From the Ashes

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Are you asking me if I will?’

  ‘Um, yes. Please.’

  Pauline thought her mother looked pleased. ‘Well, I suppose I could catch the next bus. We’ll have to go now, though.’

  ‘What’s that on your top?’ Sid asked.

  ‘Baby spew.’

  ‘Go and put something clean on,’ Colleen said crossly. ‘Quickly, go on.’

  Pauline changed into a clean blouse and together she and Colleen walked over to Ana Leonard’s house and round the back.

  ‘Why don’t you wait here for a minute and I’ll call you?’ her mother suggested as they reached the corner of the house.

  Pauline shrugged, then spat on a corner of Daniel’s wrap and cleaned his face. He smiled at her and she smiled back and kissed his nose. He was so advanced for only a week old.

  She heard her mother knock on the back door, the door open, then Ana Leonard say, ‘Colleen, hello, come in. We’re having a knitting session. Your Allie’s here, actually.’

  Then her mother said, ‘To be honest it’s Mrs Apanui I’ve come to see. Is she available?’

  ‘Kura? Wait on, I’ll just get her for you.’

  Pause, then her mother saying, ‘Hello, Mrs Apanui. You might not remember me but I’m Mrs Colleen Roberts, Allie and Pauline’s mother? We met briefly at Jack Leonard’s funeral.’

  ‘Ae, I do remember, Mrs Roberts. How are you?’

  ‘Good, thank you. And yourself?’

  ‘I’m good, yes.’

  Pauline heard her mother say, ‘I thought you’d like to know we have something in common.’

  ‘We do?’

  Pauline tensed. Here it comes.

  Her mother said, ‘We’re both grandmothers.’

  Pauline couldn’t see Kura’s face, but she could hear the frown in her voice. ‘No, I’m not a grandmother.’

  Colleen called out, ‘Pauline?’

  She walked round the side of the house and up the steps, Daniel in her arms. ‘Hi, Mrs Apanui. This is Johnny’s son, Daniel John.’

  Kura stared down at the baby for a long, long moment, then let out a shriek. Poor Daniel’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, his arms flew out and he started to cry. A thunder of rapid footsteps sounded inside the house and the porch filled up with women, all peering over Kura’s shoulder.

  Keening now, she clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘Is it really? Is it really my Johnny’s boy?’

  ‘It is,’ Pauline said, ‘and he’s a week old. Would you like a hold?’

  Kura nodded dumbly and gathered the baby in her arms, tears pouring down her face. ‘Oh, he looks just like him. The eyes, the ears, the little nose. Wiki, look, he does, doesn’t he? It’s Johnny all over again.’

  Wiki Irwin nodded, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky.

  Cuddling Daniel to her bosom, Kura said, ‘You’re a good girl, Pauline. We’ve missed you. We’ve been wondering where you were. And you know? This is the best Christmas present we’ve ever had.’

  *

  January 1957

  The inside of St Michael’s church was definitely cooler than it was outdoors, where it was sweltering, but the temperature still wasn’t particularly comfortable. Allie could feel sweat beading on her upper lip and trickling down her sides. Poor Sonny looked like he could do with ten iced beers — his face was shiny and he kept dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. She knew he was dying to take off his jacket, but wouldn’t because they were in church.

  Her father had, though — his Salvation Army special — and had left it draped over the back of a pew.

  ‘Don’t leave that there, Dad,’ she said. ‘Someone’ll put it in the rubbish.’

  Poor Daniel must be melting too, in his long, lacy christening gown. He certainly looked grumpy, waving his fists around and kicking out with little bootied feet.

  Initially Allie was surprised that Pauline had consented to their mother’s request that Daniel be baptised. She wasn’t a particularly God-fearing girl, after all. But then she thought about it. They’d been brought up Catholic, and Pauline did go to church now and then, and after Johnny dying, and maybe even their nan, she supposed her sister might have had a bit of a think about religion and the afterlife and what have you. Or maybe not. Who knew? In the end she’d said yes and there they were, although it was half-past five on a Thursday and not a Sunday, the usual day for baptisms. Allie suspected Father Noonan might have chickened out of baptising an illegitimate baby on a Sunday.

