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.
‘I hear you,’ said Rosie. She was in the bathroom, steadying herself with both hands on the vanity unit. ‘I’ll leave the thalidomide in the cupboard.’
‘You’ve got thalidomide?’
‘Kidding, Don, kidding.’
I explained to Rosie that many drugs could cross the placental wall, and cited a number of examples, along with descriptions of the deformities they could cause. I did not think Rosie was likely to take any of them, and was really only sharing some interesting information that I had read many years earlier, but she closed the door. At that point, I realised that there was one drug that she had definitely taken. I opened the door.
‘What about alcohol? How long have you been pregnant?’
‘About three weeks, I guess. I’m going to stop now, okay?’
Her tone suggested that answering in the negative would not be a good idea. But here was a stunning example of the consequences of failing to plan. Those consequences were important enough to have their own special pejorative term, even in a world that does not value planning as much as it should. We were dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. If the pregnancy had been planned, Rosie could have stopped drinking in advance. She could also have arranged for a medical assessment to identify any risks, and we could have acted on research indicating that the DNA quality of sperm can be improved by daily sex.
‘Have you smoked any cigarettes? Or marijuana?’ Rosie had given up smoking less than a year ago, and had occasionally relapsed, typically in conjunction with alcohol consumption.
‘Hey, stop freaking me out. No. You know what you should be worried about? Steroids.’
‘You’ve been taking steroids?’
‘No, I haven’t been taking steroids. But you’re making me stressed. Stress creates cortisol, which is a steroid hormone; cortisol crosses the placental wall; high levels of cortisol in babies are associated with depression in later life.’
‘Have you researched this?’
‘Only for the last five years. What do you think my PhD’s about?’ Rosie emerged from the bathroom and stuck her tongue out, a gesture that seemed inconsistent with scientific authority. ‘So your job for the next nine months is to make sure I don’t get stressed. Say it: Rosie must not get stressed. Go on.’
I repeated the instruction. ‘Rosie must not get stressed.’
‘Actually, I’m a bit stressed now. I can feel the cortisol. I think I might need a massage to relax me.’
There was another critical question. I tried to ask it in a non-stress-inducing tone as I warmed the massage oil.
‘Are you sure you’re pregnant? Have you consulted a doctor?’
‘I’m a medical student, remember? I did the test twice. Yesterday morning and just before I told you. Two false positives are highly unlikely, Professor.’
‘Correct. But you were taking contraceptive pills.’
‘I must’ve forgotten. Maybe you’re just super potent.’
‘Did you forget once or multiple times?’
‘How can I remember what I forgot?’
I had seen the pill packet. It was one of the numerous female things that had appeared in my world when Rosie moved in. It had little bubbles labelled according to the day of the week. The system seemed good, although a mapping to actual dates would have been useful. I envisaged some sort of digital dispenser with an alarm. Even in its current form, it was obviously designed to prevent errors by women who were far less intelligent than Rosie. It should have been easy for her to notice an oversight. But she changed the subject.
‘I thought you were happy about having a baby.’
I was happy in the way that I would be happy if the captain of an aircraft in which I was travelling announced that he had succeeded in restarting one engine after both had failed. Pleased that I would now probably survive, but shocked that the situation had arisen in the first place, and expecting a thorough investigation into the circumstances.
Apparently, I waited too long to respond. Rosie repeated her statement.
‘You said you were happy last night.’
Since the day Rosie and I participated in a wedding ceremony in a church in memory of Rosie’s atheist mother’s Irish ancestry—with her father, Phil, performing a ‘giving away’ ritual that surely violated Rosie’s feminist philosophy, Rosie wearing an extraordinary white dress and veil that she planned never to use again, and escaping having chopped-up coloured paper thrown over us only because of a (sensible) regulation—I had learned that, in marriage, reason frequently had to take second place to harmony. I would have agreed to the confetti if it had been permitted.
‘Of course, of course,’ I said, trying to maintain a rational and non-confrontational conversation while processing memories and rubbing oil into Rosie’s naked body. ‘I was just wondering how it happened. As a scientist.’
‘It was the Saturday morning after you went out and got breakfast and did your Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday.’ Rosie attempted her own impression. ‘You should always wear my clothes.’
‘Was I wearing my shirt when I did it?’
‘You do remember. You’re right. I had to tell you to take it off.’
First of June. The day my life changed. Again.
‘I didn’t think it would happen straight away,’ she said. ‘I thought it might take months, maybe years, like Sonia.’
In retrospect, this was the perfect moment to tell Rosie about Gene. But I did not realise until later that she was admitting that the contraception failure was deliberate and thus giving me an opportunity to make my own revelation. I was focused on the massage process.