The Rosie Result

by Graeme Simsion

‘He wants to go to the bar every night. He wants to be paid for being the Library app helper and developer.’

  ‘What’s he going to eat? And that doesn’t mean I agree—I’m just wondering.’

  ‘Pizza.’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. He’s not eating pizza every night.’

  ‘I was joking. He’s happy to vary his diet but he wants to eat at the bar.’

  ‘Because of my cooking?’

  In preparing my presentation, I had decided not to include Hudson’s views on this topic. I opened my hands in the Italian signal for Who knows?

  ‘Of course he can’t go to the bar every night.’

  ‘What are your objections?’

  ‘He’s eleven.’ Rosie paused. ‘He had answers to all of this, didn’t he?’

  ‘Correct. It’s a family business. He’s legally allowed to work a limited number of hours. He will be with his father, hence supervised, and you can join us when convenient. He will do his homework before he goes. If he needs a time-out or there is a problematic situation, he can retreat to Minh’s old office.’

  ‘What’s the purpose of all this? Besides him making money?’

  ‘He will be practising application-specification skills which could provide the basis of a respectable and well-paid career.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘No, that’s supplementary information from me. His argument is that he’ll be getting personal-interaction practice in a traditional environment for socialising. And learning how people think, through the way they use the app. Which is his most significant need and the most difficult to teach.’

  ‘The customers are all adults.’

  ‘Who are more sophisticated socially, so he’ll be in an advanced class. He said.’

  ‘Have you looked at the people who come to the bar?’

  ‘Diverse. Which is perfect. Also, I have a bonus outcome from our discussions. If you say, “Observe this situation and if you detect a problem, take action to rectify it,” the rice incident is less likely to recur, in more general contexts.’

  Rosie laughed. ‘I guess it shouldn’t all be on him to change.’

  ‘Excellent principle. Is the proposal approved?’

  ‘Four nights a week—max. I want some time at home with him, and he needs that too.’

  ‘I expect he’ll consider that acceptable.’

  ‘Pleased to hear it. But how’s he going to get to the bar?’

  ‘He wants a myki, so he can catch the tram. Another important skill.’

  ‘I’m not sure he’s ready…’

  Earlier in the year we had experimented with Hudson undertaking a short tram journey alone, and he had missed his stop. Finding him had involved trauma on his part and Rosie’s.

  ‘We reviewed the incident. Apparently, you provided vague references to landmarks, when tram stops are unambiguously identified by route and stop number. I would have had trouble finding my way with your instructions.’

  ‘No argument there. I’m just thinking safety…’

  ‘Melbourne is one of the world’s safest cities. The probability of a child being a victim of violence on public transport is low but receives disproportionate media coverage. Like crocodile attacks. Hudson is more likely to be killed or maimed while—’

  ‘I get it. I guess it’s a good sign. He’s beginning to chart his own life. Maybe that’ll translate into him taking his own action at school, but…hold on. What about changing classes?’

  I smiled. ‘Accepted.’ For no apparent reason, the issue seemed to have slipped from mandatory to optional to irrelevant.

  ‘You know why?’ said Rosie. ‘He wanted to get away from Rabbit. Once he got everything he asked for, he didn’t need the class change as a bargaining chip.’

  30

  Dave came into the bar a few times to assist me but found it difficult to be surrounded by people consuming liquor without joining them. Conversely, I had a rule of not drinking before or during working hours. My alcohol consumption had fallen substantially.

  ‘I think I’ll go home and make some blocks,’ Dave said at the end of what became his final shift.

  ‘It seems to be becoming an obsession,’ I said. ‘Possibly you should consult a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘New pants. I’m down seventeen pounds. And…Hudson hasn’t told you?’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘We made our first sale.’

  Dave pulled out his phone and showed me the website. WB2. World’s Best Wooden Blocks. Handcrafted in Australia by David Bechler.

  ‘Hudson thought David sounded more artistic than Dave.’ ‘Surely there’s some error with the price? They seem incredibly expensive.’

