City Girl, Country Girl

by Liz Harfull

  Tour completed, the O’Briens adjourned to the local cafe for lunch. Watching a group of children playing across the road, Jesse and Sam asked if they could join in. Marnie’s city instincts were to decline because she didn’t know them. ‘And Nathan just sort of looked at me,’ she says. Realising she was worrying too much, Marnie gave in. As she watched the boys laugh and run about with their new friends, she realised they were experiencing the same sense of freedom she had enjoyed as a child. Marnie knew the boys appreciated it, too, when they returned from their play session and asked a question she had never heard them ask before after any of their holidays or visits to family and friends who lived in other places. ‘Mum, can we move here?’

  With that ringing endorsement, Nathan and Marnie tackled the next step—arranging finance to buy the business. They had been working hard and saving for years. Based on their discussions with Pauline, they believed there was enough in the bank to secure an adequate loan. Reality came crashing around them when they got back to Melbourne. According to the banks, the garage was subject to higher interest rates and tougher loan conditions because it was in a rural area. ‘So that totally put a spanner in the works. You can’t get blood out of a stone,’ Marnie sighs.

  But Marnie and Nathan had not reckoned on the people of Harrow. Determined not to let the O’Briens slip through their fingers, someone in the community suggested a three-year leasing arrangement to give them time to find their feet. Nathan and Marnie were still waiting to hear back from the Kellys about whether they would accept the offer when a local farmer by the name of Wayne rang up to make sure they were still interested. ‘He talked to me for ages,’ Marnie recalls. ‘He’s out in the paddock and the dogs are barking, and he’s singin’ me the virtues of Harrow.’

  Wayne told them he was coming to Melbourne to continue his campaign in person, but before he could make good the promise, the Kellys phoned to say they were willing to consider the idea of a lease. With the main obstacles out of the way, Marnie and Nathan sat down with their boys to make sure they realised what the move would mean if it went ahead. ‘Both of us had really good, well-paying jobs. We would have to give those up, pull the kids out of school, and I would have to leave my mum and dad behind. That was really big. I had dinner with Dad once a week, and Mum twice a week. We are very close with them,’ Marnie says.

  The boys weren’t fazed. They thought the garage was cool, and were rapt with the possibilities of all the country adventures awaiting them. They would miss their friends, but they could talk on the phone, and maybe their mates could even come and stay during the holidays. With their children on side, Marnie and Nathan decided they should go back to Harrow one more time to make absolutely sure they were doing the right thing.

  Informed of their plans, Wayne leapt into action. Thinking strategically about what it might take to clinch the sale, he invited ten or so other couples to join the O’Briens for dinner at the pub. They included people about the same age, families who had moved to the area and loved it, the persuasive Ange Newton and a handful of local business operators. The logistics weren’t easy because there was a Sound and Light Show that night, and half of them were involved in the performance, but the publican set aside a big table in a separate room near all the action so the volunteers could come and go. ‘It was like speed dating. We moved from couple to couple around the table,’ says Marnie.

  Worried how Nathan might be coping, given he tends to be on the quiet side, Marnie looked over at one stage to see him firmly settled at the end of the table, talking to a bloke who had grown up near Geelong. They were bonding over their mutual love of the Geelong football team, the Cats, and were well on the way to becoming firm friends. ‘He was happy as Larry,’ says Marnie.

  Strolling back to their accommodation sometime around midnight, Nathan and Marnie reflected on what had been a wonderful night. Stretched out before them in the light of a gibbous moon was the now quiet main street, with its old buildings sitting dark and solid, reinforcing a sense of permanency. ‘What do you think?’ Marnie said, turning to her husband.

  ‘I’m not sure, what do you think?’

  ‘I’ll be straight with you. I just want to do this. I love this place. I want to give it a go. What’s the worst thing that could happen?’

  Nathan grinned at her in the moonlight. ‘I’m glad you said that because I really want to give it a go, too!’

