Serenade for a Small Family Read online

  beads around her neck. She hammed up her Kiwi accent

  to make me laugh. ‘I don’t care what they say about you,

  lovey, I think you’re alright.’ She rang the local radio DJ:

  ‘Hey, Reggae Jo!’ Her wooden bangles clinked. ‘How you

  going there? We’re working away in our little office here . . .

  got another Club Feva coming up and Original Recipe’s

  coming soon . . .’

  ‘You make things sound full and round, Di,’ I said.

  ‘It’s good.’

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  Our mid-morning ritual was to sit on a step out the

  back, gossiping and giggling, over coffee and rollies and

  moaning about the lack of funding.

  For one of the Original Recipe gigs, at a venue lit by

  candles and coloured globes, my good friend Lu-la came

  from Sydney and gobsmacked an audience with her glamour

  and skill. She performed Portuguese and African songs,

  playing congas with the dexterity of a Latino, and spoke

  with humour and grace between songs. Sweet Chilli played

  live to air at CAAMA radio (run by the Central Australian

  Aboriginal Media Association), and a band from Darwin

  came south and fed the hungry Alice audience with fat

  bouncing reggae until they swayed and jigged and let their

  arms go wide.

  At an APRA workshop, a subdued woman in sensible

  shoes stood neatly at a whiteboard: ‘The Australasian

  Performing Right Association collectively administers the

  public performance and communication rights on behalf of

  the majority of Australian and overseas copyright owners . . .’

  Behind me a young rock musician rapidly tapped the toe

  of his boot, his restlessness palpable.

  He had been standing behind the counter of the local

  music shop with his arms folded when I had pleaded with

  him to come: ‘It’s really important stuff . . . if you’re serious

  about being a musician.’

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  ‘Hmm . . .’ A guitar solo had climbed and squealed

  through the shop’s quality speakers.

  ‘Oh, come on. There’ll be snacks, chips ’n’ dips ’n’ stuff.’

  He’d unfolded his long, skinny arms and leant with his

  hands on the counter. ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘Great! And tell your friends!’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’

  That afternoon I stood by the sink in the shared kitchen

  at work, bobbing a chai tea bag in my cat cup, when a

  friend from the office next door appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Hi, Ingrid. Want to know a secret?’

  ‘Yeah?’ I dropped the tea bag into the bin.

  She stepped up and looked into my face to deliver her

  news: ‘I’m pregnant!’

  ‘Oh, wow! . . . That’s fantastic! Oh, I’m so excited for you!’

  I put my cup down and hugged her enthusiastically,

  relieved to hide my face and the ugly feelings her news

  had triggered.

  While Benny worked, I hung out with Jordan and Leo

  amid the activity of the intensive care unit, inadvertently

  getting to know hospital staff. Although the walls were

  lined with very young and very sick babies, the atmosphere

  was not grave—just busy. There were constant comings

  and goings, and while I resented the noise levels, I enjoyed

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  the company. Midwives riff led through drawers and

  cupboards, fussed inside cots, loaded syringes, liaised with

  doctors and hooked up bags of blood. They noted platelet

  counts and temperatures, updated trolley stocks, gossiped

  and hailed friends across the room. Cots and equipment

  were wheeled in and out while admin staff tapped computer

  keyboards and answered phones. Cleaners changed bin bags

  and disinfected sinks, while stunned new parents tried not

  to look as lost as they felt.

  Above the alarms of every pitch and intensity, the

  doorbell, pagers and phones rang constantly. Entire extended

  families shuff led in to hover around a cot, gripping the

  wrists of their restless young children, who squirmed to

  escape and run riot. ‘Stop that! Come back here! Shhhh!’

  We weren’t supposed to look at other people’s babies, but

  kids could not resist and stood on tiptoe for a better view.

  When they tried to see Jordan and Leo, I pulled mean

  faces, resenting their invasion of our privacy and scared they

  were bringing dangerous germs into the room. My babies

  live here. Leave! Leave!

  ‘I’m sure that kid just sniffed,’ I told a midwife crossly.

  NICU was well lit all the time so, other than the dark

  rings under the midwives’ eyes, night looked no different

  to day. So much for imitating the dark, sloshy quiet of the

  womb—NICU was all bright lights and talking.

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  Women taking blood samples wore white gloves and

  carried clipboards, bustling from cot to cot to prick tiny,

  barely padded heels, like the knuckles on a child’s pinkies, so

  they could squeeze out drops of blood. One of the regulars

  had laughy eyes and a wide smile. When she approached

  us, I made a cross with my index fingers and gave a hissing

  noise; she rocked her head back to let out a laugh.

  On days when she wasn’t taking Jordan and Leo’s blood,

  she’d come over anyway: ‘Good morning, Ingrid!’

  ‘Hi, Tina! No blood tests for my boys today, hey? Love

  that.’

  ‘Nope. All good. Hello, Jordan. Hello, Leo.’

