Serenade for a Small Family Read online

  that’s in hindsight. I have to let it go.

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  Despite eighteen months of pills, a scheduled sex life, and

  thousands of dollars spent on naturopathy and acupuncture,

  I still wasn’t pregnant. In mid-2004 we booked in to do

  IVF—I was both excited and uneasy, but definitely ready.

  I opened the fridge door and crouched down to pull the

  neat package containing syringes and bottles of clear liquid

  out from between the yoghurt and chutney, and handed it

  to Benny. I closed the living room curtains and lay on the

  couch while Benny unzipped the package and studied its

  strange contents.

  ‘Just don’t let me see any needles.’ I turned my face to

  the wall. Benny loaded the syringe as instructed and held

  it poised over a spot to the side of my belly button.

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  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yes. Just do it.’ Jab. ‘Ouch!’ Voices and a muff led

  Crowded House song came from next door.

  Benny read the instructions for the next injection.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Don’t tell me when you’re going to do it!’ I said, irritated.

  ‘Okay.’ Jab.

  ‘Ow!’ I leant on an elbow to rub the reddening spot.

  ‘One down,’ said Benny, packing up. A woman laughed

  next door.

  ‘One down,’ I sighed.

  After two weeks of this evening ritual my stomach

  bloated and I developed a fierce and permanent headache;

  changes to my hormones made me teary, cranky and dog-

  tired. We didn’t tell anyone we were doing IVF and we

  kept to ourselves. That might have been mostly Benny’s

  idea—he’s a private person. But we also didn’t want to

  become the subject of Alice Springs’ thriving gossip circle.

  So we became isolated, and quickly developed cabin fever.

  I was working on a career conference for Aboriginal

  women. The job was based at the women’s council, which

  swarmed with smart, earthy women. But the headaches were

  getting worse by the day, and my emotional state was intense

  and unpredictable. One afternoon I sat facing my computer

  with my eyes closed and the vice on my temples squeezing

  tight. Two Aboriginal women in coloured skirts appeared

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  in the doorway. I smiled at the toddler standing between

  them: ‘Hello, little boy!’ He came towards me with arms

  outstretched and slapped his dimpled hands down onto the

  bright blue exercise ball I was using as a desk chair. But

  I was hit by the rancid smell from his nappy and turned

  involuntarily away to gag.

  We needed to be in Darwin for eight days while the eggs

  were collected, fertilised and put back into my uterus. The

  dates were going to clash with the conference, so I went in

  to my boss’s office. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  Piles of paper and folders spread across Angela’s desk. I was

  comfortable with her smart, messy ways.

  ‘Sure, Ingrid—have a seat.’

  I moved a handful of torn envelopes, and sat on the

  small couch facing her desk. ‘Thanks. Um . . . I’m actually

  going to have to go to Darwin for some medical treatment.’

  ‘Right. Is everything okay? Are you okay?’ She cocked

  her head.

  ‘Yeah, I am—I’m fine. It’s just . . . Well, I won’t be able

  to attend the conference because the dates clash. And I can’t

  change the Darwin dates.’

  ‘Aah . . . I see,’ she said gently, a look of recognition

  passing over her face. ‘Sometimes women need to go to

  Darwin for fertility treatment.’ I looked at her, then away.

  I did not want to have this discussion. ‘We’re very supportive

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  of women in those sorts of circumstances. That’s fine,

  Ingrid—good luck.’

  The plane slammed down on the runway and shuddered

  along until coming to a stop, and Benny and I stepped

  out into a thick, balmy Darwin morning. It was October

  2004. We moved into a poky grey-walled apartment up

  several impossible flights of stairs before making our way

  to the hospital.

  ‘Oh my god, Ingrid.’ The doctor was holding a probe

  between my legs and studying the ultrasound screen.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ The room smelt like disinfectant and

  reminded me, inexplicably, of a babysitter we grew up with.

  ‘We’re going to have to cancel—your body’s over-

  responded.’

  ‘What?!’ I lifted my head to look at him through my

  parted knees.

  ‘You’ve over-responded.’ His eyes f lickered over the

  screen and his expression was one of real concern. ‘We have

  to stop immediately. It’s no wonder you’ve been unwell.’

  ‘But . . . I don’t believe it!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He was shaking his head now. ‘It’s far too

  dangerous to continue.’ I lay devastated and disbelieving,

  with tears rolling down my cheeks.

  ‘After all those needles! It’s been weeks of . . .’

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  ‘I’m sorry.’

  We decided to stay in Darwin anyway, and moped

  around. It was stinking hot and humid. I floated on my back

  in the warm hotel pool and told myself it wasn’t over—we

  would just have to try again. Warm salty tears slid down

  my cheeks and into the clear blue water.

  Between that cycle and the next I lived on hold, waiting

  for another chance at getting pregnant. Over Christmas,

  we went to Mum’s place on the south coast of New South

  Wales. Benny calls it the Promised Land, because it’s all

  bush and beach and space. On Christmas morning, Mum

  hitched her nightie into her knickers to walk through her

  garden, feeding her geese, guinea fowl, bantams, ducks and

  pigeons—like a Pied Piper of birds, grabbing and tossing

  fistfuls of weeds along the way.

