Carl turned to Hudson. ‘I understand you were looking for sartorial advice.’
‘Sure.’
Amazing. Not that Hudson knew the meaning of ‘sartorial’ but that he was interested in the advice.
‘Backpack on one strap, not both. And loosen it off.’
‘It’ll be harder to walk with.’
‘That’s the choice you make. Fashion isn’t always comfortable. If you want to blend in, look average without being really cool, then long pants when you’re allowed to wear them, hair a lot shorter, tie just a little bit loose. Probably wear socks.’
I hadn’t noticed that Hudson was not wearing socks.
‘What if I wanted to be really cool?’
‘You have to find your own look. The sockless thing could work for you. In the end you’ve got to be yourself, but it helps to know how other people are going to see you.’
24
‘Don!’ Eugenie hugged me and when I pulled away said, ‘C’mon, you used to ride me around on your shoulders.’
I had arranged to meet her at the University Club because it was largely patronised by older faculty and she would stand out. She rendered my strategy unnecessary by recognising me first and joining Hudson and me in the courtyard.
‘You must be Hudson. Relax, I’m not going to hug you.’
‘You must be Calculon.’
‘You don’t get to call me Calculon until you can do…What year are you in?’
‘Six.’
‘Simultaneous linear equations. Until then I’m Ms Barrow.’ She laughed. ‘You can call me Eugenie if you know what nine times seven is.’
‘Sixty-three.’
‘Two hundred and forty-three divided by three.’
‘Eighty-one.’
‘Nice work. Sixteen thousand, seven hundred and sixty-seven divided by two hundred and forty-three?’
‘Um, too hard.’
‘Too hard for anyone except a maths freak.’
I was about to announce the answer, but Eugenie gave me the stop-sign signal.
‘I’d have thought you’d be top of Year Six with what you can do in your head.’
‘That’s not what we’re doing. We have to show our working.’
‘Ever written a computer program?’
‘Not really.’
‘Want to learn?’
‘I guess so.’
‘That’s how you learn to do stuff step by step. And it’s a good skill to have anyway. Okay with you, Don?’
I nodded, but it seemed strange that someone else would teach Hudson computer programming. Coding the app for The Library was currently my major activity.
‘Now,’ said Eugenie to Hudson, ‘give me a minute to talk to your dad to sort out the money.’
I had been right about the benefits of engaging Eugenie. She had already identified a custom I had overlooked.
Hudson was still socialising with Blanche. When he visited the shop, I would stay and discuss science with Allannah. Humans instinctively trust personal experience over research, and Allannah’s position reflected her husband’s apparent success in treating Blanche and his other patients.
Blanche was at little risk personally from her parents’ anti-vaccination position. But her eyesight was being left untreated.
‘How long till you get Blanche’s mum to let her see a doctor about her eyes?’ Hudson asked as we drove home.
‘Possibly forever. Her parents have made a joint decision and I doubt I can persuade a homeopath.’
‘I have a plan. We say we’re going to our place after school, but you take us to an eye doctor.’ Autistic people are poor at deception.
‘Have you discussed it with Blanche?’
‘Of course. That’s how we came up with the idea.’
‘It’s probably illegal to take a child to a doctor without her parents’ permission.’
‘We researched it. If you get caught, you probably won’t go to gaol. Anyway, we can just drive her there and she can go in by herself.’
‘Rationally, it seems the obvious thing to do. Which is frequently a trap in situations involving humans. We should seek input from your mother.’
Rosie was not immediately supportive of Hudson and Blanche’s plan, even after we reassured her that the legal risk was minimal. I had done my own checking.
‘I get that. I doubt we’ll be prosecuted for taking a kid with medical problems to a doctor, given she’s asked to go and I’m a doctor too. But we’re overriding her parents’ wishes. Which they’ve made crystal clear.’
‘What about Blanche’s wishes?’ said Hudson. ‘She doesn’t want to go blind. If you don’t take her, I will.’
