“Shell’s been accepted into Medicine, Mad. She’s not pregnant.”
“She is!”
“She isn’t!”
“She is!”
“Babe, they weren’t even trying!”
“You said they’d discussed it.”
“Yes, I did. And one thing I’ve learned in the past six years is that it takes a lot more than just discussion to make a baby. If it took discussion alone, we’d have enough kids to make the Hilton our family home.”
“You also told me she said there was ‘no right time’, and that their ‘time’ could be within the year. She said that, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Their time might be now!”
“It wouldn’t happen this quick, surely.”
“Adam, not everyone has to go through what we’ve experienced.”
Adam stretched his arms toward the beam above—
the same structure supporting the foot of the suspended hammock at his midriff. He then resumed his consideration of Maddy, semi-reclined, left leg fl opped over the side, swinging gently in the nylon weave. She had a case. Grandchildren, and the lack thereof, had inexplicably vanished from the conversational radar today. Plenty of talk about Uncle Trev’s motorised cart exploits, and whether the government had
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made Australia more of a target for terrorism, and the sights, sounds and, yes, smells of the caravan sales yards. Reg had even dusted off a long forgotten heirloom—the story of how he lost his sunglasses kissing the Blarney Stone. But concerning the next generation of O’Dohertys? Not a peep from either parent. And that was a continental shift to shake the very axis of the world.
There had to be some sort of logical explanation, enrolment in ‘Desperate Oldies Anonymous’ or the like.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it?” said Maddy, correctly appraising her husband’s faraway look and drumming fi ngers.
Adam gave a non-committal shrug. “I just hope it’s, you know, getting into Med.”
“You ‘hope’ for that? Why would you ‘hope’ for that? Are you against having a little niece or nephew?”
“Of course not.”
“Is this a sibling rivalry thing?”
“Jesus, Maddy. Give me a little bit of credit.”
“So why ‘hope’ it’s not a pregnancy? It’s all rather…oh.
Oh-oh-oh.” Maddy clicked her fi ngers. “Medicine is something she’s had to work for. It’s something that didn’t come easy.”
“It’s her dream.”
“And she’s earned it…right?”
“Bloody oath.”
“And that’s the way it should be with dreams?”
“Well, I would have loved my fi rst two stories being published and hitting the big time…but, yeah, I guess if it comes too easy you don’t appreciate it enough.”
“Hence, you would prefer it if she wasn’t pregnant. She hasn’t paid her dues on that one yet.”
Adam brought his hands down from the overhead beam and stilled the hammock. He lowered both knees onto the polished hardwood deck.
“Wouldn’t it upset you if it happened just like that? I mean, when you worked on the phones at Centrelink…those teenage mums….”
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His voice trailed away. Those teenage mums. Those gum-chewing, talking-on-the-mobile, sometimes swearing, always defl ating, callow, constant teenage mums. They hadn’t even appreciated the government handouts, let alone the lives so easily and immediately brought into being within them.
Michelle O’Doherty was a world apart from those teenage mums and Maddy told him so.
“I don’t know,” conceded Adam, “Maybe it’s neither of these things. Maybe they bought another grand-dog.”
“Guys!”
The couple paused. Eileen stood at the threshold of the deck, eyes dancing behind her half-moon reading glasses, right fi st raised to her ear.
“Phone!”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
I brought ‘The Umbilical Word’ on disk with me and have snuck away to the folks’ state-of-the-art, Pentium 4, two thousand dollar ‘Hearts’
game to bring you this update.
If you haven’t already worked out the goings-on of the last hour, little B, if the shouting and the cork-popping and the crying and the continuous loop of Guns ‘n Roses hasn’t afforded you enough clues, then here’s a brief summary of this afternoon’s events: Michelle rings about one o’clock…
*
“Hello?”
“Brud! It’s Shell. How goes it?”
“Fine. How goes it with you?”
“Not sure. I’m totally overwhelmed at the moment.”
Adam observed the expectant crew standing by. Maddy and Eileen were seated on the sofa, unblinking, arms linked.
Chris commenced an index fi nger drum roll on the adjacent
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bar stool. Woody lay on the terracotta tile fl oor, ears pricked for the fi rst signs of release from the wound-up energy surrounding. Reg was inexplicably absent, yet his presence remained keen, courtesy of the moment’s musical score: Herb Alpert’s ‘Tijuana Taxi’.
“Overwhelmed, Shell? I would’ve thought something like ‘blessed’ or ‘lucky bastard’.”
A pause. “Do…you know?”
Adam attempted to smooth a folded pocket on his cargo shorts. “Pretty much.”
A squeal plumed out of the receiver. “Can you believe it!
God, I can’t! I was convinced I’d have to wait, you know? I was sure it wouldn’t happen right now, but…God! No doubt it’s going to be hard work, but it’ll be a labour of love, hey?
