‘You’re suggesting we abandon the group? That I’m the only one benefiting?’
‘On the contrary. I’m just saying that these things need a champion or they drift apart. If it wasn’t for Mr Jimmy, the Dead Kings would’ve been finished thirty years ago. And we’d all be the worse for it.’
I drank my Scotch. I assumed George had delivered his message, but he refilled our glasses. I suspected the second glass would solve the sleeping problem—possibly the standing problem.
‘You know I said I didn’t have any secrets?’ he said.
I nodded.
‘I lied. My son, the one whose birth I didn’t get to. He’s a drug addict. That’s no secret. This is the secret. It was my fault. I caused it. He never even drank, didn’t smoke. He was a jazz drummer. A bloody good drummer.’
‘You consider that some failure in your parenting caused him to take addictive drugs?’
‘It wasn’t his genes, I can tell you that.’ George took a long time to finish his glass of Scotch. I followed the therapist rule and stayed silent. George filled his glass again. ‘I put him onto it. I goaded him into doing it. Told him he was afraid to try things, afraid to grab hold of life. Gene’ll tell you why I did it.’
‘I thought this was a secret. Do you want me to tell Gene?’
‘No. But if you did, Gene would tell you I wanted to bring him down to my level. Unconsciously, I suppose. But not that unconsciously.’
George was now unambiguously distressed. I hoped I would not be required to put my arm—or arms—around him.
‘So there you go,’ he said. ‘You’re the only one who knows, besides me and him. He’s never said a word against me.’
‘Do you require help to solve the problem?’
‘If I did, you’d be the first person I’d ask. Too late for that. I just wanted to tell someone who would see it straight, see it for what it is. If I’m going to be judged, I want to be judged by someone I respect.’ He raised his glass as if in a toast, then consumed its contents. I followed his example.
‘Ta for that,’ he said. ‘I owe you one. If you find a solution for drug addiction, let me know on the way to collecting your Nobel Prize. If I had to put my money on anyone to do it, you’d be my man.’
Our apartment was dark when I returned from George’s. I had unpacked my wet clothes from the garbage bag, brushed my teeth and checked my schedule for the following day when a thought formed. I was compelled to act on it.
Gene was asleep and not happy to be woken.
‘We need to call Carl,’ I said.
‘What? What’s happened? Has something happened to Carl?’
‘Something might. He may begin taking illicit drugs. Due to his mental state.’
Gene had provided an argument, albeit an unconvincing one, for not telling Claudia the truth. But it was obvious that the lie was causing Carl to hate Gene. Hate causes distress, potentially leading to mental and physical health problems. Adolescents are highly vulnerable. It was too late to save George’s son, but we were in a position to save Carl.
‘His mental state is based on an incorrect assumption about your behaviour. You need to correct it.’
‘Save it for the morning.’
‘It’s 2.14 a.m. 5.14 p.m. in Melbourne. Perfect time to call.’
‘I’m not dressed.’
This was true. Gene had been sleeping in his underwear, an unhealthy choice. I began to explain about the risk of tinea cruris but he interrupted.
‘Let’s get it done then. Don’t turn the video on.’
Calculon was online. I connected and she summoned Carl. I remained in text mode.
Greetings Carl. Gene (your father) wants to speak to you.
No thanks. Sorry Don, I know you’re only trying to help.
He has a confession.
I don’t want to hear any more about the stuff he’s done. Goodnight.
Wait. He didn’t have sex with multiple women. It was a lie.
What?
I judged this as the perfect moment to switch to video. Carl’s face filled the screen. He had neglected his shaving, in the manner of Stefan, and looked capable of patricide.
‘What are you saying?’
I punched Gene in the arm in what I considered a traditional signal to speak.
‘Shit, that hurt, Don.’
‘Give Carl the information.’
‘Um, Carl, you should know I didn’t sleep with all those women. I was just big-noting myself. Don’t tell Claudia.’
There was silence. Then Carl said, ‘You’re such a loser,’ and terminated the connection.
Gene began to stand up from the edge of the bath but, doubtless due to intoxication, fell back in on top of my clothes, which had been soaked in bovine amniotic fluid. They did not smell pleasant. Gene did not appear to be hurt, and from my position on the toilet it was easier to let him get out by himself.
Gene’s yell as he fell into the bath must have woken Rosie. She opened the bathroom-office door and looked at us strangely, presumably because of Gene’s attempts to exit the bath and my unfamiliar costume—Ben the Farmer’s trousers were too large for me and were held up by rope. Gene was, of course, in his underwear.
