Keeping Faith

I

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When a baby dies at birth, is stillborn, a midwife takes it into the Pan Room and closes the door, pulls down the blind. It’s a signal, a code, like lighting a candle in a window, lowering a flag to half mast. That way, when I come to wash the instruments and sort the bloodied, soiled linen from the rest, I am warned and can prepare myself for what I am about to witness.

Working in a maternity hospital, I can’t avoid these things. The first dead baby I saw was lying curled up in a cold metal kidney dish. All the usual features were there, but ridiculously small; shrivelled and shrunk like a grotesque doll. I remember its hand, the miniature fingers splayed and extended as if trying to touch something just beyond reach.

Most stillborn babies are purple or blue, but those that have died at birth carry the colour of life. Looking at them, their eyes bulging behind tissue paper lids, toes curled, I can’t help but work quietly in case I wake them, start them crying.

Before dressing the dead baby in a simple shroud and taking it to the parents — encouraging them to put a face to their grief, to nurse it, name it — the midwife, for the sake of hospital records, has to take its photograph. Watching her perform this bizarre ritual, seeing her arrange the tiny corpse so as to best display some mark or feature of medical note, I always have to stop myself from smiling, crying.

A nurse once said to me, shaking the Polaroid print, waiting for it to develop, ‘We’ve got to be like that bench, Josh: stainless steel. Plenty of blood gets slopped on us, but at the end of the shift we’ve got to wipe ourselves clean.’

She has left now, that midwife, to have her own child. I often think of her, though, as I soak up the diluted pools of blood from the bench, spray metho onto the machined surface of the sink, as I make everything gleam, give the whole room that sweet, alcoholic smell. In a way she was right, an undertaker can’t mourn every death. But that doesn’t stop you wishing you could, doesn’t stop you feeling guilty that you don’t.

I can’t help thinking that if the saying is right, that only the good die young, then these ones, the ones born dead, must be angels.

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Ihave often thought that if, as he had secretly hoped, my father had been called to be a minister rather than a layman who sometimes preached, I would now, looking back, recall much more of my childhood. If that had been his destiny the Church would have regularly moved him to a new parish, each time taking Mum and Gracie and me with him to a different manse, another suburb. We may even have fulfilled my boyhood dream and lived for a spell in the country. No matter where these moves may have taken us, each of them would have acted as a bookmark in my memory, something jutting out, jolting me back to selected passages of time.

As it is, I grew up in the one place — a flat, windswept suburb a long way north of Melbourne — and the only shift in my childhood I can remember occurred in 1975, when I was twelve and my mother stopped attending church.

That year stands out like a ramshackle house in our otherwise neat suburban street. It began, at least in my memory, like the beginning of a new week, on a Sunday.

We were Methodists and for two years since the sudden death of Reverend Sutton we had been without a proper minister. Once a month we borrowed Reverend Gilbert from a neighbouring church to administer communion, the rest of the time we relied on Dad and old Mr Carpenter — local preachers, part-timers. People said, Mum included, that we hadn’t been given a new minister because the ‘powers that be’ had decided we were to unite with the local Presbyterians.

Dad didn’t mind. He was just grateful for the chance to preach the Gospel. And at the time, I must admit, I was grateful too. I loved listening to Dad preach. Outside the pulpit he was a quiet man, his voice soft, flat. Preaching God’s word, though, it became charged, musical, ranging from a whisper to a roar. ‘God can make a ukulele sound like a guitar,’ was how he explained it.

Rather than look at the hymn book, I liked to watch him walk into the pulpit and prepare himself for the sermon. The pulpit was simple and unadorned, made from blonde wood that quilted blue and green whenever the morning sun caught the stained glass window. Dad sat down on the bench inside it. All I could see of him was the wave of his sandy hair. The rest I could imagine: his body bent forward, elbows on knees, head bowed, his lips barely moving as he prayed.

He looked different standing in the pulpit. He was like a judge, a politician, someone on television. I snuck a look at Mum and my sister, Gracie. Mum sat straight-backed in the pew, her eyes fixed on Dad, hands loosely interlocked on her lap. Gracie was wearing her favourite lilac dress, its matching bow bobbing up and down in the brown waves of her hair. She was fidgeting with Mum’s handbag, her chubby fingers releasing and re-clasping its metal catch.

