Two chapters to go and two years later. Six years since Ipsita created these characters and, inadvertently, a storyline so very easy to continue. Now, it's been years since we last heard from Masen, so don't forget spellings and certain words are going to be different. He's Australian and can't help it. LOL.
January 7th, 2022 - Darwin to Sydney
Preeclampsia. It's a word I've come to despise. I once made the mistake of calling it eclampsia, and Dad gave me a lecture on the ways they are different. Both are pregnancy-related high blood pressure disorders, and either can be serious. The one with the "pre" is something to be monitored—spiking blood pressure in an otherwise normal pregnancy, reducing blood supply, oxygen, and nutrients to the fetus—sometimes resulting in preterm or stillbirths. Untreated, eclampsia can cause seizures in the mother, coma, and death.
At thirty-five weeks, Bella's blood pressure was well under control, thanks to specific medication considered safe for our unborn son, and she was the one who insisted I grab the window of opportunity to go to Darwin while I could. The only reason I agreed was Dad being absolutely determined our child would be born healthy and as close to full-term as possible. Since he'd lost two of his own, his vested interest in this one was more than just being the baby's grandfather.
Bella was fine when we spoke earlier in the day, so it was a bit of a shock when Dad called at nine, which was ten-thirty in Sydney, saying the situation had deteriorated. He had told her he wanted to monitor her for twenty-four hours, but he admitted to me that he was questioning the merits of continuing the pregnancy.
Panic-stricken, I was now waiting to board a 1:00 am flight, feeling the same as the last time I left my family in crisis, only now I wouldn't be able to breathe for the next five hours in this fucking mask. I should never have entertained this idea. I should have followed the instincts that told me to stay with my girl, and if I don't get there in time to see my son born, I will never forgive myself. If anything happens to them—
I can't let my mind go there. I have to remember they're in good hands and picture the future we'll share together.
Once we're in the air, I try to relax, telling myself that worrying won't make the flight shorter, or have any effect on the outcome, recalling the reasons why I had to take this trip.
Working from Woollahra since I started my new job, I'd been waiting for the Northern Territory border to open. They finally set the date for December 20th, but everyone had to remain in the "high vaccination zones" of Greater Darwin, Katherine, and Alice Springs for fourteen days before we could go anywhere else, and I had people to see at Kings Canyon and Uluru. Most of Darwin's government offices were closed between Christmas and new year's anyway, so I flew out on the 27th to stay with Jenks and Julia for my two weeks of pseudo-quarantine.
Apart from meetings with the few colleagues not on vacation, I must have seen every house for sale in Darwin. Bringing Bella along by video call for the serious contenders, it's been good to experience how liveable these homes are in the humidity of Darwin's tropical summer. I did draw the line at viewing anything at Cullen Bay, however. There was no way I was having that as my address after I ditched all ties with my grandfather's name when I learned he took advantage of his young black servant and made her into my grandmother.
I've seen some great places, putting holding deposits on three very different properties, and our conveyancing solicitor and broker are ready to draw up contracts as soon as the inspection reports are done.
One feels like a vacation house in Bali: a shady haven with two pavilions joined by a covered timber deck. It has beautiful artistic tile work throughout and a rustic kitchen with open shelving. That will have to change when we have an inquisitive kiddo on the loose.
Another is more traditional: one of ten townhouses in a complex with a pool. It's smaller, brighter, fresher, with living areas upstairs and a big patio that looks out onto a jungle of palms and glimpses of the golf course across the road.
The last, and my personal favourite, is also a townhouse: one of five with electronic gated entry, right on the water at the Bayview marina. It has a big spa on the lower deck, its own pontoon, and is only 500 metres from the entrance to Charles Darwin National Park, so it ticks a lot of boxes. It would most certainly tempt me to get back into sailing.
I've told Bella that I like them all, which is true, but I want her to make this decision.
All of them meet Mum's requirement for a room of her own when she comes to visit her grandson. It's the least I could do after having to ask my parents to go guarantors on our mortgage. Although we had more than enough for the deposit, the bank said my five-year history of employment didn't satisfy their requirements.
At least I have a job now—not one I would have previously considered—but the world has changed, and I can adapt, grateful we came through unscathed while this bloody virus crippled so much of the country.
