‘That’s disgusting,’ Ava protested, ‘and too Australian for a Kiwi like you.’
Hana chuckled. ‘Give my love to Denise. I haven’t seen her since she started as Aboriginal liaison down there. Is she still out at the arts centre?’
‘Yep.’ Ava glanced at the dashboard clock. ‘I felt a bit down leaving here and just wanted to touch base with my fave sister-in-law. Thank you. I feel better now.’
‘Give it a chance. You be happy, Ava.’
Well, she’d certainly been doing that – giving it a chance. Ava blew out some of her misgivings. ‘Thanks, Hana.’ It did help. ‘The problem is my cautious side keeps whispering about the way I tumbled into love before and the disaster that became of it.’
‘Five years ago.’ Hana puffed with disgust. ‘I wasn’t here then, but I’ve met that Jai and I can easily believe he tricked you. The guy is a sleaze.’
He was actually. Shame she hadn’t seen that when she was nineteen. ‘I saw him in emergency with a bunch of his drunken mates the other night, but one of my friends dragged him away so I didn’t have to deal with him. He’s still making a play.’ Jai hadn’t liked that she’d ignored him.
‘Sounds like him.’
Zac was the opposite. ‘Zac is a caring, wonderful man,’ she told Hana, and she had no doubt about that, and the way he looked at her … But everything that had happened five years ago, with Jai, and when Amelia was born and then died, had been a watershed in her life. She did not want to go through such pain again. And tomorrow marked Amelia’s birthday and she wanted to be at Uluru for dawn.
‘Thanks, Hana. I just needed to hear you. I’d better get going. Get to Yulara before dark.’ And towards the end of that five-hour drive, the wildlife might start to step out in front of her if she didn’t leave now.
‘Any time. And sending hugs for tomorrow for Amelia’s birthday. Love you.’
Ava felt the sting of tears and brushed them away. She composed herself to say goodbye, but before she could Hana added, ‘Drive safe.’
She always did. She’d seen too much heartache not to.
‘Bye, Hana. Love you.’
Speaking of heartache … Zac understood heartache. Which was why she wondered if he’d risk following her to Yulara when they’d part anyway. He had to head back to Sydney shortly and she belonged here. Neither of them had discussed that but soon it would be time to do so.
Very early the next morning, Ava wasn’t thinking about Zac. This was an Ava Zac hadn’t met. It was the day of her yearly dawn pilgrimage to Mutitjulu, Uluru’s family waterhole, to celebrate the short life of her infant daughter. She chose to celebrate the beauty of Amelia’s soul on the date of her birthday rather than with pain on the date that her spirit flew six weeks later.
She’d risen early to allow the pilgrimage before her first shift at the medical centre, which, unlike the maternity ward, began at the reasonable hour of nine. She’d go from here back to the nurse’s flat and get dressed for work.
The sun hadn’t yet risen above the red sand hills of the horizon as she drove slowly around the silent base of Uluru. In the predawn light, even the parking area near the waterhole looked magic as she switched off her headlights.
It was five years already since she’d been a young single mum birthing a child in the nurturing embrace of her family. The gossamer memories of Amelia’s tiny, pale starfish fingers clung like gauzy threads to the edges of her mind. It was too personal, too painfully private to share this date with strangers, or to share her reconnection moment with this place that mystically eased the burden. Hence the reason she’d come very early today.
She switched off the ignition and sat for a moment as the engine ticked down in the empty parking zone. It was early enough that the tourist buses were all parked on the far rise, disgorging the first-time visitors onto the red sand in the middle of the desert well back from here. Rows of awestruck sightseers dragged from their dark beds were ready to capture the iconic moment with their cameras and smart phones as the sunrise finger-painted the desert and, more dramatically, the rising monolith in crimson and gold. Their sleepy eyes would be strained across the sand as dawn light began to hint at the deep-red mounds of Kata Tjuta in the distance as well.
‘Happy birthday, Amelia,’ she said aloud. For such a short time, mother and daughter had met and fallen in love.
As she climbed from her vehicle, tendrils of desert night clung to the air, and those ghostly fingers brushed cool kisses against the tears on her cheeks. Though she was alone, except for the call of the morning birds that made her peer into the sparse bushes as she walked the red sand of the path, she didn’t feel lonely.