‘Slow down,’ said Rosie. ‘We’d be very unhappy if you did something like that without discussing it—’
‘That’s what I’m doing.’
‘And…most doctors wouldn’t take an appointment with an eleven-year-old without their parents being involved. She’d need a referral. If we do it, I’ll need to organise it.’
‘So, are you going to help?’
‘Hudson…’
‘What’s wrong with letting an eye doctor see her?’
Rosie looked at me, eyebrows raised, head nodding.
‘How would you feel, Don, if someone took Hudson to a doctor without your permission? A doctor who was perfectly respectable, but whose methods you disagreed with?’
‘Psychiatry is less evidence-based than physical medicine.’
‘What’s this got to do with psychiatry?’ said Hudson.
‘That’s the sort of doctor your father is suspicious about,’ said Rosie. ‘He had some bad experiences when he was younger.’
‘You had to see a shrink?’ said Hudson.
I realised I was embarrassed about admitting it, which was ridiculous. Hudson knew about my knee injury.
‘I had depression,’ I said. ‘Incited by social isolation. It’s one of the reasons I want you to have friends.’
‘That’s incredible. You have great friends.’
‘Now,’ I said. ‘They’ve taken a long time to accumulate.’
Rosie was right. I would not want anyone to submit Hudson to an autism assessment without my knowledge. But what if Hudson wanted one? And Blanche’s situation was different in another important way.
‘There’s a risk in psychiatric intervention. But almost zero risk in having eyes assessed.’
‘What if Blanche were deaf?’ said Rosie. ‘A lot of people see deafness as a difference, not a disability.’
‘Mum, Blanche doesn’t want to go blind and she doesn’t have anyone else to help her.’
Ultimately, Rosie accepted that as the overriding argument, as it had been before she introduced the complications.
She used her network to identify an ophthalmologist who specialised in problems associated with albinism.
‘She didn’t seem particularly worried,’ said Rosie. ‘And she’s seen Blanche before, five years ago. Apparently the school reported her to Protective Services and they intervened. Parents were not happy—she wanted to be sure we got that message.’
We scheduled the medical visit for a Thursday afternoon. Hudson and Blanche exchanged their school uniforms for anonymous clothes, I put on a beanie to disguise my own appearance and we parked half a kilometre from the clinic.
When Blanche returned from her appointment, she seemed happy with the outcome: extremely happy.
‘I’m not going to go blind,’ she said. ‘Ever.’
‘What if someone stabs you in the eyes?’ said Hudson. ‘Or if you stare at the sun?’
‘I mean, not from my albinism. When you’re a baby, it can get better for a while, then it stays the same forever.’
Gary’s homeopathic treatment was working exactly as science would have predicted.
‘Can she make it any better?’ asked Hudson.
‘Nup. But I’m used to being like this.’ She smiled: the world’s biggest smile. ‘This is how I am.’
Dave called me
on a Saturday with an unexpected request. ‘I guess you don’t have a saw?’
‘Your guess is wrong. What kind of saw?’
‘If I could have any kind, a nine-inch circular. But—’
‘I have one of those. Mounted on a bench, but detachable.’
Dave wanted to make some wooden blocks for Fulvio.
‘I have Phil’s Toyota. We can buy the materials and transport the saw.’
‘You should bring Hudson. Men’s stuff.’
‘You should bring Zina. Humans’ stuff.’
‘She wouldn’t be interested. She’s a girly girl.’
Hudson was not interested either, due to reading a novel.
Dave and I visited a timber yard, and Dave, after knowing me for thirteen years, was surprised that I was able to advise on the choice of wood. He was more surprised when I took him to the shed to collect the saw.
‘Holy shit, Don. This is the best home workshop I’ve ever seen. And everything so neat.’
‘Due to lack of use.’ I had been progressively assembling equipment from the family hardware store, but had little time to employ it.
‘You’ve got a lathe. A damn good lathe.’
