The Rosie Result

by Graeme Simsion

  ‘I don’t mind doing this when it’s for us,’ said Rosie one evening as she loaded glasses into the bar’s dishwasher. ‘But we had a couple of people from the Mental Health Foundation in today, and while Stefan was setting up the projector, do you know what Judas said?’

  ‘He asked you to get the coffee?’

  ‘Have I told you this already?’

  ‘There was a previous occasion, and history is an excellent predictor of future behaviour.’

  ‘Well, that’s what he did. “Rosie, maybe a pot of coffee for everyone?”’

  It seemed a sensible division of labour, given Stefan was busy and Judas was presumably encouraging the visitors to fund the project, but I knew better than to point this out. ‘Totally unreasonable,’ I said. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said, “Thank you, Simon, that would be great,” and the two women from the foundation saw what had happened, and as soon as he left the room to get the coffee, they burst out laughing. He must have heard but he didn’t say anything afterwards. By the way, I’m assuming I’m getting paid for all this work I’m doing here.’

  ‘Of course. Your hours will be contributing to paying off our share of the business.’ The future tense was appropriate. I had seen Rosie’s work as being part of her support for me personally. But when I mentioned it to Amghad and Minh, they insisted on backdating the credits. And criticised me for not asking earlier.

  28

  A week later, I had a call from the principal. She wanted to see me, and suggested I come alone. It was a ‘very awkward matter’ which she would rather not discuss on the phone.

  Rosie insisted on attending. ‘If they don’t want me there, I should be.’

  Rabbit was not present: only the principal.

  ‘Professor Tillman, Dr Jarman,’ she said. ‘We all make mistakes sometimes, and I’m afraid a quite serious mistake has been made.’

  ‘The autism diagnosis?’ I said.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not that. You remember telling us that Hudson had a rather unfortunate nickname?’

  ‘Nasty?’ said Rosie. ‘That’s what you’re talking about?’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not the nickname. You’re not Jewish, are you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Well, that’s something. But it’s Nazi. They’ve been calling him Nazi, and we’re obviously going to do what we can to put a stop to it. But…’

  ‘Why Nazi?’ said Rosie. ‘You’re not going to tell us he’s done some horrible thing?’

  ‘No. Just what he always does. It seems he corrected something that Mr Warren said, and Mr Warren, without thinking, called him a grammar Nazi.’

  ‘No filter,’ I said, without thinking.

  The principal looked at me for a moment, then continued. ‘The kids picked it up. Without the grammar part. Mr Warren’s very embarrassed and apologetic. But…’

  ‘How did you find out?’ said Rosie.

  ‘You asked me to follow up about the nickname. I know which children will give me an honest account of these things. And Mr Warren immediately owned up when I spoke to him.’

  Informants. Confessions. Nazis. School had not changed much since I was a child.

  ‘Frankly, if you insist, and I can understand you doing so, we will be obliged to take disciplinary action. In today’s climate, we may even have to ask Mr Warren to leave. I’d be sorry…’

  ‘Incredible,’ I said. ‘The expression—’

  Rosie gave me the stop signal. ‘Can Don and I have a few moments?’ she said.

  The principal looked unhappy. We stepped outside.

  ‘You were going to let it go, weren’t you?’ said Rosie. ‘Because of what happened to you with the Great—’

  ‘The Genetics Lecture Outrage. Correct. He—’

  ‘That’s why they wanted you here without me. Mr Nice Guy. Mr Empathy. Mr White Male Solidarity.’

  ‘Possibly. But—’

  ‘You think it’s okay to call Hudson a Nazi?’

  ‘A grammar Nazi. It’s a common expression. My father was one. There’s a soup Nazi in Seinfeld.’

  ‘Don, you got fired—suspended—for this sort of thing. I’m not saying that should happen to Neil, but we should push back a bit.’

  Rosie insisted that we purchase coffees and ‘take our time’. ‘Let her stew a bit.’

  When we returned, I could see no signs that the principal had stewed. She was walking around outside her office, presumably reflecting on some problem.

  ‘Thank you for coming back,’ she said. ‘I just want to reiterate that I’m truly sorry this has happened.’

  ‘So are we,’ said Rosie. ‘You may be aware that after a lesser incident of this kind at the university, with adults, not schoolchildren, Don decided that the right thing was to step aside.’

  ‘Yes…we were aware…I’d thought he might understand that we all make mistakes…’

  ‘Correct,’ I said. ‘Rabbit said something totally inappropriate. We should consider the possibility that he’s autistic.’

  The last statement was not part of our good-cop–bad-cop plan, but I saw Rosie trying not to laugh.

  ‘We should go into my office,’ said the principal.

  She directed us to the chairs in the corner rather than opposite her desk. ‘I take your point,’ she said. ‘It’s possible Neil’s been hasty in pigeonholing Hudson…’

  ‘You call a child a Nazi, his classmates pick it up, and then you report he’s not popular,’ said Rosie. ‘And suggest a psychiatric intervention.’

  ‘It didn’t happen in that…How would you like us to respond?’

  ‘It’s the middle of the third term,’ I said, as instructed by Rosie. ‘Rather than disrupt anything, maybe we can defer any action until the end of the year. When we can take into account what happens between now and then.’