As I sit in this cramped seat, solo and worried, I pray the same forces that shielded us for nearly two years are now surrounding my wife and son.
My God. We barely had a chance to understand Serena's warning when it all went to shit.
On March 2nd, 2020, Charlie and Renee called to say they had arrived home safely. We crossed the one-forty longitude line and Australia was reporting its first cases of community transmission. By the time we reached Adelaide, grocery store shelves were emptying. Health officials, urging us not to panic, had caused people to lose their minds.
As our daily cases grew, we watched the Italian numbers exploding, poor souls having to choose which of their elderly would die, and we thought we were glimpsing our own future. Within weeks, we needed a fourteen-day quarantine to enter other states. By the end of the month, we were scrambling to cross the Nullarbor and reach Western Australia before it shut its borders for the foreseeable future.
Wanting no contact with the outside world, the states west of one-forty kept their borders closed, allowing us to carry on almost as normal, protecting the Indigenous populations who saw the virus as a white man's sickness.
Alaska's "hunkering down" meant the Swan's Midnight Sun Resort had to close its doors, and knowing her parents had lost their income, Bella was beside herself with worry, calling them every other day, watching Alaska's numbers grow.
"I want to give them back the twenty grand, Masen."
"Okay," I said, knowing Charlie Swan would never accept an offer like that, even if times were tough. "But I want you to put yourself in their shoes for a minute. You're their only child, and they're probably just as worried about you. We could lose our funding at any time, and then what are we going to do?"
She just looked at me and didn't argue. Trying to decipher what her sigh meant, I hoped I hadn't scared her by pointing out that our future was equally uncertain.
Thankfully, both the US and Australia quickly approved coronavirus relief payments for individuals and businesses affected by the pandemic, and Bella's questions then shifted to when they expected to receive their cheque.
A little confused, I hadn't seen an actual cheque in years, so I assumed the word "cheque" must mean something else in this context. In America, they requested the "cheque" at the end of a restaurant meal while we asked for the "bill," but I was quickly informed. Charlie and Renee would receive their payment directly into their bank account while many US citizens got an actual cheque in the mail and had to cash it at their bank. I couldn't get my head around millions of envelopes circulating in the middle of the pandemic, but to them, it really wasn't a big deal.
I don't honestly know if Charlie was trying to ease his daughter's anxiety at the time, but he told her he wasn't relying on government handouts, that he'd always had money put away for emergencies. When I Googled what foreign diplomats earn, I understood he would have been comfortable getting out of the Service and buying the resort.
We kept in contact with Makenna and Serena and were pleased to hear that Greece's government acted early to control the spread of the virus. They were all working and doing school lessons from home, and I wondered how they coped with the challenges that must have presented.
The lockdowns in our eastern states were not the physical brutality we'd seen in China, but nevertheless severe. Penalties for leaving home, except for certain stringent reasons, were enforced by police. Two people's time exercising outside together did not extend to sharing a beverage after.
Australians were expected to behave while our government dropped the ball on supplying masks, tests, and vaccines.
The vast majority of our cases were in New South Wales and Victoria, and they accepted all the fly-ins, holding them for two weeks in a hotel quarantine system that was far from perfect. Initially, the government picked up these costs for returning citizens, but by the middle of the year, individuals would be contributing $3000 towards their stay.
In contrast, west of one-forty, we had virtually no cases and basically no restrictions. With the absence of tourists flooding the Top End, we had days in the Kimberley, Broome, Kakadu, and Arnhem Land with the place to ourselves. Some of the amazing footage the boys shot is now being repurposed for a campaign aimed at bringing international visitors back to Australia.
True to his word, Jenks looked after us when we arrived in Darwin. Having recently won his seat in the 2020 election, he was on his way, buying a stunning apartment a short distance from the Legislative Assembly in the middle of town.
We had a fantastic time with him and Julia, getting a sense of what it was like to live in Darwin: eating incredible seafood at the yacht club and the nighttime markets, enjoying the outdoor cinema at the beach. We joined in on the morning Tai Chi in the park and then ran towards the Waterfront Precinct, riding the lift down to sea level, continuing to the end of Stokes Hill Wharf. A couple of times, we stopped on the way back for a swim in the lagoon and a fruit and seed bowl for breakfast.