The congregation was still, expectant. Dad leant forward in the pulpit. He held the rear view mirror from our car in his hand. I had seen him unscrew it and asked what he was doing, but he wouldn’t say and told me I would have to wait and see. He turned it now in his hand, letting the sun lick at it, spitting the light in all directions. Looking down, pretending to study it, he stopped it still, the reflection settling near the organ.

‘We all know what this is.’ His voice was soft, drawing us forward. ‘We’ve all got one in our cars. But this morning I want to talk to you about the rear view mirror vision of life.’ He paused for effect. ‘In the rear view mirror vision of life we concentrate on what’s behind, on where we’ve been rather than where we’re going.’ His voice grew large, rolling over the words. ‘We worry about those left behind, slowing down for some, denying others by speeding up. In the rear view mirror vision of life we study the road already travelled, lose sight of the one we’re on.’

He placed the mirror on the pulpit lectern and, still adjusting it, making sure it wouldn’t fall, said, ‘Let me tell you about Roy Fletcher. I met Roy twenty years ago in Cunderyip, the town of his birth, in the back blocks of Western Australia. The locals there said that in his day Roy could’ve been the fastest man alive, faster even than the great Jesse Owens. By the age of sixteen he had won every foot race in the district and when he turned eighteen he and his father caught the train down to Perth where he won the State Championships by three clear yards. He was so good, they said, that in every race he ran, five feet from the line, he took a look over his shoulder to see how far in front he was, to measure the margin of his victory. Everyone knew he shouldn’t do it — he was showing off — but he always won so easily it didn’t seem to matter.’

Dad paused again and I took a look myself, over my right shoulder to where my friend Martin was sitting, his mouth slightly open, his eyes following my father’s gesturing hand. Martin marvelled at Dad’s stories; the people he had met, the places he had been.

‘No one thought taking the look mattered. That was until Roy came here, to Melbourne, to compete in the Nationals. He breezed through the heats, each time winning by a margin that allowed him the backward glance. In the final, though, he came up against Syd Peterson, the title holder from Queensland. As usual, Roy leapt from the blocks. He led all the way. The finish line loomed, all he needed do was take two more strides, stretch out and lunge forward, breaking the tape with his chest. Instead, Roy looked back, and for the first time in his life someone was there, at his shoulder, someone who beat him to the line.’ Dad touched a finger to his chin. ‘Syd Peterson represented Australia in the 1938 Olympics.’ His voice dropped again. ‘Roy Fletcher went home to Cunderyip and worked his father’s farm.

‘When I met Roy he was in his forties. He still looked fit and strong, but there was something sad and dull about his eyes that made him seem a lot older. He showed me the scrapbook of his clippings, the local headlines that dubbed him Flash Fletcher. And while we flipped through them he told me something he had never told anyone before. He said, They all used to say I took the look to skite, to show off, but I didn’t. I took it out of fear, fear of being swamped.’ Dad’s gaze shifted to the lectern, to his Bible. ‘No one doubted Roy except Roy himself. He lacked the faith to believe that the next step would carry him to the line and win him the race. And now he has lived his whole life looking backwards, at his memories, at what might have been.’

Dad picked up the mirror. ‘The rear view mirror vision of life is filled with regret, it dwells on the past, lacks faith in the future. In today’s reading Paul tells us to Run a straight race and keep your eye on the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to eternal life. Looking back, having doubts and second thoughts will rob you of that reward. In Luke Chapter 9, Verse 62, Jesus says, No one who puts his hand on the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. So, remember Roy Fletcher and run a good race, plough a straight field, and never, ever look back.’

After the service, after I’d stood next to Dad while the congregation filed past shaking his hand, thanking him for the sermon, I walked out to the car park where I found Martin standing by his family’s red Holden. As we watched people unlock their cars and slowly drive away, he asked if my father’s story was true and I told him it was, even though I didn’t know that for certain.

