Love in the Age of Drought

by Fiona Higgins

  In the last days of winter, I closed my eyes and popped the first of five pills I was to take over the same number of days. I didn’t feel good about it, but I didn’t raise these feelings with Stuart. We’d talked ad nauseam about the subject; he knew where I stood, and vice versa. I’d agreed to try to fall pregnant; he’d agreed to accept the outcome either way. There was nothing to be gained from further discussion. It was time to see what life would deliver us.

  It was after I swallowed my fifth pill over breakfast that Stuart made a surprising announcement. ‘I’m not growing cotton again,’ he declared.

  I paused, confused. The farm hadn’t sold at auction – surely it was business as usual until it did?

  ‘But it’s almost time to plant,’ I replied, ‘and you’re a cotton farmer.’

  Stuart shook his head. ‘I’m not a cotton farmer anymore,’ he said. ‘The farm’s for sale. World cotton prices are the lowest I’ve ever seen. And now the government’s cut my bore water allocation by 30 per cent. Rumour has it there’ll be more restrictions on pumping from the Cooranga Creek.’ He brandished a letter from the Department of Natural Resources that had arrived earlier that week. ‘I’ve been restricting my bore usage for years, and now the government’s only just catching up. Problem is, this letter will make Gebar more difficult to sell. Water security is a major issue for buyers.’

  He glowered at the memo. ‘I’ve reached my limit. I’m not growing cotton this season.’ The flint-like edge in his voice had returned.

  ‘But what will you grow instead?’ I asked, half-expecting him to declare that he’d be leaving the whole farm fallow.

  ‘Sorghum,’ he replied. ‘It’s an easier crop to manage than cotton. Lower inputs, lower risk. And usually the return is lower, but the price is at an all-time high this season. So it’s an attractive proposition, especially with an inexperienced workman.’

  After the search for a replacement farmhand had been abandoned six months previously, a young, casual worker had finally been recommended by a neighbour. With no other staffing prospects in sight, Stuart had been forced to pay higher wages for less experience.

  I studied Stuart’s face. ‘How will you feel, not growing cotton?’ I asked.

  ‘Ambivalent,’ he replied, ‘but I know it’s the right thing to do.’

  I can relate to that.

  CHAPTER 21

  In early October Stuart planted a crop of sorghum – the first time he hadn’t planted cotton in a decade – and I ran my first marathon. After my successful half-marathon experience three months earlier, I’d decided to push myself to the limits of endurance training. After all, I reasoned, if the fertility drugs worked, I might never have an opportunity to run a marathon again. Apart from the prospect of possible pregnancy, another important motivator was my father, whose condition had worsened in recent months. Prior to his diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, my father had loved all forms of sport, especially cricket and running. As he fought off a series of respiratory infections in Sydney, I was powerless to assist from rural Australia. Thus I decided to use my marathon entry as an opportunity to raise funds for MS research.

  On a cold spring morning, I stood at the starting line of the Melbourne Marathon, glancing around at my fellow competitors and feeling a little out of place. Unlike the throng around me, I was not tanned, gaunt and sporting a singlet from a previous race. I was fresh marathon meat – and I wasn’t entirely confident that I could run the 42 kilometres.

  The starting gun fired and I commenced my run at a steady pace, rehydrating regularly at drink stations. The course from Frankston was mostly flat, spanning semi-rural areas and windswept beachside suburbs before tracking through unremarkable outer suburbs towards the Melbourne CBD. Kilometre after kilometre stretched before me; my calves and hamstrings began to tighten as I pushed through the fatigue barrier. At the 25-kilometre mark, I imagined my father, tall and lean, running alongside me. This image spurred me on.

  With just three kilometres to go, I turned into St Kilda Road and picked up my pace. I ran the final kilometres, goosebumps prickling across my legs and arms. As I accelerated towards the finish line, I heard a voice declare over a public announcement system ‘… and Fiona Higgins of Jandowae is finishing strongly!’ I galloped over the finish line and looked up at the timekeeper: 3:40:24. I scoured the crowd for Stuart and found him, lunging over a guide rail and waving, eyes shining with pride. I’d completed a marathon, for Dad and for me. No more running now.

