Love in the Outback by Deb Hunt

Author:Deb Hunt [Hunt, Deb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2014-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

chapter seventeen

Dream catchers spun from the ceiling, rainbow-coloured scarves covered the counter and the shelves were full of crystals and self-help books. It had to be the right place.

Metro Mike operated from a converted semi-detached house sandwiched between a butcher’s and an op shop on a busy main road near the Metro Shopping Centre in Marrickville, hence the name. I hadn’t entirely weaned myself off Tarot cards (in my defence, Metro Mike came highly recommended) and I was curious to know if the universe had any advice about CC.

I followed Metro Mike down the narrow side passage that once would have been an empty space between two houses. The hazy corridor was covered with corrugated plastic to keep out the rain and the walls were draped in multi-coloured fabric. It was barely wide enough to drag a bin down yet Metro Mike had somehow managed to squeeze a table and two chairs into the narrow space. This was his consulting room.

The box of tissues on the table was a bad sign – I’m like Pavlov’s dog when I spot a box of Kleenex – and sure enough Metro Mike had barely started speaking before a pile of soggy tissues started accumulating in front of us. He said some pretty hard-hitting stuff.

‘You’re good at failure, but you’re afraid of success,’ he declared. ‘Why aren’t you writing more?’

I blew my nose. Had I told him I was a part-time writer? I couldn’t remember.

I’d written stories, poems and scripts that I’d shown no one because I was convinced they weren’t good enough. It was that search for perfection again. Writing was the one thing I loved doing more than anything else, but it was easier to give up and call myself a failure at it than try to succeed and have someone else tell me I was no good. The truth of what he’d said had me reaching for another tissue. ‘You’re doing a job that helps people but you shouldn’t be doing it. You’ve been putting off what you really want to do and now it’s time to get on with it. Do you sometimes write things that seem really intelligent and profound?’

I nodded, sobbing into my tissue, feeling a little glow of self-satisfaction as I wondered how he could possibly know about the hidden talent I sometimes thought might be worth sharing with the world.

‘Fifty per cent of what you write isn’t yours,’ he said bluntly. ‘It comes from your guides.’

Oh that’s all very well, I thought sourly, thanks for the vote of confidence, but what about what I really came here for? What about relationships? What about the future? What can you tell me about those, Mr Smarty Pants?

‘Stop worrying about the future,’ he said, when I hadn’t said a word about the future. ‘And you’ve got a good relationship,’ he added, before I could say a word about relationships. ‘Enjoy it. It was working but then something got in the way.’

He peered at me rather accusingly, as if it was somehow my fault.

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