Lottie, summoned to stay behind after school, looked anxiously at her class teacher perched on her high stool behind her desk. Miss Carson was correcting a pile of exercise books and finished her task before putting down her pencil, upon which her rather stern features relaxed into a smile.
‘Don’t look so frightened, Lottie. I just wanted to have a talk with you.’
With one of the exercise books in her hand, Miss Carson got down from her stool and, taking Lottie by the arm, led her to the front row of desks where each took a seat facing the other. She opened the exercise book and spread it out on her lap. Looking at the book, Lottie’s sense of apprehension deepened.
‘I want to talk to you about your essay.’ Miss Carson gave a reassuring smile. ‘It is very good indeed.’
‘That’s a relief.’ Lottie brushed back her hair, returning the smile, her tense body beginning to visibly relax. ‘I wondered what you were going to say.’
‘I was also going to say that I was concerned to learn from the Head that you want to leave school at the end of the year?’
Lottie nodded.
‘I think that’s a very big mistake.’
‘I don’t want to leave, miss, but my mother wants me to take a job.’ Lottie bent her head in an effort to conceal the fact that she was blushing. Then she raised it again and looked straight at her form teacher. ‘Since Dad came back from the war he hasn’t had a job. Times are very difficult, Miss Carson. We need the money.’
Miss Carson also coloured. ‘I appreciate that, Lottie. But if you had some kind of profession you would earn more money and be in a better position to help your family. You’re nearly sixteen so there’s not much longer to go.’
Lottie shook her head but said nothing.
‘For instance,’ Miss Carson continued, ‘if you took the high school examinations you could become a teacher or a doctor. Think of how proud your family would be of you then, and you would also earn more money and be in a much better position to help them.’
Lottie’s eyes gleamed with excitement. ‘I’ll ask my mum.’
‘Would you like me to talk to her if she says no?’
‘Perhaps. I must go now, miss. Bella will be waiting outside for me.’
Miss Carson got to her feet and put her hand on Lottie’s shoulder. ‘I would hate for one of my best pupils to miss a chance to better her life. What a waste it would be.’
‘I’ll ask my mum, I promise.’
Bella, Lottie’s younger sister, was waiting outside in the playground kicking her heels in front of her, a sulky expression on her face. She was eleven, almost five years younger than Lottie, on whom she was very dependent, although she was perfectly capable of going home on her own as it was only a short distance from the school. When she saw the bright, eager expression on her sister’s face her expression hardened and became even more petulant. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Sorry.’ In an ebullient mood, Lottie reached for her hand. ‘Miss Carson wanted to see me.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘Not at all. She wants me to stay on at school, says perhaps I could become a teacher or a doctor.’
‘But Mum says you are leaving.’
‘I thought I was leaving. Wait until we get home and see what she says.’
‘She won’t be pleased, if you ask me.’
The euphoric expression vanished from Lottie’s face as they drew nearer home. ‘I don’t think she will be very pleased either. But Miss Carson says if I get a better job we’ll get more money and . . . Well, we must wait and see.’ She suddenly felt more apprehensive than excited and slowed her pace.
Home was a terraced house in Mount Cook, a rather poor, downtrodden part of Wellington, where the family had lived all their lives. The houses were so close together that you could reach out and touch the one next door. The front door of each led directly on to the street and at the back was a small yard, usually with a single washing line strung across, and an outdoor toilet. Lottie’s mother, Ada, who considered she had married beneath her, had always hated the area, resenting her modest house in a mean, shabby street. To Lottie, however, it was home, and she threw open the front door to tell her news.
As usual, her father, Desmond, was slumped in front of the fire, his paper on his chest as though he had fallen asleep, but he started up as she came in, rubbing his eyes as he looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
Her father had served right through the war, surviving until the end, but he had returned home a virtual invalid with chronic breathing problems which prevented him from working. As a result Ada, who already took in washing to help the family, had started cleaning the houses of the more affluent, often having to cross Wellington in order to do so. She was a permanently dissatisfied woman who felt she had been dealt a bad hand by life, and accordingly her family suffered from her frequent ill-tempered outbursts.
Lottie and Bella divested themselves of their coats and hats as Ada came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her cloth, her habitual harassed expression on her face. ‘You’re very late,’ she said, looking at the clock.
‘Miss Carson wanted to see me!’ Lottie burst out. ‘So I had to stay behind.’