  I stood by her side and pressed my hands f lat on the

  perspex of Leo’s cot as I gazed in proudly.

  Staff from the x-ray department would heave heavy grey

  aprons over their heads, to take pictures of squirming infants

  as they lay on portable x-ray tables. Doctors and surgeons

  stood with feet apart and arms folded, delivering updates

  and treatment plans in earnest tones to disoriented parents

  in corners. A dietician with a pretty freckled face updated

  and checked formula and booster choices at every cot. A

  man, described to me as ‘the meds guy’, strode around

  with a folder under his arm. (That guy always looked so

  calm. I thought his life looked easy and, on hard days, I

  was envious.) Code-blue alarms, announcing an impending

  new arrival, would trigger a flurry of activity. The double

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  doors would fly open and a huddle of staff would rush in

  the brand new, barely there infant.

  As the human resources boss wandered around, midwives

  hailed him: ‘Did you get my message about changing my

  Saturday shift?’ Or: ‘Jackie said she’d swap my night shift

  for the Tuesday.’ Or: ‘Miriam’s doing my late on Thursday.’

  ‘You guys seem normal,’ I told a new midwife friend.

  My hands were cupped around Leo’s warm body, covered

  by a blanket the size of a handkerchief. ‘I mean, you’d

  think you’d be walking around shattered, with your head

  in your hands, seeing all this frailty—resus
citating babies,

  propping up parents. How do you cope? I mean, don’t you

  get attached and upset when stuff happens to them? How do

  you drag your arse in here every single day and stay chirpy?’

  ‘We do get upset, and it’s stressful. Some days are worse

  than others. You have to keep your head about you.’ Susan

  leant against the bench and folded her arms. ‘That’s just the

  nature of the job. We’re human, so it’s normal for us to get

  attached and to get sad or distressed when things happen.

  But it’s also not new for us to see very premature babies

  or sick babies. I mean, it’s not a shock or anything because

  we work with them every day. I guess we get used to it in

  a way. Also, they’re not our babies. Of course that would

  be completely different.’

  The visitors’ buzzer went off, and a pale woman in a

  loose hospital gown shuffled in. I asked: ‘When women who

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  work here get pregnant, do they get scared that they might

  deliver early? That what they see in here could happen to

  their babies? It must be hard not to get paranoid.’

  ‘Yeah, that happens. It depends on the person. They

  just have to remember this stuff . . .’ she waved an arm to

  indicate the dozen or so babies hooked up to life-saving

  equipment around the room, ‘. . . doesn’t happen to most

  babies. Most women make it to term.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said glumly. ‘Sometimes I hate them

  for it. I can’t help it.’

  ‘I’m sure you don’t hate them.’ Susan picked up Leo’s

  notes, ticked something off and put them down again. ‘But

  it must be hard for you to see term babies.’

  I did hate them for it! To me, term babies and their

  mothers lived in another world—they were strangers.

  The sight of term babies sort of shocked me every time.

  I confessed this to Susan. ‘Oh, it’s so weird. Benny and

  I call them “monster babies”. They just look like weird

  kind of Fat Giant’s babies. I mean, the chubbiness . . . it’s

  so different. It’s hard to believe our boys are going to get

  to that size.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Susan composed a strained neat smile.

  ‘Oh, come on! Work with me here. I know you can’t make

  any promises about what’s going to happen. I know your

  policy, but just say what I want to hear—they’ll get there!’

  ‘Ingrid, you know I can’t say that.’

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  I laughed nervously and changed the subject. ‘Can I

  stay for your handover to whoever’s on the next shift? It’s

  Annie, isn’t it? She won’t mind.’

  Susan waved to someone across the room before

  answering: ‘Sorry, Ingrid, you’re not even supposed to be

  in the unit during the handover.’

  ‘I know, I know. But it makes sense that I should be

  involved—I’ve been watching you and helping with all the

  bits and pieces all arvo. And I’m here all the time—I know

  exactly what’s going on for them.’

  ‘Sorry, sweetie, I don’t make the rules.’ Susan slipped

  her arms into the sleeves of a pale pink cardigan.

  ‘Okay, but don’t forget to tell her about Leo’s stomach.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s right here in my notes,’ she said, tapping

  her folder.

  ‘And tell her what Peter said about Jordan’s steroid . . .

  about the extra dose.’

  ‘Yes, Ingrid . . . I’ll tell her. Go and have a cup of tea

  or something. Relax.’

  ‘Thanks for looking after my babies, Susan. See you later.’

  In July of 2003, Benny and I bought a sunny house at

  auction in Alice Springs’ Eastside after arranging for a

  fatherly real estate man to bid on our behalf. He turned

  up in Ray-Bans and stood beside the auctioneer with feet

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  apart and arms folded, coolly refusing to bid until the last

  minute, while Benny and I stood in the driveway with the

  rest of the anxious bidders and pretended not to know him.

  ‘Sold!’

