ She could hear a hint of annoyance, of impatience in his voice. ‘You
are
a good mother. You are always patient with her, even when she’s being a little tyke.’

She pulled away from him. ‘But I’m a fraud. I don’t think I can love her.’

‘Give it time, Rose. That’s what you told me the Karitane nurse said last week. Give it time and she’ll stop crying.’

She looked under the pram hood again and sighed. ‘I can’t love her when she cries all night long.’

‘But you will, don’t worry Rose. You will. The Karitane nurse told you not to worry about the sleeping. That babies learn. Our baby is just a slow learner, that’s all.’

But Rose didn’t believe him.
She
was the slow learner. She was the one who was at fault. Why couldn’t she form a close bond with her baby? Why was she holding back?

Every time she held her close to feed her with the bottle, every time she picked her up to change her nappy or to show her the shiny green leaves turning in the wind on the camellia tree or smell the winter sweet in the front garden, there was something preventing her from giving herself completely to Katharine.

Joan had also told her to give it time. Joan, who’d gone through three years of nursing training with Rose, had adopted a baby too a few years ago. She’d never admitted it at the time, not to anyone, she’d said, but it was months before she’d been able to feel anything more than mild interest in her daughter Lily when she was a baby.

‘She felt like a wee stranger in our home,’ Joan had said over afternoon tea while Katharine slept by the clock on the veranda just outside the door, under close observation by Lily, who was clutching a large rag doll.

‘I think I’m just tired,’ Rose said. ‘I’m sure it will be a lot better when I’ve had a good night’s sleep.’

Joan smiled. ‘I wouldn’t set too much store on that. Lily slept like a lamb.’ She put her cup down and pushed the door to the veranda further open, studying the pram with the sleeping baby and its attentive guardian, before turning back to Rose. ‘It’s just the suddenness of it all, that’s my belief anyway. You don’t have all those nine months to think and breathe the baby as it grows inside you. You just get a phone call and suddenly there’s a baby waiting for you to take home.’

Rose joined her in the doorway and together they gazed at their daughters until Lily noticed them and interrupted their thoughts.

‘Little Katie’s waking up, Mummy.’

Rose tiptoed over to the pram. Katharine was stirring but her eyes were closed. ‘I don’t think so, Lily.’ She held out her hand. ‘Come on, come inside. She needs her afternoon sleep.’ Lily took her hand and followed her. ‘At least,’ she added, turning back to Joan, ‘the Karitane nurse says she does.’

‘I wouldn’t take them as gospel,’ Joan said. ‘They’re so full of rules. You don’t have to do everything they say, you know. Besides, some of it’s quite contradictory to what they taught us at the hospital.’ She returned to her seat and picked up the picture book Lily had been looking at earlier and handed it to her. ‘Here you are dear, have another look at that.’ Lily obediently took the book and settled herself on the floor to read.’

‘I wish I was back there now.’ Rose picked Lily’s rag doll up off the floor and held onto it. ‘It was all so simple then. We did as we were told. And we had such fun.’ She sat down again, in clear view of the veranda door, and picked at the doll’s woolly hair.

‘Didn’t we? We’re both wives and mothers now but it still feels like nursing at times – cleaning up bottoms and soothing upset people, only they’re a lot younger!’

‘But I always felt in control then. I was wearing a uniform. I was trained for the job and I was confident that I knew what I was doing. Now I’ve got absolutely no confidence at all. I don’t seem to know anything.’

‘Perhaps you should wear a uniform.’ Joan grinned. ‘Seriously, I don’t think you should worry. You’re doing just fine …’

‘When we were living in Te Kuiti it was so easy. All I had to worry about was whether the meat was tough, the strawberries were ripe, and if my morning tea sponge was as light as the other bank wives’. Having a baby seemed such a wonderful idea, like it would complete the picture of perfection. If only I’d known.’

Now gone forever, that earlier life was like a country idyll – there had always been time to gossip at the greengrocer’s or take tea at Paton’s; life was so simple when the biggest disaster was overcooking the marmalade or letting the weeds grow in your front garden.

Leaving the King Country had been bittersweet, with so many farewell parties she couldn’t believe there was anyone left to say goodbye to. Their photos had been in the paper twice and Ailsa Craig had reported once again that ‘a sumptuous supper was enjoyed by all’. But however sad she felt to be losing good friends, she had been buoyed by the knowledge that soon she was to have a baby. The Department had promised.

