The Mothers' Group

by Fiona Higgins

  Made had nodded.

  And then her mother had waved them off, tight-lipped with the knowledge that her first grandchild was being spirited away to another world.

  Made continued to stare out the window of the taxi. This landscape was so different, its people utterly foreign. She touched her stomach and remembered her mother’s face, pale and careworn, as Made and Gordon had left the village.

  Whatever the gods deliver to me in Australia, she thought, I must make this separation from my family worthwhile.

  ‘It’s called a haemangioma,’ the paediatrician said, pointing to a mottled red swelling above the baby’s lip. Wayan was only four hours old, but Made had never felt so deeply connected to anyone, anything. It was as if she’d suddenly discovered a part of herself she’d forgotten, revealed in the flesh of another. She instinctively understood the terrain of Wayan’s body, from the chubby folds around his ankles and wrists, to the swollen red diamond obscuring his upper lip. The first time she’d seen it, lying on her back in the maternity ward, she’d kissed it fervently, reverently.

  ‘It’s a collection of abnormal blood vessels that form a lump under the skin. We don’t really know why they occur, but in eighty per cent of cases, they resolve by school age.’

  Made looked to Gordon for clarification. He shrugged, indicating his own ignorance of the matter. Made shifted her weight on the hospital bed. The delivery had been long, with Wayan’s head almost too large for her pelvis. This was often the case for Asian women, the midwife had said, especially those married to Caucasians. In the end, the obstetrician had used forceps.

  ‘In Wayan’s case,’ continued the paediatrician, ‘with a haemangioma of the lip, it’s more likely to become ulcerated due to the friction of wet surfaces rubbing together. You’ll probably have trouble feeding him. We’ll need to get you some extra support. Where do you live?’ The paediatrician scanned her chart. ‘Freshwater?’

  Gordon nodded.

  ‘They’ve got a good baby health centre up there, so make sure you use it for health checks, mothers’ groups, that sort of thing.’

  Made watched Gordon listening to the paediatrician. He would relay it all to her later, she knew, in a mixture of Indonesian and English. She lay back against the pillows and looked over at Wayan, asleep in his bassi–nette next to her bed. She knew what her family would say about his facial defect: that it was the karmic consequence of some wrongdoing in a previous life. She’d always been a devout Hindu, but watching Wayan now, she simply couldn’t accept that he was anything but perfect.

  ‘I’m also going to ask one of our paediatric surgeons to take a look at Wayan when he’s six months old,’ the doctor told them. ‘At that point the haemangioma will be as big as it’s likely to get, and he’ll be able to make an assessment of treatment options, including whether surgery is required.’

  The doctor turned to Made. ‘Many women find it difficult to adjust to their child’s appearance as the haemangioma grows larger, especially if people stare or make comments.’ He pushed a leaflet into her hands. ‘This should help.’

  Made read the words at the top of the leaflet: Bringing up a child whose face looks different.

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’

  She looked at Wayan. I think you’re perfect. She was grateful that he had been born in Australia, where the medical system was vastly superior. Had he been born in her village, a doctor would not have been present. And then what would have happened, given the trouble she’d had? No forceps, nothing. She shivered at the prospect. The disfigurement on Wayan’s lip wasn’t life-threatening. It could have been much, much worse.

  The paediatrician stood up. ‘I’ll ask one of the nurses to get a lactation consultant to come and see you shortly.’

  She nodded.

  Gordon accompanied the paediatrician to the door and they stood outside the room, speaking in low voices.

  Made swung her legs over the bed and stood up. She bent over Wayan, wrapped in a blue cotton blanket in his bassinette.

  ‘You are the most handsome boy in the whole world,’ she whispered.

  Wayan’s dark eyes moved in her direction and then, suddenly, he began to cry.

  ‘Oh sweet one,’ she soothed. ‘Don’t cry. Are you hungry?’

  She lifted Wayan from the bassinette and brought him to her chest. She’d seen it done in the village a hundred times before. Her breasts had become full and taut in the past twenty-four hours. Now they oozed a thick yellow colostrum.

  As she pressed him against her breast, Wayan began to suck noisily. She smiled at the sound, and the not-unpleasant sensation of his mouth tugging on her nipple.

