The Outstation

The golden petals draped over her belly as she laboured under the blistering sun, sweat pooling at her swaying back. Mara concentrated on the sand under her bare feet, the breeze that cooled her soaking back. She had moved in circled around this old tree countless times. A few single petals had been trodden into the path where she swayed and groaned, waiting for the midwife to arrive along the dusty track. There were no neighbours close enough to call, and the air felt thick and swollen in the midday heat. A cloud of white birds rose and fell against the sky. Mara paced in her circles, pushing petals into the sand with her feet as they fell. Bruised and golden, they looked strange and foreign against the parched, red soil. She had guided them onto a string the night before, on the cool porch in the lamplight. They'd looked paler then, almost translucent. Grown from seeds she had collected at her parents' farm down south. She'd been surprised they'd lasted out here, even under the covered porch with the automatic drip watering system.

Mara bent low with the next contraction, knees scraping the hot sand. She swore and gripped the garland around her neck, smelling the heady sweetness of crushed petals. Her head jerked up as the sound of tyres came along the stony track to the outstation. She knew the sound of the midwife's truck and her body instantly relaxed. Nell had brought the cattle dogs too. They came first, racing past the house into the cow paddock behind the shed. Mara couldn't speak, if she opened her mouth, this baby would come. Nell's truck rounded the riverbed, a swell of dust following. She cut the engine and swung out of the car, grinning. 'I bet this one's about half out by now, hey?'. Mara didn't look up, concentrating hard on the movements inside her body. She made it to the porch, leaning against the flaking posts. Nell was busy inside with tea, there wasn't time. Mara needed Nell's face in front of hers so that this baby could be born. Nell emerged with a steaming cup of tea and a pair of long rubber gloves. ''Bout time we had a baby around here, Mara'. Mara couldn't hold her body tight any longer, she leaned into the cane armchair that had been at the outstation when she had arrived. Her body had taken over now, there was no stopping this baby from coming. In a flash, Nell was at her feet, guiding the slippery body a newborn into a warm towel. The sun beat through the Perspex roof onto the little body and it cried, a welcome sound. Mara lay in the chair, drowsy and dusty. The baby pushed the garland out of its way as it crawled hungrily up Mara's body. 'Marigold' Mara mused. The name suited her. She pulled the flowers from her neck and hung them over the chair arm. They would dry there and she would smile at them over the years.

Nell set up camp in the yard, dogs tied to the tent pole, a cooking fire smouldering. Birds came to pick at the discarded tea leaves, waking the sleeping dogs in the mid-afternoon. Marigold slept and woke and fed and slept. Nell made tea, and Mara slept and cried and ate and slept. After four days, Nell and the dogs left, up the dusty road again. Mara watched their brown plume until it dissipated. It was just Mara and Marigold now. And the empty sky and the hot sand and the quiet outstation.