Interactive Press
Th
e Umbilical Word
Darren Groth is a Brisbane boy transplanted to Vancouver, Canada.
He is the author of acclaimed fi ction novels MVP – Most Valuable Potential and Th
e Procrastinator. MVP – Most Valuable Potential was shortlisted in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and was selected for the prestigious ‘Books From Our Backyard: 100 Must-Read Books From Queensland’ list. Th
e Umbilical Word is his third novel.
Darren has appeared at numerous literary events including the Brisbane Writers’ Festival and the National Young Writers’ Festival. He has been a guest speaker, workshop/masterclass facilitator and writer-in-residence for literary organisations, writing groups, schools and libraries. He remains a registered Mentor with the Australian Society of Authors.
When he’s not watching Family Guy with his beautiful Canadian wife, he’s head-banging to Spiderbait with his six year old twins.
Th
e Literature Series showcases the best Australian
literary talent and is available in digital and print form.
Th
e Umbilical Word
Darren Groth
Interactive Press
Brisbane
Interactive Press
an imprint of Interactive Publications
Treetop Studio • 9 Kuhler Court
Carindale, Queensland, Australia 4152
[email protected]
www.ipoz.biz/ip/ip.htm
First published by Interactive Publications, 2008
© Darren Groth
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Printed in 12 pt Book Antiqua on 14 pt Bodini by Konway Printhouse, Kuala Lumpur.
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Author:
Groth, Darren
Title:
Th
e umbilical word
Pu b l i s h e r :
C a r i n d a l e , Q l d . : In t e r a c t i ve Pre s s , 2 0 0 8
ISBN
9781876819798 (pbk.).
Dewey Number: A823.4
To my beautiful wife Wendy, and our pair of umbilicals.
Acknowledgments
Jacket Image: Nuno Silva, “Rounded”
Jacket Design: David Reiter
Author Photos: Jessica Ng
Th
anks go to all these folk for their help, great or small, deliberate or unintended: Simon, Des, Kath, Sean, Tara Wynne, Nick Earls, Veny Armanno, Ben Elton, Th
e Milpera Manuscript Appraisers and the Wesley Hospital.
Contents
Foreword
3
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground
5
1
7
2
17
3
37
Staying Mum
47
4
49
5
65
6
77
Doctors, Dragons and Dougie Defi ance
89
7
91
8
95
9
107
10
117
Immovable
119
11
121
12
127
13
137
14
147
A Life More Ordinary
149
15
151
16
157
17
165
18
171
Letters to Limbo
173
19
175
20
185
vii
Th
e Umbilical Word
21
189
22
193
Letters To Limbo 2
195
23
197
24
205
Any Last Requests?
211
25
213
Hard Labour
225
26
227
Postscript
229
viii
Th
e Umbilical Word
Foreword
Foreword
P eople everywhere are asking me one question:
‘What’s most important in life?’
It’s a biggie, isn’t it? Huge. Traditionally, a close third on my All-Star Big Question chart, right behind ‘What happens when I die?’ and ‘Is Elvis still alive?’ Of late though, number one with a bullet. ‘What’s most important in life?’—
undisputed top of the pops.
Why is it so popular? Well, you people were living in a haze for a while there. Not everybody of course. Not even the majority. Just a notable few twisting the idea of what really matters into a funny shape. And then CRASH! BANG!
BOOM! Things that mattered didn’t matter any more. Things that meant something lost all meaning. A lot of voices I hadn’t heard from in a long time were suddenly back in my ear:
“Tell me my purpose…”
“Point us the way…”
“Whassit all about then, ay?”
Perspective had come back in a mighty big hurry. And that puts ‘What’s most important in life?’ at the head of the wish-list every time.
Okay, so what’s the answer? What is most important in life? Well, let me make you an offer you can’t refuse—a personalised response to your query! The message sent will carry my very own signature. Friends and relatives may see it as something else, perhaps dumb luck or coincidence.
Maybe even common sense. Discerning customers will recognise the truth.
3
Th
e Umbilical Word
But wait—there’s more! For a limited time only you also get this hand-crafted, beautifully fi nished, a-must-for-every-home, special little something from yours truly: A miracle!
There’s no number to call, no contract to sign and no minimum monthly payment. Simply follow me now, down, down, out of the sky and across the sea, over the once-welcoming shores of Australia and into the somnolent city of Brisbane, through suburbs struck dumb by the late January summer heat, until you reach New Farm—the chatty, chirpy child refusing to put the head down at nap time—down James Street for 150 houses, up the stairs of a compact timber house with concrete stumps underneath and a corrugated iron roof on top, and into the small living room where Adam and Madeline O’Doherty are watching a documentary of a professional tennis coach’s efforts to mould his prepubescent daughter into a rich, articulate, unbeatable superstar.
