Porpoise-built Home Birth

(Gerard Oosterman)

Home birthing.

In the same street but opposite, lived a man and a woman. She an artist, he an artist by exterior only. You know the type, totally esoteric in giving answers to even the simplest question. Unable to straight talk and everything imbued with a deep meaning but totally away from comprehension. He was on his third marriage and happily ignored his kids from previous encounters but always ready to criticise the terrible ‘middle classes’. His latest wife was pregnant and ready to ‘unpack’ the baby. Both were ardent believers in the alternative world of Bach remedies and early morning Chakras aligning themselves to magic columns and circles. The birth was going to be a ‘home under water birth’ in the garden and after baby just born but still attached to umbilical cord, would be kept under water for the first five minutes of his or her life. This was all part of the essential but incomprehensible deeper involvement of mysticism and very Sufism related multiple and opposite meanings.

The whole street would be kept informed and noise be kept to a minimum. The husband had rigged up an old cast iron bath with an empty 40 gallon drum elevated on bricks with a wood fire underneath next to the bath, and our old above ground pool pump would be circulating warm water from drum to the bath. The time had arrived and being mid winter the fire under the drum was kept up with a never ending supply of old timber remnants from renovations that seemed to be going on all year around everywhere.

Majestically and totally very hirsute, the huge form of the wife appeared. We had front stall looks from the upper storey of our house direct into their garden across the road. She plunged into the bath, ready for the delivery of this sub-marine baby. The moaning started and the husband was flat out stoking the fire and holding the wife submerged. The pump was revving at fever pitch circulating the water that was getting so hot at one stage that the wife had to get out letting things cool down a bit. In the meantime, the husband in an act of supreme solidarity, (his astral travel the night before had taken him to powerful and hitherto unknown regions) stripped off and stepped in the bath behind his wife. Both squatted down and he held her from behind, shouting ‘push, push’, you bitch, push!

She now had much less space and was holding her legs up in the air above the bath but also sometimes against the rim to help the pushing and straining. The screaming increased in intensity and volume, the timbre of her voice not unlike a badly tuned hurdy gurdy being played in a tiled underground rail tunnel in Moscow. Our kids and their friends were hanging out of the windows and still no sign of the underwater miracle. The dogs were howling and barking in tune with the screaming wife. This went on for a few hours with both getting in and out of the bath, adjusting the temperature and fire. Some of the neighbours were shrugging their shoulders and others voicing disapproval. Not a baby in sight and the crowds started dissipating. Out of the blue, a siren was getting closer and closer. An ambulance appeared, a stretcher was produced and the poor woman dripping and with skin like a plucked chicken was without further ado strapped in and carried to the ambulance. The husband still starkers standing on the road near the ambulance, with hanging testicles like walnuts in a sock, was muttering incantations, but the baby was delivered at the hospital, a little girl.

Up until this day no one ever found out who called the ambulance. I am still wondering myself!

After closing, Glenda stood inside her quiet Pigs Legs Waxing and Beauty Salon staring at the poster of Farrah Fawcett Majors on the wall. Her girls had left, and the closing night shone through the uncurtained windows giving an eerie glow to the hygenic tiles around the hair washing basins.

She sighed deeply and without knowing, picked up the razor, remembering the way she used to thin out the layers, Farrah-style. There was a lot of servicing in Farrah hairsyle – the cut, the layering, the colouring, the perm, and the big blow wave with the gel.

It was a good time, a big time, coming out of the au-naturale days of the early 70’s. There was the Afro, the Olivia Newton-John Grease-style perm, the Bo-Derek plaits, but nothing was bigger than the Farrah.

Glenda had known about the anal cancer of course. She’d talked about it several times a day since 2006. Wherever the ladies were sitting Glenda was always on hand with a cuppa and a magazine – and six times out of ten, there was brave Farrah smiling from the pages.

Glenda hadn’t known she’d been holding her breath, but as she reached the moment of resignation it flowed, driving the lips of her lost-in-the-moment face into an unexpected pout.

