“It’s not…Jenna…is it?”
“The faker? No.”
“Nor anyone else who might be taking the mickey.”
“Not today.”
“It is James then.”
“Yes.”
“James Fox.”
“Yes.”
“Of Hutton House.”
A burbling laugh trickled down the line.
“Would you prefer to do this by e-mail, Adam?”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…They want it, B! They want US!
THEY WANT THE UMBILICAL WORD!
I sent away a few of our early correspondences (names altered to protect the innocent) and a sketchy book proposal giving an idea as to how it might hang together, ‘Contemporary comic fable about chasing dreams, confronting loss, fi nding your destiny’, yada yada etcetera etcetera.
THEY LOVE IT!
They want to send a contract out straight away and get an editor working on what I’ve got so far. Jim (he said that’s what his friends called him) asked if I had sent this elsewhere and I told him, truthfully, that I hadn’t. He was quite relieved. He thinks other publishers would be very interested in this work. He reckons The Umbilical Word could be ‘hot property’.
I am stunned. Beyond stunned. As I sit here at the computer, my
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fi ngers are tingling so much I can hardly type. Doctor Pole’s words keep running through my mind: ‘If I was good enough for one miracle, then maybe I’m good enough for two’.
Maddy is beside herself. When I told her the news, she repeated every word so that her ‘Kiddo’ could share in the moment (so this news is most likely no news to you). Then she rang her family in Canada who, because of a heightened stimulation in one of Tammy’s chakras, were already waiting by the phone.
It’s funny—I thought she might be a bit non-plussed because I had peddled our story without okaying it with her fi rst...
*
“Are you kidding?”
Maddy leaned forward. The recliner gave way. Adam, lap supporting his wife’s full bulk, fell back amidst a chorus of spring twangs and vinyl farts. The old Jason was a goner.
Neither user cared.
“I think it’s great, gorgeous handsome man.”
“You do?”
“I’m thrilled my original idea has led to this. Well, actually, it was Professor Emmett G Bragg’s idea originally, wasn’t it?”
“The man’s a genius.”
“But I brought it to your attention, so you owe me big-time.”
“I owe you everything, babe.”
Maddy caressed her belly. Adam saw that her navel, after weeks of brave resistance, had fi nally popped. It now resembled a trumpet mute. It rendered Maddy’s abdomen unrecognisable from the previous day. Amazing, he thought, how things could appear so very different so very quickly.
“I think sharing our experiences with the world will bring things full circle,” Maddy said. “I think it will bring closure.”
“Yes it will, Oprah,” replied Adam, pulling his wife into a clumsy, squealy embrace.
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*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…I need a drink.
Thank you for believing in me.
Look forward to your reply.
Dad
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
B
I signed the contract today. It was a surreal experience, even more so than the week preceding. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing.
Messages from friends, family, rellies, acquaintances…
Agents.
They all wanted to introduce themselves, touch base, let me know that they were here for me, that they were available at a time of my convenience to negotiate the best possible deal for me. Most of them rang twice. Tristan rang seven times. On the last occasion, I decided to put him out of his misery and pick up…
*
“Tristan.”
“Oh, hi. Adam. Superb! Beginning to think you might’ve moved house or something.”
“No, we’re still right here, Tristan. Same phone number.
Same postal address, too.”
“Yes, okay. And how’s Mandy?”
“Mandy is good.”
“She’s pregnant, isn’t she, as per the character in your new masterpiece?”
“No, she’s not. I made all that stuff up. She’s actually
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training for Circus Oz.”
“Fabulous! What does she do?”
“She can hang hula-hoops off her belly button.”
“That’s quite a trick.”
“Mmm.”
“Quite a trick alright. A showstopper. Something to really break the ice at parties, too I imag-”
“Tristan.”
“Yes, Adam.”
“I’m a busy man.”
“Yes, of course. Well…I just wanted to throw my hat in the ring, run my fl ag up the pole.”
“Pardon?”
“You know…I’m…here for you Adam. I’m available at a time of your convenience to negotiate the best possible-”
“Tristan.”
“Yes, Adam.”
“It’s all good.”
“It is?”
“Yes. The new masterpiece is in the hands of someone who can put in the sort of time and energy the work deserves.”
“Ah.”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…Throughout the week, I couldn’t get my head around the fact that Adam O’Doherty and The Umbilical Word were as the prophesy foretold—hot property! These people, these industry people, unreachable for the last ten years, were clamouring over each other to get to me! To get to my work!
And then the contract arrived.