‘I hope you haven’t been in any trouble.’
‘No . . .’ Rather breathlessly, Lottie sat at the table, glancing first at her father wheezing away in his chair while her mother stood in the doorway leading to the kitchen. ‘Miss Carson wants me to stay on at school! She says I could be a doctor or a teacher.’
Lottie paused as she took in the expressions on her parents’ faces. They were very different. Her father’s was one of surprise, her mother’s of incredulity bordering on anger.
‘And when are you going to be a doctor or a teacher, may I ask?’ Ada folded her arms in a familiar and forbidding pose and leaned against the door. She looked tired to the point of exhaustion: grey-faced and older than her thirty-six years.
‘After I’ve studied.’ Lottie paused uncertainly and looked placatingly at her mother. ‘Perhaps being a teacher would be better?’ she ventured at last.
‘And how long do you think this will take?’
Sensing her mother’s hostility, which was not unexpected, Lottie now was reduced to silence, but her mouth set in a stubborn line.
‘You want to forget all this nonsense,’ Ada said, ‘and find a job as soon as you can after school ends. Mrs Ellis knows plenty of ladies who need cleaners so you won’t be out of a job for long, and you’ll be bringing in money, my girl, of which there is a short supply in this house. Now come and get your tea.’ She looked over at her husband and said sharply, ‘Desmond, did you hear? Tea’s ready; get up.’
Lottie lay in bed that night, reviewing the events of the day. She knew she was clever at school and she enjoyed her work. Not only was she a favourite of Miss Carson, but also of some of the other teachers who, knowing her background, admired her. Poverty was not unusual in the Mount Cook area of Wellington and many of the homes of the children had been affected by large-scale unemployment and the aftermath of the war. But Lottie was exceptionally bright and had an engaging personality; besides which she was a tall, attractive girl with thick, fair hair that in the sunshine seemed tinted with gold, deep-set blue eyes and a fine bone structure. In appearance she took after Ada before the rigours of her life had claimed and embittered her, destroying her looks.
If Lottie was aware of all these things she was unspoilt by them, her vanity kept in check by the hostility of her mother, who clearly preferred docile, obedient Bella but doted above all on their young brother, Jack who, at just eight years old, had no memory of his father until he came home from the war. Jack was a very small child, very beautiful with large blue eyes, a head full of fair, bubbly curls, a cheeky, waspish smile, and above all a sweet, lovable nature. Although he was very much his mother’s boy, because he always did what he was told, he was adored by his sisters, who also spoilt and protected him.
Perhaps Ada resented her elder daughter’s independent nature, her academic success, her closeness to her father. Perhaps, in many ways, they were too alike and this caused an ongoing conflict between them which had been accentuated since her father had returned from the war. He was a sick man, depressed and deeply disillusioned, not only by his experiences on the Western Front but by the subsequent treatment by the government of the men who had travelled all that way and undergone so much suffering, and in many cases death, for another country, to which many of them felt no allegiance at all.
In the bed beside her Bella stirred and gave a little sigh, as though the events of the day and the subsequent storm that simmered throughout the evening had disturbed her, too.
In the dark Lottie turned towards her sister, sensing she might be awake, but she seemed fast asleep. She was very protective towards Bella, who was totally unable to defend herself against their mother’s frequent onslaughts and outbursts.
Although smaller-boned and petite, Bella was every bit as attractive as Lottie: fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a very pale, translucent complexion. However, in character, although she appeared mild and docile, she had a stubborn streak and was capable of outbursts of temper every bit as violent and unpredictable as her mother.
It was not a happy home and Lottie longed to leave it, but knew she was trapped by her loyalty to her father, sister and her little brother, all of whom were dependent in various ways on her as being the only one able to stand up to Ada and protect them from her erratic and uneven moods.
Also, in a way that was hard to explain, she felt trapped by the grudging respect she had for her mother because she had worked so hard to keep the family together to enable it to survive away from the workhouse. Particularly during the war, when she was the only breadwinner, that was very difficult indeed. She could understand her mother’s anxiety that she should contribute to the family income, especially after her father had proved unfit to work when he returned from the war a broken man.
Yet to be a teacher, like Miss Carson . . . an ambition which she had never consciously entertained, except in her dreams. Perhaps that was something that would indeed eventually be of greater help to the family than being a drudge, cleaning the houses of other people in Island Bay. Maybe, with two incomes, they would be able to move to a nicer area, have a house with a garden, an indoor toilet – perhaps even a bathroom – and have the sort of better life to which her mother she knew, above all, aspired.
