‘Marty,’ I said as we headed back to the car, ‘I need to tell you something.’
‘Yes?’ he said, his back stiffening.
‘This is not easy to say aloud because I’m scared you’ll take it the wrong way.’
‘Go on,’ he said, bravely bracing for the worst.
‘It’s about … your leather jacket. I don’t mean to be rude, it’s a very handsome jacket, but the smell of it while I’m pregnant is making me …’ I shook my head.
I don’t know what he thought I was going to say, but when he realised I was only asking him to take off his jacket, he looked terribly relieved. He took it off without hesitation and put it in the back seat. Then he opened the door for me. I got into the car, and realised I could still smell the jacket. Nausea. When he slid into the driver’s seat I said, ‘Marty?’
‘Yes, Clarey?’
‘The jacket. I’m sorry to be a pest, but I can still smell the jacket.’
‘I understand,’ he said. He got out of the car, opened the back door, grabbed the jacket and I heard the boot click shut. He returned to the driver’s seat sans jacket.
At no point did he get angry at me for telling him what I wanted. He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now. When I am with him, my sensitivity does not feel like a liability—it just feels like the truth, sometimes inconvenient, but a truth that I’m allowed to speak without worrying that it will break us. Sure, he gets annoyed. But he does it with respect.
That night, when we got home, he escorted me to my bed, made sure I was comfortable, brought me a cup of mint tea and curled up next to me.
He was taking care of me.
I was taking care of our baby.
This was how a chain was made.
A week passed. We alternated between excitement and fear. My morning sickness had turned into full-blown all-day, all-night sickness. I was two months pregnant and feeling absolutely wretched. The only people we’d shared our happy news with were our best friends John and Defah. I was still trying to work out how I was going to tell my parents, but I couldn’t think about that right at the moment because I was throwing up again. In the kitchen I could hear Marty’s voice, talking to my housemate Gil. Marty and I were meant to be going to a comedy show; we’d bought the tickets ages ago. Gil’s partner Meredith knocked on the bathroom door then walked in to check on me, asking if I was okay. I nodded and, figuring there was no point trying to hide it from her, croaked, ‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Oh, Clare,’ said Mem, with so much sympathy that it frightened me.
‘It’s good news!’ I blurted.
She just patted my back, repeating, ‘Oh, Clare. Dear Clare.’
Apparently, I’d announced my pregnancy louder than I’d intended, because when I walked into the kitchen Gil and Marty were shaking hands, in very awkward silence.
I sat down at the table and put my head in my hands.
Mem said, ‘Oh, Clare, Marty. What are you going to do?’
Marty and I looked at each other, then Marty said, ‘We’re going to make it work.’
Gil’s face lit up then. ‘Hey! My nephew Mark next door is moving to Malta, and his house is about to come up for rent.’
A flash of happiness cut through the grey cloud of nausea.
‘You’re kidding!’ I said.
‘I am not kidding!’ Gil replied.
I looked at Marty. He was smiling at me and nodding.
One of the things I had been most worried about when I discovered I was pregnant was leaving the nest of Compost. It had been such a fortunate, stabilising home for me, such a wonderful place to live. Nothing made me happier than the thought of our kid being brought up in a neighbourhood like this.
Mem was excited by this prospect, too—she reminded me that this was one of the reasons they’d founded Compost all those decades ago: as a place where friends and family could live and raise children together, to share the load. However, by the time Mem and Gil and their friends had bought up all the houses, their kids were almost fully grown. Sure, it had been a twenty-year wait, but finally the first official Compost baby was on its way! How wonderful!
We moved in the following week. The house had three bedrooms and a study, a sunroom that looked out onto a dwarf weeping willow tree in the backyard, a living room and a lovely lemon-and-white kitchen. Even though the rent was very reasonable, we would still need to be incredibly crafty and frugal with our money, as we’d be living on a combined taxable income of around $20,000 a year. Our dear friend Jessie rented and lived in the back shed, which helped in so many ways. I took on extra work, teaching the musicians’ self-management and publicity course at Thornbury’s Community House. In terms of career, I was only ever one step further along the road from my students, but I was more than happy to pass on what I knew. During my pregnancy I would also complete Community Singing Leadership Training with Fay White, and she would teach me what I would go on over the next few decades to teach thousands and thousands of doubters—that if you can speak, you can sing. You really can! I started running workshops on this very theme at CERES Community Environment Park in East Brunswick (which Gil and Mem had helped found in the 1970s, turning it from a local tip into the community attraction it is now). I would also begin teaching a lunchtime choir at Vic Health. Marty would take on extra hours in the accounting room at his dad’s business. As promised, we would do whatever it took to make it work. Sadly, I decided I would retire, though, from working on the door at
