Naive Psychologist

‘It’s not so bad sitting home on Saturday night,’ Adelaide thought. She had a leftover birthday box of scorched almonds and a bottle of Coopers pale.

It’s not so bad sitting at home on Saturday night until someone turns the television on.

It’s not so bad sitting at home on Saturday night until someone turns the television on and the winter olympics is showing only the dreadful ballroom dancing on ice (at least that downhill stuff would give you a vicarious rush).

It’s not so bad sitting at home on Saturday night until someone turns the television on and the winter olympics is showing only the dreadful ballroom dancing on ice (at least that downhill stuff would give you a vicarious rush) so you’re forced to watch Parkinson (which is what your parents used to watch when they started staying at home on Saturday night and you went out to drink vodka in unsafe quantities and smoke a packet of cigarettes in a night).

It’s not so bad sitting at home on Saturday night until someone turns the television on and the winter olympics is showing only the dreadful ballroom dancing on ice (at least that downhill stuff would give you a vicarious rush) so you’re forced to watch Parkinson (which is what your parents used to watch when they started staying at home on Saturday night and you went out to drink vodka in unsafe quantities and smoke a packet of cigarettes in a night) and then your husband (gorgeous though he is) starts letting out just the tiniest, teensiest beginnings of snores.

‘I’d better buy him a pair of slippers before winter,’ Adelaide thought.

Adelaide was an excellent and attentive mother whose youngest child had only been to the emergency room three times – or was it four – in the last nine months.

‘So if you are going to swallow something,’ Adelaide told her father, who was getting to the age when the parent became the child, ‘make sure it’s metal, because that way it shows up on the x-ray.’

Adelaide took a sip of the tea she had freshly brewed, then peeked a look at the child who hadn’t choked.

‘And make sure it’s round and small so it doesn’t get caught in your throat.’

She took another sip of her tea.

‘And it is a bonus if it is something which makes a clunking sound against porcelain, because you know for sure it’s come out.’

Adelaide turned her tea cup first one way, then the other and hoped she never needed to fish around in the toilet with a skewer again.

‘If success is the best revenge, it’s lucky I’m not a venge-filled person,’ Adelaide thought.

Adelaide had some thinking to do.

‘She’s being precious,’ KG had said. On city-wide radio, just after six, he had dismissed her worries just like that. Adelaide put the kettle on. She cleared her throat, then swallowed at the memory of it all.

An avid listener of KG and Cornesy, Adelaide had finally decided to interact with 5AA. The phone was hopeless of course with children running around like that, so she composed an email. It took over an hour – what with the interruptions. But hitting the send button had filled her with an overwhelming sense of power and she couldn’t help but think of all the other issues she could raise.

And then there was the giddy moment that Graham read it out.

‘The adelaide crow and some players visited my little boy’s school yesterday. He is five years old and so far I have managed to keep him out of fast/junk food ‘restaurants’, but the crows people were giving out vouchers to a particular junk food place as prizes. And now my little boy is insisting that we go.’

That was the point where KG, usually the first to see the subtle failings of the Adelaide Crows, first began to scoff.

Adelaide took the milk from the fridge, poured a splash into the bottom of the cup. She had thought she had a valid point. Football clubs, going into schools, giving out fast food vouchers? It isn’t good.

She made herself remember the reaction of Graham Cornes. The lady’s got a point. She smiled to herself. Adelaide had always liked that man. And she wasn’t at all jealous of his wife’s Sunday Mail column. Adelaide was just happy for another woman’s success.

No, KG continued. She’s being precious. Move on, Studley.

PS, she had written Thanks for listening to me. My children don’t.

Well, KG finished. She’s got a problem if her children aren’t listening.

And that’s when Adelaide started to think. Maybe he’s right, she thought, maybe life is as simple as that. Maybe I make everything too complex. Maybe I’m too serious. Maybe I need to lighten up.

‘Here’s your tea, love,’ she said and put her husband’s cup on the occasional table. He grunted without looking up from his new book of Sudoku puzzles.

Adelaide sat, put her feet on the pouf and blew at her tea. Maybe she wouldn’t worry about sending that email on the awkward relationship between the sponsorship deals paid to already-well-paid sports players, sportswear manufacturers and sweatshop workers.

Adelaide finally made it to the SASMEE Millswood train park. She had been watching that train park since she was seven years old, and now, one day after she turned 37, she was finally here.

Adelaide wasn’t sure which best she liked best. Lining up with little boys bouncing with the joy of life. The officious fully enclosed shoes signs. The shade of the trees on a day that was almost too hot. The woman who stopped the trains to hand out cups of sticky orange drinks to the drivers (volunteers all). The old men controlling their boats by remote and happy to give little boys a go. The grey-haired woman with two little boys on the bowling green who couldn’t work out how to get through the fence. Men who were young enough to know better wearing railroad hats covered in gold-coloured stick pins. Groups of men polishing their trains at the end of the day. Walking back to the car with little boys still bouncing with the joy of life.

But by the time she got home, Adelaide knew exactly which bit of the day she liked best. She liked that at the young age of 37, Adelaide had discovered the meaning of life.

It’s trainspotters that make the world go round and there was hope for Adelaide yet.