  ‘That’s it, Wayan. Drink.’

  She settled back onto the pillow and watched Wayan as he suckled. He was so vulnerable, yet so strong. Born of her body, yet destined for his own path in life. It was such a privilege to be charged with his care, and such a responsibility. She thought of her own mother, who had toiled so hard for their family, and the thousand small sacrifices she must have made along the way. Made resolved to send a letter to Komang just as soon as she was out of hospital, asking that she read it aloud to their mother. Sharing with her mother the one thing she’d learned, as she’d pushed Wayan out of her body: that having a baby was like falling into God.

  On the afternoon they returned from hospital, the first thing Made did was make an offering at the small shrine she had fashioned in the northeast corner of the backyard. The shrine looked incongruous, a tower of red bricks stacked between the garage and the fence bordering the neighbour’s property. It had been quite a feat to construct at eight months pregnant. One day while Gordon was at work, she’d moved the bricks one by one from an untidy pile near the barbecue. After selecting an auspicious corner of the garden, she laid the bricks across each other, creating four sturdy columns. Then she poked around Gordon’s shed, and found a length of wire mesh and a stepladder. Finally, she took from her suitcase a black and white checked poleng cloth and a bamboo parasol. She wrapped the cloth around the base of the columns, before positioning the open parasol in the mesh at the very top of the shrine.

  It had been a source of comfort while she was in hospital knowing that the shrine was there, awaiting her return.

  ‘I thank the ancestors for baby Wayan now,’ she announced to Gordon, then padded out into the backyard.

  It was late afternoon and a sliver of crescent moon hung low in the sky. This same moon watched over her family in Bali, she knew, yet it looked different, somehow. She patted Wayan in the sling, his body snuggled against hers. Then she lay out the items she’d taken from the kitchen: a sweet biscuit, a handful of rice and several incense sticks. Using the broad leaves of a paperbark tree that stood on the southern side of the yard, she set about fashioning a basket. She placed the biscuit and the rice in it, sprinkling them with the soft white petals of a flowering plant that grew near the back door. Camellia, Gordon called it. She liked the softness of the word. If they were ever blessed with a daughter, it would make a lovely name.

  She stood before the shrine and pressed her hands together at her forehead, quietly murmuring her prayers of thanks. Sweet incense wafted across her, the heady scent of her homeland. She imagined the earth pulsating beneath her, rich with worms and rotting leaves, the soil simultaneously decomposing and renewing itself. Like all of us, she thought. Living and dying at the same time.

  She felt her body loosening, becoming lighter, until she was floating in the comfortable darkness behind her eyelids. Suddenly she saw the face of an old woman; the holy woman she had encountered on the beach in Sanur.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A sharp voice disturbed her prayers.

  Made opened her eyes, disoriented. A head hovered above the wooden fence to her right. Then a neck appeared, and two arms over the fence. The face of a middle-aged woman peered at her. Her neighbour, Mrs Carter, in all likelihood. Gordon had mentioned her, but Made hadn’t seen her in the three months since her arrival.

  ‘Hello, I am M
ade.’ She smiled at the woman, then looked down into the sling. ‘This is my boy, Wayan. We come from hospital today.’

  ‘And what exactly is that?’ The woman pointed at the shrine.

  ‘I . . . pray,’ explained Made. She wasn’t sure why the woman seemed irritated.

  ‘Well,’ said the woman, ‘in Australia, we pray in churches.’ The woman glared at Made.

  Suddenly Gordon was at her side.

  ‘Mrs Carter,’ he said, his tone genial. ‘I’ve been meaning to introduce you to my wife, but I haven’t seen you lately. Have you been away?’

  The question caught her off guard. ‘I had a spell in the country with my sister. She hasn’t been well.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Gordon. He placed a hand on Made’s shoulder. She instantly felt better.

  Mrs Carter looked from Gordon to Made.

  ‘Well, I was just telling your wife that this isn’t the sort of neighbourhood that’s . . . all that used to foreign ways.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Goodness, she looks young. She could almost be your daughter.’ A smile played at her lips.

