George had made it clear that he wanted me to check the cellar morning and night, at least for the first few weeks. Dave needed the contract. He had left a secure job to start his own business before Sonia became pregnant, and was not making much money. Recently he had lacked funds for baseball tickets. Sonia planned to stop working when she had the baby, which would incur costs in its own right.

Dave was my friend, so I had no choice. I would have to change my schedule to accommodate a twice-daily detour via Chelsea.

Outside my apartment building I was intercepted by the superintendent, whom I generally avoided due to the probability of some sort of complaint.

‘Mr Tillman, we’ve had a serious complaint from one of your neighbours. Apparently you assaulted him.’

‘Incorrect. He assaulted me, and I used the minimum level of aikido necessary to prevent injury to both of us. Also, he turned my wife’s underwear purple and insulted her with profanities.’

‘So you assaulted him.’

‘Incorrect.’

‘Don’t sound incorrect to me. You just told me you used karate on him.’

I was about to argue, but before I could say anything he made a speech.

‘Mr Tillman, we have a waiting list so long for apartments in this building.’ He spaced his hands in a way that was presumably meant to provide evidence for his assertion. ‘We throw you out, your apartment will be taken by someone, someone normal, the next day. And this isn’t no warning—I’ll be talking to the owners. We don’t need weirdos, Mr Tillman.’

5

My mother’s Saturday night Skype call from Shepparton came through on schedule at 7.00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time; 9.00 a.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time.

The family hardware store was surviving; my brother Trevor needed to get out more and find himself someone like Rosie; my uncle appeared to be in remission, thank God.

I was able to reassure my mother that Rosie and I were fine, work was also fine and any thanks for my uncle’s improved prognosis should be directed to medical science rather than a deity who had presumably allowed my uncle to develop cancer. My mother clarified that she was just using an expression, and not submitting scientific evidence of an interventionist god, God forbid, which was also just an expression, Donald. Our conversations had not changed much in thirty years.

Dinner preparation was time-consuming, as the mixed sushi platter had a substantial number of components, and by the time Rosie and I sat down to eat I had still not conveyed the Gene information.

But Rosie wanted to talk about the pregnancy.

‘I looked it up on the web. You know, the baby isn’t even a centimetre long.’

‘The term baby is misleading. It’s not much advanced from a blastocyst.’

‘I’m not calling it a blastocyst.’

‘Embryo. It’s not a foetus yet.’

‘Attention, Don. I’m going to say this once. I don’t want forty weeks of technical commentary.’

‘Thirty-five. Gestation is conventionally measured from two weeks prior to conception and our best guess is that the event occurred three weeks ago, following the Roman Holiday impression. Which needs to be confirmed by a medical professional. Have you made an appointment?’

‘I only found out I was pregnant yesterday. Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a baby. A potential baby, okay?’

‘A baby under development.’

‘Right.’

‘Perfect. We can refer to it as the Baby Under Development. B.U.D.’

‘Bud? It makes him sound like a seventy-year-old man. If it’s a “he”.’

‘Ignoring gender, it’s statistically likely Bud will reach the age of seventy, assuming successful development and birth and no major change to the environment on which the statistics are based, such as nuclear holocaust, meteorite of the kind that caused the dinosaur extinction—’

‘—being talked to death by his father. It’s still a male name.’

‘Also the name of a plant component. A precursor to a flower. Flowers are considered feminine. Your name has a flower connection. Bud is perfect. Reproductive mechanism for a flower. Rosebud, Rosie-bud—’

‘Okay, okay. I was thinking that the baby, speaking in the future tense, could sleep in the living room. Until we can find a bigger place.’

‘Of course. We should buy Bud a fold-up bed.’

‘What? Don, babies sleep in cribs.’

‘I was thinking of later. When it’s big enough for a bed. We could buy one now. So we’re prepared. We can go to the bed shop tomorrow.’

‘We don’t need a bed yet. We don’t even need to buy the crib for a while. Let’s wait till we know that everything’s okay.’

I poured the last of the previous evening’s pinot gris and wished there was more in the bottle. Subtlety was not getting me anywhere.

‘We need the bed for Gene. He and Claudia have split up. He has a job at Columbia and he’s staying with us until he can find somewhere else to live.’

This was the component of the Gene Sabbatical that may not have been well considered. I should probably have consulted with Rosie before offering Gene accommodation. But it seemed reasonable for Gene to live with us while he looked for his own apartment. We would be providing for a homeless person.

I am well aware of my incompetence in predicting human reactions. But I would have been prepared to bet on the first word that Rosie would say when she received the information. I was correct by a factor of six.