They took us to the water holes and waterfalls of Litchfield National Park, just an hour south of Darwin. Visiting this stunning area was one of many times I was proud to show off my country to Bella. It took a bit to assure her that the signs warning about crocs only applied in the wet season, but once she overcame her fears, we had a glorious afternoon floating in the cool running water.
Jenks even accompanied us on our boat trip to Melville Island where he personally introduced us to the Tiwi Islands people who went out of their way to welcome us. We featured the stories of one of those gentle souls in the documentary.
Jenks knew we hadn't always been received like that. We quickly learned to ask questions and look for signs that we wouldn't be tolerated and didn't hang around. It was a waste of time when Angela was able to arrange for teams checking on the health of communities to swab for her at the same time, so while we missed out on some, covid did us a favour, giving us access to more samples than we could have ever collected on our own.
Out in the sticks, people existed with so little that we always left the van at our campground or holiday park. Alice and Jane remained behind until we gauged the state of our welcome.
For those willing to give us a chance, Bella had a twofold plan to introduce us to the community. After witnessing how reluctant Aboriginals were to share stories about people, she tried a different tack, requesting our local contact to ask for favourite places they might like to talk about.
Bella had Jasper and Alec put together a promotional video—a few segments showing what they could expect from us. A drone shot would establish the feel of the place, accompanied by the words of a local describing it. When we were lucky, we also got their music.
Occasionally, someone would loosen up and recall a story about another mob who lived in the area before a fight over a woman or some other disagreement, so we sometimes got more than anticipated. We just recorded everything and sent it to Angela who loved to correlate information.
In every case, we filmed the interviewee from behind, never showing their face, and we didn't identify anyone by name. When I spoke their language, we used subtitles. Otherwise, I would record a voiceover, using a translator.
Alice came up with the idea for a graphical representation of their ancestors' journey through Australia—basically just dots on a map showing the where and not the who. It was merely a mock up since we wouldn't have that kind of information until thousands of samples had been compared to those already on file, but it definitely made people interested in getting a swab if it meant they might learn something about where they came from.
The second part happened organically. We had a portable screen and little projector to show the film, and while the boys were setting up one evening, we were cooking hot dogs for dinner, our contact having agreed to join us.
This cheeky little kid came up and asked, "You got another one of them, Mrs?"
With raised eyebrows, Bella replied, "Only if you tell me your name."
The kid smiled, sensing her chances were good. "I'm Jindy."
"I'm Bella," she said, handing over the last of the hot dogs, going without when she'd already served everyone else, so I gave Bella what was left of mine. I looked around and saw people staring and wondered if they were hungry, too.
The very next place we visited, we took extra in case it happened again, and about a dozen people came up. After that, it evolved into us asking up front if anyone would like to join us for dinner.
They were only thin sausages we'd pick up from the nearest supermarket, a bag of cut onions, hot dog rolls and a couple of tubs of coleslaw. We usually took an extra loaf or two of bread as a backup in case we ran out. On one occasion, we had to slice the sausages down the middle, but it was better than people having to go without. The smell of onions cooking certainly drew people in, just like the old sausage sizzles at our rugby games, and it was a nice bit of hospitality without it costing us much.
A couple of times, someone's relative or friend was visiting from another area and asked if we'd be passing through their community. In turn, they would promote the free meal and short film that was coming.
We spent the entire month of July in Alice Springs, disappointed that Rose and Emmett were still barred from entering the Northern Territory.
While we were there, we shot an inspirational interview with a young woman who worked for a company called Bush Balm, using traditional techniques to make balms, moisturisers, and soaps from wild harvested medicinal plants collected on Aboriginal Lands in Central Australia. They were initially produced for Indigenous patients, forced to leave their country indefinitely for dialysis treatment, as a little reminder of their home.
The Bush Balm social enterprise is an arm of Purple House, a health service that runs remote dialysis clinics and a mobile unit called the Purple Truck, as well as their "Return to Country" program, helping patients take short-term visits back home between dialysis treatments.
There were no historical stories in this interview because Bella wanted something lighter, depicting the future, bringing balance to the documentary.