  It took almost five months for the O’Briens to reorganise their life and make the move. Deciding to wait until after Christmas, they spent months sorting out the paperwork, meeting with banks and lawyers, packing up the Melbourne house and saying farewell to family and friends. Finally, in early March 2012, they set off for Harrow with all their possessions. When they arrived at about seven o’clock in the evening, they found a quiche warming in the oven—a thoughtful gesture by Pauline who knew that nothing would be open in town if they needed something to eat.

  After a tiring day, the family slept peacefully in their new home, only to wake up the next morning to find they had no water. During the night, the pump attached to their rainwater tank had become disconnected and all the water had drained into the garden. Marnie and Nathan had no idea what to do, so they rang Pauline. As it turned out, the town had a central water supply and the house was attached to it, so all they had to do was flip a switch. It took them days and quite a few unpleasant cups of coffee to find out that the town water wasn’t meant for drinking. It was untreated and officially designated unfit for human consumption.

  It was the first of many both small and large revelations about life in the country for Marnie and Nathan. ‘There’s always something where you think, “Well, that’s never happened before. What do I do now?” I know stuff happens in the city, too, but if there was a problem I’d just head down the street to my favourite cafe for a coffee,’ Marnie jokes.

  Meanwhile, some of the issues she thought might be a challenge have never come to pass. ‘While I’m social, I’m actually a bit of an introvert and I was worried that everyone would constantly be coming to the house, but they are not like that at all. If you want someone to visit, they will come and visit, and it’s not taken for granted. If I’m out and about, I can just say, “I’m going home now, I’ll see you later,” and no-one thinks it’s rude. It’s a different dynamic, which makes you more honest and, funnily enough, it’s a lot less stressful. In the country, people take it that what you mean is what you say, and they take me for who I am.’

  Lubricating almost every situation is a willingness to laugh at themselves that Marnie really values. ‘Maybe that’s the thing that makes the difference. Everyone here is really humorous,’ she says. ‘Sometimes people can take it the wrong way. I’ve been told every blonde joke under the sun, and if I wanted to get offended I could, but if you look at the intention behind it, you can laugh with them.’

  Then there are the endearing moments that Marnie likens to scenes from the ever-popular television series The Vicar of Dibley. Set in a small English village with its own eccentric way of doing things, every episode includes a parish council meeting where the foibles of each member make for some peculiar discussions and challenging experiences for the astounded vicar.

  One of Marnie’s favourite examples relates to the Harrow Promotion and Development Group. After promising herself not to volunteer for any committees in the first year of living in the town, she was appointed treasurer. For several meetings, most of the time was taken up discussing a plaque commemorating the Sound and Light Show. For a start, it was being organised to mark seventeen years. Not a nice conventionally round or significant anniversary milestone, like ten years or even twenty-five, but seventeen. ‘It’s such a strange number,’ Marnie thought to herself.

  Deciding not to say anything, she tried to focus on the debate about where the plaque should be placed. The idea was to fix it to a rock, but there seemed to be a problem with every site proposed. Eventually, everyone agreed that the ideal place would be next to the old gaol. The on
ly remaining conundrum was that such a move would require approval from the town’s historical society, and they weren’t due to meet for quite a while. The group didn’t want to wait so there was a lengthy discussion about whether they should just go ahead and do it anyway.

  As the debate drew to a close, Marnie heard three members of the committee start a whispered conversation, so she asked them what they were discussing. ‘We are just having a meeting of the historical society,’ one of them replied. Taking in Marnie’s incredulous expression, they explained that they were also committee members of the historical society. One of them was even president.

  ‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’ Marnie asked.

  ‘Well, we didn’t want to have a meeting while you were having a meeting,’ was the apologetic reply.

  Marnie burst out laughing. Unfazed, the historical society committee members huddled together for an impromptu vote, while everyone else in the room tried not to pay attention. Approval for the rock to be placed near the gaol was given, and the promotion group duly informed.