  The following day, I kissed Stu goodbye at Melbourne airport and flew to Hervey Bay, Queensland, for a well-earned rest. I’d planned to spend a relaxing week on the beach with my mother while Stu irrigated the sorghum crop. Over the next seven days, we enjoyed long walks and conversation, read books and laughed over card games. My physical recovery from the marathon was slow. My heart was beating faster, and a little higher in my chest. My internal thermostat seemed awry – one minute I felt chilly and searched for a cardigan, the next moment I was perspiring with heat. Perhaps I was marginally dehydrated and my core body temperature was skewed. Or perhaps I’m pregnant.

  Under the guise of ‘future research’, I quizzed my mother on all manner of topics related to pregnancy. Did she get morning sickness while pregnant? Yes, relieved by nibbling breadsticks. Did she drink wine? Yes, but only one glass with dinner. How did she know she was pregnant in the first place? I needed to sleep all the time. Did she exercise during pregnancy? Not really, exercise wasn’t so important back then. How did she know she wanted to have children? Well, we never really thought about it in those days, we just did it. I absorbed the information like a sponge.

  At the end of our week together, I waved my mother off at the airport with tears in my eyes. How much more do you appreciate your own mother with the looming prospect of becoming one yourself?

  ‘I love you, Mum,’ I said, hugging her tightly to me. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.’

  With a quizzical smile, she gave me a final, comforting squeeze. If she suspected anything, she didn’t say so.

  I began the long journey home alone.

  Immediately after my arrival at Gebar, I bolted to the bathroom and pulled a pregnancy kit from the drawer. Stuart was nowhere to be seen and I closeted myself in the toilet. I deftly caught an enormous green tree frog loitering beneath the seat, and pitched it out onto the lawn. Retreating again to the toilet, I followed the directions on the kit then waited nervously for the results to develop. A faint line wavered fleetingly across the positive axis, then turned into a clear negative. Puzzled, I re-read the instructions to ensure that I had taken the test correctly, and resolved to re-test the next morning.

  Over the next three days I re-tested daily. There was still no sign of my period, but on each occasion, a negative result emerged. Apparently, I was neither pregnant nor menstruating – what was going on? I phoned my specialist.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she mused. ‘Come in and see me.’

  The following afternoon in Brisbane, the specialist inspected my uterus by ultrasound.

  ‘Well, not much action in there,’ she said finally, gazing at the black-and-white screen before her.

  She turned to me and remarked, ‘You don’t look pregnant. Do you feel pregnant? Are your breasts sore?’ I shook my head.

  ‘Well,’ she said, standing up from her screen. ‘It might be an ectopic pregnancy. That’s an egg that implants in the fallopian tube instead of the uterus. That’s another risk of clomiphene.’ She helped me up from the table.

  ‘So we’ll take some blood tests, and I’ll request an urgent delivery on the results.’

  Confused and afraid, I left the hospital and headed back to my hotel room. I was due to depart the following day for a series of work meetings in Sydney. I could get further help there if I needed it.

  Later that evening as I lay alone watching a re-run of I Love Lucy on cable TV, my mobile phone rang. I recognised the number – the specialist. My stomach clenched with nerves; just three
hours had passed since the blood sample had been taken.

  ‘The results are back, Fiona,’ she exclaimed, triumphant. ‘You’re pregnant!’

  I listened quietly, disbelievingly, as she explained that the levels of a particular hormone in my blood – human chorionic gonadotropin – were high enough to support a positive, viable pregnancy.

  ‘Right … um, so … it’s not an ectopic pregnancy?’ I stammered.

  ‘Well, it all looks pretty normal to me,’ she said. ‘Congratulations!’

  I put down the phone, sat on the edge of the bed and stared vacantly at the floor, smiling as tears filled my eyes. This was it: the moment that I had sought to avoid for so many years. My life as an unfettered individual was now over. What a miracle. What a fright. I sat motionless on the edge of the bed for minutes. Finally, I picked up the telephone and dialled Stuart’s mobile number.