Although she would never cover the subject, we had witnessed terrible sadness in people blocked from returning to country. The missions tried to combine groups with different languages and stories, but the kind of cohesive harmony they were attempting often failed. Some of these communities were wonderful successes, places of laughter, music, art, and teaching, but others held empty souls with little to do, barely surviving. Bella refused to play any part in proliferating generalisations about Aboriginal people taking handouts from the government and spending their days getting wasted, especially when alcohol was banned in most of these places.
She began to understand that living on country was necessary to appreciating Aboriginal culture. We were lucky enough to try it, taking nothing with us for three days—Alec, Bella, myself, and a guide called Manny—and Bella was amazed that we were never hungry, thirsty, cold, or uneasy. Manny was able to eloquently explain his sense of obligation to look after the land. He spoke about Aboriginal belief that a dead person's spirit returns to the Dreamtime before re-emerging as a human, animal, plant or even a rock, and this concept helped her understand why the connection to land was both physical and spiritual. While she never said anything specific, I sensed her theorising about Tanya, Serena, and reincarnation.
Bella remembered every piece of advice Angela had given her, and Manny appreciated her quiet respect when learning and following instructions. We all stayed very aware of our surroundings while searching for food, covering an enormous circle to return to the place where we started. During that trip, Bella was always smiling or in awe of something she was seeing for the first time. She found the whole experience quite mystical.
Heading south, our next base was a shared cabin at the Ayers Rock Campground at Yulara, nothing like the flash hotel we'd stayed at in 2017. I couldn't wait to take us all to a place near Uluru, called Talinguru Nyakunytjaku, where the coaches used to bring the tourists at dawn, now virtually deserted. The rock is probably a kilometre away but, because of its size, you'd swear you could reach out and touch it, feeling like an ant in a world of giants. With the boulders of Kata Tjuta alongside, just a tiny fifty kilometres away, it's a special place to see a sunrise, unchanged for millennia, watching the colours emerge through an evaporating haze.
Even though I knew Bella would appreciate these incredible places, I underestimated her joy at sharing them with her friends. We video called with Rose and Charlotte, with a deep red Uluru behind us, while cooking one of Charlotte's wonderful recipes on our barbeque. She had impressed Alec enough for him to encourage her to publish them in a book for students, travellers, or anyone with limited cooking facilities. He even offered to take the photos once he returned to Sydney.
Bella had been sending everyone images of ancient rock cliffs meeting cloudless blue skies, mirrored pools in the gorges of the West MacDonnell Ranges, distorted only by one of us floating or swimming, or the vast sense of space in the semi-flooded plains of Arnhem Land, where staying a certain distance from the water's edge could mean the difference between life or death.
She loved the boat trip on the Yellow Water billabong in Kakadu, amazed at the rich sound of congregating water birds and ducks. Uneasy with the number of crocs in the water, she did not appreciate the graphic description of the way a crocodile uses its powerful jaws to pulverise its kill. Alec and I thought our boat captain's delivery was epic, but the three Americans did not. However, we won Bella over that evening when colonies of bats, hanging like fruit in the trees, took to the sky at sunset.
Flying creatures had definitely become my wife's favourites. She was enchanted with the millions of tiny green budgies, the parakeets that swarmed everywhere in the outback. There always seemed to be cockatoos, emus, and black swans to entertain her, but I had to put my foot down over her tendency to feed kookaburras.
"But they're so beautiful," she pleaded, as if that was a suitable defence.
"They're not pets, Bella! One of them will attack Jane, and you'll be sorry."
She shrugged and walked away, not exactly happy with me, but someone had to be the bad guy. In spoiling her fun, I was protecting them from things I'd seen happen when interacting with wildlife.
On one magnificent day, we were taken up to a spot where we could watch a majestic Jabiru soar in the sky and come to land on a huge nest where its mate waited with two fat chicks. We filmed it while I interviewed a proud member of the Mirarr people, delighting Bella when he stated that the birds mate for life.
The timing wasn't quite right, but we were ready for a baby of our own. Bella had become a favourite of Jane's, taking her cues from Alice, and the child did benefit from having two like-minded women in charge. Bella and Alice often joked about ganging up on the kid, but Jane thrived under their consistency, smart enough to choose fun over tantrums. At eighteen months of age, she could play Jasper to get what she wanted, and that was a real eye-opener for me.
