Michelle, heels hooked into the bar at ground level, slid down the mat of the now-tilted trampoline into a squat position just above the springs. She patted her brother’s shin.
“The race. The one about who would live the dream fi rst.”
“I don’t think it’s all over yet.”
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“Oh, I think it might be. Barring some miracle with the second round of exam results, I’ve got to wait another year to get into med. And your agent is, in Chris’ estimation, a
‘bee’s boner’ away from a big deal. Is that accurate?”
Adam checked his watch. This was dangerous territory.
He should’ve been home by now, and venturing into the writer’s realm—a place where time and responsibility fell off the map, a domain in which a bed-resting wife could be forsaken for a national book tour fantasy—had very real implications for his ongoing personal safety. Added to that was the still-present risk of pregnancy disclosure. For all intents and purposes the subject was closed, but it wasn’t beyond the former state level Debating representative by his side to have one last salvo left in her armoury.
“Let’s say a very well hung bee,” he replied. “A porn star bee.”
Michelle laughed and plucked a bobble nut off the grass.
“That’s great, Ad. Really. We’re all really proud of you.”
“The folks, too, you reckon.”
“Of course! Why on earth wouldn’t they be?”
Adam waited for a cawing crow in the nearby camphor laurel tree to settle. “I think they’d rather see me stay a teacher.
You know, blue chip public servant. Forty hours for forty weeks for forty years. Stability. Security. Superannuation.
Worked for them, so why would you want anything different?
That’s what they’re about. Especially Dad.”
“I think you’re being a bit harsh,” contended Michelle, lobbing the nut toward a red, knobbly food ball that Woody thought insulting next to the barbecue and its rissoles from heaven. “They’ve always been supportive, haven’t they?”
“Outwardly, yes.”
“Reg even read your novel! The last book he read before that was Wally Lewis’ biography!”
Adam waved his hands. “I can’t fault them for anything they say or do, Shell. But my impression is that, in their heart of hearts, they don’t want me to become a writer.”
“Bro, they know it’s been your dream since grade seven
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to write stories. Why wouldn’t they want that to come true for you?”
“I think they’re afraid.”
“Of what? That you won’t be able to provide for their grandkids?”
Adam glanced left then right. Make Sure Maddy was nowhere to be seen. He wasn’t buying it. She was probably tucked in behind the tilted tramp, baseball bat in hand.
“I think they’re afraid I won’t provide grandkids, Shell . I think they imagine there’s no place for kids in a writer’s life.”
“Well, you don’t believe that yourself, do you.”
“No.”
“So later on when you’ve got the kids and the career, when you’ve turned your dream into a cashed-up, successful reality and they’re out showing their baby spew medals of honour, they’ll realise that you, like Oprah and Brad and Ange and James Packer and Maxine McKew and Microsoft and most of the supermodels, can truly, ruly have it all.”
Michelle grabbed her brother’s hand, raised it to the sky and launched into a tone deaf Freddie Mercury impression:
“You are a champion…YOU are a champion…no time for teaching…‘cos you are a champion….”
The corgi next door howled his approval, prompting guttural rebukes from both male and female voices within the house. The contrary pooch waddled over to an abandoned tricycle.
“Too bad he can’t fulfi l the folks’ wishes,” conceded Shell, noting the corgi’s customary interaction. She shouted in the direction of the barbecue area—”James, honey! I’ve been inspired! Take me home, darling!”—then clapped her hands.
As she ducked her head under the outer wire of the clothesline, Adam called after her:
“I want to tell you something…before you go.”
“What?”
“Something you should know.”
He motioned for her to rejoin him at the trampoline.
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When she arrived, he cupped his hands around her ear.
“We’re both going to win the race,” he whispered.
The two eldest children of Reginald and Eileen O’Doherty embraced then sprinted for the glory of being fi rst to release the bolted back gate.
*
Maddy accepted the glass of water offered by her husband then thumbed the stereo remote. Diana Ah Naid’s ‘I Go Off’
leapt out of the speakers.
“So they believed I was sick.”
“Yes.”
“What did you say I had?”
“Hypochondria.”
Maddy took a sip and nodded. “Good choice.” She observed a gecko scuttle across the far cornice of the living room. “Was the pressure on?”
“No more than usual.”
“Really? With the birthday and everything?”
Adam laid a basket of wrinkled clothes at the foot of the ironing board and scrutinised the appliance for an ‘On’
switch. “Alright, maybe a bit more than usual. I was asked twice if you were pregnant.”
“Hey?”
“I was asked twice if you were-”
“You mean directly?”
“Yes.”
“‘Is Maddy pregnant?’”
“Michelle’s words exactly. Kel spoke in ‘Kellinese’, but the implication was the same.”
“And you gave nothing away, fella?”
“Nothing.”
“No hints?”
“Nada.”
Maddy dabbed some water on her forehead and neck.
“But you wanted to tell, didn’t you.”
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“With every fi bre of my being.”
“Well then how did you avoid giving it away?”
