“Real talent can’t be squashed forever, Ed,” countered Kelly, leaving court to retrieve the wayward ball. “And you have got real talent—jeez, even a newspaper reading back-cracker like me can see that. It’ll fi nd its way into the spotlight.” He lobbed the Spalding to his partner, hoping to initiate a gentle, soothing, soul-searching rally.
Adam whacked it into the carpark.
“How?” he shouted. “Tell me how it’ll fi nd its way into the spotlight? I’ve got a kid on the way, a wife who wants to stay at home with the kid, a mortgage, car loan, credit card debts—that’s the defi nition of a public servant! I’m gonna be a teacher for the rest of my life, pal. Name me one teacher who’s made a name for themselves in a creative industry?”
“Gene Simmons from ‘Kiss’.”
“It’s useless! No time to write when you’re a public servant, sole provider and Super-Dad, Kel. No time to indulge dreams when pragmatism’s got you by the short and curlies.”
Kelly crossed the net and jogged for the exit. “Don’t get so riled that you give it away, man. Don’t let those---”
*
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“---mongrels have the satisfaction again.” Jenna pulled her strapless shoulders back and cast an eye over the sixty or so guests present for Callum Morecroft’s send-off. “You will end up leaving in style, Ad, but not if you grovel at the feet of those…mongrels.”
Adam swayed, handed his drink—a White Russian—
to Boyd and laid both hands on his pregnant friend’s shoulders.
“Gimme your mobile, Shweetheart.”
“No. I won’t let you make a dick of yourself.”
He turned to Boyd. “Gimme yoursh then.”
“Don’t do it,” warned Jenna.
Boyd emptied his pockets. “Can’t help you, champ,” he said. “And even if I could I wouldn’t. Jen’s right: you don’t want to suck up to the people that gave you a bollocking.”
Adam turned to Dilip. The Indian held a hand up, preventing a third slurred request. Adam retrieved his drink from Boyd and sat heavily in a nearby chair.
“I could convince them to take me, you know. I could make them like me. I could take fi ve percent royaltiesh, or pay for some of the marketing shtuff outta my own pocket.” Adam emptied the glass and tinkled the leftover ice. “I’d shign the shittiest contract they could poshibly give me and I wouldn’t complain…just ash long ash they gave me a book.”
Jenna grabbed the lapels of Adam’s jacket, thought better of shaking some sense into an already addled brain, then addressed Dilip:
“Isn’t there something meaningful you can say to him?”
Dilip fronted his man, eye to glassy eye.
“We have a saying in India: ‘A man who drinks too many White Russians will end up thinking---”
*
“---long-service leave is not a bad thing. Tell him, Reginald.
Tell him coming up to ten years as a teacher in May doesn’t mean he can never write another story.”
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Reg gave a calming fl ute of champagne to Eileen and scooped a mound of cabbage into the peanut satay goulash.
“You’ve got a good job, son. You’d be a fool to toss it in.” A withering glare from Eileen prompted a hasty qualifi cation.
“Because it can help your writing, I mean! You’d be a fool to toss it in because it can help with your writing! Long-service leave could be used to knock up a new book!”
Adam continued tracing around a cork placemat with his fi nger.
“You could be a whole lot worse off, Adam,” offered Chris, ducking low toward the table, trying to catch his older brother’s eye. “There are plenty of would-be artists working jobs that aren’t nine to three. And don’t get on your high horse telling me teachers work eight ‘til eight—I know some of ‘em do and I know you’re not one of them. Plenty of those would-be artists don’t get ten weeks a year holiday either, just quietly.”
Adam sighed and shifted his auto-obsessive routine to the salt and pepper shakers.
“The future is still yours to shape, brud,” assured Shell.
“So let’s make it interesting, shall we? Let’s have a new race.
Your fi rst book up against my fi rst episiotomy? What do you say?”
Adam folded his arms and stared at the Lladro porcelain clown on the mantel.
“Can you contribute something to this, Woody?” asked Eileen.
The border collie leapt to his feet, scampered under the table and planted his slobbering features in the crotch of the commanded target. The visiting master remained motionless.
“I’m afraid we’ve done all we can, team,” declared Michelle, returning to her bookmarked page of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. “Looks like a terminal case of feeling sorry for---”
*
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“---the way you’ve been feeling and behaving the last fortnight…maybe you should give this fi rst class a miss.”
Adam lifted the printed sheets out of the tray. The heading at the top of each sheet read: ‘Ante-Natal Notes—Week One’. He tucked them into a bland yellow A4 wallet already containing three pencils, an eraser and a highlighter.
“I’m a lot better now, Maddy.”
“Better?”
“Relieved actually. I didn’t realise how much of a burden writing had become.”
“Transforming your own unique thoughts and ideas into wonderful words…that was a burden?”