  Benny and I whooped and hugged, and marched over to

  the surprised auctioneer. ‘Congratulations!’ he said, visibly

  joining the dots between us and the cool stranger who had

  done the bidding.

  We followed him into the house and I spread my arms

  into a spin: ‘Hello, house! Hello!’

  The main room was glass-fronted, and the terracotta-

  tiled floors were cool under bare feet. The outside walls

  were painted bushy tones of orange, red and blue, and the

  place was surrounded by a native garden. (Benny’s big on

  natives—he practically growls at roses.) There was a paved

  area out the back and, when temperatures rose, we’d fill

  a stock trough with cold water. Stripping off after work,

  we’d sit smugly up to our armpits, nodding our heads in

  time to Paul Kelly’s live album, with drinks and a snack

  platter within arm’s reach. (‘You’re mad,’ said Dad down

  the phone. ‘Without a filter or pump . . . it’s like you’re

  soaking in a Petri dish.’)

  Benny had his own personal shed out the back. ‘You’d

  better not go in there, darlin’,’ he cautioned. ‘You might

  see the Pamela Stephenson poster.’

  ‘It’s Pamela Anderson, Benny.’

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  He hammered away and built a chook house. He painted

  the door red and named the chooks after our mums—

  Josephine and Mallucha (which is kind of Mum’s nickname

  and the Dutch version of her real name, Madeleine).

  Mallucha chattered noisily in the early mornings and Ben

  found it satisfying to yell at her: ‘Mallucha! Keep it down!’

  Mum was disconcerted because he didn’t tone it down when

  she came to stay; in fact, I think he cranked it up a little.

  Neither Benny nor I said anything about how great it

  might be to have the primary school over the road. But

  crossing the oval arm in arm, while skirting the school’s

  fence line, the possibilities were clear as day.

  Di employed me to do some project management—a

  busking competition, some pavement art in the mall and

  a street parade for the Alice Springs festival. The parade

  headed down the mall at sunset on a Sunday, headed by

  a huge papier-mâché bird on a trailer; the place was alive

  with drummers, stilt-walkers, capoeiristas, masked dancers

  and kids pushing decorated bikes. There were stalls selling

  Vietnamese noodles, handmade soaps and spicy sausages

  with sauerkraut. Local bands played into the night after

  Night Patrol cleared a bewildered Aboriginal mother and

  child and their torn blanket off the neatly cropped grass

  beside the stage.

  A council depot worker requested a meeting at a half-

  poured concrete slab on the outskirts of town before he

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  would approve the pavement art event. ‘Bring the chalk and

  we’ll see h
ow easy it comes off,’ he said. His gut pushed

  over the top of his pants, testing his shirt buttons.

  ‘You don’t get out enough,’ I said. ‘But okay, okay.’

  That afternoon I knelt on the concrete with a handful of

  coloured chalk pieces beside me. I wrote in multi-coloured

  letters: ‘Chalk comes off easy peasy.’

  ‘Your turn,’ I said.

  He crouched down and wiped away the chalk words

  with a few easy strokes. Then, clutching his short thigh,

  he heaved with the effort of standing. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Phew.’ I raised my hand for a high five. ‘Put it here.’

  Months passed by, and I became increasingly anxious about

  falling pregnant, until it became total obsession. The desire

  snowballed and overwhelmed me, and I sank. I cried and

  cried, and longed for a baby more than I had ever wanted

  anything. I wrote songs about it. I felt empty and desperate.

  The thought of never becoming a mother was unbearable, and

  kept me from seeing the great possibilities my life still held.

  Benny was keen too, but remained balanced. I drove

  him crazy with my obsession and the way I struggled with

  the company of pregnant women or people with babies.

  When my brother’s wife fell pregnant, no one in the family

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  wanted to tell me. Then Alex told Ben over the phone so

  that he could tell me.

  Ben came into the dining room. ‘Hey, darlin’, that was Al,’

  he said gently, watching my face. ‘Nicky’s pregnant again.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Tears sprung to my eyes. ‘I’m sorry . . . it’s great,

  it’s great. But fuck!’

  Later that day I rang my sister.

  ‘The boys don’t understand,’ said Sofie. ‘They want us

  to be on happy aunty duties.’

  ‘I know.’ Tears streamed down my face. ‘But I just can’t

  do it, and I can’t explain.’

  Ben didn’t find it difficult to be around people with

  babies. One Saturday morning there was a knock on the

  open front door and a friend of his peered in, holding his

  little girl’s hand: ‘Anyone home?’

  Ben came out of the kitchen. ‘Hi, Krish! Nice surprise!’

  He crouched down. ‘Hello, Moo. A hug for your Uncle

  Benny?’ Moo grinned and released Krish’s hand so Ben

  could lift her into the air.

  I took one small, reluctant step towards them. ‘Hi, Krish.

  Hi, Moo.’ I stretched my mouth into the shape of a smile.