A lift of her shoulders signalled intention, and with her new breath and life she walked over to the poster. Carefully, reverently, she took it down. She pulled off the bluetack that had been replaced several times, rolled it into a ball, and then lifted the razor to scrape off the final remains.

She stared at the poster one last time, remembering the time she wore her own hair Farrah-style – the night she kissed young Mervin.

“Goodbye Farrah” she said. “I loved you. And if I’d had your teeth, things would’ve been different.”

Glenda was sentimental, but practical. She screwed up the poster, chucked it in the bin, drew the blinds, pulled on her coat, picked up her keys, downed the lights, took a last look around, blew out another goodbye, and shut the door.

She turned right and walked towards her car. Then stopped, spun 180 degrees on her heels, walked back past her salon, and right into the Pigs Arm’s. “Come in for a pink?” said Merv. “Expected you tonight” he said in his one on one way.

She gave him a flick of her hair and a lips-sealed smile. “Have Belinda bring it into the Ladies Lounge, Merv.”

The last of the salvage happened on Sunday. Except for a broken piece of charcoal the memories bound up in the rubble are headed for landfill.

It was a house. Then it was a flameball. Then it exploded. Glenda saw the whole thing.

The bushfire wasn’t far from the Pigs Arms and Glenda had sat it out in the furthest back car park in Danny’s air conditioned ute with her dog, just outside our place. Danny thought it would be safer than the pub because he knew what Merv stored in the ladies lounge velour box seats for the bikies.

Glenda and Danny’s house burnt too, and she doesn’t know if she can be bothered going through the trouble of rebuilding for the sake of living together with Danny. Couples uncertain rent a place. Couples with certainty buy a place. Only the most deeply committed, bored, idealistic, creative or naïve build a house. G &D are none of these.

We’re definitely rebuilding, but I’ve been having trouble with the paving. The paving covered the space separating the laundry and toilet outbuildings from the house and had survived the fire in perfect condition. But the demolisher’s trucks would demolish the paving. If we wanted to save it we had to pull it apart. It was hard.

The survivor paving gave civilization to this wreck of a block – smooth, drained, perfect – a place to walk safely between the shattered asbestos piles to the blackened garden. And it was a bit sacred, heralding from the most precious times of our early life together with our firstborn – laid with our hands, sprinkled with sands. It was imbued with the champagne of christenings and Christmases, games, snow, and now fire. Friendly ants lived below, and lizards beside.

We intended to relay it, but what if we couldn’t put it down with the same quality of love and commitment? What if it couldn’t collect the same precious memories? What if the paving was the only remnant of our beginnings holding us together? The house was gone, the garden was gone – what if the last embodied foundation of our lives shattered as we pulled apart?

I’d moved ‘hundreds’ of pieces of corrugated roofing iron and gutters, fridge, oven, vacuum cleaner, bath, wood fire heater, washing machine, trough, all the bits of metal piping, cappings and edging one finds in a house. I’d picked up all the crockery and ceramics that could be used in a mural, and searched for remnants of ‘valuable’ memories. One by one we pulled down the three chimneys, chipped the old mortar from the bricks and moved them to a safe place. Eventually only the pavers and the hot water system remained.

My prudent husband was afraid the free demolishers would move out of town before we were ‘ready’, and the pressure was on. I asked him about our relationship (and not only once). If he was uncertain, I would not pull the paving apart, hanging onto the precious qualities and memories it bound.

In the end I had to take his assurances, and Sunday was ‘paver-day’. All five of us began to pick up the pavers, wash them, wheel them, and stack them.

The children quickly tired, and the girls went off to collect pieces of charcoal remains from the cupboard where their toys had died (mostly teddies). I plan to re-sew them, but their plan is to re-imbue their spirit with the charcoal.

I claimed the right to pick up the last few pavers, like a jigsaw puzzle in reverse, as though they were the key to bring it all back together.

Only the hot water system remained, and as the night fell and the rain began to fall, with a glove on his left and its partner on my right, we pushed together, crashing the old copper onto the asbestos. He left with the children but I stayed. It would all be gone when I next returned.

