Chapter Twenty

March 1977
It wasn’t really necessary for us to do anything especially about the kid until around Geordie’s birthday. I had borrowed a few clothes from Anne and Maggie, but until then I wasn’t huge. Suddenly, I was huge and the impending reality of a need to make some plans and space sank in with us.

We lived by a philosophy that was similar to the old wartime ‘make it, make do, or do without’. Whenever we considered acquiring something, we asked ourselves,
1) Do we really need it?
2) Can we make it? borrow it? barter it?
3) Can we get it used? (as at a jumble sale)
So, with a list from the mothers in the Zen quilters, we sat down in the toasty kitchen one night and made a plan to suit our lifestyle and needs. Most of the stuff we eliminated – mobiles and changing tables and gizmos like walkie-talkies. We decided that the kid would need a small space for when we didn’t want it to sleep with us, so we could use a basket, such as the kind Mag and Anne hauled their wee ones to festivals in. It wouldn’t need its own bed for years, so we didn’t worry about that. Everyone said, get a baby carrier, and from what Shirley said about the kid feeling snug, it seemed like a good idea. The rest was just clothes and blankets and diapers. We got all this from Maggie and Joe, who said it was a gift and not a loan, because he had ‘gone down to the mobile spay and neuter van’. Mag’s celebration at Jack’s birth was specially because she knew he would be their last hurrah.

Midsummer 1977
At the end of the afternoon session I was sitting with Anne and Betsey in the audience having a rest. George, Joe, Maggie, Mike, Karen and Dave were playing. Mike leaned over to Joe, and they started in on 'The Banks of the Bann,’ a ‘come all ye’ and one of the band’s and our personal favourites.
As I was a-walking down by yon hill-town,
The fair and lovely mountains they did me surround;
I spied a pretty fair maid, and to me she looked grand;
She was plucking wild roses on the banks of the Bann.

So I stepped up to this fair one, and to her I did say,
"Since nature has formed us for to meet on this day --
Since nature has formed us, won't you give me your hand,
And we will walk together on the banks of the Bann."
Oh they were having a fine time, high and happy, and just then George looked out across the bow and caught my eye, with the biggest smile I have ever seen.
Now it being a summer's evening and a fine quiet place,
I knew by the blushes that appeared on her face....
We both lay down together unto a bed of sand,
And she rolled into my arms on the banks of the Bann.
"O young man, you have wronged me; won't you tell me your name,
so that when my babe is born I may give it the same?"
"My name is Willie Archer, and I'd have you understand
That my home and habitation lie close to the Bann.
"But I cannot marry you, for apprenticed I'm bound
To the spinning and the weaving in Rathisland town.
But when my time is ended, I will give you my hand
And we will be married on the banks of the Bann."

So come all you fair maidens, take warning by me:
Don't go out a-courting at one, two, or three.
Don't go out a-courting so late if you can,
Or you'll meet with Willie Archer on the banks of the Bann.

They played out the awesome riffs and ended the piece in a flourish to applause. Joe announced the break and they broke up with hugs and chat and laughter. I didn’t go up right away or pay much mind- they would be down in a moment- but sat talking with Betsey about the Zen quilters’ project, until Anne nudged me, and nodded her head. Up on the stage, George was standing with his arms crossed, squinting, listening to one of the come-heres – a barefoot blonde girl in cut off jeans and a skinny tank top. She stood in front of him, very obviously a groupie type, and to our astonishment jumped up and threw her arms around him with a sexy kiss.

Anne and Betsey and I just stared at one another. George leaped back as if he had been burned. Maggie Joe and Mike, who were winding up their cords, stopped cold, staring. With a face like thunder, George picked up his fiddle and bow from his chair, leaving the rosin bag and all, and jumped off the three-foot stage, stomping off like Thor bestride the world.
‘What the hell!’ Betsey said. I looked at her, cold and numb. I’d never heard her swear before,
The groupie stood staring as well, and was led off by Joe and handed over to her friends. By a weird prescience, I heard him say, ‘Do something with her, she’s drunk.’ He looked over at me, white faced, and off in the direction of the old amphitheatre, where George had gone.
Anne patted my arm. ‘We’ll get him, don’t worry.’
‘You don’t understand –‘ I said, childishly. ‘I have never seen him angry before. Annoyed, but not angry, not like that –‘
‘Everyone has their limits,’ Betsey said. ‘He just has a longer fuse.’ She nodded. ‘Look, Joe and Mike are going off to get him. Don’t worry.’
How to explain that I wasn’t worried about fidelity, but this aspect of him that I had never seen before, which frightened me?