  ‘Handcrafted.’ Dave laughed. ‘I thought so too, but then Hudson told me how his buddy Carl prices clothes, and I thought, what the hell, we can always drop it. But at least one person thinks they’re worth what we’re asking.’

  I raised the WB2 project on the drive to school. I had to wait for a wet day, as Hudson was now taking the tram by default.

  ‘Who invented the brand name? World’s Best Wooden Blocks?’

  ‘Dave and I. You always say, “world’s best everything”, so it’s sort of yours, too.’

  ‘What about the abbreviation?’

  ‘Me. Dave’s not exactly a mathematician.’

  ‘It’s incorrect. It should be (WB)2. Both the W and the B are squared. Eugenie needs to improve her teaching.’

  The last statement was a small joke, but Hudson didn’t laugh.

  Rosie and I celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary at the bar. It was the perfect venue—the result of a joint project to improve life for ourselves, our son and some of our friends, and, it appeared, for the increasing number of regular customers.

  As I had on every anniversary, I gave Rosie a gift according to the published schedule: year thirteen was lace. Hence high-quality running shoes with laces.

  ‘You need to exercise more,’ I said. ‘We’re getting older and it’s necessary to apply conscious effort to maintain health. Obviously, I’d like us both to live as long as possible so that our marriage can continue.’

  Rosie laughed. ‘Good save. And good present. I’d looked it up and I was expecting lacy…I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been me.’

  ‘The present is acceptable, then?’

  ‘As always. I really do need to get to the gym. In between the bar and my real job and Hudson and doing the laundry. You know, when I tell people that you do this for me every year, they’re envious. They say you’re a great romantic. And you are.’ She kissed me, unnoticed by Hudson and the customers, who were absorbed in television, books, computers and phones.

  It was hard to think of myself as a romantic. Our wedding anniversary was diarised, and the themes for each year were publicly documented. And I would not have adopted the tradition without encouragement—instruction.

  Rosie appeared to have read my mind. ‘This was Gene’s idea, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Originally. It’s not a secret.’

  ‘I know. But you owe him a lot. We owe him a lot.’

  Rosie’s statement was true, but still extraordinary. ‘You hate Gene.’

  ‘I don’t hate anyone. I was pretty unhappy with some of the stuff he did. But he was your friend, and I tried not to stand in the way of that. I think you miss him.’

  It was our wedding anniversary. My wife had made an extraordinary statement of concession. I owed it to her to be completely open in return.

  ‘Possibly,’ I said.

  ‘Don, maybe you need to reach out to Gene. This business of trying to persuade Claudia and him to reconcile: you don’t think you might be projecting a little?’

  ‘Emotionally, possibly. But the situation between us is unchanged from eleven years ago. So, there’s no rational reason.’

  ‘What about you? Haven’t you changed? Maybe he’s changed. Don’t tell me the situation hasn’t changed. Your attitudes are part of it. Most of it.
’

  She pointed to Hudson, who was by the bookshelves, talking animatedly to Tazza and Merlin. ‘He seems a lot happier. But you’re not really happy, are you?’

  Rosie, as always, had a better understanding of my emotional state than I did. I looked at the computer screen. ‘I need to fill this order. Then I’ll answer the question.’

  As I mixed the cocktails, I tried to make sense of the negative feeling that Rosie had detected. It was true that Hudson’s mood seemed to have improved, at least when he was at the bar. I doubted it extended to his time at school.

  Although my overall memory of schooldays was of exclusion, there had been periods of happiness. I had enjoyed programming my computer, playing chess and much of the actual schoolwork. But by the age of twenty, I was suicidal, to the extent that I was briefly resident in a psychiatric hospital. Essentially, my problem had been social isolation. And Hudson still had only one friend, zero improvement since the beginning of the Hudson Project.

  I finished making the cocktails and Cheng, one of the casual staff, picked up the tray.

  ‘Analysis complete?’ asked Rosie.

  ‘Not really. But I’m concerned about…the issues that Rabbit raised.’

  ‘Have you thought any more about the autism diagnosis? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but when he gets up in the morning, he does this repetitive tapping for maybe ten minutes.’