Witness their miracle and discover what’s most important in life.
Then I’ll let you know where The King’s been hiding.
4
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground 1
“C an you believe this guy? Can you believe what he’s doing to his child?”
“Lie down, babe.”
“Six hours a day on a blazing hot tennis court! No school!
No friends! Media training, for God’s sake! It’s abuse, Adam.
Plain and simple.”
“Maddy. Lie down.”
“A
nd listen to him—thinks he’s teaching his girl what it takes to be a success…come on! That peroxide he uses must have seeped through to his brain!”
Adam got up from the recliner and stood in front of his seated wife, blocking her view of the TV.
“You’re not made of glass, fella,” she said.
“No, but you are.” He placed his hands on her shoulders and eased her back down into the couch. Maddy sniffed, tugged at a loose thread on her camoufl age tank top and lifted her heels once more into the indentations on the armrest.
“I don’t have to be on my back twenty-four hours a day.”
“I know.”
“I’ve got to get up sometimes.”
“Yes. You do.”
“I wouldn’t do anything…unnecessary. I wouldn’t do anything to put our little Kiddo at risk. You know that, don’t you?”
“Babe, if there’s one thing in this life I know, it’s that.”
Adam kissed his wife’s forehead before issuing a ‘Stay…
Staaay’ command and returning to the recliner. On screen,
7
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e Umbilical Word
Tennis Dad was adamant he wouldn’t make his girl do anything unnecessary, anything that would put her at risk.
“Tell me you think this guy’s whacked,” pleaded Maddy, rolling onto her side.
“Well….”
“Oh please!”
“I think he’s pretty smart.”
“He makes Mariah Carey look like Peter Carey.”
Adam yanked the handle at the side of his chair. A moaning, groaning footrest clunked into place. “Giving kids a head start or some sort of advantage is the way to go,” he said. “I think if Dad had’ve taken me down to the courts as a nipper and hit a few million balls at me, then I wouldn’t have lost 6-2 to Kel earlier this evening.”
“Lost again, did you?”
“Yes. And all because Old Man Reg wouldn’t give up putting food on the table and keeping a roof over our heads to support my dream.”
“Tennis was never your dream.”
“He’s still a bastard.”
Maddy pushed the empty, freshly disinfected spew bucket by her side to arm’s distance away then plucked the remaining chunk of Mars bar off the coffee table. “So you think this is really about that child on the screen right now?
You think this is all really her dream?”
“Yes. I think it is.”
“You don’t think that maybe this is all about Father Peroxide. About his dream?”
“Well, let’s listen to what the girl says, hey?”
The fl axen-haired ten year-old wiped her brow with the sponsor’s wristband, fi xed her gaze and addressed the nation:
“I must stay focused, make sacrifi ces and work very hard if I am to achieve my lifelong goal of being number one in the world….”
Maddy ate the chocolate and shook her head. “Daddy Peroxide is good—I’ll give him that. Didn’t see his lips move once.”
8
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground
“That was all her.”
“Rubbish, Adam.”
“Those were her own thoughts and feelings.”
“No. No! If you can’t see this for what it is, then you’re an idiot. A hopeless, brainwashed idiot.” Maddy reached out, grasped the monstered Mars bar wrapper and held it high.
“Could you possibly get me another one of these, gorgeous handsome man?”
Adam lowered the footrest and levered himself out of the recliner. Using the instep of his right foot, he nudged the spew bucket back toward the couch then retreated for the kitchen.
*
The clock near the water purifi er read quarter-past nine.
Adam yawned then sighed. It had come to this: if not a senior citizen’s, then certainly a morning person’s concept of lateness.
As recently as November he’d been recognisable, pushing past midnight on a regular basis, adding the fi nishing touches to his breakthrough bestseller and, in the short breaks, catching snippets of the SBS nudey shift. The mornings were never pretty—a ritual of skulling coffee heart-starters and staggering through the fi rst two teaching periods of the day. But that was the lot of Adam O’Doherty, Night Person.
Firefl y by dark, dung beetle at dawn.
Eight short weeks later, the dung beetle reigned supreme.
Adam couldn’t stay conscious after ten and the mornings remained a tribute to caffeine and the automatic pilot.