  Gordon stared at the woman for a moment, as if he might say something. Then he put his arm around Made and ushered her back to the house.

  He shut the door with unusual force.

  Made sat on the sofa and put Wayan to her breast. Her heart was hammering. She hadn’t fully comprehended Mrs Carter’s words, but her expression had said it all. She wasn’t welcome here, even in Gordon’s backyard.

  She looked at Gordon. His face was flushed. Was he embarrassed by her?

  ‘Gordon, I sorry,’ she began.

  ‘Oh, Made, I’m the one who should be sorry.’ He lowered himself onto the sofa next to her and wound an arm around her shoulders. ‘You’d think we were living in a country town, not the northern beaches. Talk about the bloody insular peninsula.’

  Made wasn’t sure of his meaning.

  ‘Small-minded people make me angry, that’s all.’ He pulled her towards him and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Mrs Carter was very rude. I’m sorry about that.’

  Made leaned into his chest.

  Her sister Komang had been right. Gordon was a good husband.

  Still, Made missed her family with such intensity, it made her heart ache. Every part of Wayan brought to mind another—the softness of her mother’s hair as it dried in the morning sun, her father’s shy smile, Komang’s gentle hand on her arm, the cheeky flash of her brother’s eyes. Despite the haemangioma, Wayan was a contented baby. Nothing seemed to provoke him. But Made grieved for the fact that her family couldn’t witness his small daily triumphs.

  She would often sit on the concrete stairs leading down to their backyard, cradling Wayan and imagining the scene in her family compound. Her mother, stooped at the waist, sweeping the yard with long strokes of her rattan broom. And there was her father, chewing betel leaf and sipping tea under the papaya tree. Komang washing clothes in the large silver basin in which the three of them had played as children. And then she would imagine Wayan into the scene: his grandparents swinging him across the yard in a sarong, or his Aunty Komang, still young enough to play older sister, fussing over him.

  Gordon’s parents were long dead and his only sibling, an older sister, lived in a cold country in the northern hemisphere. The thought of her own family, not so far away, brought tiny pinpricks to her eyes. She made sure Gordon never saw them.

  But at night she was plagued by dreams of her mother. Sometimes she would sit up in bed, barely awake, searching for her mother’s form beyond the reaches of the bed.

  ‘Bu? Bu?’ she would call into the darkness, certain of her presence.

  ‘You’re dreaming, Made,’ Gordon would whisper, finding her hand with his.

  Then she would lie down again, blinking back tears.

  As an answer to homesickness, Made attended every single session of the mothers’ group. Initially she’d been confused by the concept. Mothers’ groups weren’t necessary in Indonesia, as there were always enough women in a village to share the load of child-rearing. But in Australia, neighbourhoods were divided by high walls, security grilles and unfriendly dogs. New mothers had to be introduced through the baby health centre, or they might never find each other across the empty stretches of suburbia.

  At first they met at the Beachcombers kiosk, drinking countless cups of coffee while discussing their babies. Then, when winter began to bite, they met in each other’s homes, sharing homemade biscuits and steaming pots of tea.

  One week in spring, Miranda offered her home as a venue. Made was the first to arrive, just after two o’clock. She’d caught the bus five stops from her house, down to Miranda’s home in the Freshwater Basin. It reminded her of Pantai Raya, being so close to the beach.

  ‘Come in,’ said Miranda, greeting her at the door with a smile. ‘Digby’s asleep, finally. Rory’s through here.’

  As Made walked behind her carrying Wayan, she stared wide-eyed at the spacious corridors of Miranda’s home. Austere white walls were decorated with enormous canvases of modern art and delicate objects of glass and stainless steel. Compared to the two-bedroom red-brick cottage in which Made lived, Miranda’s home was palatial. What did Miranda do with all these rooms?

  ‘There he is,’ said Miranda, nodding to a plush grey rug that covered the slate tiles on the living room floor. Rory lay on his back in the centre, gurgling at a stuffed giraffe suspended above him in a play gym. ‘Are Wayan’s feet allowed to touch the ground yet?’