‘This model is rated as the best domestic option.’
‘Um, do you think I could make the blocks here? It’ll only take an hour or two.’
‘Do you have a design?’
‘Square blocks. Couple different sizes. Maybe some way of holding them together.’
‘We need additional input. Young-person input. I’ll get Hudson.’
Dave didn’t create any blocks that afternoon, but the three of us made considerable progress in designing a wood-based construction set for Fulvio. Hudson and I continued the conversation over dinner. Later, he asked if he could phone Dave, and they spoke for some time.
The following day, Dave visited again, and we created prototype blocks and pegs. I commented on his competence.
‘When I was Hudson’s age, I wanted to be a cabinetmaker,’ he said. ‘But my dad said it was a dying trade.’
He completed turning a peg on the lathe. ‘This is good therapy. Keeps the hands busy.’
‘I don’t like the pegs,’ said Hudson. ‘You’ll get gaps between the blocks. And they’ll be difficult for a little kid. Could you make some kind of groove, so they don’t slip, and we can just stack them?’
Dave activated the router and created two grooves in the prototype block.
Hudson examined it. ‘It has to fit with every other size of block. How old is Fulvio?’
‘Six months. It’ll be a while before he can do anything fancy with them.’
I had completed coding of the ordering app for the bar and gave it to Hudson to test.
‘Ten dollars if you can break it,’ I said.
‘Meaning if it does something it’s not supposed to?’
‘Or if it fails to do something it’s supposed to do.’
‘Do you think I’ll be able to? Break it?’
‘No.’
‘Then you can make it a hundred dollars. So I’ll try really hard to break it, which is good for you.’
‘Twenty.’
After I had briefed Hudson on the application, it took him thirty-six minutes to earn his twenty dollars.
‘Obviously easier to break than I predicted,’ I said. ‘Two dollars per error in future.’
By the time we were ready for an on-site trial, the premises had been refitted, the refrigeration equipment was functioning, and the bar was installed and provisioned. Hudson had earned a further eighteen dollars.
Our test team consisted of me, Hudson, Blanche, who had been given permission to join us for dinner, and Laszlo, whom I had invited because of his Asperger’s syndrome. Aspies were renowned for their aptitude as testers.
Rosie, Minh and Amghad worked the bar, then joined us to review the app’s performance.
‘It accepted my order for a margarita,’ said Blanche. ‘But I registered as allergic to oranges.’
Hudson typed at his laptop then announced, ‘There’s no orange juice in a margarita.’
‘It’s in the Cointreau,’ said Blanche, pointing to her tablet.
‘I selected a channel but there are no televisions,’ said Laszlo. ‘This will be an expensive error to fix.’
‘Not installed yet,’ I said. ‘Ultimately, all walls will be covered with screens.’
‘I’ve held off on that,’ said Amghad. ‘It doesn’t seem to me that the people who come here are going to be sports fans.’
‘Excellent point,’ I said. ‘I specified the bar, so it’s likely to attract people like me. My interest in baseball is an anomaly resulting from my friendship with Dave.’
‘Maybe show science programs,’ said Rosie.
‘Star Trek,’ said Hudson. ‘Original series on one screen, rotate the others on another screen; Star Wars, just the good ones; Battlestar Galactica…’
‘Hey,’ said Minh. ‘I love it. Wall to wall sci-fi.’
‘It’s called The Library,’ said Hudson. ‘Aren’t we going to have any books?’
‘Cheaper than screens,’ said Amghad.
‘You can rent mine,’ said Hudson.
‘Borrow,’ said Rosie.
‘Non-fiction science books also,’ I said. ‘Not everyone reads science fiction.’
While Amghad and Minh cleared up, I ordered pizza.
Hudson had begun describing the plot of a novel he was reading and stopped. ‘What’s a slide rule?’
A slide rule? They were obsolete by the time I was old enough to operate a calculator. I knew of them in the same way as Hudson: from reading science fiction.