Ada had on her best hat for the interview with Miss Carson which was eventually arranged, somewhat to Lottie’s surprise. Miss Carson had handled the whole thing both well and delicately, writing first to her parents to explain the benefits of further education and invite them to come and see her.
Naturally, Ada, who wanted to be in control of the situation, left Desmond at home and Lottie had to wait outside the room in which the meeting took place. Ada intended to take the lead, to be outspoken, even aggressive, but was seduced, as so many people were, not only by Miss Carson’s persuasive charm but also the ease with which she got her word in first. She began by telling Ada how much she sympathized with her and what a wonderful job she had done and how grateful they should be to her for keeping the family together while her husband went to war.
Thus Ada had the wind taken out of her sails almost before she had time to get started with her objections. She even felt a sneaking admiration for Miss Carson, and an affinity with her.
‘A teacher’s training course is quite short you see, Mrs O’Brien. Only a couple of years, and the benefits will be enormous not only to Lottie but to the family.’ She gave a winsome smile. ‘It would be such a pity to waste the talents of a girl with so many gifts. She is one of our outstanding pupils and,’ she added, ‘Bella is not far behind, so you have two clever daughters, and I’m sure Jack will be equally as clever as his sisters.’
‘Jack is only eight,’ Ada protested, gratified beyond expectations by all this praise for her troublesome, willful and disobedient elder daughter.
‘Plenty of time for him to develop,’ Miss Carson said.
Abruptly pulling herself together, determined not to be seduced by all this charm, Ada’s face assumed its customary severe expression. ‘The fact is, Miss Carson, whatever you think of Charlotte, we are not in a position to let her stay on at school. We very badly need the money she would earn. Charlotte is nearly sixteen. She has already stayed on longer at school than she needed to. I could have taken her away at fourteen. She is quite old enough now to be earning her living. The same will be true of Bella when she turns fourteen. My husband has so far proved unfit to work and the burden falls on me. I work every hour God sends and frankly it is telling on me and my health.’
‘Believe me, I do sympathize.’ Miss Carson paused. ‘But I think if you could last a little longer . . .’
‘But it won’t be a “little longer”,’ Ada protested, ‘it will be years.’
‘But in the long run you will benefit enormously, don’t you realize that?’
‘I realize that Charlotte will have to leave school,’ Ada said, firmly rising from her seat. ‘It is very good of you to be so concerned but I’m sorry, that is the position.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I wasn’t born to this sort of life, you know, Miss Carson. My father had a good position and we lived in Karori. My parents were against my marriage, but I was very young, headstrong . . . Desmond then was a very attractive man . . . Well, look where it got me. Unable to see my children have a good education.’ And with a shrug and a smile bleak enough to freeze the heart, she turned to go.
‘Mrs O’Brien, wait a minute,’ Miss Carson called after her just as she reached the door. Ada turned to see her coming towards her. ‘I think I may be able to arrange some funds to help you out. We have contingency plans in the school for help when it is needed. It will not be a vast amount, but you might find it useful.’
‘Well.’ Ada turned back into the room and paused for a moment. ‘Well, I don’t quite know what to say.’
‘If it works out, and I’m sure it will, I would much prefer Lottie wasn’t told about this. It might make it very awkward for her with the other pupils if they got to hear about it. I do hope that might persuade you to change your mind, Mrs O’Brien.’
‘It might,’ Ada said grudgingly. ‘I don’t like charity, I’ll tell you frankly, Miss Carson, so I’ll have to think about it and discuss it with my husband. I’ll let you know. Thank you, Miss Carson.’
As Miss Carson opened the door she saw Lottie sitting disconsolately outside, an expression of anxiety on her face, and gave her a fleeting, reassuring smile.
As the door shut behind her Lottie rose to greet her mother. ‘What did she say?’ she burst out when they were outside.
‘She tried to persuade me that it might be in our interests as well as yours. I’m thinking about it. I’ll talk to your father.’ She looked at her daughter severely. ‘Miss Carson seems to think very highly of you. I can’t think what you’ve done to deserve it. She should see you at home.’
‘Maybe I could take a weekend job and also work nights?’
‘My, you do want it badly, don’t you?’ Ada said grudgingly. ‘I’ll see what your father says.’