Sorry about the bad pun. God! Babies…motherhood is such a precious gift, Ad!”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…her voice has an almost helium quality about it and her machine gun sentences fi re off round after round of incredulity. I must confess—I’m annoyed. She doesn’t know the fi rst thing about waiting. She doesn’t know the fi rst thing about any of this! She never had her body betray her in unfathomable ways. She never got down on her knees and prayed with white-knuckled, shaking hands. She never cursed The Almighty with every epithet known to woman.
She never had a husband writing lists of reasons why she wasn’t a failure. She never endured anything remotely resembling History.
‘Motherhood is precious’—my sister has no concept, no clue. And as far as a ‘gift’ is concerned, not everyone gets it for nothing...
*
“Yeah, that’s great. Super. So, when do you deliver?”
“Sorry?”
“When will you be bringing a new life into the world?”
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Michelle mumbles some calculations then laughs.
“Probably not for a good ten years.”
“Yeah, that’s super…hey?”
“Not until I’m qualifi ed.”
“What!”
“I could probably assist on a few before then.”
“Assist…assist…because you got into…and obstetrics is…”
“Why are you so interested in the delivery stuff? Is your Magic Maddy pregnant after all? Brud?”
Adam looked again to the nervous spectators and discovered Reg returning to the fold. He was wearing a surgical mask.
“Adam?”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…I remove my palm from the receiver and hold the phone at arm’s length, out in front of my face…
*
“Mum, Dad, Shelley, anyb
ody else who cares to know…
Maddy’s pregnant. We’re going to have a baby.”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…That was at twenty-past one. With the exception of a hyperventilating Reg requiring a paper bag and Chris’ selection of
‘Sweet Child Of Mine’ as the celebratory tune, the ensuing forty minutes has been all good.
I’m exhausted, a little light-headed from the champagne, but happy.
You’re thirteen weeks old, B. Your presence has been acknowledged.
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Staying Mum
Your coming is assured. All is healthy in our world and this is just the beginning.
Talk to you soon.
love Dad
p.s. Listen up for a phone call to Canada! I don’t think Maddy can wait any longer than twelve hours to ring them!
*
From: “Tin Lid”
Yeah, Mum can’t wait alright. She’s rung her fam a lot since you went back to school. So much in fact that the big news won’t be much of a surprise. The Top Toga here says the constant contact had them thinking there was either a divorce or a pregnancy in the wind. Apparently, they’ve now ruled out the fi rst…although that might change with the next phone bill, hey?
Hope you’re not too bummed. Mum promised me she’d lay off the hot salsa bean dip if I kept it all hush-hush.
Any of that champagne left?
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Doctors, Dragons and Dougie Defi ance 7
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
When you turn eighteen and are legally permitted to wet the neck a few times, drink champagne by all means, but stay right away from Reginald Harris O’Doherty’s ‘Bitter Reg’ home-brewed beer. Grandad’s grog has a number of nasty day-after side effects: hairy tongue, burning throat, curious buzzing in the left ear. A second drink of the stuff produces much worse. Did you hear him offer Mum a glass? She declined. Said she’d like to remain conscious for remainder of the pregnancy.
Not surprising then that after six or so BRs school has been something of a haze so far today. It didn’t stop me telling about the telling at lunchtime. ‘Dad-to-be’ Boyd couldn’t contain his delight.
*
“Thank Christ for that! It’s like I’ve had to wear this really ugly tie for the last few days and…oh, sorry. Hey, it looks really good on you though, O’Doherty. Doesn’t it, Jen?”
Jenna Grimson, chewing the plastic lid of a ball-point in preference to her Caesar salad lunch, shook her head and spoke out of the side of her mouth.
“How am I going to tell Maddy I’m not…you know…like you guys, like her? It’s so embarrassing.”
Adam laid a hand on his friend’s arm. “With everything out in the open she really won’t mind. She’ll understand the intent behind the fi b.”
“Do you know where I can get my hands on one of those fake bellies?”
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“Sweetheart, Maddy really won’t mind and she’ll understand the intent behind the fi b.”
Jenna bounced an index fi nger along the student teachers’
revised banner—‘WONDERFUL NEWS…WE HAD NO
CLUES!!!’—presented to Adam before fi rst bell and now laid out on the lunch table. She gave the gnarled plastic cap to her husband and put her face in her hands.
“I just gotta fi nd the right moment,” she mumbled.
“Please fi nd it soon, precious,” pleaded Boyd.
Adam smiled and commenced rolling the banner into a cylinder.
*
Maddy smiled at the pleasant, perspiring Mormon pair standing at the threshold of the front door. In the missionaries’
hands were fans of brochures—‘The Nature of God’, ‘The Purpose of Life’, ‘The Importance of Family’, ‘Together Forever’….
“Oscar, Delroy, all I can say is it’s a shame.”
The Mormons glanced sideways at each other. Responses like this carried weight. They could be the preface to an attack—verbal, physical, canine or otherwise. Sure, this woman seemed friendly enough, indeed appeared quite receptive to all the many bounties offered by the Heavenly Father. But more than one experience had shown ‘friendly and receptive’ to be concealing a mean streak and an even meaner rottweiler.