The old copper was heaving in the silence. Intermittently obeying the laws of gravity and air pressure, water flowed out, air bubbled in. Water, air, water, air, and to this rhythm of upheaval visions and memories flooded my mind. In a trance I moved around the house and watched the haunting poignant memories the moment chose to reveal.

At my firstborn’s bedroom I see his cot. I see the austerity of the room, the dark cold floor, the plaited cold rag rug, I see the single bed. It looks wrong – so austere, no comfort, no warmth surrounds him. The memory seems the embodiment of regret.

At the laundry I see myself washing nappies. Precious time, but how hard I worked. At the outside toilet I see my young son walking towards the door. I remember this particular moment – the toilet was rather grim, from my adult judgment I thought he would be afraid (I don’t know why), but he walked forward with optimism and I felt elevated wonder at his fearless, oblivious hope.

The hot water service heaved on and I progressed around the house in the rain. Down the ‘paving’, over the deck, past the fireplace, and back to the corner where I began. And then it was over. There was nothing left that had to be done. And still the old copper heaved.

There was no reason left to stay, and the moment to leave was faced. An imperative drove me to our bedroom. I walked to our bed, where our firstborn had slept on one night when he was ten days old. Everything had felt right – he slept – warm, safe, between us – and I slept. I picked up a piece of charcoal and it immediately broke in two – a big piece and a little piece. I held them softly together in my hand, and waited in the rain for the moment to leave. I tried but returned, back and forth again, and again, because when I left it would be the last time.

Finally the deed was done and as I walked down the path I looked through the big leafless trees in the garden and vowed “I will never leave you; I will never ever leave you”. And I don’t know who I was talking to.

And even if our relationship falls apart because the paving’s gone and the beautiful and strange memories have been trucked away with the charcoal, I will be rebuilding because it’s a place I will never leave.

And as for Danny and Glenda, her colourist and nail assistant have told her a thousand times that Danny’s got the good end of the stick. But Glenda’s a sucker and Danny knows it. Danny’s got a friend in the building industry who can whack up a house the same as the last one – it won’t be like they have to make any ‘decisions for future life together’. Glenda will have her salon, Danny’s got his car yard.

It was good to see the pub mostly unharmed, and in one of those weird moments of ‘community’ I kissed Merv when I saw he’d made it. There’d been an explosion in the Ladies Lounge (granny had copped some flak), but when the renovations are finished there’ll be somewhere other than this Morose Drunks Corner for an emotional chat.

Wedge a la Nonna aka Bombe Awedges

Granny’s invented a new dish for the grande reopening – she calls it Bombe Awedges – firey on the outside – coool on the inside.

Modelled on the Famous Spongobongo Ladies Lounge

Merv announced today the completion (finally) of the renovations for the Pig’s Arms Ladies Lounge. He was quoted as saying “I’m looking to create a comfortable and safe – even ‘homey’ environment for the ladies of Inner West Cyberia to gather together and exchange pleasantries.

Use of beer mats will be mandatory.

And no cussin’ or spittin’ on the floor !”

Patrons are expecting a slight rise in the cost of pink drinks – in line with rises in the CPPI (Charge Pig’s Patrons Incredibly).

Merv is expecting to recover costs by Friday afternoon.

I just ran up a couple of these myself .....

A few evenings ago I was totally sucked in by a TV program on weddings. We were taken for a long ride through all the various aspects of ‘wedding planning’. Who would have thought, even remotely, how simple weddings could turn into those outrageous levels of commercial exploitations as shown during the evening. I was astonished to hear that in America (where else?) the 2 to 3 million costing wedding is accepted now, and indeed something that we should all aspire to. Alas, here in Australia, one of the wedding consultants lamented, we are still stuck on the $ 200.000,- to $300.000.-wedding.’’We are getting there, it just takes more time’, she enthused.

The best part were the wedding preparation workshops called ‘seminars’ and run by a savvy looking bloke, competing against a young ambitious woman. Both were expert wedding consultants. Towards the end of the program, all the consultants confessed that none were interested in marriage. Perhaps they were also running a lucrative private post marriage counselling service as well!