  And Pauline hadn’t invited many people, just a couple of her girlfriends, the Apanuis and the Irwins — which did actually add up to quite a few — and the Leonards from next door, and a strange girl called Lee Bao she’d apparently met on the train. Allie quite liked her, to tell the truth. But still, they only filled the first few rows of the church, which was a massive place with a soaring, domed roof and pillars, an elaborate crucifix suspended behind the altar, and an old-fashioned pulpit that could only be reached by steps.

  Apparently Pauline had asked Kura and Joseph if they minded their grandson being baptised into the Catholic church, when they were Anglicans themselves, and Kura said they didn’t at all as long as he grew up knowing the word of God.

  Best of all as far as Allie was concerned, Pauline had invited her and Sonny to be Daniel’s godparents. Sonny was chuffed. Donna had said she was thrilled for them, and Allie thought she probably was, but then she was thrilled with everything at the moment because she’d just heard she’d passed all her nursing exams. Allie was delighted for her.

  Gina was running up and down between the pews, her sandals clattering loudly on the floorboards, having a lovely time. Allie fetched her and brought her back. Father Noonan was ready now and they gathered around the baptismal font to one side of the altar.

  He began: ‘What name do you give your child?’

  Pauline said, ‘Daniel John Roberts.’

  ‘What do you ask of God’s church for Daniel John?’

  ‘Baptism.’

  ‘You have asked to have your child baptised. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training him in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring him up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbour. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?’

  ‘I do,’ Pauline said.

  Allie cleared her throat as Father Noonan turned to her and Sonny. ‘Are you ready to help the mother of this child in her duty as a Christian parent?’

  ‘We are,’ she and Sonny said.

  And then Father Noonan did the bit with the water on Daniel’s head, which he didn’t like at all, then they were all invited to take part in the liturgy of the word. What a relief it was to sit down. Allie drifted off a bit after that, thinking random thoughts and surreptitiously fanning herself with an envelope from her handbag, until she suddenly realised something momentous.

  She was three weeks overdue with her period.

  *

  On another very hot day, Allie drove Pauline and Daniel out to Waikumete Cemetery. It was quite a long trip and the interior of the truck was stifling even with the windows down.

  Once inside the cemetery gates off Great North Road they knew exactly where they wanted to go, and drove slowly along the narrow roads through the resting places of many of Auckland’s dead; those from the previous century who now lay beneath crumbling headstones and lichen-mottled angels; the war heroes, above whom uniform keystones marched in tidy formation as they once had themselves; the grand little mausoleums and follies eternally signifying the importance of their occupants; and the simple, neat rows of graves of ordinary people.

  Allie felt quite strange. She’d visited a year earlier for her nan’s funeral, of course, but the time before that had been in December of 1953, for the mass funeral of those who’d died in the Dunbar and Jones fire. She’d been looking for something then — an explanation for what had happened, perhaps? Some sort of resolution? Forgiveness? Whatever it had been she hadn’t foun
d it, but she had now, or at least enough of it to allow her to get on with her life.

  She parked the truck on Acmena Avenue in the middle of the Catholic section, and they walked to Rose’s grave. Daniel was fussing and a bit pink in the face so Pauline took off his cardigan and booties, leaving him in just a sleeveless romper. He was much happier after that.

  Looking down at Rose’s grave, Pauline said, ‘It’s sunk.’

  Allie said, ‘I think they keep topping them up till the dirt settles completely.’

  ‘Yuck.’

  ‘It is a bit. We should be able to organise a headstone soon, though.’

  Pauline nodded.

  Allie laid her flowers at the base of the temporary wooden cross marking the grave. She’d wanted stock, her nan’s favourite, but they were out of season, so she’d picked some dahlias from Rose’s own garden. They were a bit limp from the heat, but she didn’t think Nan would mind.

  ‘Can I talk to her for a minute?’ Pauline asked.

  ‘’Course you can.’

  ‘No, I mean by myself.’

  ‘Oh. OK.’

  Allie wandered off, stood under a tree out of the sun and lit a cigarette. It was very quiet in the cemetery, the air fat and still with heat, which is why, if she listened really hard, she could hear what her sister was saying.