Rosie quickly turned away from Gene and looked at me. ‘Have a good night?’ she said.
‘Excellent,’ I replied. The large mammal delivery represented an important milestone in restoring our relationship.
Rosie did not seem interested in further conversation. Gene fell back in the bath.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Gene. ‘I should not have classified the night as excellent. We appeared to make no impression on Carl.’
‘I think you’re wrong,’ said Gene. ‘He just needs time to think about it.’
I stood up, but Gene had not finished.
‘Don, one day soon you’re going to have a child of your own. You’ll understand how far you’d go to protect your relationship with him or her.’
‘Of course. I encouraged you to make maximum efforts to solve the Carl problem.’
‘Then if you ever work out what I did, I hope you’ll at least understand. Even if you don’t forgive me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Carl wouldn’t have believed that story coming from anyone but you.’
‘Why aren’t you at work?’ asked Rosie on the Monday morning. It was 9.12 a.m. and she was preparing breakfast for herself. It appeared healthy, which was probably inevitable as the fridge contained only pregnancy-compatible foodstuffs. Her shape was, as expected, changing; it was currently consistent with the diagrams in The Book for the fifth month of pregnancy. I was seeing variations of the world’s most beautiful woman. It was like listening to a new version of a favourite song. ‘Satisfaction’, sung by Cat Power.
‘I’ve scheduled the full day off. To attend the second sonogram examination,’ I said. I had not mentioned it previously in order to maximise the impact of my improved level of participation. A surprise.
‘I didn’t say anything to you about a sonogram,’ said
Rosie.
‘You’re not having one?’
‘I had it last week.’
‘Ahead of schedule?’
‘Twenty-two weeks. Like you insisted a couple of months ago.’
‘Correct. Last week was twenty-one weeks and some variable number of days.’ We had agreed: twenty-two weeks and zero days.
‘Fuck,’ said Rosie. ‘I ask you to come and you don’t show up, and now I don’t ask and you take the day off.’ She turned away and filled the kettle. ‘You didn’t really want to come with me, did you, Don? You didn’t come to the last one.’
‘That was an error. Which I wanted to rectify.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s generally accepted that men should attend sonogram examinations. I was unaware of that convention. I’m sorry about the mistake.’
‘I don’t want you to come because it’s generally accepted.’
‘You didn’t want me to come?’
Rosie poured hot water onto a ‘herbal’ tea bag (in fact not herbal but fruit-based and caffeine-free).
‘Don, we’re at cross-purposes. It’s not your fault, but you’re not really interested, are you?’
‘Incorrect. Human reproduction is incredibly interesting. The pregnancy has prompted me to acquire knowledge—’
‘You know, it’s kicking. It moves around. I watched it on the screen. I can feel it when I’m lying in bed.’
‘Excellent. Movement is normally experienced from approximately eighteen weeks.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m living it.’
I made a mental note to record the information on the Week 18 tile. Gene’s fall into the bath had smudged some of my earlier diagrams, but the recent tiles had escaped. Rosie was looking at me as if she expected something further.
‘A good sign that things are progressing normally. Which the sonogram would have confirmed.’ I was making an assumption. ‘Is everything proceeding normally?’
‘Thanks for asking. All components are in place according to schedule.’ She sipped her fruit tea. ‘You know, they can tell whether it’s a boy or a girl,’ she said.
‘Not always. It depends on the position.’
‘Well, it was in the right position.’
I had an idea. ‘Do you want to go to the Natural History Museum? It will be less busy on a weekday.’
‘No thanks. I’ll do some reading. You go. Do you want to know if we’re having a boy or a girl?’
I could not see how the information would be useful at this point, except to encourage purchasing of gender-specific products, which I was sure Rosie would regard as sexist. My mother had already asked what colour socks to purchase.
‘No,’ I said. I am more competent at interpreting Rosie’s expressions than those of other people, due to practice. I detected sadness or disappointment—definitely a negative response. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Yes. What gender?’
‘I don’t know. They could tell but I didn’t want to know.’
Rosie had engineered a surprise for herself. It solved the socks problem.
I collected my backpack from my bathroom-office. On the way out, Rosie stopped me, took my hand, and put it on her belly, which was now noticeably distended. ‘Feel, it’s kicking.’
I felt and confirmed the fact. It had been some time since I had touched Rosie, and my brain formed the thought of purchasing a triple-espresso coffee and a blueberry muffin. But they were both on the banned substances list.