At the halfway mark, the travel bans in the eastern states were making planning almost impossible. After several days discussing our options with Angela, our only option was to drive 2,000 kilometres north to Queensland and get as much done as possible, knowing we may have to wind up the documentary there with no guarantee we could make our way south. It actually worked out well because the spring of 2020 was much cooler than the previous year, and the fires were minimal.
A friend from school introduced us to an isolated group out by the giant cattle stations in the west of the state, as well as the coastal communities from Cairns to the northern tip of Australia. We left Alice and Jane behind for that journey. It was wild country—rugged parched scrub, red dirt, and termite mounds—quite beautiful in its own way, really.
Jasper called Alice to say we were nearly home, and she told him to come to the pool for a big surprise. I gasped as Jane jumped in the water and went under, her parents watching but doing nothing to save her. I guess it was only seconds, but my heart was beating out of my chest when Jane turned herself around under water and came up at the edge. Alice had taken her to water awareness class every day we'd been gone, telling Jazz not to say anything in case it turned out to be a disaster, and this was such a blessing for all of us, turning our trepidation when she was around water to an activity we could all share and encourage her to enjoy.
Bella and I both fell in love with North Queensland, enjoying short breaks at Port Douglas and the crater lakes of the Atherton Tablelands where we saw a vividly coloured cassowary in the wild. We were devastated to learn that the giant birds were now classed as endangered.
After the dusty inland communities of Charters Towers and Emerald, we came back to the coast to camp right on the sand at a tiny place called 1770, apparently famous as a landing spot of Captain Cook that year. We were finally south of the Great Barrier Reef, which meant waves for the first time in ages and renting a surfboard! Most of the people staying there were fishermen who'd come in on their boats with extra they'd sell or even give away, so while I still hadn't caught and kept a fish to eat, we had fresh fish for dinner nearly every night. It was such a lazy stay, jokingly complaining about having to walk ten steps to the water, building sunset fires on the beach that did nothing to eclipse the stars in the sky. There were beer-fuelled discussions about businesses we could start which would allow us to live this kind of life permanently, but in the light of day, we knew we were only dreaming.
The Fraser Coast was incredible, too, seeing humpback whales breaching and playing in the safe waters of Hervey Bay and feeding wild dolphins at Tin Can Bay. We agreed we would come back to see more of Queensland one day, but it was more like a place to vacation than somewhere we'd consider for our home.
The birth of Cameron McCarty was a real incentive to go south when the country seemed to be on the threshold of opening up. Cammy was a four-kilo lump when he was born a week overdue to a very grumpy Rose. I still laugh when I recall Emmett admitting he'd been scared of her for months.
Regions opened and closed again when breakouts of covid occurred, usually after stupid, selfish behaviour. We had to abandon going to Sydney for Christmas when half the city was plunged into another lockdown after one such example. We were so close to getting our freedom back, and some bloody idiot would ruin it for everyone, thinking the rules didn't apply while they drove long distances, spreading the virus along the way.
It wasn't that we had plans to spend time in the big cities for the documentary, but we were all feeling the absence of family. The National Geographic people had adjusted to living that way for most of their working lives, but Mum wasn't handling it well, frustrated she still couldn't go to Melbourne and see Cammy.
Melbourne had so many drawn-out lockdowns—one of them the longest on earth—and some of the restrictions were downright cruel, but it was the first city to conquer Delta with twenty-eight "donut days" (days with zero cases).
I wanted to hug Tyler, telling him to hang in there for a little longer when his father and uncle lost everything trying to save their cafe. They welcomed the government subsidies at first, but they weren't well-known enough to survive in a deserted city where their customers couldn't travel more than five kilometres from home. Tyler felt helpless but he and Gianna were struggling to keep up with their mortgage, having had to put off starting their family. It was just awful that Emily and Randall getting pregnant had added to Tyler's depression.
Having been laid off from his job at the airport, and then from the position he took at Hertz, Garrett was currently looking for concierge work in the city hotels, or anything he could find, really, but many businesses were now operating with skeleton staff, offering half the service they delivered before.
It was the same everywhere we went—restaurants and cafes with closed signs in the window, others asking patrons to be patient due to staff shortages—people needing to work and companies unable to afford to employ them. The whole country was feeling the loss of the international backpackers who weren't able to come back.
