Serenade for a Small Family Read online

  We swam laps at the town pool, where trashy radio

  squeezed through tiny speakers and Aboriginal kids endlessly

  bombed and pummelled each other in the water. We shopped

  at Kmart and wound up in singlets and t-shirts matching

  our friends who did the same. Locals chuckled as visiting

  tourists took photos of the Aboriginal kids from behind fly

  nets, lifting them only to wipe the sweat off their foreheads.

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  To my delight, creativity flourished in Alice, and the

  artists’ community was lively. We swooned over the beanies

  at the Beanie Festival, and joined the jumping throng at a

  Midnight Oil gig against a starry backdrop. We sat cross-

  legged in the Todd riverbed sand amid a scattering of fires

  and a familiar crowd for an Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter

  gig on a cold June night. Slapping at the odd mozzy, I lay

  with my head on Benny’s chest to watch films under a sky

  jam-packed with stars.

  Ben was going out bush a lot for work, and I was scared

  at night without him. ‘I need a Ben-bear,’ I said. ‘You

  know . . . to cuddle at night. A substitute.’

  After a trip to the tip shop, Ben disappeared into the

  outside laundry. Swoosh . . . swoosh . . . swoosh. That afternoon

  my brand-new tip shop Ben-bear hung by his ears, dripping

  on the clothesline. I got shivers. What a man, I thought.

  ‘You’re going to need an operation. It’s called a “Manual . . .

  Removal . . . of the . . . Placenta”.’ The man spoke slowly,

  as if it were a really technical title.

  Benny couldn’t come into theatre. I was losing blood

  in waves. In the starkly fluorescent lit room, I sat with my

  legs dangling over the side of the operating table, flopped

  forward over a woman with broad solid shoulders and dyed

  blonde hair. ‘I’m fainting,’ I said, close to her ear.

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  ‘We’re fainting here!’ she announced.

  A needle was inserted into my spine until I became numb

  from the waist down, and then a sheet was hung in front of

  me so I couldn’t see my body. I looked at the anaesthetist

  on my left for reassurance, but his face remained cool and

  remote. I turned to my right, where a man smiled warmly

  from behind his mask: ‘Do you want to hold my hand?’ he

  asked. I took it gratefully, and he leant closer: ‘I’ve got a son

  too,’ he said. ‘Now your husband will always come second

  to your boys.’ Although I was not yet convinced—I hadn’t

  even laid eyes on them—I appreciated him saying I had

  boys, as if we were playing a game in which I really was a

  mum. It was the first moment the reality had dawned on

  me—they were small and they needed help, but I had two

  baby boys and the thought gave me a wash of happiness.

  ‘I feel sorry for your husband,’ he continued. ‘My name’s

  Mike . . . You’re doing well there.’ Mike talked to me and

  held my hand throughout the surgery. His kindness took

  the cold edge off the room, and I was so grateful I could

  have kissed him.

  When it was over I was wheeled to the ‘recovery area’,

  where the lights were dim and the room was grey. I was

  cold, so someone wrapped a towel around my head to warm

  me up. There was no one else recovering. Benny walked in,

  wearing a hospital gown over his jeans and those shower-

  cap things over his hair and feet. He looked calm, and it

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  was good to see his face. Ben would be doing this whole thing

  better than I am, I thought .

  My trolley bed was wheeled into the intensive care

  nursery so I could see the babies. Benny had already seen

  them while I was in theatre, but he came too. We turned

  off a corridor into a wide, busy room to be greeted by beeps

  and alarms of varying intensity. Another world. The walls

  were lined with closed perspex cots that had hand-holes cut

  into the sides. Each one was hooked up to a screen the size

  of a small television, displaying wiggly lines and numbers.

  Women in matching uniform shirts hovered around the

  cots. The room was too brightly lit. I was wheeled up close

  to a cot labelled ‘Twin 1 of Laguna, Ingrid’.

  Twin 1 didn’t look at all like a baby, but he was perfectly

  formed. Each of his hands was no bigger than a ten-

  cent piece, and cardboard taped to the cot said he was

  26.6 centimetres in length. There was clear plastic around

  him and a bright, warm light shone on him from above.

  There was a tube coming out of his belly button. His eyes

  were sealed closed, his skin was translucent, and he wasn’t

  moving. He wore a Barbie doll-sized white woollen beanie

  and had fine blond fuzz around his temples and forehead.

  Ventilator tubing was taped to his tiny face. His ribs, like

  matches, showed through his fine skin, and his miniature

  chest rose and fell subtly with the ventilator’s rhythm. His

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  hands were behind his head as if he were sunbaking under

  the light.

  A chirpy midwife sat perched on a stool beside his cot.

  She brought her face close to mine as I levered myself onto

  an elbow to peer in, and then started talking without leaving

  any spaces between her words. She was wearing strong,

  sweet perfume and I began to feel sick.