As Lottie knew, what her father said went for very little in a household where Ada ruled and her word was law.
Desmond’s approval, as usual, was not asked, but it could be taken for granted because he loved his bright, sparkling daughter Lottie. He loved Bella as well, but maybe he saw in Lottie more of himself – the young man full of hope, as he had once been. He also still loved his wife, remembering her when he first met her and he had by virtue of his Irish charm swept her off her feet, much to the disapproval of her parents.
How things had changed. Desmond O’Brien was a first-generation New Zealander born in Wellington. His parents were assisted immigrants from Protestant Belfast having been lured to a new land by promise of rewards and an enhanced way of life that had somehow not lived up to its promise. They had come from large families, had no relations in this country so far from home, and missed their parents. His father got a job as a carter and eventually Desmond, who left school at twelve, followed him, becoming a driver with the advent of the motor car. With the outbreak of war in 1914 he was more excited by the idea of adventure abroad than going to the defence of a country to which he owed no allegiance. Against Ada’s wishes he eagerly enlisted and was among the first troops to leave the country with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force in October on the converted Union Company ship The Limerick.
But any hope Desmond also had of bettering himself vanished as he was absorbed into one of the infantry brigades that saw action first at Gallipoli, then on the Somme and finally at Passchendaele, where he inhaled the gas that so damaged his lungs. Battle-hardened, disillusioned and weary, he had returned home in 1918 with little to show for his misplaced patriotism other than a meagre pension and an inability to earn a living on his own, or frankly any desire to. By that time Ada, too, had changed from the vivacious, fun-loving girl he had loved and married to an embittered woman, resentful of having been left on her own with three young children for four years. Seeing the wreck her husband had become she had no sympathy for the ordeal – both physical and mental – he had been through, which was, anyway, beyond her imagination. Her attitude changed towards him, as it had towards the children she had had to bring up on her own, perpetually finding fault with them, especially with Desmond’s favourite, Lottie, who she seemed to blame for all her ills. Her own parents had rejected her after her teenage elopement with a man with good looks but no prospects. In their opinion Ada had got what she deserved and she, in turn, was too proud to ask them for help.
Locked in depression, Desmond sat quietly for most of the day in his armchair, putting up with the jibes from Ada, grateful when she went off to her work and could no longer taunt him until she returned home and resumed with gusto, complaining about how hard she worked compared to what a lazy so and so he was. He spent most of his days lost in his own world and looked forward to the return of his children from school. Indeed, it was through them that he lived and had any enjoyment from life.
The subject of Lottie staying on at school was not mentioned for days after Ada’s interview with Miss Carson, so in an agony of apprehension Lottie lived out the time wondering about her future. Miss Carson said nothing and neither did her parents. Finally, after school one day, having given her father a cup of tea and unable to contain herself any longer, Lottie perched on a stool next to him.
‘Dad, did Mum say anything more about me staying on at school after she spoke to Miss Carson? She said she was going to talk to you.’
Her father’s mystified look gave Lottie the answer she needed. ‘You know your mother never asks for my opinion on anything, Lottie. It is as though I no longer exist for her.’
‘Mum didn’t say anything at all to you?’
Desmond shook his head. ‘I don’t suppose she would. You know who is boss here.’
‘Could you ask her, Dad, for me? Say you think it’s a good thing.’
‘I wish I could help,’ Desmond said then stopped, overtaken by a sudden spasm of coughing. Lottie watched him anxiously as he gasped for breath, then the door opened and Ada came in with Jack, who she had collected from school. She wore her usual harassed, bad-tempered expression, which became even more pronounced when she saw Lottie perched by the side of her husband.
‘Can’t you find anything to do, Lottie? Is tea not ready yet?’
Guiltily Lottie jumped to her feet as Ada took off her hat and coat. ‘Put these in the hall for me, would you, Jack?’ she said, handing them to the boy. ‘And then go and change your clothes. Tea will be ready soon.’
‘Yes, Mum,’ Jack said with his customary docility and scampered out of the room.
Ada slumped into a chair by the side of the table and put a hand to her brow, wearily stroking it, her fingers pressing against it as if she had a headache. ‘God knows, I’m tired having worked my fingers to the bone and no tea ready. Where’s Bella?’
‘She went to play with Gertie next door. Shall I get you a cup of tea now, Mum?’
