By the time we arrived at my parents’ house, I was so worked up I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. When we got out of the car, I started pacing. Marty rubbed me on both my arms, said that it was all going to be all right. I led Marty around the side of the house, past Dad’s latest fixer-upper—another Monaro—past the rowboat on a trailer that my Uncle Bruce had once built for my sister Lisa, up the back stairs and through the back door.
Mum had the log heater on and candles lit, and when she heard us coming in the back she ran to greet us. Before she could even kiss or hug me, I shoved the flowers into her outstretched arms and said, ‘We’re having a baby!’
Mum started laughing as though this was the funniest joke she’d heard all day.
Marty stood beside me, deadpan; neither of us were laughing.
I look at him apologetically and then repeated, ‘Mum, we’re having a baby.’
She had stopped laughing by now but she snorted a little in disbelief and said, ‘Marty, it’s nice to see you again—can I take your coat? Clarey, stop it now. It’s not funny.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Mum,’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, this must be a shock, but I am not joking. Marty and I really are having a baby.’ She stood unblinking and unmoving for several seconds, and then yelled in a high voice, ‘Iaaaaaan!’
Dad came in quickly, moved straight in to shake Marty’s hand and kiss me on the cheek.
Mum tapped him on the shoulder quite a few times and said, ‘There is some news.’
Marty and I said together, ‘We’re having a baby.’
Dad looked at Mum, looked back at me, then without missing a beat his hand went straight back to Marty’s hand for another handshake and he said, ‘Welcome to the family, Matty.’
My father really was the very best of humanity, I tell you.
I did need to correct him though. ‘Marty. It’s Marty, Dad, not Matty.’
‘Yes, of course!’ he said. ‘Marty. Marty. Now, this calls for a toast.’ And he kind of scuttled back into the kitchen. I could hear clinking from the fridge, glasses being collected.
Mum was still in a bit of shock but saying, ‘Right. Right-oh. Right. Shall we sit? Good then.’
We sat at the table and Mum blinked a few times and said, ‘Good! This is good! Good!’ and, ‘I’m sorry, I’m a bit surprised but this is good!’
Dad came back with the beer, Mum—who rarely drank—said, ‘Ian, get the wine,’ and he did, rather quickly. He poured her a glass, she took a gulp, sniffed in a few times, gave a quick shake of the head, straightened her posture, took a big breath in, looked at Marty and said, ‘Right, Marty, hello! Take a seat. Right, you’re already sitting. Good. There you go. Now. Marty. Tell me about your family. Are you from a big family?’
The next few moments were … what is the word for this? Painful.
The lovely thing, though, was how hard everyone was working to make it less so. Marty, Dad, Mum, me—all of us talking, nodding, trying to get a flow going. Miraculously, the tension was broken when Mum hit the jackpot by asking, ‘Marty, what is your middle name?’
Gee—what was his middle name? I had no idea. I didn’t even know when his birthday was. (I’m terrible with that stuff. When I called to have the electricity connected in our new house, I could not, for the life of me, remember his actual birthday, so I just said the first date I could think of—I told them 11th of the 11th, 19 … 74. For the record, that is not his birthday. It created customer-verification problems for years to come.)
‘My middle name is Walter,’ said Marty.
‘Hey!’ said Mum, slapping the table.
Dad’s eyebrows flew up and down. ‘That’s my middle name!’ he said. ‘And my father’s first name, too,’ he added.
Marty said, ‘How strange, because Clare’s middle name is Alison, which is my mother’s middle name, and my grandmother’s first name!’
We had a match! It had been fated! More wine! (But not for me. I’d decided I was going to be a Perfect Mother, and never ever drink wine again. What a laugh!)
We all took a deep breath, relieved to have finally found some common ground over which to connect.
Mum said there was once a fine saint called Walter; she didn’t know much about him, but she would find out and get back to Marty. She took a deep breath after that. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘This is good.’
Marty told Mum that he’d actually been to Sandringham many times, as one of his old girlfriends lived here. Did Mum know Emma Smith?
‘The Smiths?’ said Mum. ‘Oh, a wonderful family! Yes, yes! And Emma, such a sweetheart. Clearly it didn’t work out, but all things considered that’s probably for the best.’ She was cracking jokes now. (Thank you, sweet Jesus, thank you.)
The last time he had been in the area was after Emma’s Dad’s fiftieth birthday, Marty went on, and Mum’s eyes opened wider.
‘Yes! Yes!’ she said excitedly. ‘Oh, Marty, yes, of course! Marty, you won’t believe this, but I think I remember you! We sat next to each other at the dinner table that night. This is extraordinary. I remember thinking what a lovely young man you were, how intelligent and philosophical, a real thinker. Oh, Marty! Ian, do you remember? Marty, we prayed for you on the way home in the car! That you would find the truth you were looking for.’
Just to be clear, Mum prays for everyone. You could meet her at the supermarket checkout or at the back of one of my gigs and have a three-second conversation and she would still ask for your name and any special intentions and then include you in her prayers that night. Also, let’s be honest: the chance that the young man Mum sat next to that
