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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.