“Easy,” replied Adam, temporarily abandoning his ironing post for a position beside the couch. The opening ‘two-knee kneel’ of the new week ensued. “I had you there.”
“What, my evil twin?”
“Something like that.”
The stereo hummed and whirred as the shuffl e command scoured the CDs for its next song—Alex Lloyd’s ‘Black the Sun’. Adam kissed Maddy on both eyes, shook hands with Make Sure Maddy (she was semi-conscious and stretched out in the recliner) and returned to his fi nal chore of the evening. ‘Black the Sun’ ambled through the room’s recesses then gave way to the still life echoes of Massive Attack’s
‘Teardrop’.
“Thank you, gorgeous handsome man.”
“I wouldn’t be too hasty,” replied Adam, examining the crease that had materialised in a pair of 501’s.
Maddy smiled. She lifted her shirt, exposing her midriff.
“You know what, Kiddo? I think you should be the solution to this ‘tell or not to tell’ situation. Next time you’re around Daddy’s family, try to reveal yourself to them. Sing. Shout out to them. Communicate with morse code. Anything short of a John Hurt, Alien-type excursion through Mummy’s sternum.”
She cupped her ear with her right hand, her navel with the left.
“Any suggestions from you, Dad?”
*
Adam yawned as he sat down at the computer.
I really should be in bed, he thought.
The seven hours of night-time remaining promised disturbance. Maddy was dead to the world right now; later she would toss and turn like a leaf in a September westerly.
She would grind her teeth. She would yell things in her sleep
.
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She might cry. In the waking hours, and on the short drive to Dawn Marks’ home clinic for the check-up, her worst imaginings would’ve dulled. But there would be nothing approaching optimism. The best that could be hoped for was relief, and that would only arrive in the late afternoon, after every last suspicion had been rounded up and arrested.
Adam scrolled down ‘The Umbilical Word’. He was surprised to fi nd the correspondence now stretched to twenty pages. The Ordinary Man’s Enemy had never moved as quickly as this. At the bottom was a cut-and-pasted reply to his most recent entry. He smiled, pulled his shoulders back and edged the ergonomic chair closer to the desk.
“Purge, Mad,” he whispered. “You’re in good hands.”
*
From: “Tin Lid”
Dad
How come you’re not supposed to tell anyone about me?
I asked The Chief if it was one of those ‘vow of silence’ things. Sort of was the reply. Whatever!
Can you be a bit more helpful?
B
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5
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
B
Why are we not supposed to tell people about you yet? Good question. Not the standard child-to-father poser like ‘Why is the sky blue?’ or ‘Why isn’t there a black Wiggle’ or ‘Why are you lying on top of Mummy like that?’ At the outset, let me make this clear—we’re certainly not ashamed of you or embarrassed by your presence on the scene. You are not an accident. You are not the product of a night on the booze or a forgotten pill or an inadequate piece of latex (mark down these concepts in your 2020 diary). You are very, VERY much planned and very, VERY much wanted. And, in a sense, that’s the reason why Mum is not the word. Your mother won’t hear of any ‘baby discussion’ until the fi rst twelve weeks has been safely negotiated. Were it possible, I believe she would delay acknowledgement of the pregnancy until you were physically in her arms.
This is not to say there is no voice at all in her. Without the plague of the past—‘History’ as we refer to it—she would be shouting your name from the rooftops. Silence, though, is safer, without additional complication. No one on this earth could begrudge your mother silence, B, least of all myself….
*
Dawn Marks removed the fetal heart monitor from Maddy’s girth and laughed.
“You really should stay off the Horlicks!”
Maddy pulled her shirt down and lifted her knees. The examination table holding her weight gave a tiny creak. “It’s not good, is it?”
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The midwife placed her diary on an ornate wall-shelf stacked with birthing brochures. She returned to the table, took up Maddy’s hand, gave it a pat.
“Sometimes they do aerobics and sometimes they watch TV.”
“Not throwing up isn’t good at this stage either. And that’s happened…hasn’t it, Adam. Adam?”
He was reading a recent addition to the clinic corkboard—a quote from the ancient Greek physician, Soranus, addressing the question ‘What persons are fi t to become midwives?’:
“… A suitable person will be literate, with her wits about her, possessed of a good memory, loving work, respectable and not unduly handicapped as regards her senses, sound of limb, robust, and, according to some people endowed with long slim fi ngers and short nails at her fi ngertips.”
Nothing about an ‘All Blacks Forever’ tattoo on the shoulder blade. Or sequinned Doc Martens on the feet. Or a pair of quick-blinking, goggly eyes. Adam was not at all surprised at Maddy’s admission of fi nding comfort in those eyes. Eyes like that, she argued, wouldn’t miss a thing.
“I’m sure everything’s okay, Mad.”
“The key thing right now is size and heartbeat,” assured Dawn. “And your little poppet gets a big tick in both boxes.”
Maddy took a deep breath and studied the print of Van Gogh’s ‘Irises’ on the opposite wall. “So you don’t think I’m doing too much then.”
“You’re being very good.”