  ‘Bunch of crazies, they are,’ Marnie says with great affection, wrapping up the tale.

  10

  NEW LIFE AND ALMOST DEATH

  Marnie is sitting on the front verandah of the three-bedroom house that came with the garage, keeping an eye on the business while Nathan is in Melbourne taking a diesel mechanic’s course. The modest weatherboard home is right next door so it’s easy enough to walk over if a car pulls up at the fuel pumps. Playing at her feet is Bailey, the newest addition to the O’Brien family and a symbol in more ways than one of what Harrow has come to mean to them. ‘We had only been here a few weeks and I got pregnant,’ Marnie says. ‘I always tell people it’s because there’s no television, and funnily enough it actually was.’

  Her first child, Sam, was born in a Melbourne hospital after about twenty hours of labour; however, Jesse arrived in the world so fast that he was delivered at home. Marnie experienced some pain before her waters broke at about one o’clock in the morning, but no contractions, so when she rang the hospital they advised her to wait a few hours before coming in. Not long after that she had just two contractions, and there he was. Marnie was worried about the same thing happening again, so she went to see Bernie Close who manages the Harrow Bush Nursing Centre.

  A remarkable service with a history that stretches back more than a hundred years, the centre not only provides health care to the district but in many ways is the heart and soul of the community. It started with a single nurse, Mabel Price, who was recruited from England in 1913 by the Victorian Bush Nursing Association. Trained in Sheffield and London, she was also a qualified midwife. Harrow must have seemed like another planet to her and she didn’t stay long. When World War I broke out, she resigned to return to England. Nurse Price was replaced, and the service continued until 1924, managed and paid for by the local community through annual subscriptions and fundraising. Visiting doctors continued to serve the town after the first centre closed, but there was no resident full-time health care again until 1953, when the Bush Nursing Centre was re-established and it’s been operating ever since.

  Today’s service is a far cry from one nurse equipped with two leather saddlebags packed with what amounted to little more than a basic first-aid kit. Based in a modern brick building just across the street from the garage, it’s still managed by the community as a not-for-profit operation, but it employs a team of nurses who are trained to the level of paramedics so they can respond quickly to medical emergencies. Effectively, it means that people in the Harrow district have immediate access to a level of emergency support rarely found in small communities, and comparable in response time to many resource-stretched city services. Marnie has no doubt at all that she owes the centre and its nurses her life.

  When Bernie heard about Marnie’s last delivery, she spent some time teaching her and Nathan what was involved in home birth should they be caught out again next time. They both felt much better with the extra preparation, and knowing there was support just across the road if needed.

  Marnie’s pregnancy progressed smoothly until she experienced a bout of severe pain a couple of weeks before the baby was due. She saw her doctor in Hamilton and everything seemed to be okay. A week later she was lying on the couch at about ten o’clock in the evening when an excruciating pain tore through her belly. ‘It was terrible and I knew straight away it was a really bad thing,’ she says. Within moments there was a lot of blood. Marnie was haemorrhaging.

  Nathan was having a quiet drink with friends at the pub, but fortunately for Marnie two of her girlfriends from Melbourne were staying at the time. They leapt into action. Bec distracted Sam and Jesse with computer games while Melissa ran to get Nathan, and Marnie rang 000. She also called the dependable Bernie. The qualified midwife had kept an eye on her throughout her pregnancy, and gave Marnie her personal phone number just in case something happened when she wasn’t on duty.

  Bernie lives on a farm out of town, but she was there within ten minutes and so was another nurse, Jan. Marnie remembers lying on the floor with half the contents of her linen cupboard pressed between her legs as they tried to staunch the flow of blood, and Melissa standing alongside holding an IV fluid bag of Hartmann’s solution. For some reason her friend was standing on one leg. Later, she learnt that in the drama of sprinting across the road to the pub, Melissa had snapped her Achilles tendon. ‘I remember looking at her leg and her calf was like a tennis ball,’ Marnie says.

