‘Correct.’ There would be no impact on the quality of dinner, but my own schedule had now been thrown out. It was frustrating to be the only person in the house affected: Rosie and Gene would barely notice the shift. Having Gene as part of our family significantly increased the chances of such disruption.
Rosie was still in her study. It was a good time to confront Gene.
‘Were you drinking with Inge?’
‘I was. She’s quite charming.’
‘You’re planning to seduce her?’
‘Now, now Don. We’re just two adults free to enjoy each other’s company.’
This was technically true, but there were two reasons I needed to prevent Gene from adding another nationality to his list.
The first was the directive from David Borenstein, which I had been blackmailed into accepting in order to secure Gene’s sabbatical. The Dean’s requirement was that Gene keep his hands off PhD students, but I suspected he would extend it to a twenty-three-year-old researcher, though there is no law against professors having sex with junior researchers or even students, assuming the person is of legal age and the professor is not involved in their assessment.
The second reason was that, if Gene demonstrated celibacy, Claudia might forgive him, and his unfulfilled desire for sex might drive him back to her. I had expected that Gene would be unhappy at the breakup of his marriage and that Rosie and I would be required to console him. To date, I had seen no evidence of unhappiness on Gene’s part. I was faced with another human problem that would not be resolved without action by me.
Over the following week, I attempted to leave the Lydia situation for my subconscious to work on. Creative thinking benefits from an incubation period. On the Saturday evening,
after my regular VoIP call to my mother, I initiated another interaction.
Greetings, Claudia
.
I typed the message rather than attempting to establish a voice link. It was possible she was with a patient. I was operating at maximum personal empathy level, facilitated by isolation in my bathroom-office, a recent jog and a pink grapefruit margarita that I was still consuming. My schedule was up to date, and the previous night I had drawn the outline of Bud on the tile for Week 7.
Hi, Don. How are you?
Claudia typed back.
I had changed my view on social formulas. I now realised that they were actually an advantage for people who found human interaction difficult.
Very well, thank you. How are you?
Fine. Eugenie’s keeping me on my toes, but otherwise good.
We should use audio—more efficient.
This is fine
, Claudia typed.
Talking is superior. I can speak faster than I can type.
Let’s stay with text.
How is the weather in Melbourne?
I’m in Sydney. With a friend. A new friend.
You already have vast numbers of friends. Surely you don’t need any more.
This one is special.
Formalities had taken us off track. It was time to get to the point.
You and Gene should get back together
.
I appreciate your concern, Don, but it’s a bit late.
Incorrect. You’ve only been apart a short time. You have a vast investment in the relationship. Eugenie and Carl. Gene’s infidelity is irrational; trivial to correct compared with the cost of divorce, marital disruption, potentially finding new partners.
I continued in this vein. One of the advantages of text is that the other person cannot interrupt, and my argument quickly filled several windows. In the meantime a message arrived from Claudia, thanks to the asynchronous capabilities of Skype.
Thanks Don. I really do appreciate your concern. But I have to go. How are you and Rosie?
Fine. Do you want to talk to Gene? I think you should.
Don, I don’t want to be harsh, but I’m a clinical psychologist and you’re not an expert on interpersonal relations. Maybe leave this one to me.
Not harsh. I have a successful marriage and yours has failed. Hence my approach is prima facie more effective.
It was approximately twenty seconds before Claudia’s response came through—the connection was obviously slow.
Maybe. I appreciate you trying. But I have to go. And don’t take your successful marriage for granted.
Claudia’s icon turned orange before I could text a standard goodbye message.
I was not taking my marriage for granted. After a further week of incubating the Lydia Problem, I decided that I could present it to Rosie as an opportunity to receive advice on our parenting. I attempted to introduce the idea over dinner, which of course included Gene, but as I was unable to
disclose information about the Playground Incident, my intentions were misinterpreted. Rosie thought my mention of parenting responsibilities was a reference to her taking leave from the medical program.
