Serenade for a Small Family Read online

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  Within three months of meeting Benny, I resigned from my

  puppet theatre job, rented out my Brunswick terrace, sold my

  car and couches, and was helping him finish work on his old

  Landcruiser truck. I was going with him to Alice Springs.

  Slipping into each other’s lives was effortless. Ben was

  handsome and serious. His decisions were carefully and

  sanely considered, and he took me more seriously than I

  took myself. He had the best truck, and the best bum in

  jeans. We were drawn to each other’s opposite qualities—his

  reserve and deliberation, and my more spontaneous, heart-

  on-sleeve ways. I made curtains for the truck from op shop

  fabric in fire-engine red and, at my request, Ben trawled

  wreckers’ yards for an original bench seat.

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  I slid across to the middle of the seat and leant my head

  on his shoulder. ‘Good one . . . much better for sitting close

  on the road,’ I said happily.

  ‘True. Good call, Inky.’

  Ben was in the process of converting the truck’s engine

  to run on used vegetable oil. We were driving up a busy

  street when he pointed to a gathering of forty-gallon drums

  parked out the front of a Thai restaurant: ‘Veggie oil! Used

  veggie oil! People pay to have it taken away . . . they’re ours!’

  We pulled over and loaded them into the back, then drove

  home victorious. That afternoon I held gauze over a bucket

  while Benny strained out the chunks.

  ‘Mmm . . . smells like pad thai noodles and samosas,’ I

  said, pulling the gauze tighter.

  ‘Yeah . . . it’s making me hungry,’ said Benny, holding

  his gaze on the stream of slippery golden liquid.

  Ben scrubbed the rust off an old camp oven. He attached

  solar panels to the truck’s roof so we had power for the bush

  fridge, the stereo and the reading lights he had fitted into a

  wood panel over the futon. It was Melbourne winter, and

  we wore beanies and jumpers over jumpers. In the evenings

  Ben would disappear into a small office for hours at a stretch

  to work on his master’s degree in renewable energy.

  ‘Your self-discipline impresses and baffles me,’ I said. He

  prodded my ribs until I released my arms from around his

  waist, then headed for the office without a word.

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  It had taken four months but Kelly the truck was finally

  finished and we were ready to go. After farewell drinks

  at a Richmond pub, Benny raised Kelly’s back to show

  friends as I swooned with pride at his impressive work. I

  showed off my curtains and pointed to a line of pop rivets:

  ‘I did them!’ That night Benny and I clambered into Kelly,

  giggling with excitement, and slept there—parked in Ben’s

  mum’s driveway.

  The following morning Benny slipped the key into the

  ignition. ‘Ready to go, Stink?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  I was apprehensive about Ben’s plan to take months

  travelling through the Flinders Ranges. I hadn’t been there

  before, nor had I spent days, let alone weeks, camping in

  faraway bush and desert places. I pictured shoving our

  bodies through dense, thorny bushes or shrivelling under a

  scorching sun. But scarier than that was the unmarked time

  stretching ahead of me each day; I sure wasn’t used to that.

  We spent a night at Wilpena Pound, then drove on

  into the ranges, parking by wide riverbeds lined with

  river red gums. We arranged stones in a circle for a fire

  pit. Together we pulled out the bush fridge and opened up

  Kelly’s back and side, then we hung towels, my ugg boots,

  and a basket holding fruit and veggies from her clothesline.

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  We pulled out the crockery bin and the shower bucket

  before heading off in different directions to collect logs

  and kindling for a fire.

  Relaxed and purposeful, I fussed around our truck home,

  serving dinner from the back of Kelly’s tray and filling the

  water bottle from the tank under her belly.

  As the sun went down, we would turn up the volume on

  Johnny Cash, take beers out of the bush fridge and unfold

  camp chairs. Benny pointed out every raucous kookaburra

  while I laid out cheese, crackers, dips and nuts and was

  labelled The Snack Queen. We would talk into the night,

  staring and poking at the fire in the silences. (It turns out

  I’m a pyromaniac.) I played guitar, and cooked roast veggies

  with almonds and sweet chilli sauce in the camp oven.

  From our bed in the back of the open truck, we woke to

  the changing colours of the chilly early morning and took

  turns to be the first to get the fire going and put on the billy.

  ‘I love camping!’ I told Benny.

  For showers I had laid out soap and shampoo on a rock

  among some trees.

  ‘Bathroom’s over here!’ I announced, and Benny heaved

  the metal bucket of steaming water off the fire and set it

  up with the pump and hose. We stripped and took turns

  to soap up and rinse, balancing on a wobbly rock, one foot

  at a time, to pull on undies and jeans without getting sand

  and critters in our pants.

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  One night we sat by a dwindling fire, passing a block of

  chocolate between us, the night sky thick with glittering

  stars for miles around.