To her left, a plump western bowerbird with his curved neck and rounded head hopped on long legs, the thicker feathers near his body dressing him in feathered trousers that made her mouth relax in a smile. To her right, a crimson chat, dark brown with his bright-red crown and feathered back and his black eye mask was scanning the area. He poked among the fallen leaves, scratching for small insects, but no doubt thinking carnivorously of a caterpillar. Overhead a lone wedge-tailed eagle, the magnificent walawuru of the desert Anangu people, soared and searched with his keen eyes for something, anything, that moved.
As she absorbed the silence of the winding path that carried her to the creases of Mutitjulu, she felt the sharpness of her burden of loss, which grew heavy on this date each year, gradually ease.
To her right, the smooth, soaring cliffs on the face of the sandstone seemed to disappear like the walls of a cathedral into the pale, eggshell-blue of an early sky. Those towering cliffs always made her pause on the way in, to soak and sit on the polished wood branches of the free-form seating and listen. Absorb. Feel. The anticipation building.
The deep scores of the grained wood of the bench seeped like the stroke of cold fingers into her skin as she sat, the crisp morning air soothing her heart, the silence broken only by the soft rustle of the leaves in the gum above her. The crackle of creatures in the undergrowth calmed her.
She spied the tail of a lizard. Watched the thorny devil as he shifted, patient beside the ant trail, until his tongue flicked out to gobble up another small worker. Denise had told her that the ngiyari could drink with his feet, standing like a spiky armoured vehicle in a puddle and shifting the water up capillaries along the grooves to his mouth like a marvel of science.
She was so glad she’d come. She stood and walked slowly towards the end of the gully where the water flowed into the smooth folds of the secret place and the captured pool, absorbing the peace as the gully enfolded her in a mystical embrace in welcome and empathy. It was always healing.
At the end on the fenced wooden platform, she sat and drank in her personal restoration, allowing her senses to open fully to the spirit of the rock. To renew. To breathe. Slowly, the residual agitation beneath her skin seeped away, flowing down to the earth to be absorbed into the red dirt beneath the wood, and her muscles eased. This was the reason she’d been drawn here before. This quiet, spiritual place gave her calm and strength, and re-energised her depleted stores, because this date always held sadness for what might have been. A birthday that never grew in years. This place of families understood.
She always came here at least once as she passed on her way to Alice Springs, or when she could fit it in around the shifts at Yulara – and every time she came away changed. Setabilly Station lay closer to Mount Conner than Uluru, but each time Ava visited she wondered if this was where she’d been born in another life.
The sound of approaching voices – tourists – echoing quietly from the soaring granite walls around her made her stand, murmur her thanks, blow a kiss to the sky and leave before the seclusion was broken. Then she walked back to her car and drove to work.
Yulara township was the service centre for Uluru and sat outside the national park. The village was set around a circular roadway, approximately twenty kilometres distant from Uluru and fifty kilometres from Kata Tjuta. A hub of different level
s of accommodation, from high-end to backpacker, with a shop and tour office, bus service and restaurants, the centre was self-sufficient on the whole and was surrounded by desert. The airport was a further ten minute’s drive away.
The medical centre and ambulance bay were both small, ground-level buildings set amid gardens and pedestrian paths that ran alongside the roadway. The medical centre ran as a weekday-only modern clinic, catering for locals and tourists who suffered minor injuries, mild medical conditions that needed monitoring, dressings and assessments, as well as being a centre for the critical transfer of emergency patients. Although it was well connected to telephone and internet higher-level support from Alice Springs and the RFDS, those too sick to deal with at the centre were airlifted or road-transported out to higher care as soon as possible.
Still, the excellent first-line emergency treatment onsite at the centre saved lives prior to such transfers. Usually it was a slow-paced general practice type of clinic, and Ava hoped this two-day visit would prove to be typical. However, when she pulled up outside the clinic, her best friend, Denise, a statuesque, ebony-skinned Anangu woman, was already waiting outside the door for her to arrive.