6 TH APRIL 1994

Letters to your memory, I’ve heard them described like that; I’ve never kept one though — a journal. Except as a girl, playing at it, looking for an excuse to practise my handwriting. They always struck me as dumb, like talking to yourself. And boring. As if the little bits and pieces of life were worth recording.

Mum gave me this one not long before the accident, before she died. Hard bound, with ‘Wildflower Journal’ tooled and gilted into the dark green cloth, I have always found it beautiful to look at, to touch; too beautiful to write in. I feel guilty now, marking it, staining the thick, cream paper with ink. Each page is decorated with a drawing of a different Australian native flower. This one has a sprig of wattle curled around the top right corner, its yellow blossom smudged like pollen dust across the faintly printed lines.

I was nineteen and had just started nursing when Mum gave it to me. Making me promise I would use it, she said she wished she had kept one when she was my age. I have often wondered why, guessed at what secrets may have been kept in its pages. They wouldn’t be secret now, of course. I would have read them — written words keep an unfaithful silence. But perhaps that is what she meant, what she wanted.

That’s the thing about diaries — people write them pretending they’re written to themselves, but really they are all the time hoping someone, sometime, will be interested enough to sneak a look and read them. To be honest, that’s why I’m starting this one. Just in case. To keep account.

I meant to start it last year when the Mission posted me here in the mountains. I was too tired, though, and busy and in a way I’m glad I didn’t because it would have been full of loneliness and self-pity; every entry droning on about how much I missed home. I’m past that now. Concentrating on the work and building up relationships, I’ve started to really enjoy living here. I still have bad days, of course, but most of the time I thank God for the opportunity to serve Him, to care for these people.

It’s so beautiful here; I guess that helps. The hospital, my house, Dr Swinton’s place and all the Dwanigi houses are built on the top of Mt. Segum, the highest peak in the Yumakili Range. This morning, eating breakfast, I looked out the window and was amazed by what I saw.

My mouth still full of porridge, I ran outside. The air was brittle, thin, prickling as I struggled to breathe it in. The sun was up and shining but there was no heat in it, so that the sky above the mountain was a cold, pale blue. The startling thing was what lay beneath. The valleys of jungle, the gleam of river which normally snaked between them, had vanished under a false floor of cotton wool cloud. They were completely gone. Banished by something which looked so innocent, so soft. I imagined myself as Noah, the mountain top my Ark, floating above a world drowned in mist. I felt like an angel. As if God had chosen me and, plucking me from the earth, had deposited me here in heaven.

Lincoln walked up behind me and said hello. I hadn’t heard him coming and jumped at the sound of his voice. Lincoln became a Christian late last year and now helps out around the hospital. He’s taller than most Dwanigi men and the extra height makes him more awkward on the steep slopes. This morning he was wearing shorts and an old jumper unravelling at the collar. His arms were crossed against the cold, his eyes still puffy from sleep. ‘Dempu tetaua,’ he said, jutting his head towards the cloud, ‘Dempu’s shame, that’s what we call it.’ He began to explain that Dempu was a character in one of their legends, but when I asked what the story was about he wouldn’t say and suggested I ask Hisiu or one of the other old men who know the legends well.

Hisiu is a Dwanigi elder, a leader in the church. He came to the hospital this afternoon so I could dress a burn on his hand. Kneeling before him, smothering the blistered skin with antiseptic cream, I mentioned this morning’s cloud and asked about Dempu tetaua. His deep-set eyes widened with surprise. ‘Gracie, who told you of Dempu?’

‘Lincoln,’ I said, hoping I wasn’t getting him in trouble. ‘He wouldn’t tell me the story though; he said I should ask you.’

Bowing his head, Hisiu guided my gaze back to the afflicted hand. As I bandaged it, he told me Dempu’s story.

‘Dempu lived many, many years ago, long before the missionaries. Even as a boy he was strong and a good hunter. He had long black hair and teeth as white as an eagle’s egg and all the girls of the mountains thought him beautiful. Often they would talk of who would be his bride, of how many pigs they would offer his line. Sometimes their talk would lead to fighting and, like dogs hungry for tapioca, they would bite and scratch for his affection. But then, not long after he was made a man, rather than choose one of them, Dempu visited Ematea,