  Quickly assessing the situation, Bernie decided to call in the emergency helicopter. It takes at least an hour for an ambulance to reach Harrow by road and she wasn’t sure they had that long. As a designated Remote Area Nurse with specialist emergency training, Bernie and the other nurses at Harrow have greater authority to initiate certain types of treatment than a general nurse. But she couldn’t provide Marnie with the blood transfusions that she needed to stay alive, and then there was the baby to consider.

  Fate seemed against them. There were bushfires in the area and the smoke made it impossible for the helicopter to land safely. The closest it could reach was Coleraine, about 50 kilometres to the south. There was no choice but to wait for the ambulance and then drive to Coleraine. When the ambulance arrived it only had one crew, the driver, so Bernie climbed into the back and held Marnie’s hand all the way. ‘I’m going to be honest with you,’ Bernie told her before they left. ‘Your baby’s fine but I am really worried about you. But I’m here for you, Marnie.’

  By the time they reached Coleraine, Marnie was in a great deal of pain and extremely anxious about getting into the helicopter. The helicopter crew were worried, too. If she gave birth mid-flight, they could not guarantee her safety. It was only twenty minutes further by road to the Hamilton Base Hospital so they decided to drive on. The helicopter’s medical team could administer blood products, so they grabbed what they needed and one of them climbed aboard the ambulance with Bernie.

  At the hospital, doctors told Marnie her placenta had separated from the uterus. The ambulance trip turned out to be a blessing. Because of the bumpy road conditions, the baby had moved and his head settled in the right place to stem the bleeding.

  Bailey was born, safe and well, the next morning. After a few days luxuriating in a private room with a balcony view, Marnie was fine, too. Looking back at the ordeal, she says she wasn’t scared because she had Bernie. ‘It was actually a wonderful experience in an odd way. I knew the bush nurses would look after me and my baby, and I was surrounded by people who loved me, but I don’t think I would be here today if it was not for that group of ladies over there,’ she says, nodding towards the centre.

  Asked for her take on the incident, Bernie agrees. ‘She is alive, and her baby is alive, because of the Bush Nursing Centre,’ she says with conviction.

  Bailey’s birth isn’t the only medical emergency the O’Briens have faced as a family since moving to Harrow. In 2015, Jesse was playing with an overhead sprinkler at
the cricket ground when it swung round and hit him in the head.

  It was a scorching March day, a last gasp of summer. Everyone was gathered for a barbecue at Johnny Mullagh Park where cricket has been played for more than 140 years. Within minutes of arriving, Sam and Jesse noticed other children running around under the giant travelling sprinkler that helps keep the grounds a lush green, and went racing off to join them. Marnie and Nathan yelled at them to come back, but they were already too far away to hear, so they continued unloading the car. Besides it was 40 degrees, and the cooling sprays of water looked more than a little tempting.

  Marnie was chatting to a friend when she noticed Jesse copy another boy and swing off one of the sprinkler’s arms. Worried they might break it, she decided it was time to call a halt. ‘Hoi, get off that thing,’ she shouted, walking towards them. Jesse heard and jumped off. Knowing he was in trouble, he turned to look at her, and the rotating arm hit him in the temple. He was conscious but there was a lot of blood.

  Knowing it would take an ambulance more than an hour to arrive, Marnie and Nathan decided to drive their son to the emergency department at Edenhope Hospital about thirty kilometres away. He was there when he started to have a seizure. The doctor intubated him, pushing a flexible plastic tube through his mouth and into his windpipe so they could keep him breathing, and ordered the emergency helicopter.

  Jesse was airlifted to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne. After a week, he seemed to be recovering nicely, so the medical team decided it was time to send him home. Then he went into respiratory arrest. They revived him and kept him at the hospital, carefully monitoring his condition. After a couple of weeks, Marnie was concerned that Jesse’s breathing still seemed troubled, especially when he lay down to sleep. He sounded a bit like Darth Vader but the doctors thought it was a side-effect of the head trauma and told her not to worry.