  ‘I can’t . . . I just need some air,’ I said, waving a hand

  between us.

  ‘Time to move,’ said Benny.

  I was wheeled into a small side room, where one cot,

  parked in the middle, was labelled ‘Twin 2 of Laguna,

  Ingrid’. I wished their cots were together. Twin 2 was

  smaller than Twin 1. The fuzz around his temples and

  forehead was dark and so were his eyebrows. He wore a

  miniature blue beanie and had his head to one side.

  ‘Oh wow! . . . He’s so tiny.’ A red light flashed on the

  bottom of the screen next to his cot and a beeping alarm

  increased in pitch. ‘What’s that? Is he okay?’

  ‘He’s okay,’ said his midwife.

  Benny wheeled me back to the delivery room, where

  a fold-out bed was made up for him next to mine. I was

  given two blood transfusions by a brisk midwife with red-

  painted lips; I tried not to look at the bag of blood hanging

  at eye level by my bed.

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  In the days that followed, the reality of the situation

  rolled in: we had two living baby boys on life support a

  long way from home, with a long way to go to get out of

  there, if ever. I knew the road would be rocky and there

  were no exits. It would be long or short, but bumpy either

  way. How will we get through this? I asked myself. What does

  the future hold?

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  3

  One bright Alice morning I put on my favourite blue dress

  and took my guitar along to a songwriters’ gathering. A

  woman greeted me.
r />   ‘It’s my tenth day of fasting,’ she said, as she stood outside her

  open, clay-coloured home clinging shakily to a glass of water.

  A voice came from inside: ‘Hello! I’m in the bath!’

  It was just the three of us. Karlie and I sat in cane chairs,

  talking and taking turns to sing our songs, looking out at

  the sandy fire pit in her backyard, then shyly down at our

  guitars as we sang. The bath woman emerged with short

  dripping dreads and a strong, attractive face. Georgie sat

  down at the piano and stunned me with her full voice: ‘I

  like the filth I do-oo . . .’

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  We sat around, and I told them about the years I had

  spent playing congas and djembe, songwriting and singing

  in Melbourne with a feisty, vivacious, mostly girl band—

  Ruby Fruit Jungle. We had started off on a raised stage in

  the corner of a tapas bar, playing dancey, infectious Brazilian

  and African rhythms on a bunch of different drums and

  percussion; then we brought in melody instruments and

  vocal harmonies to perform original songs in a mash of

  styles at a weekly Brunswick Street pub gig.

  From there our confidence grew, and so did our

  following. We toured the country and played every kind

  of gig—street festivals, dance parties, pubs, schools and

  universities. Our side-stepping feet became tap shoes on

  the temporary wood of outdoor stages. An expert caked

  our faces in makeup for national daytime television. ‘She

  made my lips look weird,’ I told Betty. ‘And her breath

  smelt like beef stroganoff.’

  We played corporate gigs, hippy gigs and posh gigs,

  and held percussion and songwriting workshops. Summers

  were spent packed into a bus with a trailer-load of drums,

  a driver, roadie, sound engineer and one or two current

  boyfriends—singing, laughing and fighting our way up

  Australia’s east coast.

  Our driver, Lindsay, drove for hours in silence, smoking

  rollies out the window in his favourite greasy Guatemalan

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  beanie. Late one afternoon, the van was rumbling along,

  filled with the pious tones of our five-part harmony practice,

  when he launched boldly into song:

  Oh . . . I know a song that’ll get on yer nerves, get on yer

  nerves, get on yer nerves

  I know a song that’ll get on yer nerves, get on yer nerves,

  get on yer nerves . . .

  He looped the infuriating tune until we all screamed

  and Rachel threw a pillow hard at the back of his head.

  Between tours, I immersed myself in drum camps, drum

  lessons, and drumming parties. Our east coast tours peaked

  on festival stages—in skimpy clothes we played big drums

  to a dancing throng. Then we would squeeze into crowds

  to dance barefoot to other bands. Band dynamics were push

  and pull—tension and belly laughs in band rooms, tour

  buses and on stages; fighting over set lists, rehearsal venues,

  musical direction and clothes. One afternoon, I turned up

  at a pub for a sound check and Rachel was sitting on the

  step, eating takeaway sushi and wearing my top.

  ‘Hey . . . I don’t remember leaving that at your place!’

  ‘You didn’t . . . I bought my own.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Rachel leant forward for a wedge of rice and salmon.

  ‘I went to Dotti’s. Bought my own,’ she said.

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  A wet beer-mat smell filtered through the pub doors

  and a man’s voice tested a microphone: ‘One . . . tsoo . . .

  One . . . tsoo.’

  ‘You mean after you saw mine?’

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  ‘Shit, Rach, it’s exactly the same!’

  ‘But it’s so cute!’

