Spring Past

An apartment we rented for a year in Vermont was one of the first spaces we had that was ours. It was the top floor of a simple house built in the 1920’s. I used to stomp through the snow, leaving a dirty path round the side of the house, to our door at the back. It was just the door, perhaps there was a small raised area, to bang the snow off, and then the stairs going up to our two rooms. The kitchen was galley style, something we were used to, squashed against the top of the stairs, and there was one door to our unheated bathroom. We smoked our pale blue Drum then and drank jugs of Carlo Rossi red wine in squarish wine glasses my mum had sent from Australia. Rugged up we would blow our smoke out the open window into the white night. Still invincible enough not to care. Enough ourselves still unknown to spend nights revealing.

There was an inlet for a bed and two closets on either side of the sloping roof with a long oil heater between them. As we unpacked that first day, the space for our meagre collection of belongings overwhelmed us even in that tiny apartment, ‘a closet each!?’. Andrew decided to hang a shirt of his in my space, and a skirt of mine in his, keeping our close lives with us.

That winter I went skiing for the first time which terrified me to the extent that I tore a ligament in my knee and spent six weeks confined in that apartment with a cat named Steve. We watched the winter out the window, the cat blinking beside me. 

We had a tv, but no aerial so we just watched videos from our mattress on the floor. Andrew would hire ten movies for me at a time, obscure French ones called ‘Clare’s Knee’, that he thought I would like. I considered sabotaging my life as I knew it by smoking cigarettes in bed while I ate greasy chips and wiped my hands on the sheets. I ended up losing 3 kilos and knitting a beautiful, long, purple scarf that wore for years until I left it at a cafe in Northcote.

The spring made me and the birds happy. The rain fell and Steve and I watched the robins and blackbirds peck long worms out of the soft ground. They flew through the rain, seeking no shelter, relishing the change of season. My knee healed and I went back to work at the bookshop.

Departure

The Marquesas was the ideal place to give birth. A land overflowing with running rivers, streams rushing to the sea, rock faces awash. We had met two midwives at the Birthing Centre, one gentle, one kind. They relaxed me. The air was green and the birthing rooms glowed white. We walked around the wooden verandah, the louvered windows open to the verdant garden, overcome with hibiscus and frangipani. It could happen here, my baby; you could arrive. However upon our arrival to Nuku Hiva, they were already waiting for us, ready to stamp in our passports an imminent departure date.During our first few days in French Polynesia we asked too many questions. We had heard that if a foreign child was born on one of the islands they would automatically receive citizenship, which would then mean being able to live and work in the EU. We had made inquiries to that effect, and furthermore whether we would be able to give birth free of charge, under the care of the government. The government officials had answered our questions with attention and without any evidential bother, yet it now seemed that someone had been unhappy with our familial plans. It was decided by the Immigration Officials that once I left French Polynesia the crew and Andrew could stay the length of their original visa - 3 months, but I had to leave to give birth elsewhere. His father, unseen for 3 years was due to fly in, so Andrew was to stay and I was to go. 

We had dropped anchor in the horseshoe shaped bay in Nuku Hiva, where the rain kept steadily falling. It ran down the teak decking, and pooled in gullies made by the steps between the stern and the bow. Water dribbled down the walls below deck, whilst the Navigation Station held a steady downpour, a constant drip, drip that filled more than one bucket. The air was heavy with moisture, lending a dampness and stickiness to all things. Fruit tied to the stern lent a sense of colour and I felt like making banana bread. As the air filled with the smell of baking, his voice sang to me from the radio. The rain cascaded off the biminy,  and I sat in our steamy wooden boat with the waterfalls surrounding us, listening to your father’s familiar voice, and I wept, because I must leave. 

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The alarm on our unused mobile phone woke us. Andrew still heavily asleep from a night of pint sized Tahitian beers with our crew, I had slept lightly, filled with our child, unconsciously aware of the days journey ahead of me, taking my body by plane this time, back home, back to Australia, where the landscape is a sad green. I heaved my body over the safety rails into the dinghy, Andrew waiting, holding the revving outboard. The boats were still sleeping, slapping in the small dark, early morning waves, as we weaved towards the lights of shore.
We didn’t talk much. Our shadows were dark in the yellow streetlights, and I looked so round.  His hand out, hitching as the first cars began to make their way to work in Papeete. Someone stopped, our first ride and we went straight there.
It always seems too soon, the flight is called, our coffee cups are left.
We walked outside to say goodbye, and he bent his head. I watched him walk. His tall back, long steps, moving quickly away, back to the boat, back to it all without me.
And then life carries you on, he walks one way I walk the other, we are both alone. I checked in, went through security. I remember a man tried to guess the sex of my baby as I tried not to cry.