‘Well, that would be nice.’ Ada looked mollified, her expression softened, the taut lines around her face eased. ‘And then you can start on tea for us all.’ She looked at her husband. ‘Had another coughing fit, have you, Desmond?’
Desmond nodded and started wheezing again. ‘Lottie was asking me about staying on at school.’ Desmond gasped. ‘I wish I could help and do some work, Ada. It’s not that I don’t want to. It is very good that Miss Carson wants her to stay on. She is a very clever girl.’
‘You would think the army could find you some clerical job,’ Ada said, ignoring his last remark. ‘You nearly lose your life for a country you have never ever been to and then look how they treat you. You should never have gone to the war, Desmond. I told you at the time.’
This was a perpetual gripe of Ada, one she never ceased reminding him of. It had indeed made an enormous difference to their lives. Before the war things were reasonably harmonious between husband and wife and it was a much happier home. The experience had deeply soured Ada, exacerbated by the horrific number of casualties the ANZAC troops had suffered and the never-ending worry of daily expecting bad news. ‘I’d have been better off dead,’ Desmond said, not for the first time. ‘Then you could have married again; someone who would look after you better than I can.’
Ada gave a derisive snort and looked up at Lottie, who had returned with a cup of tea. ‘I could do with this,’ she said, sipping it. Her mood seemed to have improved and she put the cup down and sighed deeply. ‘I still think Lottie will be better off doing a job and helping us for a while.’ She got up and handed her cup back to Lottie. ‘I’m sorry, Lottie, but that really is the end of the matter.’
‘I think you could have discussed it with Dad. He thinks it’s a good idea,’ Lottie insisted stubbornly.
Ada cast her husband a look of contempt. ‘If your father got off his backside and did a job of work you could stay at school as long as you like,’ she said, and with an air of finality went out to the kitchen.
Lottie lay in bed listening to the noise coming from her parents’ room. As usual, they were shouting at each other again and she knew it was about her. Invariably her mother’s voice was in the ascendant until the voices stopped abruptly and a violent spasm of coughing ensued, as was invariably the case with these rows between her parents, her father being too weak to argue with her for long. Lottie imagined him gasping for breath and feared, as she often did, that eventually one of these arguments would lead to his death. Sometimes she thought longingly of running away and starting a new life, but that would mean leaving her father and, besides, where would she go? How would she live?
In the bed next to her Bella stirred. The noise made by her parents had woken even a deep sleeper such as herself.
‘It’s about me,’ Lottie said. ‘I brought up today about staying on at school and Mum says I can’t.’
’Dad always takes your side,’ Bella said peevishly. As the younger sibling she always felt she fell between her sister who her father loved best and her mother who so clearly favoured Jack.
‘And why shouldn’t he?’
‘I think it’s very hard on Mum. I don’t want to stay on at school for a moment longer than I need to. If I could leave now I would.’
‘And what would you like to do?’
‘Be a hairdresser, something like that.’
Lottie fell silent and there was no more noise from next door after the coughing subsided.
She put her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling, listening to her sister’s regular breathing as she fell once more into a deep sleep. It was all right for Bella, but she had far loftier ideas about her own future.
Returning home a few days later, earlier than usual, Ada found her husband not slumped in his chair half asleep but leaning forward to greet her with an expression on his face that was almost animated as he looked at her. ‘What’s up with you?’ she asked, putting down a bag full of shopping and removing the pin from her hat.
‘Look on the table,’ Desmond said, eagerly pointing. ‘There’s a letter.’
Wearily, Ada picked up the single page lying next to its envelope and sat down on a chair. She had started work early, cleaned two large houses, done the shopping and felt deathly tired. Soon she would have to go out again and pick up Jack.
Dear Mr and Mrs O’Brien,
With reference to the talk we had recently, Mrs O’Brien, I have now had a chance to speak to the Head and she has kindly agreed to release funds to assist you during the time that Lottie resumes her education from next term onwards. The sum will amount to what Lottie might reasonably expect to earn, and in due course you will let me know approximately how much this is likely to be.
I explained to you that Lottie is a very able, keen pupil, an example to others with a bright future ahead of her, and I am sure she will benefit from further education, go on to advanced study, and that her future will be more rewarding and of benefit to you as a family.
As I explained it is important that this information is withheld from Lottie as we cannot extend it to other pupils in similar circumstances, however much we might like to. We are making an exception for Lottie.
I look forward to hearing that this offer is acceptable to you.
Yours sincerely,
Madeleine Carson