‘If I was a male student having a baby, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.’
‘The situation is biologically different,’ I said. ‘For the male, the birth process has minimal impact; he could be working or watching baseball concurrently.’
‘He better not be. Technically, I only need a few days off.
You
take a week off if you have a sniffle.’
‘To prevent the spread of disease.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know, but it doesn’t change the argument. I just need to find out how much time I can take without having to defer the whole year.’
Gene offered a more compelling, if disturbing, analysis. ‘Rightly or wrongly, if a male student didn’t take time off, the assumption would be that his partner was doing the child care. Are you thinking of Don taking time off?’
‘No, of course I’m not expecting Don to stay home with the baby…’
I had not envisaged baby care, but I had not envisaged much at all about life after Bud’s birth. It seemed that Rosie’s assessment of my abilities as a father was consistent with Lydia’s.
She must have seen my expression. ‘Sorry, Don. I’m just being realistic. I don’t think either of us are thinking of you being the main carer. I told you—I’ll take the baby with me.’
‘It seems unlikely that it would be permitted. Have you spoken to the counsellor?’
‘Not yet.’
I had raised Rosie’s idea of taking Bud to work with the Dean, and he had stated unambiguously that it would not be possible. But again, he recommended not citing the authoritative source of advice.
Rosie addressed Gene. ‘Don can’t take time off anyway. We need an income. Which is why I want to finish this program. So I can have a job and not be dependent on someone else.’
‘Don’s not someone else. He’s your partner. That’s how marriage works.’
‘You would know.’ Rosie, having complimented Gene on his knowledge, then inexplicably apologised. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that. I just don’t have time to think about it right now.’
It was a good opportunity to raise the Lydia issue.
‘Maybe you need some expert advice.’
‘Stefan’s been helping me,’ Rosie said.
‘With parenthood information?’
‘No, not with parenthood advice. Don, I’ve got about fifty problems in my life at the moment, and none of them is how to look after a baby that’s eight months away.’
‘Thirty-two weeks. Which is closer to seven months. We should prepare in advance. Have an assessment of our suitability as parents. An external audit.’
Rosie laughed. ‘Bit late now.’
Gene also laughed. ‘I think Don is being characteristically methodical. We can’t expect him to take on a new project without research, right Don?’
‘Correct. It would probably require only a short interview. I’ll schedule a date.’
‘I’ve got no problems with you having a talk to someone,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s great that you’re thinking about it. But I can look after myself.’
Our three-person household was settling into a regular schedule. After dinner, Rosie went to her office while Gene and I consumed cocktail ingredients.
‘What’s the deal?’ said Gene. ‘You’ve signed up for some sort of assessment?’
‘You were able to deduce that from my conversation?’
‘Only because of my professional knowledge of the subtleties of human discourse. I’m amazed Rosie didn’t grill you harder.’
‘I think her mind is occupied with other matters,’ I said.
‘I think you’re right. So?’
I was in a quandary. My EPDS questioning had absolved Rosie of postnatal depression risk, but her answers had revealed the presence of stress. Should I add to it by telling her the full
story, or fail to meet Lydia’s requirement, which in turn would result in an adverse report to the police, possible arrest and incarceration, and hence even greater stress to Rosie?
Gene seemed to offer my only hope. His social skills and manipulative abilities are more sophisticated than mine will ever be. Perhaps he could propose a solution that did not involve telling Rosie or going to jail.
I told him the story of the Playground Incident, reminding him that the sequence of events was initiated by his suggestion. His overall reaction appeared to be one of amusement. I took no consolation from this: in my experience, amusement is often correlated with embarrassment or pain on the part of the person causing it.
Gene poured himself the last of the blue Curaçao. ‘Shit, Don. I’m sorry if I’ve somehow contributed to this, but I can tell you that just turning up with a completed questionnaire isn’t going to work. I can’t see any way out that doesn’t involve telling Rosie or going to jail.’ I could see that he was unhappy with his conclusion: as a scientist he regarded an unsolved problem as a personal insult. He emptied his glass. ‘Got anything else?’