  ‘Nan? It’s Pauline here. You know how you asked me once what I was looking for, and I said I didn’t know? Well, I think I’ve found it. Here he is. His name’s Daniel John.’

  Author Notes

  There are a few things I should probably point out relating to this story.

  Flora MacKenzie was a real person, and her brothel at Ring Terrace, St Mary’s Bay, was real too, not to mention famous. Flora appears to have been an interesting woman and has her own www.teara.govt.nz entry. She was born in 1902, came from a wealthy family, and was a very skilled dressmaker who had a boutique in Vulcan Lane off Queen Street, Auckland, specialising in ‘society’ wedding gowns she designed herself. She was also extremely partial to a drink, and apparently became a madam in the 1940s when she discovered that girls renting the flats she owned at Ring Terrace, where she also lived, were servicing American military personnel. Her establishment became quite exclusive and was elegantly furnished, attracting your wealthier type of customer. Flora appeared in court half a dozen times for brothel-keeping and was sentenced to gaol twice for periods of six months. She was loud, colourful, talented, and believed in equal rights for women, and she died in 1982, leaving all her money to the deaf.

  Of all the characters who appear in this book who work at Smith and Caughey department store, only Miss Cato, the woman on the cash desk at the end of the Lamson tube, is real. Miss Cato worked at Smith and Caughey for fifty-eight years. Apparently, ‘The cash desk was her domain. She used to wear a black cardigan, a long black dress, her hair in a bun and she wore pince-nez spectacles’ (Cecilie Geary, Celebrating 125 Years 1880 — 2005: Smith & Caughey’s, p29). All the other characters I made up.

  Smith and Caughey’s original tearoom, called the Naumai Tearooms, opened in the 1880s but closed during World War I. After that there was nothing at all until 1958 when The Cedar Room opened. I’ve made a slight tweak and moved The Cedar Room back in time to 1955. Well, I had to — I wanted Pauline to work there. The Cedar Room served morning and afternoon teas and lunches, and had table and buffet service. It was very popular and in its first year served 106,000 customers.

  A short note on hairnets in the kitchens at Auckland Hospital: I don’t know if staff had to wear them or not in the 1950s and I couldn’t find any information on the subject, so I decided they did wear them.

  This one’s a blatant lie: the Howard Morrison Quartet did not play at the Maori Community Centre at Freeman’s Bay in 1956. They weren’t even nationally known then. Howard Morrison was playing the Rotorua rugby clubs in a band called the Ohinemutu Quartet in 1955, and in 1956 he toured Australia with the Aotearoa Concert Party. On his return he formed the original Howard Morrison Quartet with two of his brothers, Laurie and John, and Gerry Merito. They were spotted by Auckland entrepreneur Benny Levin in December 1957, and joined Levin’s touring show ‘Pop Jamboree’. The following year they had hits with ‘Hoki Mai’ and ‘Po Karekare Ana’, and, after a national tour, signed with manager/entrepreneur Harry M Miller in 1959, who insisted the band become full-time professional musicians. Laurie and John, however, couldn’t, and were replaced by Wi Wharekura and Noel Kingi. The Howard Morrison Quartet did actually play the Maori Community Centre in 1959 (if not probably before, and definitely in the 1960s), when the visiting American band The Platters also played there — to the absolute delight of the audience.

  Somervell’s Milk Bar and Currie’s Milk Bar are both real. Currie’s, on lower Queen Street, was a favourite hangout of the Auckland Rebels Motorcycle Club, which was broken up by the police for being a pack of reprobates, but was soon followed by the Saints Motorcycle Club. Both groups were known as Milk Bar Cowboys or Currie Boys. Somervell’s Milk Bar, 238 Victoria Street East, gained more notoriety after Frederick Foster shot his nineteen-year-old former lover Sharon Skiffington to death there in March 1955. Foster went to the gallows four months later on 7 July.

  On an equally unjolly note, in the book the character Jack Leonard has a form of dementia. In the 1950s very little was known about this sort of illness — its causes, prognosis, or treatment — and all the variations of the disease were shoved under an umbrella called senile dementia. Those who developed dementia were cared for at home or sent to mental hospitals, where often they received no treatment other than very heavy medication in conditions that sometimes bordered on inhumane. But then, that would have been no different from the treatment frequently given in the 1950s to people with other mental health issues such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Someone like Jack, who couldn’t be cared for at home because he’d become unmanageable, would very likely have ended up in the ‘loony bin’, where he’d probably have languished until he’d died — which is extremely sad.