Adam began stuffi ng the master copy of The Ordinary Man’s Enemy into a plastic shopping bag. “No. No, that was never a burden. All the other stuff was. The collating, the posting, the spruiking. The waiting. The problem was all that stuff far outweighed the magic.”
“That stuff had a purpose, Adam.” Maddy observed the bag handles being tied. “You’re not throwing your story away are you?”
“I’m just going to put it in the garage with the others.”
“Give it to me.”
“Maddy.”
“Give it to me.”
Adam handed the bagged manuscript over. Maddy held it to her belly.
“That stuff had a purpose,” she repeated. “It was meant to create more opportunities for you to make magic. It was meant to have magic become the thing you made most often.”
“Well, it didn’t work out that way, did it?”
Adam picked up the yellow wallet and crossed the fl oor of the spare room. At the threshold of the door, he banged the butt of his fi st into the jamb and pivoted back toward his wife.
“I’m trying to accept this now and move on. Why can’t you?”
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Maddy smoothed the plastic bag, allowing the title page of the abandoned novel to show through.
“Because I’d be failing you if I did.”
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17
From: “Tin Lid”
Dad
That place we went to tonight was tops. Right from the beginning, I felt the same sort of buzz that Mum gets when she goes shopping for bigger pants…
*
“Good evening, everyone and welcome to this six week ante-natal course. My name is Dawn Marks. For those people who don’t know me—and looking around I think I know almost all of you—yes, I am from New Zealand. I had intended to teach you all the ‘Haka’ to get you in the mindset for what lays ahead, particularly as regards labour, but I think we might give that one a miss! I was thinking we might start by going around the room. Just tell us your names, your due dates—Dads, you can tell those!—and a few details about the fi nding out you were pregnant. Just a little bit on the how, when and where. Josh and Margie…how about you start?”
*
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From: “Tin Lid”
…You seemed cool about things. More than you have been for a while…
*
Adam chuckled as Lynette and Boris Pfaff—the third couple to speak—re-enacted the 7-11 fainting scene in their pregnancy revelation.
This is magic, he thought. Magic that could never be outweighed by the burden.
He had no clue how the Pfaffs had arrived at this moment.
Perhaps theirs was an instant success story, not unlike the especial Grimsons, seated in the two chairs beside his own.
Wham, bam, thank you pram! Or perhaps the Pfaffs had battled History themselves? It was possible—they were the far side of thirty-something and this was their fi rst child.
Perhaps they had worn experiences that he and Maddy could never have imagined, not even in the coldest, cruelest prisons of their six-year despair? If that was indeed the background of Lynette and Boris Pfaff, did they then view the scales of worth as tipped toward the sublime?
Judging from their animated thank you’s and playful kisses, the answer was a defi nitive ‘Yes’.
Adam applauded with the rest of the group, threw in a whistle for good measure. More opportunities for him to make magic, to have magic become the thing he made most often: that was what Maddy wanted for him? Well, just as surely as a miracle correspondence pointed the way at home, the promise of magic was right here in this room.
A child.
Truly, the ultimate vehicle to rise above the mundane.
There would be burdens of course—every parent endured them and Adam O’Doherty would be no exception. ‘The Umbilical Word’ was proof enough of that, too. But, in the end, how would the trials stack up against the triumph?
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They wouldn’t. And you couldn’t ask for more out of life than that.
Destiny’s fi nally arrived, he thought.
What a story.
*
“Thanks Rosie and Paul…found out in a port-a-loo at the rodeo, wow. Fitting after a roll in the hay. Okay, next up…
Jenna? Boyd?”
The Grimsons whispered to themselves for a moment, then nodded.
“We’d like to stray from tradition for our recount if we may,” said Jenna, rising to her feet. “We’d like our good friend Adam O’Doherty, who’s here with his lovely pregnant wife Maddy, to tell our story. He was the reason we got pregnant twice.”
Raised eyebrows accompanied cries of ‘Wooooohhh’.
“Yes, it sounds rather weird, but he can explain. Over to you, Ad-”
“What are you doing, sweetheart?” asked Adam, pinching his friend’s forearm.
Jenna leaned close. She spoke with a hand in front of her mouth, but at the same pitch as her previous statements.
“We can’t do justice to it. A story like this needs a writer’s voice.”
Eyebrows sat high on foreheads once more.
“And, anyway, you’ve been busting to tell Maddy all about it for months now. Here’s your chance.”
Adam pivoted toward his wife. She was trying to suppress a grin.
“Let’s hear it then,” she said.
“Yes! Let’s!” added Dawn, eyes larger than boiled eggs.
Adam rubbed the back of his neck then stood like a convicted man receiving sentence.
“Ladies, gentlemen…and former friends. This is a story of immaculate mis-conception…”
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*
Maddy stared in amazement. The tale spinning from her Adam’s lips was, to put it mildly, incredible. But it was not responsible for her awe.
It was the audience.
They’d fallen in love with her husband.