It was inescapable. ‘Being a parent changes you forever,’
people told him. Well, being a pre-parent brought its fair share of change, too. Especially with a wife ordered to behave like a banana lounge.
Adam collected a Mars from the fridge (six still remained) then surveyed the sink and surrounding areas. The washing up needed doing tonight—the unstable sprawl constituted
9
Th
e Umbilical Word
every piece of crockery bar the Mexican-motif dip platter and every piece of cutlery save the fondue forks. The food scraps had to be binned and the leftover tuna salad kept for Maddy’s lunch tomorrow. The rest of the chores could wait until tomorrow, or the next day, or, in the case of the spaces behind the stove, the next tenants-
“Guy! Are you growing the cocoa beans in there?”
“I’m just looking for some spare insulin, babe!”
Adam scrutinised the chocolate bar. He gauged it was fi ve times the size of his unborn child.
“Between you and me, Marsy,” he said, “Madeline’s going to have to earn a shot at you. Fancy criticising that bloke on TV for doing everything in his power to give his daughter the world.”
“Are you talking to someone?”
“Yeah. Me. I’m a brainwashed idiot! Remember?”
“You won’t have a brain to wash if you don’t hot-foot it out here with that choccie!”
Adam mimed a forehand volley and fl ipped the kitchen light switch.
*
“You know she is number one in the world, for her age,”
served Adam, re-entering the lounge room. “She’s beating seventeen and eighteen year-olds.”
“Uh-huh. Seventeen and eighteen year-olds who had a childhood.”
Love-fi fteen. Adam tore the Mars wrapper with his teeth and spat out the plastic wedge.
“To be that good, her Dad must be doing something right.”
“Yes. It’s called exploitation.”
Love-thirty. Adam pulled the chocolate out, scrunched the wrapper into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder.
“Look at her on screen there, Maddy. Wouldn’t a child like that make you proud? Wouldn’t a child like that make you happy?”
10
Emperor Self-Actualised Goes to Ground
“Any child would make me happy, Adam. Any child at all.”
Game, set and match. Adam placed the naked new Mars on the palm of his wife’s hand, closed her fi ngers around it and returned to the recliner.
“Thank you, gorgeous handsome man.”
*
Adam stood watch outside the closed toilet door, hands in pockets, tracing the line of the fl oorboards with his sandshoe.
At the sound of the fl ush, he leapt sideways into the adjoining bathroom and scrabbled around at the sink, trying to secure his toothbrush and the toothpaste by feel alone. He held them up as Maddy’s turquoise-painted toenails came into view.
“Just cleaning my teeth. Now that the washing up’s done.
Gunna head for bed. Are…are you okay?”
Maddy splashed water on her face. “You’ve got my brush.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
She dabbed herself with a towel. “And the eczema cream.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t stand outside the loo listening to me.”
“I wasn’t…listening to you. I’m just…you know, worried.”
“Well, stop standing outside the lo
o worrying about me.
Stand somewhere else and worry about me.”
“Okay.”
“In fact, stop worrying about me. It just makes me more worried. And I’m doing enough worrying for both of us, believe me.”
“Right.”
Maddy wound her arms around her husband’s waist and laid her head against his bare chest. “You’re a typical man,
11
Th
e Umbilical Word
Adam. A would-be Sir Fix-A-Lot.”
Adam picked a sliver of Mars out of her chestnut ponytail.
“I know I can’t do anything to help. I know it’s in the lap of the gods. It’s just that…”
“What?”
“It’s just that, well…I wish we had more idea of what’s going on. You know? More information.”
Maddy pushed herself away to arm’s length. “Don’t say it, Adam.”
“Don’t say what?”
“I’m not getting a scan done, Adam.”
“Babe-”
“I’m not going to a doctor.”
“I know that---”
“I’m not going down that road again—I don’t care what you say!”
Adam held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not saying anything, Mad. Okay? Really, I’m not.”
He moved forward a step then dropped to his knees. He kissed his wife’s trembling hands for close to a minute then looked up to confi rm what he’d already seen in the mind’s eye: pallid face, shallow breaths, gaze through him, beyond him. He laid his cheek against her belly. Every time she suffered, he promised it would be the last time. He would promise again tonight.
God, I’m useless! he thought.
“I wasn’t criticising what we’re doing now,” he said.
“Dawn Marks is the best midwife around and you trust her.
That’s good enough for me, honest. I just meant…shit, I don’t know what I meant. Maybe something crazy, like the child communicating with us. Talking to us. Telling us everything’s okay. Something way out like that.”
He gave himself two theatrical slaps across the cheek then let his hands fall by his sides.
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