The sums just in running the seminars were phenomenal, held in prestigious Melbourne exhibition palaces. Rows and rows of white stretch limousines, endless groaning racks of bridal gowns, table settings, acres of seductive lingerie. At one stage future brides, as a special promotion, were seen to dig into a huge wedding cake that had a $ 4000.- ring hidden inside. All this part of an exhaustive programme with the throngs of thousands future brides queuing and paying up big already just for the tickets and the ‘grooming up’ by consultants for spending fortunes for the ‘big day’, not far off. Bridal faces were flushed with regal expectations and future grooms were fixated on the tables exhibiting shapely plaster torsos and busts encased and eclipsed with frilly minimum lingerie and intimate apparel with pale pink satin lace stitched around the edges. I had to suppress a strong desire to compare lambs to the slaughter analogy and took a biscuit break.

‘ The attention to detail is what we specialise in’, the daughter and mother marriage specialists uttered during the evening. Indeed, there was a bit of a problem with the butter being served inside the foil wrappings that could possibly be seen as lowering the standards a little. Cool as a cucumber and with an expert hawk eye cast over the wedding participants, the mother specialist consultant, cheque in handbag, herded the entourage, couple by couple and equally spaced apart inside the church. The lovely and obligatory Bach’s ‘Ave Maria’ was carefully being played by real players with cellos, violins and singers. I almost expected the arrival of castrati to have flown in from Italy, just for the occasion. The weddings were grand affairs.

Someone mentioned, somewhat desultory, ’ it is the marriage that counts, not the wedding’. Far out!

Lying awake, tossing and turning, reflecting on the last remark by this cynic I wondered late at night about the prospect of starting a business on ‘reality- wedding seminars’. Perhaps consultants of wiry age and experience, matrons of multiple divorces and inequitable property settlements, those hardy souls having survived it all, could be engaged in running them. Hire a large hall, fill it with rows and rows of washing machines, the latest in ironing hardware, babies screams amplified a hundred times and DVD’s on large screens showing close ups of projectile vomiting. The soiled nappy essence wafting through aerators and sprayed on dainty bridal wrists. Cane laundry baskets and competitions of underwear finding their way inside without prompting from anyone. Tired simulated love making after a bout of horrific credit card bills screaming for attention on the bedside table. Those details can all be worked out. It might have to involve a couple of days in the toolshed, tinkering with routers and small sledge-hammers.

For those not so well off; pre-marriage ‘reality wedding workshopping’ could be done by trips to supermarkets. The visit to the dairy section divisions with special attention to the patience of the male groom participant when a choice of margarine or cheese has to be made by the future wife. Foster a deeper understanding of the subtle differences between Persil or Omo washing powder. How will the couple cope with the men choosing the ‘home brand’ but the future wives ‘a haughty, no way ever’, only the best for me, you Dutch uncle skinflint..?.. This is the stuff of future marital battles and possible divorces.

It is all very well at those ‘other seminars’ for the groom to lust, linger, and even finger the lingerie, but how well will he take to a resounding ‘NO’, coupled with a midriff elbow or a kick in the groin? The couple need to take special care with the NO issue and the male participant perhaps to compensate for the NO and take on extra lessons in ironing, showing what a real iron-man is made of. For a small extra fee, a tour and Q&A’s discussion with celibacy practising religious orders would be strongly advised.

For a fraction of the cost, slowly but surely, conversation topics could be touched upon. Simulated continuing discussions by men with future partners lasting at least for ten minutes in one hit might be envisaged.

And now last but not least. During the finals of whatever, cricket, football, rugby, even Olympics, the male has to practise switching off the plasma or small screen. (does it matter?) in mid stream. Watch facial expressions of male participants. Any expletives, a clear sign of storm ahead. How will he take to having to sooth baby, clean the cat vomit, missing out on his favourite sport?

Weddings and divorces. They cause massive GLOBAL WARMING.