  ‘We’ll do everything we can about the nickname. But regardless, we’ll have to move Hudson to another Year Six class.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘He doesn’t like change.’

  ‘I understand that, but…well…change is a fact of life, isn’t it, so maybe the move will help to build his resilience. But that’s not the reason.’

  Resilience, in my experience, was seldom the reason to do anything. It was only ever stated as a goal after some action that required it had occurred or been committed to.

  ‘If at the end of the year you do decide to make a formal complaint, we need to have been seen to have taken some action. We can’t leave him with a teacher who could be seen to have picked on him.’

  ‘Not a good look,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Rosie when we had left. ‘You know why she’s moving him?’

  ‘Not because of resilience, I assume.’

  ‘She didn’t want Hudson’s teacher being beholden to us.’

  ‘Which was your intention.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘You told them about the nickname. You promised you wouldn’t, and then you did and now I have to change classes.’

  This was an excellent summary of what we had done. It was exactly what I had hated my parents doing and what I had worked hard to avoid doing with Hudson. I was looking forward to hearing Rosie’s explanation for her behaviour.

  ‘Don, you explain,’ said Rosie. ‘You were there.’

  I tried to remember the circumstances. They involved human interactions for which there was no precise language—hence difficult to commit to memory. But I could remember one important thing.

  ‘We were attempting to act in your interests. The nickname revelation was to achieve a higher-order goal.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Rosie and I looked at each other.

  ‘You’re always talking to them. I know you are. What about?’

  Rosie and I looked at each other again.

  ‘Mr Warren thinks there’s something wrong with me, doesn’t he? Because I hate cricket and Harry Potter, and wear shorts, and I’m friends with a girl. And I know st
uff he doesn’t know. And…’ Hudson stood up. ‘That’s why you’re making me do all this training. You want to change me.’

  ‘The goal is to make school easier,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t like me the way I am. If you did, you wouldn’t want to change me.’

  ‘We both love you,’ said Rosie. ‘Your father’s trying to teach you stuff like all fathers do. Pa made him learn karate when he was seven. He didn’t like it at first but now…You’re happy to be riding the bike, aren’t you?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Hudson. ‘I’m feeling sick. I don’t think I’ll be able to go to school tomorrow.’

  ‘That had to happen at some point,’ said Rosie after Hudson had gone to his room. ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I have to go to work.’

  When I reconfigured my schedule, I had failed to consider the need for extended discussion during the evening handover from me to Rosie. The requirement to be at the bar by 6.00 p.m. was fixed. And any attempt on Rosie’s part to leave work early was likely to provoke a ‘coded’ response from Judas.

  ‘Judas says, “No problem, Rosie, we know you’ve got to look after Hudson. Whatever you’re doing can wait till tomorrow.”’

  ‘Seems very accommodating.’

  ‘It’s not. If Stefan takes off early, nobody asks why; nobody makes any assumptions. But I’m a mum. So that has to be the reason.’

  Fortunately, Rosie and I were able to converse at The Library, where the remote ordering system minimised the interruptions from customers. I suggested she come in.

  ‘What about Hudson? He’s supposedly sick. And I’m cooking tonight.’ Two of the standard meals had proven unsuitable for reheating and Rosie had volunteered to cook on those nights.

  ‘Which reminds me,’ said Rosie. ‘Another thing for you to teach your son. When I say, “I’m going to hang out the washing; watch the rice,” that doesn’t mean, “Watch the rice boil dry and burn until the smoke alarm goes off.”’

  ‘Obviously, you were gone too long.’

  ‘He only had to turn the burner off. You would have worked that out.’

  ‘As a result of being an experienced cook and considerably older.’

  It was entirely possible that I would have done the same as Hudson at his age, and my father would have given me his ‘I can’t understand how someone with all your brains didn’t have enough common sense’ lecture.

  ‘I’ll explain it to him to prevent a recurrence,’ I said. ‘Of that specific scenario.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I think he got the message.’

  ‘But you asked me to teach him—’

  ‘I was hoping you could convey some sort of general principle. But, no, I see the problem.’

  ‘Good decision. We need to give priority to the current issue. Which, given our agreed division of labour, is my responsibility.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Instead of school.’

  29

  Rosie called the principal to advise that Hudson would take the day off to enable debriefing of the Nazi conversation and adjustment to the change of class.

  ‘I think Bronwyn’s a bit scared of me,’ said Rosie.

  It seemed a reasonable response to a designated bad cop.

  ‘I’m assuming you’re not actually ill, but require recovery and thinking time,’ I said to Hudson after Rosie had left for work.

  Hudson thought for a moment then nodded. ‘That’s okay?’

  ‘Adults do the same thing. They take “mental health days” which they register as sick leave. Because the system has insufficient options. But now we need to find a long-term solution.’

  ‘I don’t want to change classes.’

  ‘We’ll have to decide if that’s a mandatory requirement or negotiable. If it’s negotiable, we have more scope for innovative solutions.’

  I made myself a coffee while Hudson considered the proposition.

  ‘Negotiable,’ he said.