She’d known Denise since they were children. Ava knew most of the families from the local Anangu community, many as artists, and neighbours who hunted on lands adjacent to her family property – but she and Denise had struck a close bond from the outset. Denise, who was an artist and traditional healer, had a wicked sense of humour, and she and Ava had become known over the years as the laughing pair. Between Denise’s strong-boned face and gorgeous black plaits, and Ava’s blonde hair and blue eyes, they were a striking pair, and the fact that they laughed a lot together drew even more attention.
The two women hugged in greeting. Ava unlocked the door to the clinic and Denise followed her in. The nurse hadn’t arrived yet and Ava switched on the air conditioner to cool the room before any patients arrived.
‘You been out at Mutitjulu? I can feel your peace.’
Ava smiled. Denise just knew things sometimes. ‘Yes. Amelia’s day today.’
Denise hugged her again. ‘Thought it was.’ An unusually harried look crossed Denise’s face and Ava frowned. Her friend said, ‘I need you to visit the local community to see someone today. Maybe at morning tea time?’
Ah. Ava suspected the reason for the concern on Denise’s face. Perhaps it was the woman the maternity ward had mentioned? ‘Is this Big Jim’s partner? The young woman that’s come down from up north? About eighteen and pregnant? None of the midwives have managed to catch her at any of their outreach visits. They asked me in Alice if I could look out for her.’
Denise nodded and some of the tension left her. ‘That’s her. Jessamine. So pleased you’ve heard of her. Nobody knows when she’s due to go to the hostel in Alice. I’m thinking very soon, so I’m glad you’re here. I spoke to her the other day and I think she’s terrified of labour or something. She needs to talk to you.’ Denise shrugged and smiled. They’d had a few discussions about Denise’s two past births. ‘I also think she could be due pretty soon.’
Ava hadn’t heard this. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘One of the other girls told me she wants to have her baby born on country for Jim.’
They both knew that most of the mums and aunties agreed with the health authorities that it was safer if their babies were born in Alice Springs. ‘Has she got anyone on her side?’ The elders added their weight to the health directives and did well to encourage the women that it was better to go home with a baby afterwards than have a problem at home and need help that took too long to arrive.
Ava understood it wasn’t easy for a displaced young woman to leave her new family or the father of her child and wait alone in a big town like Alice. And if she was new to the area, it would be unlikely she’d know any of the other women. Without her own midwife champion, the hospital could be unaware of other fears she had.
Ava knew that Hana wished she didn’t have to wait in town either, but Jock would go with her, so she’d have someone to support her and she wouldn’t be alone. But the men from the communities usually didn’t go with the women because it wasn’t their way. More often a mum or aunty would be there for the birth if they could be.
‘Anyway,’ Denise said quietly, ‘she dreamed the baby is a boy. So now Big Jim says maybe he should be born on ancestral land in the old women’s camp like his dad. Get some of the old aunties to help. Then the baby could be smoked here. So when he grows up he can say he was born on country.’ Denise shrugged, but Ava could tell she was worried. ‘I think it also has to do with Jessamine being new. She wants her baby to belong.’
Ava sighed. That made sense, and one of the most difficult parts for the Indigenous parents was not to have their babies born on country. Ava had been told many times that in Aboriginal culture the land was everything.
The problem was it was so darn far to get out here if things went wrong that the risk factors stacked up against any expectant mums. They had the emergency clinic, but if a mum needed help during birth, there were really only the nursing staff and one non-obstetric doctor for nearly five hundred kilometres. Ava had no desire to deal with a post-birth haemorrhage like the one she’d had with Zac in Alice Springs – Big Jim’s brother’s baby, in fact – without backup.
Ava rubbed her suddenly itchy hands. She had an odd feeling about this. ‘I remember my mother telling me Jim was born prematurely here. It’s probably coming from there. Lucky Jim was a tough little baby before they flew him out to the NICU.’
She checked her watch. Amelia had been ten weeks early, but Ava didn’t want to think of sadness any more today. ‘Perhaps if we go and speak to Jim and his mother, they can persuade Jessamine to feel okay about coming into town if we explain there are other girls there she can talk to.’