Jim Fox delivered it personally. I gave it the once over and very nearly inscribed my name after Lynette and Boris Pfaff on the
‘Faintheart’ honour roll…
*
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Adam looked up from the document.
“There’s an advance.”
Jim Fox stroked his grey goatee with the middle knuckles of his right hand and nodded.
“It’s a healthy advance. Better than healthy.”
“We feel it’s money well spent.”
Adam scanned the kitchen. His gaze came to rest upon his briefcase, bloated with tests and reports and a diary full of doodles, lying awkwardly in the space under the water purifi er, untouched since its Friday abandonment.
“I’m going to be leaving school soon,” he said, eyes returning to the set of papers that would christen a brand new, Italian leather briefcase in the week to come. “And I don’t think I’ll be going back.”
Jim Fox removed his spectacles from the bridge of his nose and let them hang from the lanyard around his neck.
He extended a hand.
“Let’s make magic.”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…I signed (my name, I think), shook hands, and waved goodbye to Hutton House’s number one star-maker as he drove away from 150 James Street. Maddy felt my copy of the contract ought to be immortalised. She spent the afternoon hunting down a frame and, as I write these words, she is hanging it on the wall nearest the busted recliner.
This is all too much, little B. Contracts, advances, getting out of teaching. What is a man to do when the dream and reality meld
as one?
I think I’ll have another drink.
Still looking forward to your reply.
Dad
*
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From: “Adam O’Doherty”
B
You are probably aware that Mum and I have just attended a big celebratory bash at my parents’ house. Everyone was there, even Doctor Pole. There were lots of highlights. For my personal fave, I couldn’t split Kel’s hyperactive karaoke of Midnight Oil’s ‘King of the Mountain’ and Reg’s toast with the ‘Wally Lewis Testimonial’ port.
All through the evening, people were asking me if the lost pregnancy stuff in the story was, in truth, really about us…
*
Adam surveyed the pressing faces. Jenna held her interlocked hands at her breast. Boyd tapped his index fi nger against his lips. Dilip’s undeniable smile suggested he already possessed the truth and that his friend’s answer was immaterial.
“I write fi ction, guys,” replied Adam. “It’s a made-up couple.”
“No way!” cried Jenna.
“Way.”
“But those experiences—you don’t just pull those out of thin air. You and Maddy must have been through something similar. At least.”
Adam brushed an invisible piece of lint from his collar.
“What does it matter, Jay?”
“What does it matter?” seconded Dilip.
Jenna took a moment to respond. “I guess I feel bad that you guys might have gone through this in secret. Alone.”
Adam clinked his friend’s wine glass fi lled with mineral water. “You’re focusing too much on the past, Jay.” He blew a kiss to a toilet-bound Maddy on the other side of the room.
“The future’s where it’s at.”
“Well at least we can be sure you made up the e-mails with the baby, ay?” declared Boyd. “How the hell do you come up with stuff like that, O’Doherty?”
Adam shrugged. “It wasn’t that diffi cult.”
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*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…My speech at the end of the night gave out a lot of thank-you’s, but there was one that couldn’t be done then and there.
Thank you, B.
It is the understatement of the ages, but I could not have achieved this without you. The miracle of our connection has not only permitted me to sample the divine on a daily basis, it has become the vehicle that saw my dream transformed into a miracle of its own.
I look forward to repaying you the best that I can in the many years that lay ahead of us.
Thank you again.
Dad
p.s. Did you receive my last two messages? I ask because I still have received no reply. I know you’re quite busy in there (I read you can get hiccups for up to twenty minutes at this stage of the pregnancy), but if there is a problem with our ‘system’, I’m sure it’s best dealt with at your end. I doubt any technician in the Yellow Pages would be qualifi ed to deal with a glitch in the Almighty’s domain!
Let me know that you are receiving my mail.
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
Well, The Umbilical Word is already guaranteed to sell a dozen copies…
*
All eyes in the room fell upon him. He coughed. In these post-Immaculate Misconception days, Adam’s Thursday night job description was clear—Designated Provider of Ante-Natal Class Entertainment and Diversion. The latter
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provision was the requirement right now. But what could he do? The just concluded viewing of Dawn Marks’ personal birth video had, he feared, robbed him of speech for life.
Maddy patted her husband’s shoulder and winched herself up into standing.
“Everybody, before moving off for a supper I know we’re all very much looking forward to now, I just wanted to let you know of the wonderful news that has come by us of late.”