“It is a shame,” continued Maddy, “because you should’ve been here last week. I would’ve given you an ear. Hell, you might’ve even converted me! You see I’m on Modifi ed Bed Rest. I’m on it because we’re trying to ensure…you don’t need to know the details. But anyway, last week was pretty hard. I felt like I was…” she noted the missionaries’ stack hats, “…riding up a steep hill in the wrong gear.”
Oscar, Caucasian and wiry, cocked his head to the left, indicating his gilt-edged empathy for hardships on the
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Doctors, Dragons and Dougie Defi ance two-wheeled climb of life. Delroy, African-American and muscular, cocked his head to the right, primed for any sudden onrush of a crazed, collared, carnivorous Satan.
“But now, I’m feeling a lot better. I feel like things are fi nally moving in the right direction. Okay, there’s still a long way to go to get to the top of the hill, but at least I’m in the right gear now.” Maddy began drawing brochures out of the missionaries’ grasp. “I’m still desperately short of reading material, though. Aren’t I, Kiddo?”
The Mormons fl inched.
“Keed-o,” offered Oscar. “Would that happen to be the name of your-”
Delroy was taking no chances. He spun his partner around, hustled him down the stairs and lifted him onto his bike. Observing their urgent retreat down the driveway, Maddy called out through cupped hands:
“‘Kiddo’ isn’t a dog! It’s just what I call our…you don’t need to know the details!”
After a goodbye wave, she closed the front door and brought her new literature to the coffee table.
“‘ The answers to all of life’s important questions are contained in one book’ they reckon. I think that’s true.”
She placed her water bottle on top of the brochures then entered the spare room. A brief scan of the bookshelves revealed the object of her search—a small, well-thumbed paperback with a decorative purple jacket. She took it in hand and returned to the living area.
“Kiddo, this little story is the one,” she said, taking up the customary horizontal couch position. “It’s my absolute favourite. It helped me cope in the time before you came along. And I think it should be the very fi rst book we read together.”
*
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From: “Tin Lid”
Mum read me a story today. The Alchemist. It’s about some shepherd boy called Santiago who leaves his sheep and goes in search of worldly treasure. Mum said it’s about following your dream. She cried throughout most of it—I didn’t think it was that bad.
Have you read it, too?
*
Lying in bed, pillow propped behind his back, sleeping wife nestled into his chest, the purple-jacketed novel in his right hand, Adam O’Doherty could easily recall his three previous readings of The Alchemist.
On each occasion he read it aloud, cover to cover. Maddy was his audience; a sometimes philosophical, sometimes inconsolable, and in History’s third aftermath, seemingly irreparable Maddy. Throughout the initial chapters, every sentence delivered was a stone pitched at the blackened sky. By story’s end, they were loose change tossed into a wishing well. Then, slowly, inexorably, over a period of time determined by a denied mother’s unknowabl
e criteria—
days, weeks, on the third strike an even four months—a line from the opening page would take root once more:
‘It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.’
Adam placed the novel on his bedside table and enveloped his wife with a double arm wrap. The dream had passed over possible; it was destined. Life had moved beyond interesting; it was joyous.
And Maddy was now the one reading aloud.
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Doctors, Dragons and Dougie Defi ance 8
“‘ D addy O’Doherty’…Edam, that defi nitely has a ring to it.”
Kelly punched the ball down the middle of the service court causing Adam to stretch. The return limped over the net, inviting attack. Kelly walked forward two paces and drove the ball into the backhand corner. Again Adam stretched, again the ball fl opped back into play. The sequence was repeated four more times—Kelly, stationary and zinging the ball side to side; Adam scrambling back and forth, each parry more feeble than the last—until the aggressor, perhaps mercifully, crushed the ball down the forehand line for a winner.
“You keep running me around like that,” replied Adam, half-coughing and patting his sternum, “and I’ll never get to be a Daddy.”
Kelly defi brillated his chest with a pair of tennis balls and moved into position for his next serve. “Have you lined up the babysitters?” he asked.
“Babysitters!”
“You’re gunna need time to write those bestsellers of yours, Edam. And Maddy’ll want to go back to work after a while.”
“She doesn’t want to go back to work.”
“Hey?”
“Maddy doesn’t want to go back to Centrelink. She wants to stay at home.”
“All the time?”
“All the time.”
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Kelly mulled the statement over while adjusting the strings of his racquet. “Good for her,” he said fi nally, before thundering down another unplayable.
“Are you putting your hand up for child-minding duties?” asked Adam.
Kelly shrugged. “Yeah. I am. I mean, I know Aunty Mum and Uncle Dad’ll be all over it like a rash. They’ll probably have the little bludger more often than you guys. But when they’re not around…and with Maddy’s folks in Canada…”
“What makes you think a boofhead like you could take care of an infant?”
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