Denise screwed up her nose. ‘Don’t like your chances.’
‘Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll come, and hopefully together we can convince Jessamine to wait for her baby nearer to medical help.’ Much nearer. And much sooner.
‘Before we catch a baby here.’ Denise laughed. It wasn’t funny, Ava thought, but the nurse arrived and smiled at Denise’s infectious mirth, and Ava found herself relaxing again.
Two hours later, after dressing an ulcerated leg, inserting three stitches in a cut finger, and washing out a sand-filled eye, Ava drove out with Denise to the desert community on the outskirts of town. Her first sight of Jessamine made her brow furrow.
To Ava, the young woman seemed big around the middle, even in the baggy dress which was a few sizes too large for her, her pregnant belly hanging ominously low for someone not supposedly near term. Had Jessamine put on body weight under that dress, or was the billowing fabric concealing a big baby?
Hiding her concern, she smiled. ‘Hello, Jessamine. I’m Denise’s friend, Ava, the midwife who lives on Setabilly Station. Nice to meet you.’
Jessamine didn’t answer and the silence stretched. Ava waited, still smiling; she had no urge to rush it. ‘I heard there was another baby due sometime over here, so I thought I’d drop by and see if you’re going okay.’
Jessamine kicked some dirt at her feet and didn’t look up. ‘I’m good.’
Ava knew the fine line between nosy and nice and had perfected the art of not being pushy. Everyone had reasons to choose their own time for things. ‘I see by your belly that baby’s growing well.’ Quite a lot, actually. Ava acknowledged another niggle of disquiet. Sometimes, if a mum developed diabetes, the baby put on a lot of weight because of the mother’s sugar-rich blood. ‘Have you had a scan?’ she asked.
‘Machine broke down when they booked it. I don’t need one. My baby’s good.’
Ava smiled. ‘Baby’s moving well, then. Lots of kicks?’
‘He’s good. Dreamed he was a very fast hunter. Got a way to go yet, though.’ The girl looked away as if many interesting things were happening anywhere but where Ava stood.
Ava doubted
the ‘long way to go’, so she tried again. ‘He’s a good size like his dad?’
‘Yep.’ Jessamine stood awkwardly.
It seemed Ava had worn out her welcome, if there’d been one to begin with. Something was troubling Jessamine, and Ava wished she knew how she could help the young woman feel more comfortable. ‘I’ll let the group-practice midwife know you’re here. She’d like to come out and check you and your baby on Monday. Though I could check today if you wanted?’
The girl gazed off into the distance. ‘Maybe.’
Ava felt a tiny surge of hope. ‘I’d love to see you and I have my baby doppler. You’d be able to hear your baby’s heartbeat.’ She put her hand to her ear as if listening. ‘The heartbeat sounds like a horse, you know. A fast clop, clop, clop.’
Denise smiled at that, and finally, like a promise, Jessamine did too. Her smile lit up her whole face and Ava had to smile back. This was why she loved doing what she did for women like Jessamine, who needed understanding.
Encouraged, Ava added, ‘It’s all in my car. I could check your sugar levels and blood pressure now. Let those midwives know everything is fine.’ And feel your tummy to find out what’s going on, Ava added silently with a tinge of urgency.
There was another flicker of interest. ‘Gotta go somewhere now, but maybe later today,’ Jessamine said. ‘Or tomorrow.’
Ava nodded. ‘After lunch today would be good at the clinic. You wouldn’t have to wait then.’
The girl turned away and something made Ava say with the utmost sincerity, ‘You can come to the clinic anytime if you have a question. I’m at the clinic here till Friday at five. Let us know if you want to go to Alice Springs before that and I could help Denise arrange a ride.’ It was such a shame Ava wouldn’t be in Alice next week to see her there.
Jessamine paused and she looked back over her shoulder, then nodded once. ‘Thanks.’
‘Good to meet you, Jessamine.’
Denise’s nod said she’d go with Jessamine, and Ava didn’t doubt her friend would try to bring the young woman in later that day. Or they’d make a plan for tomorrow. If she didn’t turn up for a check, at least Ava could say she’d seen the young woman and that she looked well in herself.
The Desert Midwife Page 6
