The Rosie Effect

by Graeme Simsion

  ‘Don’s demanding that we include data that was gathered before the protocols were properly in place. It’s misleading.’

  ‘It’s the most interesting data,’ I said. ‘It establishes that neither mother raises the baby’s oxytocin levels through play rituals.’

  ‘That’s because the original play rituals were male-biased. The female carers weren’t comfortable with them. The babies sensed this. We had to make them more appropriate to women.’

  ‘They would be classified as cuddling,’ I said.

  ‘You didn’t see them. You weren’t there.’

  The second part was true. Emails advising me of the schedule had failed to arrive, and the technicians I had contacted had not located the problem despite multiple followups and escalation. Fortunately B3 had found a more efficient solution.

  ‘I was provided with video.’

  ‘Who—’

  ‘Does it matter?’ asked David. ‘Don’s surely entitled to see the video.’

  ‘He’s not qualified to determine the difference between play and cuddling.’

  ‘Agreed,’ I said. ‘I sent the videos to experts for analysis.’

  ‘Who? Who did you send the videos to?’

  ‘The original researchers in Israel, obviously. They confirmed that the second protocol should be classified as cuddling. Hence your research establishes that the secondary carer, if female, stimulates the production of oxytocin in the child by cuddling rather than play. Which is a clear difference from the results with male secondary carers. Hence interesting.’

  It seemed that B1 had not understood my point, as she stood up with an expression that I provisionally diagnosed as angry. I clarified. ‘Hence highly publishable. The researcher I spoke to on Skype was extremely interested.’

  ‘What Don’s done is totally unethical,’ said B1. ‘Showing our results to other researchers.’

  ‘Naive, perhaps. Not unethical. This is the Columbia medical school, open and cooperative with researchers around the world. Don has our support.’

  After B1 had left, the Dean congratulated me on my persistence. ‘They tried to cut you out, Don. I think most researchers would have walked away. Refusing to take no for an answer has given us a good result.’

  The weather had turned cold, as was usual for early December. Bud’s diagram was now taking up four tiles. At twenty-nine weeks, with the medical services available in New York, he could possibly survive in the external world.

  Our marriage was surviving in shared-house mode.

  Rosie had invited her study group to our apartment to celebrate the end of classes prior to exams and also her deferral from the course.

  ‘It’ll probably be the last time I see these guys,’ she said. ‘We’ve got nothing much in common—most of them are younger than me.’

  ‘Only by a few years. They’re adults.’

  ‘Just. And they’re not into babies and stuff. Anyway, if you and Gene want to go out with Dave—’

  ‘We had a boys’ night out last night. Dave is being criticised for insufficient attention to Sonia and also has to perform paperwork. Gene has a date with Inge.’

  ‘A date.’

  ‘Correct.’ It was pointless to use a less accurate term. Gene had confessed that he was in love with Inge. George had argued that the age difference was irrelevant, and Dave had no opinion. Gene’s visa allowed him to remain in the US for a month’s vacation on completion of his sabbatical, and he planned to spend the time looking for a permanent position in New York.

  ‘How about George?’ Rosie had not met George.

  The persistent suggestion of alternatives led to an inevitable conclusion. I had learned something from the Lesbian Mothers Project.

  ‘You don’t want me here?’

  ‘It’s my study group.’

  ‘This is also my apartment. The study-group meeting is a social occasion. I’m your partner. Are other people bringing partners?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Excellent. I am RSVPing in the affirmative.’

  The Dean would have been impressed.

  27

  Gene provided me with some guidelines for hosting a party.

  ‘Loud music, low lights, salty food, plenty of booze. Fresh shirt and jeans. The shoes you wore for Dave the Calf, if you’ve cleaned them. Don’t tuck your shirt in. The unshaven look is fine. Shake hands, serve food, serve drinks, don’t do anything to embarrass Rosie.’

  ‘What makes you think I’ll embarrass her?’

  ‘Experience. And she told me. Not in so many words, but she tried to get me to break my date with Inge so I could take you off her hands. Fat chance. This is the big one.’

  ‘The big one? You plan to have sex with Inge?’

  ‘Believe it or not, it’s been remarkably chaste so far. But my professional instincts tell me that tonight’s the night.’

  I made the party arrangements, and Rosie confirmed that all was going according to plan when I arrived home.

  ‘What’s all this booze?’ she asked. ‘I had to sign for five cases of liquor. We can’t afford to be spending like this.’

