Chapter Eighteen

March and April 1975
In the middle of March, Maggie was due to have her baby any time. When I saw her on Tuesday at the quilters' meeting she was complaining of a backache and aching joints. She stayed home from the Friday jam, so I wasn't entirely surprised when on Saturday morning Joe poked his head into the workshop, where we were – Geordie working on a recorder and I on a glass panel for the community centre. It was nice and toasty there because of the kiln.
'Howdy, good morning to y'all,' he said. He ruffed up his shoulders in his sheepskin coat.
'Joe!'
He stomped his feet on the flagstone threshold, and stepped inside.
'I'm here to fetch Claire,' he nodded. 'Maggie's having her baby and all the womenfolk are coming in by bus.' He smiled ruefully.' She asked me to fetch you.'
'I'll come. Just a moment.' I got up and pulled my work apron off over my head.
'Tribalism,' George smiled, as I put away my tools.
'Shoot!' Joe said in his long slow way. 'I have never heard so much giggling and crying in all my born days. And there's panties I have never seen before hanging in my bathroom. I thought I'd walked into a harem. When I left they were all running out for the sauna like a bunch of goslings following the goose.'
He looked at me, 'I'll fetch you up there, but I'm keeping well out it. I like women, but a couple of dozen is too many. I'm going down to the Feed and Seed and set out with the guys, until it all blows over.'
I took my coat down from the nail.
'You're not invested in seeing it born then?' I pulled my hair out from underneath the coat and scrunched down my knitted cap.
'I have birthed most of 'em myself,' Joe said. 'Three, no four of 'em. Mag can have her hen party if she wants to.'
It was hard not to laugh at his lovely complacency, at his pure Cracker sensibility.
'Right,' I said. I went and kissed Geordie's cheek. He was merry.
'Have a good time, cupcake.'
'I will, and I won't bring back the wrong panties.'
He laughed, because I didn't wear them.

Joe, true to his word, let me out at the drive and went off for town. I crunched up through the snow and ice to the house. Maggie's mother was in the kitchen with Mark and Zachary, making play dough in a big red bowl.
'They're all out in the sauna yet,' Martha said. nodding. She was a tall, large soft woman, with salt and pepper hair cut short in an Ava Gardner style. 'Where's that Joe?'
I smiled. 'He fled to play chess at the feed store. Hi guys,' I said to the boys.
'Hi Claire! We're making play dough with mammaw!' Zachary said.
'I have green,' said Mark solemnly.
In the common room, Ezra was lying on the floor building a tower with Lincoln logs, amid the heaps and piles of everyone's stuff. I put down my rucksack, went down the hall, grabbed a towel from the shelf, and went into the bathroom. It was indeed festooned with various bits of underwear. I put up my hair and came out in the towel.
'Have fun,' I said to the boys.
It was very cold outdoors, and the footpath was icy and hard to navigate in flip-flops. There were squeals when I opened the sauna door. Maggie sat the middle of a group of about eighteen women; her two daughters Elizabeth and Abigail, her four sisters, our friends, and some of her old college chums.
'Claire!' She cried, rolling sweat.' Come on in girl, and close the door.'
I went, and sat on the floor in front of Shirley, who was sitting next to her.
We hung out there for some time, talking about men and babies and boyfriends past, recipes for coffee cake, and how to get the stains out of collars. Maggie and Shirley told her birth story of Joshua, her knee-baby as she called him - who was three, how he was nearly born in the wading pool at the Midsummer festival because he was such a 'little squirt', which made everyone laugh. As it was, Mag simply went over to their tent, pulled down the zip and had the baby.
'It surprised the heck out of the kids.' She said.