Mike came back about a quarter of an hour later, and asked me if I was all right, then said that George wanted me to come to him alone – he was sitting beside the creek on a rock with his elbows on his knees, staring pensively into the water, white-faced. He looked up, stricken, and jumped up, flinging his arms around me.
'Thank God,’ he said over and over, shaking. I realised that he was crying.
‘Oh baby, darling,’ I couldn’t bear his upset. ‘Sweetheart, don’t. Oh, babe,’ I felt like a mother with a child. He moved away a little to look at me, wiped his nose.
‘I am so sorry!’ He put his hands on either side of my face. ‘I love you. I love you, I love you and only you forever. My whole heart, for my whole life,’ he swore. ‘Claire!’

I shook my head, and kissed him. ‘It was not your fault. We all saw everything. Joe said she was drunk. You didn’t encourage her,’ I smiled a little. ‘Certainly didn’t welcome it. Oh baby, don’t be upset, I can’t bear it.’ Saying it really did make me cry.
We went to sit on the rocks, he with his arm under my elbow as if I were made of glass. He hugged us, me and the kid, and rocked for a while, before he said,
‘But I did. ‘ He looked up, ‘Oh, not in the way anyone would think. But I love that song, and it always makes me think of Tintern Abbey… and we were having such fun and it felt so juicy and sexy, and I threw that out to you –‘
‘I caught it,’ I assured him.

‘I know you did! But that…blasted girl felt it too, and thought it was for her. By no provocation of mine! But there’s a belief about musicians being easy that is borne out far too often. I – maybe I’m the exception that proves the rule, but I wasn’t always! God knows, I slept around in Soho. I guess that’s why it made me so angry, because I was like that, and I don’t ever want to be again. It took me by such surprise! Maybe I over-reacted to her invading my space as she did, but I don’t feel like I did. I’m still angry. Shit.’ He looked out over the meadow beyond, shimmering in the high blue heat of summer.
‘I’m supposed to be so “enlightened” as Jimbo says, but I handled it very badly, and shouldn’t be angry. I hate feeling this way ! I thought it was over in my life.’ He looked at me sharply. ‘I used to live this way!’
‘I know,’ I murmured, covering his hands.
‘It’s a lesson to me about focus and energy,’ he said grimly, ‘that I can’t just broadcast certain feelings… and about what I am actually still capable of. It’s easy to think I’ve got it and that kind of energy – this energy, God it’s awful! – won’t happen any more.’
‘It scared me,’ I said after a little, into the silence, ‘how angry you were. Like Thor at Ragnarok.’
He smiled a little. ‘It’s nice of you to put it that way.’ He kissed my cheek. ‘I’m sorry I frightened you, baby. I frightened me too…. God, help me shake this, Claire.’ He put his head on my shoulder.
‘You can’t go around it,’ I said after a moment. It was pure inspiration. The words were not my own wisdom. ‘You must go down into the darkness and confront it, to be reborn, as a child is reborn into the world….’ The kid added its opinion to this, elbowing us.
He laughed a little. ‘Well-done, kid. God! What a funny world!’ He sobered and looked at me, his eyelashes all stuck together like a child’s. ‘Okay, down into Hades it is. Will you help me?’
I nodded.
He sighed. 'Oh, I have to let go of thinking I was done with this! Breathe with me, Claire.’

We sat for some time and meditated, the energy deepening and stilling slowly, until it seemed that we were in a vast pool of warmth, like the lake in full summer.
He kissed my temple.’ Thank you, darling. I love you.’
‘I love you too, babe.’
We went back to the festival then, walking slowly – by his instigation – hand in hand. When we got to the picnic area, Mike and Joe launched themselves off the table they were leaning against sharing a beer, and came over to us.
‘Hey, man, are you okay?’
‘Yes.’ George said. ‘I will be. We have some things to work on, but everything is okay.’

After the bonfire we went home and began a guided meditation which we did at intervals over the next two days, the result of which we discovered that this anger came from when George was very small. His mother Anne was fairly permissive, and had not forced him too much to conform to bedtimes, mealtimes, or supervision. But when he was four, an aunt – Herb’s sister- had come to visit, and didn’t like the way he was let to run wild at all. For her entire visit he was forced to comply, sometimes being tied to the chair. Herb did everything that Laney said, and Anne argued and cried but the woman was a sergeant major. Being physically forced against his will by an adult to do something had engendered a rage – that was the word George used –in him, against the world, which could force itself upon his autonomy. It was the cause of his bad attitude as a teenager, his wild life in Soho, and – on a more positive line, his turning to self-reliance and personal responsibility as a way of life. Once we had got to the incident, we worked on changing it. He said to Laney, in the present tense: ‘you can’t force me to do anything, I am a free being, whole and complete and as much a part of God as you are. You have no right to do that, and I won’t let you.’

