It was as though there were twenty people in the room. Dave clinked his glass against mine, spilling beer, and even put his arm around my shoulder. He must have felt me stiffen, so he removed it, but Sonia then repeated the action and Dave slapped me on the back. It was like the subway at rush hour. They were treating my problem as a cause for celebration.

‘Rosie’s still on the phone,’ said Sonia, and handed it to me.

‘Don, are you all right?’ she said. She was concerned about me.

‘Of course. The state was temporary.’

‘Don, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have just sprung it on you like that. Are you coming home? I really want to talk to you. But, Don, I don’t want this to be temporary.’

Rosie must have thought that I was referring to her state—her pregnancy—but her answer gave me vital information. Riding home in Dave’s van, I concluded that Rosie had already decided that it was a feature rather than a fault. The orange juice provided further evidence. She did not want to harm the fertilised egg. There was an extraordinary amount to process, and my brain was now functioning normally, or at least in the manner that I was accustomed to. The meltdown was perhaps the psychological equivalent of a reboot following an overload.

Despite my growing expertise in identifying social cues, I nearly missed one from Dave.

‘Don, I was going to ask you a favour, but I guess with Rosie and everything…’

Excellent was my first thought. Then I realised that the second part of Dave’s sentence, and the tone in which it was delivered, indicated that he wanted me to overrule him, to enable him to avoid feeling guilty for asking for my assistance at a time when I was occupied with other problems.

‘No problem.’

Dave smiled. I was aware of a surge of pleasure. When I was ten, I had learned to catch a ball after an amount of practice far in excess of that required by my schoolmates. The satisfaction every time I completed what for others would have been a routine catch was similar to the feeling I now experienced as a result of my improved social skills.

‘It’s no big deal,’ Dave said. ‘I’ve finished the beer cellar for the British guy in Chelsea.’

‘Beer cellar?’

‘Like a wine cellar, except it’s for beer.’

‘It sounds like a conventional project. The contents should be irrelevant from a refrigeration perspective.’

‘Wait till you see it. It turned out pretty expensive.’

‘You think he may argue about the price?’

‘It’s a weird job and he’s a weird guy. I figure British and Australian—you guys might connect. I just want a bit of moral support. So he doesn’t walk over me.’

Dave was silent and I took the opportunity to reflect. I had been given a reprieve. Rosie had presumably thought that my timeout request had been to consider the consequences of her announcement. The actual meltdown had been invisible to her. She seemed extremely happy with the pregnancy.

There need be no immediate impact on me. I would jog to the Chelsea Market tomorrow, teach an aikido class at the martial-arts centre and listen to the previous week’s Scientific American podcasts. We would revisit the special exhibition of frogs at the Museum of Natural History, and I would make sushi, pumpkin gyoza, miso soup and tempura of whatever whitefish was recommended by the employees of the Lobster Place for dinner. I would use the ‘free time’ that Rosie insisted we schedule on the weekend—and which she was currently using for her thesis—to attend Dave’s client meeting. At the homewares shop, I would purchase a specialised stopper and vacuum pump to preserve the wine that Rosie would normally have consumed, and substitute juice for her share.

Other than the amendment to beverage management, life would be unchanged. Except for Gene, of course. I still needed to deal with that problem. Given the circumstances, it seemed wise to postpone the announcement.

It was 9.27 p.m. when I arrived home from Dave’s. Rosie flung her arms around me and began crying. I had learned that it was better not to attempt to interpret such behaviour at the time, or to seek clarification as to the specific emotion being expressed, even though such information would have been useful in formulating a response. Instead, I adopted the tactic recommended by Claudia and assumed the persona of Gregory Peck’s character in The Big Country. Strong and silent. It was not difficult for me.

Rosie recovered quickly.

‘I put the scallops and stuff in the oven after I got off the phone,’ she said. ‘They should be okay.’ This was an uninformed statement, but I concluded that the damage would probably not be increased significantly by leaving them for another hour.

I hugged Rosie again. I was feeling euphorically happy, a characteristic human reaction to the removal of a terrible threat.

We ate the scallops an hour and seven minutes later, in our pyjamas. All scheduled tasks had been completed. Except for the Gene announcement.

4

It was fortunate that sex had been brought forward to Friday evening. When I returned from my market jog the following morning, Rosie was feeling nauseated. I knew that this was a common symptom in the first trimester of pregnancy, and, thanks to my father, I knew the correct word for it. ‘If you describe yourself as nauseous, Don, you’re saying you make people sick.’ My father is meticulous about correct use of language.

There is a good evolutionary explanation for morning sickness in early pregnancy. In this critical stage of foetal development, with the mother’s immune system depressed, it is essential that she does not ingest any harmful substances. Hence the stomach is more highly tuned to reject unsuitable food. I recommended that Rosie not take any drugs to interfere with the natural process.