  ‘Delivery was free. And there was a discount for the quantity. Based on past behaviour, you’ll be drinking to excess again once Bud is born.’

  ‘I told people to bring their own. We’re just students.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I said.

  ‘And Don, I’m thinking of moving back to Australia, remember. Before the baby is born. I won’t be around to drink it.’

  I had moved my weekly discussion with my mother forward by thirty minutes to accommodate the party and made a decision to lie in order to avoid inflicting emotional pain.

  ‘Has it arrived yet?’ my mother asked.

  I told the truth. ‘It arrived on Thursday.’

  ‘You should have called. Your father was in a state about it. It cost a fortune to send. God knows what he’s spent on it already. He was talking to people in Korea—Korea—half the night and then the boxes arrived and he had to sign all these documents about patents and secrecy and of course he had to read every word—you know what your father’s like, he’s worked on it day and night, Trevor’s had no help in the shop for weeks… I think you should speak to him.’ She turned away and called out, ‘Jim, it’s Donald.’

  My father’s face replaced my mother’s. ‘Is it what you wanted?’ he said.

  ‘Excellent. Perfect. Incredible. I’ve tested it. Meets all requirements.’ This was true too.

  ‘What does Rosie think?’ asked my mother in the background.

  ‘Totally satisfied. She considers Dad the world’s greatest inventor.’

  This was a deception. I had not shown Rosie the crib. It was in Gene’s closet. After the pram problem, I considered there was a high probability that she would reject my father’s most amazing project.

  The first to arrive for the study-group celebration was a couple, vindicating my decision to be present. Rosie introduced them.

  ‘Josh, Rebecca, Don.’

 
I extended my hand which they shook in turn. ‘I’m Rosie’s partner,’ I said. ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘We’ve brought some beer,’ said Josh.

  ‘There’s cold beer in the fridge. We can drink it while yours returns to optimum temperature.’

  ‘Thanks, but this is English beer. I worked in London in a pub for six months. Got a taste for it.’

  ‘We have six real ales on tap.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re kidding me.’

  I showed him to the coolroom and drew off a pint of Crouch Vale Brewers Gold. Rebecca followed and I asked if she wanted beer or would prefer a cocktail. The social protocols were familiar and I was feeling very comfortable as I mixed her a Ward 8 and performed a few tricks with the cocktail shaker.

  Other guests arrived. I mixed cocktails to their specification and handed around the salted Padrón peppers and edamame. Rosie turned off the music I had selected and replaced it with a more current recording. The noise level remained high, lights low, alcohol consumption steady. People appeared to be having fun. Gene’s formula was working. So far, there were no indications that I had embarrassed anyone.

  At 11.07 p.m. there was a knock. It was George. In one hand he had a bottle of red wine and in the other a guitar case.

  ‘Revenge, eh? Keeping an old man awake. Mind if I join you?’

  George was our de facto landlord. It seemed inadvisable to refuse him entry. I introduced him, took his wine and offered him a cocktail. By the time I returned with his martini, all of the guests were seated and George had started playing and singing. Disaster! It was 1960s-style music similar to that which Rosie had turned off earlier. I assumed George’s performance would be similarly unacceptable to young people.

  I was wrong. Before I could think of a way of silencing George, Rosie’s guests were clapping and singing along. I focused on refilling drinks.

  While George was playing, Gene arrived home. We had an apartment full of young people, a significant percentage of whom were unaccompanied women, disinhibited by alcohol. I was worried that he might behave inappropriately, but he went directly to his bedroom. I presumed his libido had been exhausted.

  The party finished at 2.35 a.m. One of the last to leave was a woman who had introduced herself as Mai, age approximately twenty-four, BMI approximately twenty. We spoke together in the beer fridge while I selected liquor for her final cocktail.

  ‘You’re so not like what we were expecting,’ she said. ‘To be honest, we all thought you’d be some kind of geek.’

  It was a notable milestone. Tonight, at least in this limited domain of social interaction, I had managed to convince a cool young person, and apparently her fellow students, even in the face of a preconception, that I was within the normal range of social competence. But I was concerned with how the preconception had arisen.

  ‘How did you deduce that I was a geek?’

  ‘We just thought—well, you’re with Rosie, the only person on the planet doing an MD and a PhD at the same time. And the way she just says what she thinks, how we’ve got to drag her into doing anything social…and then it’s like, oh yeah, I’m having a baby but let me get these stats done first. We thought she’d have gone for someone the same and here you are with the apartment and the cocktails and the muso buddy and the retro shirt.’

  She sipped her cocktail.