There was an audible exhalation from the gallery. In their moment of desperate need, and with Old Faithful Adam looking more geezer than geyser, Maddy had stepped in and rescued the moment. They were quite a team, the O’Doherty pair.“My gorgeous handsome man here has recently discovered the way to make your dreams come true.”
“Write a book about it!” shouted Brendan Carter. He and wife Barbara were having twins. This was his longest spoken sentence in three weeks of classes.
Maddy clicked her fi ngers.
“There might be something in that!”
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…A number of the group wanted to give me money for the novel right then and there. I told them it might be wise to wait until the story is actually completed.
Which hopefully could be soon. Work has now offi cially begun on the edited draft of The Umbilical Word. Jim Fox has taken the job on himself. He says as a reader he’s really enjoying it because he can relate to it…
*
“My two boys came after years of tests, cycles, drugs, herbs, lotions, acupuncture and fortune tellers, all of it trying to
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solve the sad riddle of ‘Non-Specifi c Infertility’. In the end, the lads were the result of IVF.”
The chief editor of Hutton House tucked the wrinkled, faded baby photo back into his wallet. Across from Café AIX, on the city-side footpath of Merthyr Road, a woman wearing a baby sling turned her back to the westerlies whipping through the bus stop.
“Christ, we were lucky. Quite a few people we knew ended up with nothing to show for all their effort.” Jim Fox tipped his chinotto bottle toward Adam. “Have you fi gured out what your couple will end up with?”
Adam fl icked through the manuscript—stamped with post-it notes, thinner than it ought to be—sitting between their half-fi nished lunches.
“Happily ever after,” he said.
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
…I got a technician in yesterday to look at this computer, just for the hell of it. The verdict was that it’s ‘running so good you can keep it for your kid to use in the future’. I promised I’d ask you.
Would you like us to keep it, B?
Please let me know that my messages are getting through to you. It’s now going on two weeks since your last contact. You don’t have to write a long reply; a short note would be fi ne. Just so that that your overly-paranoid father can sleep a bit easier!
Love
Dad
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20
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
Still no reply.
In the aftermath of my lapse at the hospital, you said you trusted me. Has that situation changed? Has fear overridden your trust?
Do you feel like your words count for nothing now that I have my own words to contend with? If this is the barrier to our continued communication then let me remove it.
You are not in competition with this new life. You should not see writing as the enemy. Its purpose isn’t to deny you of your father’s time and attention.
The truth of the matter is this: it is not meant to deny you anything.
I believe to be a good parent, one must have a good sense of self.
The TV talk shows are spilling over with marriages harbouring hollow lives and unrequited dreams. Invariably, the children become the source of redemption. Hardly fair, is it? Already faced with the challenge of fi nding meaning an
d value in their own existence, the kids are lumped with the impossible task of doing the same for their creators.
One month ago, I was sentencing you to such a fate. Today you are free.
Understand that I am writing The Umbilical Word not just for me, but for you.
*
From: “Adam O’Doherty”
Is it my fault?
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Have I done something to upset you? Perhaps you feel I betrayed your confi dence by taking our words to the world?
I realised only yesterday, when re-reading the last few e-mails, the full potential for you to feel this way. When the book breakthrough occurred, I was cognizant of the way Maddy might react having private fare dished up for public consumption. But I totally forgot about your stake in all of this. I did thank you earlier, and I truly meant what I said about paying you back in the years to come. But I now understand this may not be enough—there may be a need for immediate restitution.
This is your story, as much as it is mine and Maddy’s. And you have every right to feel aggrieved if things are being shared that you feel ought to be kept between us. If this is the cause of our lapse in contact, then I’m sorry. I will do everything I can to make sure you feel comfortable with the public persona of The Umbilical Word.
I’m doing my best to mask my misgivings around Maddy, but it’s diffi cult. I don’t think she senses any concerns in me, and if she does she probably thinks it’s to do with how the story is coming along.
Please send some word through, B.
For your mother’s sake as well as mine.
*
Adam stared at the three marketing women seated opposite.
They had fallen silent. Their wet-lipped, fake-tanned faces held expectation and enquiry. Adam rubbed his eyes and pushed to arm’s length the pulsating urge to sprint for the spare room.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“I said ‘It’s not just about The Umbilical Word. You’re very marketable, too’,” replied Soserina, twirling an index fi nger through bobbed Sunsilk strands.
“The book obviously has plenty of scope,” forwarded Sydney, “and naturally all strategies will be explored.”
“National ads, national tour, fl yers, posters, teasers, postcards,” added Bailey, counting off her manicured talons.
“Even an online chat room where you can ‘talk’ to B!”
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