Christchurch by Anna Rogers

Author:Anna Rogers [Anna Rogers]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781927147351
Publisher: Exisle Publishing
Published: 2011-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘When you get older, nobody takes any notice of you,’ became another of Dorrie’s expressions. ‘Men just look right through you.’

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Dorrie had trouble with the man at the Christchurch Tenancy. He showed her dreadful bedsits in Sydenham – ramshackle places with nothing but bare dirt in the front yard and rusty cars on the kerb. Dorrie said you could smell poverty – rancid fat and unwashed bodies – and it was an insult to take her to those places. ‘And the women in those parts,’ she complained. They had lank grey hair, no makeup, they wore socks instead of stockings, they pushed trolleys to the shop, they were all a bit simple if you asked her.

‘Men like fresh faces,’ said her mother. ‘Listen, love, take the day off school – come with me to the rental place.’ Irene had flatly refused. Her awkward presence would not make the slightest bit of difference to the men in the rental agencies. ‘They’re not going to take any notice of a fourteen-year-old,’ she’d told Dorrie.

‘But all you have to do is smile,’ said Dorrie. ‘That’s all I ask.’

Dorrie eventually found a cheap house in Lyttelton through the Star classifieds. There was a musty sharp smell through the house which Dorrie acknowledged; it was probably the wooden piles and couldn’t be helped, really. Besides, the house had a view of the harbour – a million-dollar view – and Dorrie said she wouldn’t be surprised if you could catch fish off the wharf. Probably the man next door fished; she’d seen big rubber waders through their garage window.

All in all it would turn out and if Irene’s bedroom at the back of the house was too cold and damp, why, she could camp out in the lounge at night. The squabs came off the couch and with a pillow at each end and everything covered with a grey blanket it made a bed that Irene could lie in while peacefully watching the fire.

‘Besides,’ said Dorrie, ‘I’ll furnish this place out from scratch – just wait till I get a job and on my feet again.’

Back then Irene felt like hitting her mother. She was sick of her talk about getting on her feet again or keeping her head above water. Sometimes Irene would compare herself with other girls: girls who slept in normal beds with quilted eiderdowns; girls who managed to wear the regulation uniform every day; girls who didn’t have to desperately wash out grubby socks and hang them over the heater to dry before the 7.30am bus. Was there anyone else who lived like this? Irene wondered, gazing at the cardboard boxes in which all her underwear became damp and mildewed.

Dorrie said there was more to worry about than just clothes. Her new job, for instance, made her realise just how lucky they were. Dorrie had found work at a rest home, a terrible place where the elderly were shunted out onto the verandas with no shade whatsoever. All they had were newspapers to protect their frail heads against the blazing sun.

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