  We loved and hated our own music, relishing the deep

  satisfaction of a good gig and the thrill of getting better,

  and struggling with frustration at the time it took to learn

  an instrument. ‘It’s harder to keep time playing slow,’ said

  my drummer friend Scotty, our four congas parked between

  us. ‘So it’s the best way to practise.’

  I set my metronome to a slow sixty beats per minute, and

  practised until my forearms ached and my calloused palms

  and fingers stung. On our first album, the band recorded

  nine tracks in twenty-four hours to save on studio costs;

  then we dashed around the streets, plastering walls and

  lamp poles with our posters, keeping an eye out for police.

  We were the support act for Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant

  and Jimmy Page on their 1996 Australian tour. From the

  stages of the Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane entertainment

  centres, we watched the crowds pour in like streams of ants

  and played to rows of faces we couldn’t see for the lights

  in our eyes. On request, we played at a wake for a young

  couple who had loved the band and died in a car crash.

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  From the stage we watched their shocked friends dancing

  wildly—whooping and jumping, holding each other and

  sobbing, then letting go to dance again with tear-wet faces.

  We were offered a thousand dollars to be dressed in ball

  gowns for a five-minute appearance at an extravagant Jewish

  wedding, on the proviso that Amy shave her armpits. ‘No

  way!’ she said. We got the gig anyway, and burst into the

  chandeliered room drumming, dancing for the well-dressed

  crowd. Heads turned, mouths opened and faces lit up over

  crystal glasses. We circled the room and exited minutes later,

  leaving an elated and cheering party in our wake.

  We boarded a plane to work in Hong Kong and

  Europe, queuing at airports with trolleys piled high with

  battered drum cases covered in ‘FRAGILE’ stickers. At

  Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival, we played to full houses in

  the Spiegeltent and survived ten straight days of 2 a.m. gigs

  at a late-night comedy venue, offering high-energy music

  relief from back-to-back stand-up comedians, with whom

  we mingled and flirted between sets, while Rachel’s six-

  year-old slept curled on a blanket under a table.

  By day I envied the rest of the band, who slept deep into

  the afternoon. I would tiptoe to the bathroom through the

  debris of snoring, farting musicians, and wash the pub smoke

  from my hair and the smudged mascara from under my eyes.

  Then I lay soaking my aching limbs in a hot bath, alone

  with the soft plonk of the tap dripping into the bath water.

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  In Hong Kong we squeezed into a miniature apartment

  on Lantau Island. ‘Bags the separate room,’ I said, dumping

  my suitcase on the floor of the tiny space, leaving the others

  to resentfully share bunks and the couch. Each day we

  herded with a crush of bodies onto a ferry and leant against

  its railings to watch the approach of the mainland’s smog-

  wrapped thicket of buildings, as we cut a path through the

&nb
sp; f loating chip packets and Coke cans. Our show was the

  centrepiece on the ground floor of a spangly shopping mall

  entertaining three levels of shoppers; between sets we were

  mobbed by fine-limbed children and photographed by their

  parents. The tour coincided with England’s handover of

  Hong Kong back to China. The QE2 ocean liner holding

  Prince Charles sat offshore while Jackie Chan joined

  celebrations on the mainland. By night, crowds massed for

  the pounding of fireworks; acrid smoke filled our nostrils

  and stung our eyes. Boom! Boom! Boom!

  In Ireland we played a frenzied Dublin gig, and I kissed

  a local boy just for his accent. The next day we drove for

  hours and arrived in the dark at a tiny pub, wall to wall

  with cheery people holding oversized mugs of frothy black

  beer. We rubbed the car sleeps from our eyes and formed

  a conga line from the tour bus to the pub entrance so we

  could offload case after case of drums, stands and jangling

  hand percussion. After the show, Betty asked the publican

  for directions to our accommodation.

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  ‘Oh . . . yes, of course,’ the woman replied, turning to

  address the bubbling crowd in her thick, dancey accent:

  ‘Hello there, folks! Who would like to give these lovely

  ladies a room for the night?’

  ‘But . . .’ Betty clasped the woman’s arm. ‘But the

  agreement included accommodation . . .’

  ‘Oh, there’s no problem with accommodation here!’

  We were billeted out to willing audience members, who

  peeled themselves from their bar stools to take us home to

  their couches and guest beds at closing time.

  During our rock star stint, we lapped up all the perks—

  the limelight, joints in band rooms, dress-ups, applause, boys,

  travel and stunning music moments. I finally left the band

  when I found myself alone against a push for an increasingly

  pop sound in the pursuit of commercial success. Our music

  didn’t move me any more. My playing wasn’t challenged,

  and I needed a change.

  By that time I was waking most nights, numb from

  my elbows to my fingertips, and spending a week out of

  every five lying on my side, unable to walk due to the pain

  emanating from my lower back. (Platform boots and djembe

  drums—an unhealthy combination.) I said I was quitting

  and fled to a girlfriend’s house in tears, overwhelmed by