The Rosie Effect
Page 65

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.’