‘When was this book written?’ I asked.
‘Last century. Maybe nineteen-sixty-something.’
‘Funny,’ said Rosie. ‘The moon landing happened back then, before I was born. Phil thought he’d go there one day, and if not, then I would, and now Hudson…’
‘Space travel has barely moved,’ I said, ‘but computers have progressed incredibly.’
‘And genetics,’ said Blanche.
‘Correct. When I was studying, the idea of rectifying genetic abnormalities in living people was considered ludicrous. And now…’
‘I’m definitely going to be a geneticist,’ said Blanche.
‘It’s only crewed space travel that hasn’t progressed so much,’ said Hudson.
25
Eugenie reported that Hudson was making excellent progress in learning to code, using the Library application as a case study. However, she did not think Hudson had exceptional mathematical skills.
‘Good, but he’s not a maths genius.’
‘He was top of his class in New York,’ I said.
‘I believe you. I said, “not a genius”. I don’t think that’s what he wants to do anyway.’
‘Do you have any career preferences?’ I asked Hudson as we drove home.
‘What would you like me to be?’ asked Hudson.
It was a strange question, and I subtly applied the psychiatrists’ trick. ‘What is it that you think I would like you to be, and why do you ask?’
‘You sound like a psychologist. I guess you’d like me to be a geneticist. Like Blanche.’
‘It’s the world’s best job. In my opinion, obviously, since I chose it.’
‘But you’re not doing it now. So you must be less happy.’
‘Actually, the project I was working on was not very stimulating.’ I realised it only as the words came out of my mouth. ‘It would be more exciting to be working on genome editing, but it’s difficult to change.’
Dave had become obsessed with block-making. After refining the design with Hudson, he had transported the tools to his residence. The stock was now in excess of what could conceivably be required for one child’s construction project.
His initial explanation was unconvincing. ‘If I’m not around, because Sonia’s finished with me, or I have a heart attack or stroke, this will be something for Fulvio to rememb
er me by.’
‘Surely the remembrance is not proportional to the quantity. You can stop now.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re using time that could be allocated to other activities, the materials are costing money and eventually you’ll have to store or dispose of the blocks.’
‘I get that. But I’m not eating junk.’ Dave showed me his belt. It was clear from the notches that he had lost weight. I had not noticed because he was still obese. Morbidly obese. But less morbidly obese.
‘Maybe you could sell the blocks,’ I said.
‘Hudson’s working on it.’ One Wednesday, I arrived at Allannah’s shop. As soon as Hudson and Blanche left the service area, she pulled an opened envelope from a drawer and gave it to me. It was the lab report I had requested on Blanche’s DNA. The results were unambiguous, but Allannah was apparently unsure.
‘Does it say what I think it says?’ she asked.
‘How can I tell? I don’t know what you think it says.’
‘But you understand what it says?’
‘Correct.’
‘Don, please just tell me. In English. What does it say?’
‘Blanche does not have the form of albinism that is associated with reduced lifespan.’
‘Meaning she’s not going to die young? Right?’
Obviously, the test results were no protection against car accidents, drug overdoses or, in Blanche’s case, whooping cough, tetanus and polio, but I presumed Allannah realised this.
‘The result is good news.’
Allannah flung her arms around me. I do not enjoy physical contact, even with friends, and particularly not unanticipated physical contact. She could not have been expected to know this, but we are encouraged not to feed a person peanuts without first checking for an allergy. It would be reasonable if social conventions incorporated a similar sensitivity.
I pulled away, knocking over a stand of vitamin supplements.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Allannah. ‘I was just—’
She was interrupted by a male voice from the top of the stairs. ‘Allannah. I need you up here. Now.’ The tone was at odds with my mental picture of Gary the homeopath as misguided but gentle.
Allannah picked up Blanche’s brother and pointed to a beam where a CCTV camera was mounted. ‘You’d better call Hudson and go,’ she said. ‘I’ll be okay.’
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