Mouths sat agape. Bodies leaned forward. Whispered comments out of turn brought impatient ‘shooshes’ from partners unwilling to miss a word. Entertaining stories had been the stock-in-trade of the class thus far, but it was the telling of this one that would later compel a sharing of it with friends, prefaced by the statement ‘Wait till you hear this, it’s a classic!’. Women with bladders the size of thimbles ignored the call of nature. Men with attention spans the duration of sports reports sat transfi xed in the front half of their seats.
Every sentence added to the adventure. Every punchline placed a stamp on the evening.
As the star resumed his seat and the newly won fans’
applause commenced, Maddy refl ected on how moments such as these should’ve constituted the norm. For so long now, and for the past six years in particular, Adam had been everything but what he could be. Teacher, husband, major income earner. Life-support. Time devoted to his dream—
his being— amounted to little more than late night vigils and stolen moments. And now, confronted with a publication setback and impending fatherhood, he was prepared to forego even those meagre spoils.
It didn’t have to be this way. Giving stories to the world was his calling, just as assuredly as becoming a mother was hers. And if this episode wasn’t a convincing enough reminder of that truth, then there was really only one thing left to say.
*
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From: “Tin Lid”
…Mum and you had a private sesh at one point. I couldn’t understand everything, but I did notice a repeat of things spoken at the hospital…
*
Maddy turned and faced Adam. She took his hand and cleared her throat with a small cough.
“I’m sorry, babe,” he said, pulling a fl inched face and pre-empting her strike. “Jay-Jay wanted to tell you so many times but-”
“Tut-tut.” Maddy put her free hand over his mouth.
“Listen to me—this is important.”
She stared deep into the eyes of the man who’d courted her with handwritten love poems written on the back of
‘Aldous Huxley’ lesson plans.
“I won’t lie,” she said. “I’d like you to create more stories and give them a chance to fl y. You deserve some self-trust with the expertise you’ve demonstrated…and, yes, I’m talking about the events of tonight. I think there’s an opportunity here for you to learn self-trust.”
“Maddy, look. Don’t do this. It’s not necessar-”
“Adam?”
“What?”
“Shut up…please.”
Maddy got down on both knees. A mortifi ed Adam glanced around to see if their hallway cubby-hole had attracted any spectators. There were none.
“Yes, my husband, I’d like to see another story get the chance of making a dream come true…but I’m not the one writing it, am I? I’m not the one risking rejection letters. I’m not the one who’s had to wear rejection letters in the past.
I’m not the one having to fend off History whilst providing the life cord to a dream. No, I’m not the one burdened with all that.”
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Maddy stood once more, raised her shirt several inches and placed Adam’s hand on her bare abdomen.
“I have faith in you, babe. I believe in you.”
Adam’s mouth moved soundlessly up and down. His eyes rivalled those of the midwife currently calling for an end to the intermission and a resumption of class.
“God Almighty,” he blurted. “There’s kicks! I can feel kicks!”
Maddy lowered her shirt and smiled.
“I believe in you…and so does your child.”
*
From: “Tin Lid”
…So are you still determined to bail out on your dream? Or do we need to weep and wail and gnash teeth (gums in my case) in addition to getting down on the knees?
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18
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
Your mother (and you) can put away the self-fl agellation until you’re a teenager—I’ve decided to give the umpire one last chance at getting it right.
Should be a swift decision, too. A ready-made story idea was available to me all along. Now it will be sent out into the world before you can say ‘Howzat!’
‘Make it or die trying,’ as the saying goes….
*
From: “Tin Lid”
Wicked!
And don’t be afraid, Dad. The Great Gonzo here reckons it’s better to die trying than to die wondering.
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Letters to Limbo
Letters to Limbo
19
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
Dearest B
I got an unexpected phone call an hour ago…
*
“Adam speaking.”
“Adam…James Fox, Hutton House Publishers.”
“Who?”
“James Fox. Editor-in-Charge at Hutton House. How are you?”
Maddy stepped out of the bathroom, crooning the chorus of Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Scar Tissue’. Upon seeing Adam, she mouthed the words ‘Who is it?’ Adam rolled his eyes.
“James Fox, is it?” he replied.
“Yes.”
“From Hutton House.”
“Yes.”
“A-ha.”
Adam swigged from the bottle of Spring Valley apple juice in his left hand, sloshed it around, swallowed, leaked an exaggerated ‘Aaahhh’.
“You suck, Kel.”
“Kel?”
“Don’t think you’re gonna be spending time with our kid if you behave like this.”
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e Umbilical Word
The cad’s voice muffl ed for a moment, engaging in some palm-over-the-receiver Plan B with a fellow conspirator, no doubt Sandy. Adam swirled the sediment in his drink.
“Kel…” resumed the caller. “Is that the one you called
‘Kelvin’ in your submission?”
Swirling became plummeting. Sediment mingled with broken glass on the fl oor.
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