  How will I break the news? I wondered. This wasn’t the moment I’d imagined; we weren’t even face to face. His phone rang once and automatically clicked over to voicemail; I left a message asking him to call me back. I stood up and began to pace around the room. Despite my anxiety, there was something exquisite in the solitary knowledge of my pregnancy. I walked to the bathroom, pulled up my T-shirt and inspected my belly. Its flat, muscular tone gave no hint of pregnancy.

  The phone rang; it was Stu. I answered it and blurted, ‘I’m pregnant.’ There was an audible intake of breath at the other end and a prolonged pause.

  ‘Wow,’ he said, at last. ‘Oh, Fi … I have goosebumps.’

  I smiled and recounted my conversation with the specialist. Despite Stuart’s obvious pleasure in my news, the telling of it felt anticlimactic. Like so many other pivotal points in our relationship, we were in different places, experiencing the moment separately.

  ‘Fi, I’m so sorry we’re not together,’ Stu said, detecting my mood, ‘but we’ll celebrate properly when you get home.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, blotting my eyes with a tissue. I wasn’t clear why the tears were falling – joy, fear, being apart from Stu – and I didn’t want to talk about it right then.

  In the hazy week that followed in Sydney, I wandered through the Babies and Parenting section of countless bookstores. Stuart had warned me to avoid overloading myself with competing information sources, but I devoured a range of seminal pregnancy texts. I also discovered a pregnancy calculator on the internet which advised me that I was already six weeks pregnant and my due date was June 18. Only 34 weeks and four days to go. Oh. My. God.

  ‘Are you all right, Fi Fi?’ Genevieve asked, peering over her sunglasses as we sipped coffee in the Sydney sunshine.

  ‘I’m fine …’ I said, fidgeting with a serviette.

  ‘Hmmm.’ She studied me carefully. ‘Sure you are. Come on, out with it. What’s going on?’ I cleared my throat.

  ‘I’m pregnant,’ I said. ‘And I’m starting to suspect I don’t have a maternal bone in my body.’ Tears sprang to my eyes, threatening to spill down my cheeks.

  ‘Oh daaaarling,’ Genevieve purred, jumping up from her chair to embrace me. ‘I’m so haaaappy for you. But what’s wrong? Are the hormones getting to you?’ I snivelled into my serviette.

  ‘Maybe they are. Or maybe I should never have agreed to have this baby. I don’t want to slow down. I don’t want things to change. I don’t want to be just a mummy for the rest of my life.’ I was mildly hysterical, and I knew it.

  Genevieve clicked her tongue. ‘Honey, you won’t just be a mummy,’ she said. ‘You’ll be a yummy mummy.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  ‘Gen, this is no time for jokes,’ I said. ‘If how I’m feeling now is anything to go by, I’ll be the worst mother in the world.’

  Genevieve sighed, her patience exhausted. ‘Oh Jeeeesus, Fi, pull yourself together. I don’t know anything about pregnancy, but I’m sure the thoughts and feelings you’re having aren’t entirely abnormal.’ She sipped at her macchiato and surveyed me sternly.

  ‘Let’s face it,’ she continued. ‘You’re just a control freak who’s outside your comfort zone. Pregnancy is beyond your control, and you don’t like it. But just because it’s uncomfortable and you’re not feeling all ga-ga about the baby right now doesn’t mean you’ll be a bad mother. The good feelings will come, Fi. They’ll come. Just give yourself a bit of time and space to let them happen.’

  I nodded quietly. Her words made sense.

  As we paid the bill and prepared to leave, Genevieve turned to me.

  ‘One last thing, Fi,’ she said. ‘This reminds me of another time in your life when you were completely out of your depth, when you decided to hang it all and move to Jandowae. You put your career on the line and you left your cosy city world, when there was every chance it wasn’t going to work out with Stu. Even I thought you were insane, and that’s really saying something.’ She poked me in the ribs with her index finger.

  ‘Well, that’s worked out just fine, hasn’t it?’ she smiled. ‘You’re definitely ready to face your fears. You’ve done it before, and you’ll do it again.’ She blew me a kiss, swivelled on her kitten heels and was gone.

  I turned Genevieve’s comments over in my mind throughout the remainder of my stay in Sydney. Was I really ready to face my fears? Even the deepest, most intractable ones?