  ‘Come with me, Inky,’ she said. Gardens and birds aren’t

  my thing; but I was miserable, so I tagged along.

  ‘Will they peck me?’ I asked, stamping my feet to scare

  off snakes.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! How did it happen that a daughter

  of mine is scared of birds?!’

  ‘ And snakes,’ I added. We passed screaming peacocks and

  three donkeys. A batch of geese and ducks were waddling

  fast towards us, and I stayed close behind Mum.

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  ‘Shit, Mum . . . they’re coming!’

  When we got back to the house, Mum’s partner Alan

  was standing on the veranda, examining two bolts between

  his grease-covered thumbs and forefingers. He had a

  matching grease smudge across his cheek, and there was

  a plunger of coffee and an odd collection of ceramic cups

  on the table in front of him.

  ‘Madeleine—your bloody peacocks!’ Both Alan and

  Mum were established artists and gardeners, but Alan had

  his fingers in other pies as well. His p
izza ovens had recently

  been featured on TV’s Better Homes and Gardens, and he had

  been wearing the t-shirt the crew had given him for four

  days straight. ‘They shit all over the veranda . . . and they’re

  driving the neighbours insane.’

  Mum sat down at the table. ‘Oh, Alan!’ she retorted.

  ‘You can’t complain—your dog pisses all over the house!

  Now kiss me!’ Alan leant down, and for a moment they

  pressed foreheads.

  ‘Mmm . . . Coffee smells good,’ said Mum, pouring

  herself a cup. Sitting back, she frowned at a pile of blankets

  lumped into a corner of the deck. ‘Alan! Can you take that

  pile of rotting electric blankets off the veranda!’ Alan growled

  and walked off in the direction of his shed, with bolts in

  one hand and coffee in another. Mum turned to me. ‘In

  his mind he’s the most organised person on the planet,’ she

  said. ‘But in reality, he’s pure chaos.’

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  Later that morning I visited Mum in her studio. The

  air around her baking kiln quivered like a mirage, and a

  woman on the radio held a high-pitched operatic note for

  an impressively long time. Mum was pinching a coil of clay

  onto a tall pot, surrounded by curly half-animal, half-person

  ceramic pieces with expressive eyes and eastern European

  jackets and shoes. One had wheels and another had a dish

  for a candle.

  ‘I’ve got an open studio weekend coming up,’ said Mum.

  ‘I hate talking to all those boring people.’

  ‘You always say that, Mum,’ I said. ‘But when they’re

  actually here, you love it, and talk your head off.’

  Mum laughed, stepping back to assess her work, her

  head to one side. There was grass stuck to her boots, and

  dirt or clay under her fingernails. Incense was burning on

  the windowsill, and the smoke wafted our way. ‘Mmm . . .

  God, that makes me want to travel,’ said Mum.

  Benny and I were staying in the studio that Christmas.

  One morning, as I walked through the garden and up to

  the house for breakfast, Mum sat on the couch holding Alex

  and Nicky’s baby girl, Milla; in a bassinet another baby lay

  gurgling—the daughter of Andy, my stepbrother’s partner.

  ‘Ga . . . ga . . . ga,’ said Milla.

  ‘Ga . . . ga . . . ga,’ said Mum, standing Milla on her lap.

  Ka-kaaa, cried a passing peacock. Radio voices talked in

  soothing, intelligent tones.

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  Andy stood in front of the fireplace, talking to Nicky:

  ‘Oh, and how about those last weeks . . . Weren’t they

  terrible!’ said Andy. ‘I felt like I was the size of a truck . . .

  And my hips and legs were killing me!’

  ‘Oh, I know—I was just so over it by the end. I was

  like . . . Get this baby out!’ They laughed.

  I smiled weakly in their direction, mumbled an excuse

  at the carpet, pulled the door shut quietly behind me and

  bawled my way back to the studio.

  I can see how self-centred my behaviour might have

  looked to an outsider, and I can’t explain it. Wrong or right,

  the company of women with babies—whether they were

  family, friends or strangers—just hurt, and I couldn’t even

  pretend to be fine with them.

  ‘It’s alright, darlin’,’ said Benny, tipping me towards him

  with his weight on the saggy bed.

  The door creaked and Mum came in. ‘The Candelo

  Markets are on today,’ she said. ‘I think you should go

  immediately and get me two bantam chooks . . . off you

  go!’ Good on you, Mum.

  I sniffed, rubbed my eyes and looked at Benny: ‘Do

  you want to?’

  ‘Yep . . . let’s go.’

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  I started working full-time with the town council in a

  sprawling, low-ceilinged grey building splat on the grass

  at the end of the mall. The work was diverse, but for the

  most part the events and projects themselves left me flat.