  ‘This is awesome. Is it okay to ask, is she getting any help with the clinical thing?’

  ‘What clinical thing?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m sticking my nose in. But we’ve talked about it because we want to help. She’s so obviously using the pregnancy as a way out.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Her clinical year. I mean she wants to do psych, and she’ll never have to touch a patient after next year if she can get some help to get through it. I gather there was some sort of trauma in her childhood—a car accident or something that’s freaked her out about emergency medicine.’

  Rosie had been in the car when her mother was killed and Phil badly injured. It would seem reasonable that confronting the injuries of others might stimulate traumatic memories. But she had never said anything to me.

  Inge asked to see me urgently on the Monday morning after the party, then offered to buy me coffee. ‘It’s more of a personal matter,’ she said.

  I can see no logical reason why personal and social topics need to be discussed in a café and accompanied by beverages, whereas research topics can be discussed in both the work environment and in cafés. But we changed location and purchased coffee to enable the conversation to begin.

  ‘You were right about Gene. I should have listened to you.’

  ‘He attempted to seduce you?’

  ‘Worse. He says he’s in love with me.’

  ‘And that emotion is not reciprocated?’

  ‘Of course not. He’s older than my father. I thought of him as a mentor, and he treated me like an equal. But I never did anything to suggest... I can’t believe he got it so wrong. I can’t believe I got it so wrong.’

  In the evening, I knocked on Rosie’s door and entered. I had expected she would be performing some task at her computer, but she was lying on the mattress. There was no book visible. The lack of distractions created an ideal opportunity to raise an important topic.

  ‘Mai told me there was some problem with clinical activities. A phobia about patient contact. Is this correct?’

  ‘Fuck. I told you, I’m dropping the medical program. The reasons don’t matter.’

  ‘You said you were deferring. David Borenstein—’

  ‘Fuck David Borenstein. I am deferring. Who knows, I may go back, I may not. Right now I’m a bit busy with exams and having a baby.’

  ‘Obviously if there is some obstacle preventing you from achieving a goal, you should investigate methods for overcoming it.’

  I could empathise with Rosie, and was in a position to help. I had faced an almost identical situation when I switched my studies from computers to genetics. My revulsion at handling animals increased in proportion to the size of the animal. It was irrational but felt instinctual, hence difficult to overcome.

  I undertook hypnotherapy, but attributed my cure to the Cat Rescue Incident, in which it had been necessary to save a housemate’s kitten which had jumped into the toilet—a doubly unpleasant task. I learned that I could create an intellectual separation from the physical sensation in an emergency. Once I knew the brain configuration, I was able to reproduce it well enough to dissect mice and assist in the delivery of a calf. I was confident that I could function in a medical emergency, and that I could coach Rosie to do so too.

  I began to explain, but she stopped me. ‘Forget it, please. If I wanted to do it enough, I’d sort it out. I’m just not that interested.’

  ‘Do you want to see a play? Tonight?’

  ‘What play?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’

  ‘So you haven’t bought tickets or anything. Haven’t you got stuff…scheduled?’

  ‘I’ve scheduled a play. For both of us. As a couple.’

  ‘Sorry, Don.’

 
I saw Gene next. He was also in his room lying on the bed. Our household was aggregately depressed.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ he said. ‘Inge spoke to you, right?’

  Gene had asked me not to speak, then asked a question that required me to answer. I decided that the latter overrode the former.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Christ, how do I face her? I’ve been a complete idiot.’

  ‘Correct. Fortunately she has been similarly imperceptive in failing to note that your interactions with her were aimed at seduction. I recommend—’

  ‘It’s okay, Don, I don’t need your advice on etiquette.’

  ‘Incorrect. I’m extremely experienced at dealing with embarrassment resulting from insensitivity to others. I’m an expert. I recommend an apology and admission that you are a klutz. I have recommended to her that she apologise for not making her position clear. She is similarly embarrassed. Nobody else knows except me.’

  ‘Thanks. Appreciate it.’

  ‘Do you want to go to a play? I have tickets,’ I said.

  ‘No, I’ll stay in, I think.’

  ‘Bad decision. You should come to the play with me. Otherwise you’ll reflect on your error but make zero progress.’

  ‘All right. What time?’

  Don Tillman. Counsellor.

  Before leaving, I prepared a meal for Rosie and put the other two serves in the fridge for Gene and me to eat later. I had a minor problem with managing the cling wrap, as a result of poor dispenser design. Rosie got up from the table and pulled out a new sheet.