  ‘This is my last bit,’ I said, taking two pieces, and sitting

  back comfortably. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘Hey, I want to do this eighteen-kilometre loop walk

  around the gorge tomorrow . . .’ Benny snapped off a row

  of chocolate while my heart quietly dodged a beat. ‘What

  do you think?’

  Here’s the thing: I like beer gardens with live music,

  stand-up comedy, plays in small theatres, dinner parties, and

  dance floors that lift off to live horns and percussion. I like

  posh hotels, breakfast in bed, music festivals, and I would

  love to go to New York. Things like that. I wasn’t proud of

  the fact, but bushwalking was really not on the list.

  The other thing was that scenery appreciation made me

  impatient. I didn’t get it. I’m interested in people. In books

  I skip over long landscape descriptions, relieved when the

  dialogue kicks back in.

  ‘Um . . . actually . . . I think I’ll just stay around the

  camp tomorrow. Play some guitar, read my book. I’m not

  much of a bushwalker.’ (That was s uch an understatement.)

  ‘Really?’ said Benny, surprised. ‘No . . . You’ve got to

  come. It’ll be good, and it’s a long day to sit around by

  yourself.’

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  In the end I agreed to go. I didn’t feel like a long

  day by myself, and staying at the campsite was way too

  unadventurous. So at dawn the following morning I

  reluctantly pulled on my boots and packed sandwiches.

  We found
the beginning of the track, and I took the lead,

  walking briskly and with determination, nervous. As we

  walked, the country around us started to change. Tall

  trees leant over us and mottled the sun on the f loor of

  the twisting, changing track. We walked through sandy

  riverbeds and into bushy valleys, over steep, rocky sections

  and along a wide-open dirt track. We stopped for lunch

  by the spreading roots of a huge tree. Sitting cross-legged

  under its shade, scratching in the dirt with a stick, I silently

  mouthed the word— bushwalk.

  Into the afternoon, with the motion of putting one foot

  in front of the other, my mind wandered and I relaxed.

  We finished the walk as the sun began to set, sighing out

  loud as we landed in our camp chairs and happily pulled

  off our boots. I was proud of myself for finishing that all-

  day walk, for keeping up with Ben, and for letting that

  stunning place into me. We clinked beers, and I rubbed

  one weary foot with my free hand; grounded, content and

  already looking forward to our next walk.

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  ‘My waters have broken!’ It was 2 a.m. on day three in

  labour. A midwife moved quickly to the sink to wash her

  hands, at the same time pressing a green button on the wall

  with her elbow. Bright light blinked and flooded the room.

  A woman in a white coat appeared and moved to the foot

  of my bed. My fear around the birth of my babies had been

  building for three days and now the moment had finally

  arrived. Although I was frightened, I was also relieved. But

  things were moving fast and I did not have time to think.

  It wasn’t hard to push out the first baby. He came quickly

  and easily, feet first. ‘Can you call Ben? My husband . . .

  can someone call him?’

  A man had joined the growing crowd at the foot of

  my bed. Facing away from them, tilted on my side, with a

  pillow under my hip I only heard his voice: ‘What do you

  want us to do with this baby?’

  Word for word—that’s what he said. How do you make

  a decision like that? Ben was still on his way. The small

  crowd were poised at the foot of my bed. I smelt soap.

  The lights were bright. I remembered our meeting with

  the two doctors and Ben’s ‘quality of life’ words. What did

  they mean now?

  ‘I . . . what . . . I don’t . . .’ I stammered. ‘What condition

  is he in?’ No response. ‘What condition is he in?! We’ve

  spoken to doctors . . . to a neonatologist. Can you talk

  to him?’

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  ‘We have his notes.’ I tried to guess at the words he had

  scribbled during our meeting.

  There were footsteps exiting the room, and then down-

  ward pressure as another contraction was beginning to build.

  ‘What’s happening? Should I push?’

  Footsteps back into the room and the man spoke again:

  ‘He was breathing on his own . . . He was strong . . . He’s

  on a ventilator.’

  Benny appeared, calm and reassuring. I pushed out the

  second boy, and he was whisked from the room.

  The man returned again: ‘This baby was also breathing

  on his own . . . He is also on a ventilator now.’

  The first baby was five hundred and sixty grams, and

  the second was four hundred and seventy—each was the

  weight of a pat of butter and small enough to hold in the

  palm of my hand. That doctor had looked at those babies,

  one at a time, and thought: We will give you a chance. How

  many breaths, unassisted, suggested each one should stay?

  Three? Four? How long would nature have given them?

  I didn’t know what other factors had inf luenced that

  decision, but it didn’t matter any more. The decision had

  been made.