  Made smiled. ‘Yes, we had ceremony in Bali last week.’ Made placed Wayan next to Rory and watched the pair eyeball each other. Rory suddenly rolled onto his stomach and Wayan giggled at the movement.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ said Miranda. ‘I’d forgotten you’d gone back. How did it go? It must have been nice to see your family.’

  Made nodded.

  It would be too hard to explain to Miranda how she’d felt, meeting her family again for the first time since Wayan’s birth. The joy of her reunion with her mother, countered by her family’s shock and consternation at Wayan’s haemangioma. The mystic who’d been called in to divine the karmic reason for his defect, and the lengthy rituals that followed. At Wayan’s one-hundred-and-five-day ceremony, conducted several months later than it should have been, the medium had pronounced that Wayan was, in fact, the incarnation of her dead brother. How goosebumps had spread across her skin and stayed there for days. It was too hard to express all of this in English.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Miranda, gesturing towards a shiny leather couch positioned against a wall. But Made lingered close to Wayan; after carrying him around for so long, it felt strange to be physically disconnected from him. It was as though a second, unseen umbilical cord had been cut by the Balinese priest who’d blessed him.

  A splash of colour on the mantelpiece attracted Made’s attention; a gold-framed photograph on the otherwise empty expanse.

  Miranda followed her gaze. ‘That was taken in Paris,’ she explained. ‘Four months before Rory arrived.’ In the photo, Miranda stood in front of the Arc de Triomphe, the colours of sunset brushed against the sky. Her cheeks were ruddy with cold or exertion. One hand held Digby’s, the other rested on the curve of her belly.

  ‘It was a happy holiday?’

  ‘Very,’ said Miranda. ‘Life was a lot less complicated then.’

  Made nodded.

  A knock on the door announced the arrival of others.

  ‘Come in, come in,’ called Miranda.

  A moment later, Ginie entered the room at her usual pace, followed by Cara. ‘Oh my God, Miranda,’ said Ginie. ‘That’s an Arthur Boyd near the front door, isn’t it?’

  Miranda blushed with pleasure. ‘Yes, Willem’s latest acquisition. I can’t stop him at Sotheby’s, I’m afraid.’

  Ginie lifted Rose out of her pram and placed the baby on her tummy next to Wayan and Rory. She rolled a soft ball in their direction. ‘Well, you can tell Willem he’s done well. Daniel would love it
.’

  ‘Oh, you arty types,’ said Cara, parking her stroller on the other side of the room. ‘I couldn’t tell a Boyd from my bum.’ She lifted Astrid out onto the rug. ‘Hello, Made. And how are you, Wayan?’

  Made loved the way Cara always acknowledged everyone in the room, even the babies.

  Within twenty minutes Pippa and Suzie had arrived and Miranda’s gallery-like lounge room had been transformed by the nursery hubbub of six babies. There was the usual flurry of activity, complicated by the fact that most of the babies were now sitting and rolling. Astrid had even started ‘commando crawling’, using both arms to haul herself across the floor on her stomach, dragging her feet behind her.

  Despite the noise and activity, Made didn’t spend a lot of time talking to the other women. It was always like that, she reflected, everyone too busy to talk. It wasn’t like passing time in the village with her mother, sister, aunts and cousins. There were no comfortable silences, no wild laughter born of years of familiarity. Perhaps that would come with time, she mused.

  She felt most comfortable with Cara, who always tried to include her in the group’s discussions. And it was easy to talk to Suzie, who never seemed to draw breath. It was a challenge deciphering Pippa’s words, as her voice was so soft and she rarely looked Made in the eye.

  ‘Does anyone know a good children’s photographer?’ asked Ginie suddenly. She slid her iPhone back into her bag and looked around the group. ‘We’d like to get some professional shots done of us as a family. We’ve got this big blank wall at home that’s crying out for a canvas. But we don’t know anyone who specialises in kids.’

  ‘I do,’ said Miranda. ‘Stephanie Allen is a great local freelancer. She does some beautiful work down on Freshie beach. She’s a little expensive, but she’s worth it.’

  Ginie found her iPhone again and began plugging in the details.

  Made watched Miranda and Ginie as they talked. Their conversations often ranged across completely foreign territory—from art and restaurants to clothing and homewares. It was all Made could do to understand the general gist.