While I visited the coolroom, Gene must have continued to work on the problem.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I think we’ve got to take this woman—Lydia—at her word. What’s the difference between a social worker and a Rottweiler?’
I was unable to see the relevance of the question, but he answered it himself.
‘The Rottweiler gives you your baby back.’ It was a joke,
probably in bad taste, but I understood that we were two buddies who had been drinking and this was the context in which such jokes were told. ‘God, Don, what is this stuff?’
‘Grenadine. It’s non-alcoholic. You require a clear head. And you’re getting distracted. Continue.’
‘So the essence is this: you have to front the social worker and you have to bring Rosie. You can make an excuse—’
‘I could say she was ill due to pregnancy. Highly plausible.’
‘You’re only buying time. You might provoke her into submitting the report anyway. You don’t want to provoke a Rottweiler.’
‘I thought your point was that social workers and Rottweilers are different.’
‘My point was that they are only
slightly
different.’
Slightly different. The concept prompted an idea.
‘I could hire an actress. To impersonate Rosie.’
‘Sophia Loren.’
‘Isn’t she older?’
‘Joking. Seriously, the problem would be that she wouldn’t know you well enough. I figure that’s what the social worker’s going to be focused on—can this woman handle Don Tillman? Because you’re not—’
I finished his sentence for him ‘—exactly average. Correct. How long do you think it would take to know me adequately?’
‘I’d say six months. Minimum. Sorry Don, but I think telling Rosie is the lesser of two evils.’
I delegated the problem to my subconscious for a further week: Week 9 of Bud’s gestation. The mark on the tile
representing his size was now 2.5 centimetres long, and my drawing of his slightly changed shape was more accomplished, due to practice.
The actor idea was attractive, and I found it difficult to abandon. In problem-solving parlance I had become
anchored
—unable to see alternatives
.
But Gene was right: there was no time to brief a stranger on my personality to the extent that she could answer probing questions from a professional. In the end, there was only one person who could help me.
I told her the story of the Playground Incident, and the requirement for an assessment. I tried to make it clear that my priority was to avoid causing stress and that the EPDS questionnaire had indicated that Lydia’s fears were unfounded. Nevertheless, I needed to emphasise the risk of not cooperating.
‘We have to show up and be assessed as parents and take her advice or I’m going to be prosecuted, deported and banned from contact with Bud.’ I may have exaggerated slightly, but Gene’s image of a Rottweiler was still in my mind. Martial-arts training did not cover attack dogs.
‘Bitch. She’s got to be way out of line doing this.’
‘She’s a professional who has detected risk factors. Her requirement seems reasonable.’
‘I think you’re being kind. Which is so like you. Anyway, I’m happy to do whatever I can to help.’
This was an incredibly generous response. I had been agonising over whether to proceed with my strategy, but the offer was clear.
‘I need you to impersonate Rosie.’
I interpreted Sonia’s expression as shock. I had not discussed the plan with Gene, but I was aware of his opinion that accountants were skilled at deception. I was relying on it being accurate.
‘Oh my God, Don.’ She laughed, but I detected nervousness. ‘You’re kidding me. I’m just saying that—I know you’re not. Oh my
God
. I don’t think I could be Rosie.’
‘Morally or in terms of competence?’
‘Oh, you know me. Totally immoral.’ This was not my impression of Sonia, but was consistent with Gene’s view of her profession. ‘Rosie and I are so different.’
‘Correct. But Lydia hasn’t met Rosie. She doesn’t even know she’s Australian. Just that she’s a medical student with no friends.’
‘No friends? What about Dave and me?’
‘She only sees you because of me. Most of her interaction is with her study group. Occasionally she sees Judy Esler. She’s primarily interested in intellectual conversation.’