Adelaide was not invited to the launches of WOMADelaide or the Adelaide Festival of Arts. She was not invited to the opening of the Federal Law Courts (which building, by the way, she quite liked and was willing to give a chance to see how it settled down). She did not get a guernsey to the Jacob’s Creek Tour Down Under corporate tent. She had not even – despite her name – been at the launch of Adelaide Writer’s Week.

But as one of the state’s industry leaders, she did get the nod for the secret meeting with Business SA to discuss the appallingly embarrassing situation of the new Adelaide Airport terminal which was bringing in nothing but international shame. All eyes were on Adelaide. It was front page news – every second day – in the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Courier-Mail. It was on page three of the AFR three times a week plus Saturdays. It was all anyone interstate and overseas was talking about.

The meeting was timely, Adelaide thought. Something needs to be done. Adelaide was very pleased to take advantage of the excellent on-site creche facilities provided by Business SA for not just the duration of the meeting, but also the networking opportunity which followed. It was never too early to get your toddler mixing with the state’s future best.

It was an excellent meeting. One of the best to which Adelaide had ever been, and it certainly suited her outcome-driven style. There was so much this small, but influential group could do, and by the end of the meeting they had identified the key stakeholders with whom they needed to engage and agreed that the engagements would begin next week. The first phone call would be to the agenda-setters over at ABC 891.

‘So who exactly was there?’ her husband asked when they were safe in bed discussing the day they had just spent at the state’s cutting edge. Adelaide could trust her husband, of course she could, but if she were honest with herself (which she could be, because the light was out), she enjoyed the opportunity to have just a little more knowledge than him.

‘I’ll just say this,’ Adelaide told her husband, a curious – but not nosey – man. ‘There was more than one soy chai latte ordered from the Cibo delivery express.’

Adelaide got an iPod for Christmas and now it was February and her life still hadn’t changed.

‘So you see,’ Adelaide said to her father who was one of those jaded apolitical they’re-all-the-bloody-same types. ‘An Opposition doesn’t need to be a negative nay-sayer.’ She cut the article out ready to send to the federal opposition this afternoon. ‘Look at the South Australian Opposition. If this isn’t a positive policy announcement I don’t know what it is.’

Her father sniffed. He looked at the clipped article. He nodded and his eyebrows lifted as he read.

‘They’re right,’ Adelaide said. ‘It’s definitely time to ‘rebalance the agenda’. Isobel Redmond is spot on the money. It’s gone too far.’

Adelaide herself had too often found herself in the embarrassing position of getting a job purely because of her breasts just because she was a woman. Isobel Redmond was right. It was demeaning.

‘And it got worse once I had kids,’ Adelaide said. ‘Remember? All those jobs that fell out of the sky and into my lap once the kids went back to school.’ Her father nodded. He winced. It had been a terribly demeaning time for them all.

‘Men are reluctant to seek assistance, have difficulties juggling work commitments and family life, and forty percent of men over 40 have serious health problems.’ Adelaide read through the rationale behind the policy published on the website. She couldn’t argue with any of that. And with only a little experience, Adelaide could see that classrooms certainly didn’t suit everyone.

She folded the newspaper clipping, slipped it into an envelope. And there was no better way to address those problems than to redirect the money away from women, thought Adelaide.

Adelaide stood at the gate and waved goodbye. Her child was happy, but Adelaide was sad in the depths of her soul.

And she was sorry that her little boy’s shorts were too loose and slipped down to his knees everytime he bounced (which was often). She should have checked them yesterday. And she was sorry that he looked like a bit of a dork with his name written on the front of his hat, because she had only remembered to write it on when they were running out the front door.

She was sorry and he was happy and she was sad.

Adelaide was sitting on the beach, watching the passing parade of faces she vaguely recognised. It was getting late, but it had been a scorching day, so Adelaide stayed, glad of the relief.

Children splashed in the shallows. Lovers held hands. Buffed bodies jogged past. It was a Brilliant day to be Adelaide.

Adelaide leaned back on her arms and smiled as the sun disappeared. The sky was still a glorious orange.

And the Dogs were off their leads. Poodles, Labradors, Boxers and all the breeds between. A not-small Dog approached Adelaide’s child and Adelaide moved towards the Dog. Her heart was beating and her legs were shaking, but she kept walking, because a Dog was approaching her child.

‘Oh, don’t worry about him.’ There was a shrill voice in Adelaide’s right ear. Adelaide turned and she was face-to-face with a woman whose lipstick was bleeding into the smoker’s lines surrounding her lips.

‘He’ll lick you to death soon as bite you.’ The woman smiled a pink and toothy smile. ‘Won’t you boy?’ The Dog jumped. His jump splashed Adelaide.

‘I’d prefer we didn’t die either way,’ Adelaide said and she smiled an Adelaide smile.

The woman pursed her pink lips and shook the jangly lead. She sniffed a small sniff then screwed up her nose.

‘You’re not a Dog Person, are you?’ she said to Adelaide.

‘I’m a monkey,’ said Adelaide. ‘My most compatible match is a Dragon. Or a Rat.’

The woman sniffed again and Adelaide knew it was time to go home.