  After six weeks in the Flinders Ranges, just months from

  the day we met, in 2002, Kelly rolled Benny and me into

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  Alice in mid-September, and we moved our gear out of

  the truck and into a furnished granny flat on the north side

  of town. The sun belted down all day, every day, and we

  wore hats and sunglasses just to get the mail. The air was

  so dry that we barely needed to hang out the washing, and

  the skin on our hands and forearms was parched.

  ‘Buy sorbolene in bulk,’ said locals. Quiet and exposed,

  the MacDonnell Ranges lumbered around us. I kicked off

  my jeans and boots, and wrapped myself in a pink sarong

  to write songs and play guitar while Benny studied in the

  next room. His dusty relic of a solar radio sat on top of the

  fridge, keeping me company with earnest ABC talkback.

  The following month Benny was offered a job with the

  solar program he had been interested in. He headed off to

  work each day on a pushbike. We moved into a house in

  a narrow lane close to town and the Todd River. It had

  three tiny rooms off a long kitchen with a floor of black and

  white lino squares. There were rickety louvres for windows,

  which made way for a conga line of mosquitoes, mice and

  giant cockroaches. Smoke from mosquito coils drifted under

  our noses as we slept.

  We lived mostly in the house’s paved front yard, with its

  shade cover and garden of weeds, lemongrass, sunflowers and

  abandoned ceramics. We set up our brand-new op shop and

  tip shop collection out there—TV, stereo, couches, coffee

  table and a hammock. We rubbed insect repellent into our

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  bare skin before settling into armchairs to watch the news.

  ‘Lift your feet and your stir-fry,’ I cautioned. ‘Man-sized

  cockroach coming through.’

  I loved and hated Alice. Plenty of times I nagged at

  Benny for a plan to leave town, and we fought. I couldn’t

  escape for a day—the nearest town was Coober Pedy, over

  seven hundred kilometres away, and a drive to the beach

  was impossible, which I found suffocating. I hated the flies

  and cursed when there was no shade. The tiny population

  made for rampant gossip, and soon there wasn’t a pub, café

  or supermarket where we didn’t know someone, or everyone.

  But we found like-minded people, and swam and camped

  at waterholes, dry riverbeds and gorges along the West

  MacDonnell Ranges. I held onto the dash and the door

  handle as Kelly hauled herself over rocky tracks in search of

  the perfect camping spot, or sat in the middle with my arm

  over Benny’s shoulders on the road out to Ellery Creek. To

  survive the months of relentless heat, we crashed the local

  resort pool, where the bar was luxuriously in the water.

  We sat on bar stools in water up to our waists, in front of

  foamy cold beer in tall glasses and baskets of salty chips.

  ‘Aah, heaven . . .’ I slid off my stool into a tipsy underwater

  somersault, surfacing just in time for Benny to grab my ankle

  and pull me back under.

  The Territory suited Benny.
Maybe it was his serious

  nature or his politics; maybe it was just his truck and the

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  way he wore his clothes. Whatever it was, they went well

  together, and it was a good place to fall in love with him.

  On Sunday mornings, if we weren’t out bush, we sat in

  the laneway at Bar Doppio, brushing off flies as we did the

  long wait for coffees, the weekend paper spread out on the

  table in front of us. It was the footy season, and Benny’s

  team was having a bad run.

  ‘Sheedy’s copping it,’ he said, shuffling the sports section.

  ‘Hm?’ I brushed a sticky fly from my face and turned

  to the CD review section.

  ‘Official warning, Stink—the Essendon game’s being

  televised on Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘I wish you’d revealed your football passion before I

  jumped in the truck with you.’ I waved a hand vigorously

  around my face. ‘Fuck off, flies!’

  ‘But then you wouldn’t have come.’

  ‘Exactly.’ The smell of frying bacon wafted towards us.

  ‘Well, you should have revealed your love of hotels,’

  said Benny.

  ‘Mmm . . . clean sheets, soaps in packets, TV perched over

  the bed. Anyway, what about my love of air-conditioning?’

  I put down the paper to wrap my fingers around Benny’s

  throat. ‘I’m in the middle of the desert in summer with a

  man who’s ethically opposed to air-conditioning! Great!’

  A girl in a singlet and boots sang with gusto as she strode

  towards us, a milky coffee teetering on a saucer in each

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  hand. She stopped at our table and held a note badly before

  cocking her head with the question: ‘Soy?’

  ‘Me,’ I said, holding up a hand. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No worries.’ She bumped the coffees down onto our

  table and left us to it.

  We waited out sunsets on a hill on the edge of town

  and went to pub gigs where the Super Raelene Brothers—a

  local pastor and his lawyer brother—got a crowd up and

  dancing with a kick drum, fiddle and spoken rhyme:

  Living in Alice

  It ain’t a palace

  Oo-ooo sunny weather.

  It ain’t gonna get better

  Than this hey yeah I tell ya

  The days are long and the nights are stel ar.

  The band was good and that crowd danced hard, flanked

  by desert a long way from big cities.