The autumn of 2021 brought record floods to the east coast, destroying country pubs and small businesses that had been barely hanging on. Staying west of the flooding, we watched the news showing entire towns going under water. Sydney's western fringe became a monstrous lake with shipping containers and cars floating over the new bridge built high enough to withstand a hundred-year-flood. Warragamba Dam, so dangerously close to being dry in 2019, was now overflowing, adding to the flood's peak of twenty-four metres above sea level. I just couldn't imagine flood waters that deep.
Disheartened by our land and wildlife being devastated again, we received some news to lift our spirits when Angela found I had a DNA match with several people from Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory. While the information generated a tonne of theories, it suggested that what we were doing was working, and getting as many samples as possible in Cootamundra would now be a high priority.
Finally entering New South Wales, we had our first experience of living with the pandemic, and PCR tests were mandatory before we could go near any Indigenous community. Because it sometimes took days to get a result, we spent our time discussing footage and sound we'd recorded, researching the local history of the area, and approaching Aboriginal health service agencies for people who could translate.
While we got on very well as a group, Bella was always conscious of us needing space if we were to continue together until the end of the project. We all despaired over the delays caused by covid, and she declared we were taking a week off at the end of April while the days were still warm.
Alec surprised us by flying to Adelaide, offering an excuse about Angela needing him to explain certain information we'd submitted. We didn't give him a hard time because it was his week to do what he wanted, but Bella and I wondered if we'd missed them developing more than a business relationship. I was all for it because I knew he was lonely, and she was perfect as far as I was concerned.
Jasper and Alice booked a farm stay just outside the big regional town of Tamworth. They wanted Jane immersed in a world of animals, both at the farm itself and at Tamworth's Marsupial Park. Jasper had his sights set on the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Motorcycle Museum. Alice wanted Jane to see the Botanical Gardens and feed the ducks at Bicentennial Park. It sounded great for them, but we were going a different way.
While we often stayed in stunning locations, we all knew there was no money for five-star hotels, but my wife had a knack of reading reviews and finding great bargains. This time, she booked us a private cabin in the mountains with a five-star bed we didn't try too hard to leave. We took everything we needed with us, cooking over a fire pit outside and searching the night time sky for shooting stars.
A few weeks later, I knew something was up when Bella wouldn't stop staring at me. I dragged her into my lap, demanding to know her secret, and she showed me the two lines on her rapid antigen test. My reaction was one of shocked silence, thinking about where we'd been, who we might have caught it from and worse, who we might have infected. Two days earlier, we'd all tested negative before hosting forty people for dinner at a potential super-spreader.
"Are you not happy?" she asked, frowning.
I just sighed, glancing at the test again. "I guess it was bound to happen eventually."
She stood up, eyes flaring as if I'd angered her. "Bound to happen? Why did you say you were ready?"
I never said that. The conversation we had was about whether natural immunity was superior to vaccination. "We don't know how sick we're gonna get."
"We?" she questioned with an affronted tone.
"Yeah, we. We've been sleeping together, having sex."
"Isn't that how it happens?"
"Okay, but everyone's different, babe. One of us could get really sick."
"I think it's pretty clear it's the female who gets sick, Masen."
I was obviously not on the same page as my wife, and it wasn't the first time, either. "Where are you getting those stats from?"
"Stats?" She threw back at me, frustrated. "Honestly, Masen, your father is a doctor!"
"And?" I asked, completely confused.
"Never heard of morning sickness?"
Suddenly, things began to fall into place. "Are you pregnant?"
"Apparently." She held up the test in front of me, and this time I studied it properly. It look a like a normal RAT, but the label above the two lines read hCG instead of COVID-19.
"Pregnant." I let the word roll from my tongue, hearing its sound and significance. While we weren't trying to get pregnant, she'd had her implant removed, and I knew right away it must have happened during the romantic week we spent alone.
Wrapping my arms around her, I could already feel a need to protect. "The cabin." She nodded, her expression softening as a grin spread over my face. "Best news ever."
"So, you are happy?"
"Of course, I'm happy. I'm just an idiot, baby. I thought you tested positive for covid."
The instant I saw her stifle a laugh, I knew what I'd done. I'd just presented a storyteller with a perfect anecdote that would haunt me for years to come.
Xo Thanks for reading