“I could try to do less. Maybe I could hang on a little longer before going to the toilet. And Adam could try and do all my meals the night before. Right, fella?”
“Yeah.” Adam moved toward his wife, fortifying the shaky conviction in his voice along the way. “Yes, yes, I could. I probably should be doing that already.”
Dawn smiled. She extended her arms and drew the couple into a tight, slightly bent over scrum. “Listen, you guys. I’m not surprised to hear you saying these things. Given what’s
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happened to you in the past…you’ve got every right to feel…
well, concerned. But let me tell you this—you don’t have to feel guilty about what you’re doing or not doing. Really.
From what you’ve told me, it’s clear to me you’re both doing a wonderful job. And the proof’s in the results today.”
The midwife released the huddle, plucked a stamp off the shelf and deposited a smiley-face on the right hand of both patient and partner.
“Find something else to feel guilty about!”
*
Adam licked his thumb and rubbed away at the stamp.
The smiley-face, now four days old, remained smearless, smudgeless, assuredly uncorrupted.
“I’ll fi x you later, you little bastard,” he mumbled. “I’ve got sandpaper in my desk.”
He hid the offending hand under the staffroom table, bowed his head and tried, for the hundredth time in the last fi ve minutes, to swallow the large, free-range, grain-fed, prime-cut fi llet of guilt lodged in his throat. All around him, Carsmair colleagues sought to prolong the struggle by patting him on the back.
They were to blame:
“So is Elizabeth Hurley the new Blessed Virgin or something?”
“Breast feeding over formula? Huh! Wait till they get teeth!”
“Dressing a small child is like stuffi ng an octopus inside a string bag…agree?”What manner of pre-bell, morning bloody coffee talk was that? It was an ambush, no less. No
“Did you see those anti-war rallies?’, or ‘What a great episode of ‘The Bill’ last night!’, or ‘How come the selectors don’t like Steve Waugh any more?’. None of that harmless fare.
Just…unmentionables. Consequently, what recourse could a man in the line of fi re have but to abandon his mischievous, perhaps malicious peers, walk to the staff whiteboard, pick up a pen, and write ‘MADDY’S PREGNANT!’ in bold green,
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non-permanent strokes? They were responsible. Them and Make Sure Maddy. Stress leave or no stress leave, she should have been on hand.
The problem now was damage control. Work had suffered a core meltdown and leaks required containment. Verbal congratulations could be kept within house. The inevitable card and fl owers could be stashed away in the garage.
Second-hand baby items would be stockpiled in the car boot until-
“Well, we certainly have something to talk about this evening, don’t we?”
Adam lifted his head off the table. Halfway toward registering Jenna’s fl
ushed and frantic features, he
reconnected with the awful truth:
Dinner.
The Grimsons.
Their place.
With Maddy.
TONIGHT!
“I think I have to go ring your lovely wife right this very minute!”
Adam clutched his friend’s blouse before a single departing stride was complete. “Don’t…please don’t.”
“Why on Earth not?”
“It’s…it’s supposed to be a secret. Maddy doesn’t want people to know right now. It’s important to her
that people don’t know right now.”
“Well then why the hell did you just make a neon sign out of it?”
“I couldn’t help it! The whole table was going on about babies. And Make Sure Maddy wasn’t keeping me in line.”
“Make…Sure…Maddy?”
“And, really, isn’t getting a pregnancy out in the open better anyway? Creates positive, healthy energy and all that?”
Jenna lifted Adam’s hand from her elbow and eased it onto the table. She sat in the nearest chair and stroked the
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appendage like it was a fl ighty pet.
“You told because you’re an idiot, didn’t you?”
“Positive energy, Jay-”
“Didn’t you?”
“Yes, I’m an idiot.”
Jenna surveyed the room. The buzz surged with each new arrival, each new insider on the scene. “You’d better tell everyone.”
Adam shook his head. “Not necessary. Only one person needs to know. One person at risk of blowing everything wide open.”
Jenna surveyed the room a second time. Unsure of the designated target, she looked back toward Adam. He did a double-take.
“Me?”
“You, Sweetheart.”
“Me!”
“You!”
“You think I’m the risk?”
“You’re the only one who talks about their personal hygiene on a regular basis.”
“That’s just making conversation.”
“You’re the only one who would go and ring Maddy this instant. And you’re the only one we’re having dinner with tonight.”
“What about Boyd?”
“I think he can keep a secret.”
“So can I!”
“Are you sure?”
Jenna folded her arms and tilted her head side to side, stretching her neck. “Quite the irony, Mr Writer. You casting aspersions on my ability to keep a secret.”
Adam released the handshake of the morning cleaner—
”Knocked one through the covers, ay? On ya, son…”—and knelt, single knee, beside his closest teaching buddy.
“Jay, I’m sorry. You’re spot on—I have no right to be hassling you given my stuff-up. Forgive me. I know you’ll stay mum tonight.”
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Jenna held out for a brief moment, smiled, then ended the sad grovel with an ‘Eat carpet!’ shove.
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