Australian Secrets. Fiona McCallum

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      As she ascended, Nicola felt kittens doing tumble turns in her stomach. What should she say? How should she act? Would everyone be pleased for her or be catty and jealous? The men would probably be cool and gracious, but women were always a different story.

      In her acceptance speech she’d been very careful to emphasise that she was accepting the award on behalf of everyone involved with Life and Times. She was sure she’d named everyone who’d played a part.

      The lift doors opened, and she stepped out onto the sixth floor.

      As she strode down the narrow corridor in front of the wall of chest-high office partitions, heads bobbed up from desks, bums swivelled chairs around and there was a chorus of ‘here she is,’ and ‘congratulations!’

      Within seconds the office had formed a crowd around Nicola and someone shouted, ‘Round of applause for our star reporter.’

      Wild clapping and cheering followed and Nicola felt the kittens in her stomach claw their way up to the back of her throat.

      ‘Um, thanks guys, but you all deserve one of these,’ she said. After carefully unloading her lunch, handbag and satchel onto her desk, she thrust the gleaming sculptures towards the nearest two people.

      Paul Cox, the copy boy and most junior of staff, received the Gold, his pimply adolescent face reddening right up to the ears. His hands were hesitant when he reached out to stroke the object that every serious journalist aspired to.

      ‘Go on, have a decent look,’ she encouraged, pushing the object firmly into his chest. Paul stared down at it, mouth open in awe, then back at Nicola like it was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for him.

      Nicola’s chest pinged in sympathy. She too had started at the bottom. Under Paul’s lack of confidence she could see some of her own tenacity.

      She smiled warmly at the lad, then turned slightly at hearing an uneven thudding tread coming down the hall to her right.

      Bill Truman’s stout legs struggled under a belly that had grown considerably in the two years since he’d joined executive ranks and swapped pounding the pavements for lunch meetings.

      ‘Heard all the commotion and knew you’d be at the centre of it. Didn’t I tell you to take the day off?’ he added, waggling a scolding finger.

      ‘Too quiet at home.’

      ‘Well in that case, the station had better fork out for a bit of a celebratory lunch. Nothing flash; pizzas in the boardroom at noon.

      ‘All I ask is that I get a couple of hours work out of you lot before then. In return you can all have the afternoon off.’

      There were whoops and squeals of delight.

      ‘So now if everyone can return to work it would be much appreciated – we can celebrate later.’

      Nicola smiled. Bill was one of the best bosses she’d ever had – tough but fair. He’d cracked his fair share of whips but could still appreciate the need for the occasional slack attack.

      Nicola watched the crowd slowly dissipate. Within seconds the office had returned to its loud, lively pace; masses of people made phone calls, tapped hard on keyboards, raced between cubicles, and hurried to and from the lifts weighed down with clipboards, tripods, sound booms and backpacks full of cabling and camera gear.

      She turned her attention to her own desk. An array of pens, pencils and textas were jammed into an old coffee jar. Four beige plastic in-trays were stacked up to the left of her computer screen, the top one almost overflowing. To the right sat her only personal items; three matching silver photo frames.

      One contained a posed, formal picture of her and Scott taken at his brother’s wedding the year before.

      The second was a shot of Paul and Ruth paused from work in their treasured garden, leaning on rake and shovel. Nicola had taken it for fun, only months before the disaster that claimed them – her entire family.

      The third contained a faded polaroid of a bundled newborn baby with only a shock of blonde hair and wrinkled sleeping face visible. Nicola picked it up and stared at the photo given to her the day she learned that her whole life had been a lie.

      That’s how she’d felt when they told her she’d been adopted. She remembered how her five-year-old world had melted like the chocolate chips in the biscuits they tried to placate her with.

      They’d joined her where she was drawing on the lounge room floor of the house that had been her childhood home; the home of Paul and Ruth Harvey until the day they left to go on holidays but never came back.

      They’d sat in a circle and all held hands. Nicola had got excited, thinking they were going to play a new game. And with Daddy who rarely sat on the floor with her; Mummy always said he was too busy for games. They held hands, the three of them.

      They’d started telling her a story. Nicola remembered how, frowning, she’d stared at them. It was a very strange story, not a fairy story like in her books. It was a real story – about her, they said.

      What were they saying? That she wasn’t theirs; that she hadn’t come out of her mummy’s tummy like the baby of the lady next door. No, she’d come out of another lady’s tummy.

      ‘Did someone drop me off then, like Father Christmas?’

      They’d given a chuckle. She’d been pleased to make them laugh; maybe it meant everything was okay. But they were being so serious. They looked at each other and then told her she was a gift, even more special than those Father Christmas brought, because they’d gone and chosen her.

      ‘At a shop?’ she’d asked. ‘Well no, not a shop.’

      She thought they’d looked a little angry. She didn’t want to make them angry; she wanted to make them laugh again.

      ‘Oh,’ she’d said, feeling totally confused. They’d told her how special she was, and how lucky they were to have her. They couldn’t have a little girl or boy of their own because there was something wrong inside Ruth. Nothing would change; they just wanted her to know the truth.

      ‘What if the mummy whose tummy I came out of wants me back?’ She didn’t want to go away from here. They were her parents; she didn’t want anyone else. Her bottom lip had started to wobble and then she burst into tears.

      Ruth dragged her onto her lap and spent ages stroking her hair, saying that she was their little girl; she was staying right there with them.

      But what about the other mummy and daddy; didn’t they want her? Why not? Everyone said she was so pretty, and she was a good girl, wasn’t she? She’d stared up at them and some more tears ran down her cheeks.

      They’d shaken their heads and said that her other mummy had been sick and wasn’t able to take care of her.

      ‘But what if she gets better; will she want me then?’

      ‘No,’ they’d said, shaking their heads. The adoption papers proved it.

      They showed her the papers, but to her five-year-old eyes they meant nothing.

      ‘Okay,’ СКАЧАТЬ