Joan stood up. ‘You wouldn’t have done anything differently.’ She made for the veranda door and peeked through it. ‘Look at what you’ve been blessed with – the most beautiful baby you could wish for, and she’s all yours.’

‘As long as I pass all the tests.’

‘What tests?’

‘You know, the way they check up on you. If I don’t do the right thing, the Karitane nurse might report me to the Department.’ She poured Joan another tea, adding a thin slice of lemon.

‘Surely not? I never thought that would happen.’ She took the tea off Rose and put it on the tiny table beside her armchair.

‘That’s the impression I got from that Mrs Lowe who was here. Remember I told you?’

Joan nodded. ‘Yes, we’ve all had the inspectors.’

‘She said the Karitane nurse would keep an eye on me.’

‘But that’s just to make sure you’re coping.’

‘And to make sure the baby’s putting on enough weight and you’re doing everything they say you have to do.’

‘You and Katharine would pass with flying colours. She’s bonny.’ Joan picked up her cup and took a sip.

‘Not last time the nurse came.’ Rose poured herself another tea and added lemon. ‘According to her, Katharine wasn’t putting on nearly enough weight. She quizzed me about how much Karilac I used in each bottle, how I mixed it, as if I was putting her on short rations.’

‘If you’re using Karilac, Katharine should be fine. It’s a recipe for a chubby baby. Have you tasted it? It’s full of sugar, it’s so sweet.’ Joan pulled a face then put down her cup again.

‘I don’t have much choice, really. I’ve got to use Karilac, and I’ve got to get more of it into Katharine so the next time the nurse comes she’s the right weight.’

The nurse from Plunket was due the following week. Rose dreaded the moment when the scales would come out and the drilling would begin again about Katharine’s consumption of the sickly formula. It was bad enough having to use the powdered evaporated milk, bad enough not being able to feed her herself, without having to mix up sugary cow’s milk four times a day.

~   ~  ~

The following morning there was an unexpected knock at the door. She could tell who it was by the colour of the coat visible through the small panel of opaque glass on the top section of the front door: the Grey Invader had returned.

‘Good Morning, Mrs Stewart,’ she said brightly when Rose opened the door. ‘How is it all going now you have baby home?’

Rose put on her most cheerful face, wishing she’d dusted, trying to remember what state the laundry was in. Had she covered the nappy bucket after dropping this morning’s one in? She been just about to fire up the copper and start scrubbing so the disinfectant, baking soda, bleach and vinegar could work its magic. She prayed there was no lingering smell.

She showed Mrs Lowe through the kitchen where she sterilised bottles and prepared formula; then the laundry, where thankfully the lid on the nappy pail was firmly shut and the lavender oil she used in the rinse was sending out a faintly pleasant odour. The baby bath, propped in the corner, caused only a brief nod of approval. Once she’d been into the nursery, where Katharine was snuffling through her morning sleep, the Grey Invader seemed to want nothing more than a cup of tea in front of the electric fire in the upstairs living room. Rose wondered if this was where the inquisition would start and was glad George was at the bank in town and wouldn’t interrupt or act defensively.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lowe, if I’d known you were coming I would have lit the sitting room fire,’ she said as they climbed the stairs, Rose bearing the tea tray. ‘It’s far too cold in there this morning.’

‘I wouldn’t want you to go to any trouble on my account.’ Mrs Lowe took the proffered seat by the heater.

Rose poured the tea. ‘What can I help you with?’ She passed a plate of peanut brownies and perched on the edge of the chair opposite.

‘Baby seems settled.’

‘Yes. She sleeps well in the daytime.’

‘And at night?’

‘Well. . .’ Rose didn’t want to admit to any difficulties. She wanted Mrs Lowe to think of her as the perfect mother, on top of it all, confident and at ease. She hoped Katharine wouldn’t wake before Mrs Lowe left, so the inspector wouldn’t see how terrified she was of dropping her baby while changing her, of stabbing her with a nappy pin, or getting the formula wrong when mixing milk for her bottle.

‘Not a good sleeper then?’

‘No.’

‘Could you fetch me baby’s record book, please?’

Rose had been dreading this moment. But there was no way out of it. ‘Certainly. It’s just inside the nursery door.’ She fetched the book and handed it to Mrs Lowe, perching on the chair again as if it were filled with knives.

Mrs Lowe thumbed over the pages – only the first three bore the notes from the nurse’s three visits – seeming to expect more.

‘Katharine Margaret, born March the seventeenth, six pounds eight ounces,’ she read. She thumbed over the page again. ‘And last week I see she was ten pounds nine ounces.’ She paused.