Early the next morning, before dawn, I woke up feeling rather crampy, and knew that this was it. I just had that sense. I lay there in the blue-purple light and watched the first violet streaks of dawn seep across the sky, then deep rose – and George was awake, by habit turning and enveloping me in arms and legs.
‘Good morning, cupcake.’
I smiled at him, ‘Good morning.’ I touched his face. ‘The kid is coming today.’
He was instantly fully awake. ‘My God! You’re sure?’ he raised his head a little and looked at me. I nodded.
‘Mm hmm.’ I smiled at him.
‘Wow,’ he said, and frowned. ‘Do you need anything?’
I shook my head. I felt very dreamy. I just wanted to stay in this luscious dreamy, meditative state and be with that being I could feel in the room. I told George, ‘I can feel it, all around us, the presence.’ He stopped then, and sighed, and relaxed, snuggling with me and we both fell into a wonderful meditation.

He got up after a while, to make breakfast and feed the dog, but brought the breakfast back to bed. There we sat against the pillows, listening to the sounds of summer and getting really high and juicy from necking and petting, under the theory that 'what gets 'em in gets 'em out', as Shirley put it. About noon I started to feel really heavy with the rushes, like something had shifted, so he fished under the bed for the groundsheet we'd brought in for the purpose and put it on the bed. Not before time! The waters broke, and suddenly the baby moved down like a bowling ball down a laneway, and I heard myself making some pretty mooselike noises.
‘Oh,’ I was really uncomfortable and thought maybe it was because I was getting hung up about it.
‘Breathe with me,’ I said – and we sat together, lost in each other's eyes, breathing together in the guru meditation, sharing breaths, and both got really high and starting laughing, and there she was – the kid – coming in that golden light that was full of green shadows, slipping out like a wet kitten into her first day. We were both crying and looked in amazement at this grey-pink little stranger, and as we did, she opened her eyes and looked at us. Then yawned and mewed like a kitten and we were in love.

The afterbirth was a really sharp experience, nothing like the labour, crampy and actually painful as if I were low on electrolytes. But it was whole, and he scooped it up and moved it away from us. The kid was still attached to it. He got the scissors off the shelf that we had boiled for this day, and freed her.
‘There you are, little baby,’ he said, smiling, covering her head and back with his hand. His eyes were full of tears. ‘Welcome to the world.’

Born in the month of June, No silver spoon to help you out
Your mother had you naturally, Naturally's the way you came out
You know your own mind and you show it to me
Give me the high sign When you want to be free
And open up your eyes To the wonders that you see
See the airplane fly See the trees rush by
Be brave and strong when you hurt yourself
And don’t you have a worry in the world.

' For the love that’s been given you is the one thing time can’t erase
and every day it’s growin’ like the knowin’ smile upon your face
You’re startin’ out strong you get a kick out of life
you like to sing songs and be in the spotlight
And when everybody’s watchin’ you you shine so bright
See the airplane fly See the trees rush by
Be brave and strong when you hurt yourself
And don’t you have a worry in the world.

We sat together for a while before he got up to tidy up and I to use the pot, carrying the baby around with me. I felt very ancient, and rather grotty, as if I were squelching through the bog of time, the Palaeolithic Mother Goddess. George stripped the bed pretty quickly, and took the slop bucket out to the workshop. We intended to bury the afterbirth – not eat it! as Shirley had suggested. The linens could be boiled tonight and everything would be fresh tomorrow.
We had thought to call her Anne for his mother, but it did make me laugh – Anne Gregory!
‘"Only God my dear could love you for yourself alone, and not your yellow hair."’ I quoted in the morning, when she was all clean and fuzzy and sleepy after feeding.
He frowned. 'Eh?'
‘Yeats,’ I said. ‘He wrote that about Lady Gregory’s daughter Anne, whom he fancied.’
‘Ah,’ he thought for a moment. ‘We could call her Asgard.’ For our experience at the Midsummer festival.
I laughed, and kissed him. ‘That’s a very hippie name…. I like it!’ So she was called for the Norse heaven on earth.

George posted a notice at the co-op the next day and stopped by Maggie’s, the cafe, and the General to tell folks. Shirley came by in the evening straight from work to check me out, and asked many questions about the birth – laughing at me when I said I thought I was getting hung up at the end. ‘That’s transition, silly child! No wonder you were bellowing like a moose.’
She looked the baby over too, and marvelled at her little round head. ‘No moulding! God, you could probably have ten kids, and shoot ‘em out like grapes.’ I giggled at the image. ‘I was worried,’ she admitted, 'because Geordie’s so much bigger than you are. But I didn’t want to freak you out because everything seemed okay… I am still blown away at you guys – out here like pioneers! No help, not even any hot water, just having a baby like it was nothing.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t nothing,’ I smiled. ‘It was very holy.’
‘Yeah, it is,’ Shirley smiled. ‘Are we going to see you tomorrow? ‘ It was the quilting group meeting tomorrow. I nodded.
‘Good. I’ll pick you up. No arguments!’ She collected her things from the bed and put them back into her bag.
‘Remember what I said about nookie,’ she said at last.
I smiled. ‘I’m not a teenager. And he’s not a beast.’
‘Just doing my duty,’ She gave me a kiss. ‘Bye sweetheart. And you, little Valkyrie,’ she said to Asgard. ‘Hang loose.’