  The CEO came up with the idea of recruiting a town

  crier for Alice. As directed, I advertised for applicants, and

  a shortlist were called in to cry, ‘Hear ye! Hear ye!’ to a

  panel of amused councillors while I shrank in a corner.

  A natural-born town crier emerged as the winner, and

  trekked the mall ringing a too-loud bell in an Akubra and

  a vest printed in a traditional Aboriginal design, promot-

  ing banal upcoming local events while passers-by ducked

  and cringed.

  I organised for BMX pros from Sydney to spend a

  weekend with local kids at the skate park, and Deadly

  Treadlies, a shop which maintains a stash of second-hand

  bikes for general community use, brought bikes along for

  the Aboriginal kids who didn’t have any. I sat against a

  fence with a bottle of water in my lap, trying not to feel

  intimidated by the hip young Sydney boys taking the

  workshop. I yelled intermittently at the blur of bikes and

  boys through the microphone of my hands cupped in front

  of my mouth: ‘Keep your helmets on!’

  Council had a presence at an expo, and it was my job to

  facilitate a stall so the rangers could promote their work to

  the wider community. ‘Do anything you like!’ I said. So,

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  chuffed by their own initiative, they brought in a dog and

  put up a sign with a picture of someone holding one on

  a lead. Sitting through a meeting with them, I pretended

  to take notes, writing in tiny letters in the corner of my

  notebook: ‘Where are my people?’

  We booked in to do another IVF cycle in March 2005 and

  started with the nightly injection ritual before that, only

  smaller doses this time. Alice temperatures were in the

  forties and, before long, the headaches, mood swings and

  painfully bloated stomach were back.

  ‘So when are you gonna have kids, Ingrid?’ Ranger Jim

  sat opposite me at the lunch-room table, flipping through

  the pages of a gossip mag. A surge of rage rippled up from

  the pit of my stomach, and a fork loaded with last night’s

  spinach pie stopped still at my lips.

  ‘Hmm . . . not sure.’ A phone rang on the other side of

  a grey dividing wall. ‘Pretty happy with the way things are

  at the moment.’ I put the pie in my mouth and forced my

  throat to swallow.

  Three weeks later I flew to Darwin by myself. Mum would

  arrive later that day, and Benny would come in a few days,

  when he could get away from work.

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  ‘I’m coming to cheer you on,’ said Mum. ‘ And to have

  a look at Darwin!’ Thank god for Mum.

  This time we splashed out and stayed in an upstairs

  apartment with a balcony and fans in every room. There

  were two shaded swimming pools, and the air was tropical,

  balmy and warm, night and day. We waded through the

  water, holding cups of tea in the early morning a
nd glasses

  of wine at night. We played Scrabble on the balcony.

  ‘God, I love this place!’ I said, flinging my wet towel

  over the balcony rail.

  ‘It’s great,’ said Mum, shuff ling her Scrabble letters.

  ‘I’m sorry about this, darling.’ She clicked down the word

  Q-U-E-L-L-E-D, with the Q over a triple-letter word

  square.

  ‘Mum! That’s seven letters! I hate playing Scrabble with

  you.’ She raised her glass my way and ice cubes clinked.

  ‘Quell that smug look off your face,’ I added.

  In spite of my tired and crabby state, we went on outings.

  On a trip to the local shops, a chemist window mirrored a

  surly, puffy person, and I quickly averted my eyes. At the

  Parap Markets, Ben ate sweet sticky rice wrapped in banana

  leaves, and pawpaw salad with chilli and peanuts, while I

  devoured sweet Mongolian pancakes in coconut milk. Mum

  and I trailed fingers through racks of batik dresses and silky

  sarongs, and I bought hand-carved wooden earrings for

  six dollars. We had coffees and cold water on a veranda

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  overlooking the blue, blue croc- and stinger-infested water,

  and sat outside for fishy dinners and fat red sunsets.

  When the day of the egg pick-up finally came around,

  I lay waiting on a trolley in a bright orange hospital gown.

  ‘Whoa,’ said Benny. ‘I need my sunglasses! Here darlin’ . . .

  Something to read?’

  Benny dumped a stack of worn magazines, their corners

  grotty and curled, onto the bed beside me. The cover of the

  top one showed a woman opening a car door, eyes towards

  the camera, mouth distorted, under the heading: ‘I SLEPT

  WITH TOM’.

  ‘Yuck! Don’t. I’m nervous.’ I imitated nail-biting.

  ‘Everything’s fine . . . you’ll be fine.’

  ‘Will you be in recovery when I get there?’ I pulled the

  blanket up under my arms. ‘I mean . . . can you be?’

  ‘I’ll be around.’

  The surgery went okay, and at the end of a suspenseful

  week, we had one surviving embryo.

  ‘Lie down, Ingrid,’ ordered the nurse, indicating a strange

  chair-bed with stirrups parked in a corner of the room. ‘I’m

  going to put the embryo back into your uterus now.’ She

  crossed the room, her shoes clicking neatly on the clean

  tiled floor, then dimmed the lights and flicked on a Norah