Later that day, when the blessing and the walking had yielded little more than a small period-like pain that had eventuated into … well, nothing, I rang my big sister Anna for another bloody whinge. What the heck was I was supposed to do next? As advised by a neighbour, I’d already tried all the usual tricks; eating hot chillies, taking hot baths, and a near tedious amount of ‘sexy time’ (something about ‘ripening the uterus’?). Nothing had worked. Anna asked me if there might be anything holding me back, like, something I needed to finish before the baby was born? I told her not really. Just an album. Well, one take from one song off the album. It was the song called ‘Who Knows Who’, but that couldn’t be it, could it?
‘Off you go!’ she said. ‘Get on with it.’
‘What, now?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Now! Go!’
I hung up the phone and yelled down the hallway, ‘Marty! Turn on the machines!’
The honeymoon was now well and truly over. I meant business.
The machines I was referring to were, of course, the tape machines in the front room, which we used to record my first solo album—an album I would later go on to call Autumn Bone. (No idea why. Made sense on the day.) Marty got to work setting up the studio—the same studio I’d had a mini-tantrum in only a week before because I kept running out of breath every second line. Day after day, we’d tried to get this take. No luck until now, when mysteriously I suddenly had more air available in my lungs. Maybe the baby had dropped? How would I know. Defah would know. Every time she saw me and felt my tummy she’d be like, ‘Oh, there’s a leg! There’s an arm!’ I didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. It just felt like one big blob to me.
Standing in front of that microphone on that hot summer’s day, swinging my body from side to side, all I knew was that it was my time to shine. And I did. With our baby kicking hard inside my belly, I sang my absolute heart out and, within the hour, we had it: the last take of my first solo album.
And, still, no bloody labour. I couldn’t believe it! When Anna called back later that afternoon, I answered the phone breathlessly moaning, ‘Someone, please, get this baby of out me!’ She laughed, and told me there was only one thing left to do—I needed to go outside, and move around some pot plants. Why? She didn’t know why—just that when she’d gone outside, moved a pot plant, given it a little bit of a twist and, whaddya know, her waters broke. Fine, I said. And outside I went to do the same. Maybe it was the pots, maybe it was me—all I know is that after moving every object I could get my hands on my waters did not break. Not even close. I was so grumpy by now, I reckon I could have lifted a car. And, still, the baby would not come out.
Although, something was different. My lips, actually. They felt swollen all of a sudden. Fluid retention? Who bloody cares.
On the way back inside, climbing up the back stoop, I suddenly noticed how very filthy our windows were, and I yelled, ‘Marty? Do we have a ladder?’
We did have a ladder, but Marty said there was no way in hell he was going to let me climb it. And could I please stop yelling—it makes the neighbours fearful. I said, you don’t understand; I need to clean the windows. He asked, what was I talking about? I said, look—and pointed to a window that he thought was clean enough, but I disagreed, firmly. I stomped inside and fetched vinegar, rags, newspapers and a bucket, and cleaned every single inch of every single window I could reach. As for the ones I couldn’t reach, I told Marty I was not coming inside until they were done. Mum told me later that this is exactly what my Oma Annie used to do just before she gave birth—clean the windows. A question for science—did I get that urge because maybe this was a story I’d picked up as a child? Or was this my genetic coding at play? At the time, I couldn’t have given less of a rat’s arse. All I knew was that now the windows were proper and clean, I felt much, much better.
And, still, the child would NOT COME OUT!
Marty told me it might be a good idea to get some sleep as it had been a big day and I was probably a little bit tired? I said, I’m not tired but, all right, I’d take a rest. He lay down next to me, and read me a chapter of a book, as though I was two years old. I mumbled about how uncomfortable I felt, how I was never going to get to sleep, although I might just close my eyes for a moment and, when I next opened them, it was dawn, and Marty was snoring beside me with the book slightly crushed between us. I rolled out of bed, my back aching, crawled around on the carpet for a bit—I couldn’t tell you why, I just felt like it—and then got dressed for another walk. I was barely twenty metres out the door when I felt the return of those pesky period pains again. Keep walking, Bowditch, I said. Keep walking.
A few steps later, the pain cranked up ten notches. I took a sharp breath inwards, and then just clung to a stranger’s fence, panting. What the? Then, as quickly as it had come, the pain dissipated. I turned back in the direction