  ‘Excellent. The process for problem-solving is first to explain and explore the situation and objectives. We can ask questions and share information, but we can’t propose solutions. Then we require an incubation period for subconscious problem-solving, during which we undertake some mundane activity. As we have only one day total, I recommend we allow three to four hours. Then we co-operate on finding solutions.’

  ‘If we solve the problem by lunchtime, can we go book shopping in Clunes?’

  ‘We won’t. The incubation period is critical to generate the best possible solution.’

  ‘Why not have the incubation period while we’re driving and shopping?’

  ‘Brilliant idea.’

  We departed immediately, with a plan: explore problem on outbound journey; incubate while book trading; propose and evaluate solutions on inbound journey. As a bonus, travelling to Clunes was associated in our minds with recovery from a difficult time—my father’s death and the Pizza Incident.

  The original problem, which had seemed so severe that I had given up my job to address it, appeared to diminish in importance as I explained it to Hudson.

  ‘Mr Warren is concerned that you don’t have the social skills to cope at high school.’

  ‘It’ll be the same kids that are in my year now. We all go up together.’

  ‘But you don’t like school.’

  ‘I won’t like it any better if I can play football. I’d like it less, because I don’t like playing football.’

  ‘What if you have to—?’

  ‘Grandpa’s showed me what to do if I have to play for some reason. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what Mr Warren thinks, because I’m not going to be in his class anymore. So, problem solved.’

  Hudson did not speak for the next fifty-seven minutes, except to read aloud occasional road signs and billboards, something I did myself when I was alone in the car. I used the time to reflect and realised that he was resisting being classified as intrinsically deficient—even if only in a small number of domains. It was more accurate to characterise his situation as ill-prepared.

  ‘Have you read any science-fiction books where an unprepared person has to travel into space?’ I asked.

  ‘Heaps. Sometimes it’s a kid.’

  ‘And sometimes they have time to get some basic training? And that’s part of the story. Correct?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Hudson.

  ‘Can you provide an example?’

  ‘Yes.’ Hudson went silent, then laughed. ‘That’s what you’d say. You do it on purpose, right?’

  ‘Correct.’ It was an opportunity to say more, about how it was in line with what people expected of me, but under my control—but I needed to stay focused.

  ‘Some of the Robert Heinlein books,’ said Hudson. ‘He wrote a lot for teenagers, so…Time for the Stars. You’d probably hate it, because of the science.’

  ‘Telepathy. Perfectly acceptable to propose a single new discovery as a basis for the plot. The application of the special theory of relativity in the context of instantaneous communication is handled plausibly.’

  ‘You’ve read it?’

  ‘Have Space Suit—Will Travel is better, but Time for the Stars is a suitable example.’

  ‘You said you didn’t read science fiction.’

  ‘Not now. I read it at a time when I was incredibly unhappy.’

  ‘So you could imagine you were somewhere else?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Why were you unhappy?’

  ‘Lack of friends. But the point is that the boy who can communicate telepathically with his twin has to go into space, without the preparation that a conventional astronaut would have. There’s only time to teach him the most important things—those necessary to survive in a hostile environment.’

  Hudson laughed. ‘High school.’

  ‘Correct.’ Autistic people are poor at analogies.

  ‘His major strength is his telepathy skill, so they can’t neglect that. Analogou
s to mathematics or coding for you. But that strength is of zero value if he makes some simple mistake and dies from oxygen starvation or failure to operate his weapon correctly against an alien.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll be killed at high school.’

  ‘True. But you should relate killed to unhappy. If some skills that can be acquired in a few months can alleviate that…’

  ‘You think you know what the skills are.’

  ‘You should consider me the experienced astronaut who almost died in space multiple times.’

  ‘The clumsy astronaut.’

  ‘Correct. It’s better to learn from people who have had to work hard to achieve their skills, rather than the naturally talented.’

  ‘The old astronaut. Things have changed. I don’t think school is the same as when you went.’

  ‘True. So, we should review the plan using what we both consider to be the required competencies. Presumably you want to continue swimming. And coding?’

  ‘You said no solutions until the drive home.’

  ‘I’m only seeking information.’ I was beginning to feel that, as frequently happens, articulating the problem had been the most crucial step.

  We spent two hours and twenty minutes in Clunes, shopping for books and eating fried chicken.

  On the drive home, Hudson proposed several schedule changes, which appeared reasonable, but I had already explained that I would need to discuss them with Rosie before granting approval.

  ‘Why Clunes?’ said Rosie. ‘You could have gone to Shepparton and seen your mother. You haven’t seen her since the funeral.’

  ‘Excellent idea, but unfortunately too late. Also, I spoke to her on Sunday.’ The weekly telephone calls had continued uninterrupted after my father’s death. ‘And we needed to focus on the Hudson-unhappiness problem. Which we have solved. Subject to your approval.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He wants to abandon the 5.20 a.m. pre-school reading. He’ll call George on weekends.’

  ‘So far, so good.’

  ‘Obviously that allows him to stay up later. He wants to continue visits to Phil’s and Eugenie’s as currently scheduled.’

  ‘I see what you’re doing. Give me the bad news.’