It was lunchtime then and Maggie's little girls led us all inside because they were hungry. We took up every room in the house, getting back into our clothes, and by the time we were done, Shirley had set up her kit in the bedroom and Maggie's sister Joan cleared out the loo of panties and ran a bath in the tub. It had Jacuzzi jets, and Mag was feeling pretty heavy.
'Don't you have this baby in the tub,' Shirley told her, 'My back can't stand hunkering down like that,' But she was smiling. It was an old joke between them.
She didn't have it in the tub. Along about teatime Maggie had set up a low mooing chant and was rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. Martha called the kids in from their rooms, and they watched their brother's little head and arms slip out, 'just like a horse!' as Ezra exclaimed. John was born amid a lot of crying and laughing, and pretty soon, Maggie was asking for something to eat because she was starving. It was a very good time. John's birth was special, not only for the common feeling between us women, but because, a long time afterward, he married our Sassa at Midsummer. They called him John because as Joe said with his ironic smile, he was the unexpected child of their old age. But nobody ever called him John; he was forever Jack, and as gentle and lovely a soul as you could hope to meet.

By March, all the chat in town was about the unimpeded rush of North Vietnamese forces into the strongholds of South Vietnam. The view of most was that it would have happened long ago had the French, British and Americans not interfered. We were in the general on the 30th and everyone was listening to a radio report, which ran, ‘A Saigon Government spokesman said today that radio contact with the encircled northern South Vietnamese port of Da Nang has been lost, indicating that the city has fallen… One observer, calling from a ship, informed us “all we can see is wall-to-wall people along the shore."’

We were standing at the counter with James, listening as the report went on and on. Jimbo just got more and more grim, and crossed his arms at last.
‘We never should have been there,’ he said. ‘We added to the problems. Man, this is going to get ugly.’
He was right. The scene was repeated a month later, when Saigon fell. ‘Panic is clearly visible in Saigon now as thousands of Vietnamese try desperately to find ways to flee their country. There are few exits left, and most involve knowing or working for Americans. United States Air Force C-141 jet transports took off all day and night from the Tan Son Nhut air base, the lucky passengers heading for Clark Air Base in the Philippines or for Andersen Air Force Base on Guam–‘ the report ran ‘ Others, not so lucky, rushed to drug stores to buy quantities of sleeping pills and tranquilizers, with which they could commit suicide if the worst came to pass. Still others, trying to get a seat aboard one of the planes, offered everything they had…. With American fighter planes flying cover and marines standing guard on the ground, Americans left Saigon yesterday by helicopter after fighting off throngs of Vietnamese civilians who tried to go along… large groups of Vietnamese clawed their way up the 10-foot wall of the embassy compound in desperate attempts to escape approaching Communist troops. United States marines and civilians used pistol and rifle butts to dislodge them…The American involvement here has ended in tumultuous scenes at both airport and embassy. Marines in battle gear have pushed all the people they could reach off the wall, but the crush of people was so great that scores got over. Some tried to jump the wall and landed on barbed wire strung along the top. Earlier today we saw a middle-aged man and a woman lying on the wire, bleeding. People held up their children, asking Americans to take them over the fence….’
I looked at Geordie. He was white-faced, and looked sick. His eyes filled with tears. ‘My God, I can’t listen to any more of this! Let’s get out of here!’

We had a peace and prayer vigil that night on the green, with everyone in the whole town out, praying and chanting by candlelight in the bright light of the moon, and singing ‘Give Peace a Chance.’
’Ev'rybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism,
Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, That-ism, is-m, is-m, is-m
All we are saying is give piece a chance,
All we are saying is give piece a chance

’Ev'rybody's talking about ministers,
Sinister, Banisters
And canisters, Bishops, Fishops,
Rabbis, and Pop eyes, Bye, bye, bye byes
All we are saying is give peace a chance,
All we are saying is give peace a chance

’’Ev'rybody's talking about
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary,
Tommy Smothers, Bobby Dylan,
Tommy Copper, Derek Taylor, Norman Mailer,
Allen Ginsberg, Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna
‘All we are saying is give peace a chance,
all we are saying is give peace a chance’