  Now for a word or two on New Zealand’s Bethany maternity homes. By the turn of the twentieth century, the Salvation Army’s late colonial rescue homes for girls had developed into Bethany homes for unmarried pregnant young women. There were eventually seven, one each in Christchurch, Dunedin, Wellington, Napier, Russell, Gisborne and Auckland, and they provided girls with a place to go, away from home, to have their babies. Some Bethany homes also took paying patients to offset the costs of non-paying unmarried patients, though evidently the two groups never mixed. The Auckland home in Grey Lynn was the last to remain in operation and was demolished in 2012.

  Prior to the 1970s, many single women gave their babies up for adoption. The Bethany homes played a role in this process, as did other charitable maternity homes run by the Anglican and Catholic churches. While some women don’t recall their time at Bethany and other homes as being unpleasant, others do, remembering awful food, being forced to do constant chores, judgmental and overbearing staff, and, worst of all, feeling they were coerced into giving up their babies.

  During the 1950s there was a demand from childless married couples for babies to adopt. This led to the Adoption Act of 1955, which embraced the ‘complete break’ ideology, i.e. between ‘natural’ mother and child, and greater involvement of the state in the adoption process. The philosophy behind the complete break ideology was that, once adopted by two ‘proper’ parents, the bonding process would be organic and inevitable between an adopted child and its adoptive parents, the child had no need to know about its true origins, and the child’s genetic relationship with its birth mother would be ‘as if dead’. As for the genetic birth mother, she should do the unselfish thing and give up her baby so it could have a normal life, put her immature, unstable (as demonstrated by getting pregnant) behaviour behind her, and get on with her own life. (Paraphrased from an article by Keith Griffith, ‘Adoption History and Reform in New Zealand’, 1996.)

  F
rom 1955 state social workers were involved in facilitating almost all adoptions that weren’t arranged among family. Mothers of babies were required to sign consent forms. Some women didn’t get to see their babies at all before they were removed — others only after they signed the form. Some women kept their babies for a few days in the maternity home before they gave them up, and there are accounts on record of mothers refusing to hand their babies over and taking them home. This removal of babies from their birth mothers peaked in the 1960s.

  In 1968 the Domestic Proceedings Act, and the Legal Aid Act 1969, made it easier for women to claim maintenance payments from their children’s fathers, and in 1973 the Domestic Purposes Benefit was introduced. This gave women some economic independence. Also, by the 1970s the demand for babies for adoption had decreased, and social attitudes towards unmarried mothers were easing (slightly). Times were finally changing.

  A brief comment about Three Eastbourne Road, Remuera, where, in the book, Kathleen and Jonathan Lawson live: this is a real house, which I spotted on Google Earth. If it’s your place — sorry!

  Finally, a note on several books I found particularly useful while researching this story. The first, an absolutely beautiful book, which was given to me by Paraparaumu PaperPlus (thank you!), is Bronwyn Labrum’s Real Modern: Everyday New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s (Te Papa Press, 2015). Also really helpful were: Blue Smoke: the Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918–1964 (Auckland University Press, 2010) by Chris Bourke; Dining Out: a History of the Restaurant in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 2010) by Perrin Rowland; Lindsay Neill et al’s The Great New Zealand Pie Cart (Hodder Moa, 2008); Kitchens: the New Zealand Kitchen in the Twentieth Century (Otago University Press, 2014) by Helen Leach, because I don’t have a clue about ovens pre-1980 — or post-1980, frankly; The Loving Stitch: a History of Knitting and Spinning in New Zealand (Auckland University Press, 1998) by Heather Nicholson; Margaret Sparrow’s Abortion Then and Now: New Zealand Abortion Stories from 1940 to 1980 (Victoria University Press, 2010); and Wool: a History of New Zealand’s Wool Industry (Ngaio Press, 2003) by Bill Carter and John MacGibbon — which isn’t as boring as you might think.