  One week later, driving back to Jandowae from Brisbane, I pulled over at the Toowoomba aerodrome to watch a small aircraft taxi and take off over the range. As it climbed through clouds, I recalled many such flights under Stuart’s calm captaincy. Prior to life in Jandowae I could never have contemplated taking to the skies in a small, single-engine Cessna. Am I ready to combat my fears? I started the engine and drove into the aerodrome, pulling up outside the office. A middle-aged woman greeted me from behind the desk.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I’d like to book a flying lesson for next week.’

  ‘How’s 8.00 am next Thursday?’

  ‘Perfect.’ I smiled.

  The following Thursday morning was grey and misty. I threw an anxious glance at the low-lying cloud overhead, but gritted my teeth. I am ready to face my fears. I was greeted at the Toowoomba aerodrome by a genial, 50-something flying instructor named Graeme.

  ‘Can we fly in these conditions?’ I asked, eyeing the windsock flapping haphazardly near the runway.

  ‘Sure we can,’ Graeme said. ‘Probably a few bumps on takeoff, but nothing to worry about.’

  A part of me was desperate to disclose my fear of flying, my potted history of quaking and shaking on 767s, and my pregnancy. But this time the rational part of me prevailed; I needed to focus on learning to fly. I refused to distract myself or Graeme with a pre-takeoff workshop of my psychological history.

  ‘Righto, I’ll just do a few pre-flight checks,’ announced Graeme, gesturing towards a PA-28 Tomahawk.

  As I had seen Stuart do so many times before, Graeme proceeded to check the fuel for water content. He lowered the flaps manually, inspected the tyres and ensured that the stall warning vent and the static air vent weren’t blocked. He ran his hand over the propeller, feeling for stone chips, then checked that the fuel drain of the carburettor was in order, the oil level was sufficient and the ailerons were working. Finally, he tested the elevators, waggled the rudder and measured the fuel level with a dipstick.

  This routine was reassuringly familiar, until Graeme gestured towards the pilot’s seat and said, ‘Righto, captain, in you climb.’

  Accustomed to my usual seat on the right-hand side of the cockpit, my stomach began to churn. I lowered myself into the pilot’s seat.

  ‘Now, what I’m going to get you to do is taxi and then take off,’ said Graeme.

  ‘When you taxi, you’ll be using your foot pedals for steering. But when we’re in the air, you’ll be using the control stick to steer with your hands. Remember: feet for the ground, hands for the air,’ he intoned.

  I swallowed hard. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Startin
g the engine, Graeme demonstrated how to taxi the plane, using his feet to manoeuvre the machine straight down the middle of the taxiway.

  ‘Now you try,’ he said.

  I tentatively touched the foot pedals, at which the plane veered wildly to the left. Keeping the plane centred on the runway was a lot harder than it appeared. How did 747 pilots control their massive machines?

  After zigzagging my way to the end of the runway, I listened as Graeme explained the takeoff procedure.

  ‘Right, don’t worry about the taxiing. Takes a bit of getting used to,’ he said. ‘Now I’m going to get you to accelerate to 60 knots then ease back on the controls. We’ll lift off and head east.’

  There was nothing like necessity to focus the mind. I’m not nervous, I’m excited. As the Tomahawk hurtled down the runway, I pulled back at the 60-knot point and suddenly, we were airborne. I let out an involuntary yelp – it was a little bumpy and I couldn’t believe that I was behind the controls.

  My half-hour lesson proceeded without incident, despite my nerves. Somehow I was able to attend to Graeme’s instructions on applying aileron and rudder coordination for basic turns, how to climb and descend, gliding and flap usage, situational awareness (listening to, and talking to, other aeroplanes), and lining up for landing. The only thing I didn’t do was land the plane myself. At the end of the lesson, I was elated. While I had no illusions about the extent of my aptitude after only one lesson – clearly, Graeme had been in control throughout the flight – I’d achieved something which would have been impossible for me just eighteen months previously.

  Climbing down from the cockpit, I accepted Graeme’s invitation for a cup of tea with the Darling Downs Aeroclub team. I sat around with Rod the mechanic, Phil the flight instructor and Bob the maintenance man, nodding sagely as they talked shop. Internally, I was celebrating a major victory.