25
Rosie had completed her PhD thesis. In keeping with the conventional practice of celebrating milestones, I booked dinner for two at a prestigious restaurant, and confirmed that they could produce a pregnancy-compatible meal. At Rosie’s request, I delayed the celebration to enable her to focus on study for a dermatology exam, which she completed that afternoon.
There had been no significant change to our relationship since the Second Ultrasound Misunderstanding. The previous Saturday, I had completed Tile 26—in fact two adjacent tiles. Bud no longer fitted on a single tile.
I had stopped travelling with Rosie on the subway. With the arrival of cooler weather, I established a routine of jogging through the Hudson River Park to and from Columbia. There had been no sex. In my early twenties, I had shared a house with other students. Our current situation felt similar.
Rosie was already home in her study-bedroom when Gene and I arrived. She called out, ‘Hi guys. How were your days?’
‘Interesting.’ I called back from the living room as I removed the access panel to the beer storage to check the system and draw off two samples for taste-testing. ‘Inge discovered a statistically significant anomaly in group 17B.’ After Rosie’s initial reaction to the Lesbian Mothers Project, and Gene’s advice that it was in Rosie’s ‘territory’, I considered it best to limit my report to the safe ground of the mouse-liver research. ‘She used a Wilcoxon signed-rank test—temporary interrupt—I’m checking the beer.’
Gene took the opportunity to hijack the conversation. ‘How did your exam go?’
‘My memory’s like a fucking sieve. Stuff I know I studied, I couldn’t remember.’
I returned with the two filled pint glasses and gave one to Gene. The cooling system was functioning perfectly and I wondered at what point George would realise that he could dispense with my services.
I was in clear speaking range again. ‘The analysis indicated an unexpected—’
‘We were talking about Rosie’s exam,’ said Gene. Rather than point out that we had been talking about the mouse results prior to that and had not completed the discussion, I made a rapid mental adjustment and joined the exam conversation.
‘Impairment of cognitive function is a common side-effect of pregnancy. You should ask for special consideration.’
‘For being pregnant?’
‘Correct. The science is quite clear.’
‘No.’
‘That seems an irrational response. Which is also an established side-effect of pregnancy.’
‘I just had a bad day, okay? I probably passed. Forget it.’
People cannot forget things on command. Being instructed to forget something is analogous to being instructed not to think of a pink elephant, or not to buy certain foodstuffs.
Did the lowering of cognitive power in pregnancy have some evolutionary value, or did it reflect the diversion of some resource to the reproductive process? The latter seemed more likely. I reflected on it as Gene offered the formulaic statements of reassurance that lecturers use to fend off students in the period between examination and results, then I presented a summary of my conclusion.
‘Chances are your exam failure will lead to a higher-quality baby.’
‘What? Don, go and get dressed for dinner.’
Rosie walked back into her study-bedroom, presumably also to dress for dinner. Gene was still in interruption mode. I suspected too much coffee or Inge-related stimulation.
He called out to Rosie. ‘Think about the thesis. The exam’s one small blip. The thesis is six years’ work. If it helps the celebration tonight, I
can tell you it’ll get through, with minor amendments at worst. Whether or not I agree with you philosophically, it’s a real contribution and you should be proud of yourself. I’ve been giving you a hard time to keep you honest. So go out and have a good time.’
‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ Rosie called back.
‘I’ll grab a pizza.’
I said, ‘I assumed you would be dining with Inge.’
‘Not every night. Not yet.’
‘I thought you’d be joining us. You’re a big part of this,’ said Rosie.
‘No, I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Seriously, I want you to come. I’d really like you there tonight. Please.’
Rosie was creating a problem—a totally unexpected problem. She had complained constantly about Gene as a supervisor, house guest and in general as a human being, so I had assumed she would not want him present as she celebrated what she had frequently referred to as ‘finally being free of that jerk’. I had booked for two and the restaurant was extremely popular. I explained the situation, leaving out the negative statements about Gene, but Rosie was insistent.
‘Bullshit. They can put another chair at the table. They won’t turn us away.’
Based on my conversations with the restaurant staff earlier in the day, I suspected Rosie’s second statement was likely to be true.
The restaurant in the Upper East Side was within walking distance, though Gene and Rosie seemed to struggle for the final twenty blocks. Both needed to work on their fitness. I mentioned this to Rosie as a possible use of the time freed up by the completion of the thesis and exam.
There was a greetings person at a lectern just inside the door. I addressed her in the conventional manner. ‘Good evening. I have a reservation in the name of Tillman.’
It was as if I had said, ‘We have detected bubonic plague in the restaurant.’ She walked off rapidly.