In Her Mothers' Shoes Read Online Free Page B

the end of the year. Although she had no desire to be an artist; while scorning her parents’ social extravagance, she did not plan on being poor, as she’d been warned artists inevitably were. She wanted to fulfil her artistic promise, she wanted to create things of great beauty, but she also wanted to earn good money. Her chosen career was therefore architecture. As well as Art, she was good at Maths and passable at Science. The things of great beauty she would create would be buildings.
     
    But getting into Architecture at university was competitive; she would need to pass Scholarship to get in, so she had to get better and get back to school.
     
    Missing school was unthinkable. Though she wouldn’t miss catching the tram. She’d guessed right – Peter’s conductorship of the Karori tram had been brought to an end; she’d not seen him since the night in the Karori Pavilion, despite trying different tram times. But she hadn’t given up completely.
     
    Unable to summon the strength to get dressed, Lizzie made it down to the dining room for breakfast in her dressing gown. But faced with the smell of tea and toast, she had to make a run for the bathroom again.
     
    Her mother tapped on the door just as Lizzie heaved again. ‘You poor thing.’
     
    Another stream of bile came up.
     
    ‘This is so unlike you, Lizzie. You’re never sick.’
     
    Of course not – not with the threat of Dr McQuilkin calling by and dripping all over her. How could she avoid him? She could hide in her room and refuse to come down. She could run away. Except she couldn’t go too far from the toilet.
     
    What was it about toilets? That awful concrete cell where she had let Peter do what he wanted to do with her had the dirtiest, smelliest toilet she’d ever endured in her life. Now, doubled over another toilet, filled with her own foul-smelling vomit and bile, she suspected the two incidents just might be connected.
     
    She groaned.
     
    ‘You do sound under the weather Lizzie. I’ll telephone the doctor after nine and see if he can call by.’
     
    She desperately wanted to say ‘No, I don’t want to see the doctor’, but she knew it was inevitable.
     
    ‘All right, Mummy.’
     
    Another wave of nausea cramped her stomach but this time she managed to hold it in.
     
    ‘You’d better pop back to bed until he arrives and I’ll bring you some boiled water.’
     
    Lizzie wanted to argue. She didn’t want to go back to bed; she wanted to go to school as usual. Surely she would feel better soon. The cramps would have to stop eventually. She put all her effort into not throwing up again while her mother was still outside the door, but as soon as the footsteps retreated, another burst of evil tasting bile made its way up her throat.
     
    The morning dragged by. She got out her English exercise book and tried to make a start on the essay due next week – ‘Jane Austen is regarded as both a friend and foe to women: discuss’. She’d promised her mother she’d do better in English – her mother was forever complaining about her marks in English and Latin but never praised her for doing so well in Art and Maths. Julia had lent her notes to help with the essay, but whenever Lizzie put her head up from the pillow to write she felt dizzy.
     
    By lunchtime, she felt better and asked her mother if she might have some soup and a piece of bread, but her mother said to wait until the doctor came because he might think eating the wrong thing to do. ‘An upset stomach is best treated with boiled water and fresh air,’ she said.
     
    ‘But I’m hungry,’ she protested.
     
    Her mother won. There was no lunch.
     
    Dr McQuilkin didn’t arrive until mid afternoon; by then Lizzie was starving. She heard him come in but waited for her mother to call.
     
    He asked her how often she’d been sick, at what time of the day, whether she’d been able to eat in the evenings then asked her to lie down on the couch. He knelt beside her,