  I nodded. I had chosen not to raise it with him in case of embarrassment. Or with Rosie, for what felt like the same reason. It was possible it had been going on for a long time, but we had only noticed it recently because Hudson was getting up later.

  ‘I think he does it to get set for school,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s called stimming…It’s a characteristic of autism. You knew that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s strange,’ said Rosie. ‘I was going to read up on autism, and then I thought, no, Don will know it chapter and verse before I’ve got started. But…nothing.’

  ‘I did some research online, the day you interrupted me. I also studied Asperger’s syndrome for a lecture thirteen years ago. And we went to the seminar. I reached a provisional conclusion that Hudson wasn’t autistic, hence the information was not relevant.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rosie. ‘But…you see him here with these guys.’ She indicated the skinny male in his twenties that Hudson was talking to. ‘I’d guess a lot of them are on the spectrum.’

  ‘Possibly. I suspect they’re a bad influence.’

  ‘Wow. Big call. When I met you, you were a lot like that.’

  ‘And unhappy.’

  ‘I guess I’m saying that if he is on the spectrum, and you want him to have better social skills, make more friends, maybe we get him some assistance from people who do this every day. With a…scientific basis.’

  I thought about Hudson’s classmate, Dov: ‘zombified’. And my twenty-year-old self, lost in a psychiatric hospital. After we had received professional help. Perhaps because of it.

  I turned to the screen. ‘Caipirinha at table twelve. No dilution.’

  Minh was in the bar as often as Rosie and Hudson, despite not being required contractually to work at all. During the establishment stage, we were relying on casual staff, and she had designated herself induction officer.

  ‘I want you to make me the best cocktail you’ve ever made. I don’t care if it’s something you invented yourself, or just a great martini. But the best. Right now. Then we’re going to put it in the app with your name next to it. You’re gonna go home tonight and say you’ve done the best work you’ve ever done. Or else, why are you alive? And why am I here?’

  Amazingly, even after such hyperbole, the staff loved her.

  One Friday night, Rosie, Hudson and I were closing up and our door team, Nick and Callie, came in to sign off. Minh had left a few minutes earlier.

  Callie was laughing. ‘Did Minh tell you what she did?’

  ‘In what context?’

  ‘About eight o’clock, there was a bit of a queue, and these three guys turned up just when she was coming in. There’s a certain kind of guy who thinks the girls who come here are soft targets. Shits me, but what can you do?’

  Nick continued. ‘Minh walks up to them, and—like, Callie’s right—she sees it, and she says, “Sorry, but we’ve got a dress code.”

  ‘And these guys are like…The punters in front of them are wearing…I don’t have to tell you…And these guys in their tight pants and pointy shoes are like: what the fuck?

  ‘Minh just points to the people in front of them and says, straight face, “I think you can see the standard we expect.” You know what she’s like. Five-foot nothing and she’s totally owning these guys and they…slink off into the night.’

  Everyone was laughing. Callie high-fived Rosie and Hudson did the same to me. It felt like we were doing something worthwhile.

  31

  At 8.51 on a Friday morning, the doorbell rang. It was Allannah, with Blanche’s brother. I had not seen her for some time, due to Hudson travelling by tram to school and to Blanche’s home. She was incredibly agitated, but I deduced that her dominant emotions were anger and disbelief.

  ‘I can’t tell you how angry I am. I can’t believe what you did.’

  ‘Is there some specific issue?’ I guessed that the problem was Blanche’s visit to the ophthalmologist, but it would be poor strategy to confess to that and then discover that I had done something else to upset her.

  ‘You took my child for medical treatment—medical treatment she didn’t need. Even the doctor said that, right? Without my permission; without my husband’s permission. It’s illegal, you know that? The school could kick Hudson out because of what you’ve done. Did you think about that?’

  Allannah continued for some time, without adding significant further information. If she had been Hudson, I would have enforced a time-out, but this seemed tactless in an adult situation.

  ‘Would you like an infusion?’ I asked.

  ‘What? What are you saying?’

  ‘A herbal tea.’

  ‘You’re offering me herbal tea?’

  ‘I can add boiling water to citrus peel and rosemary or thyme. While we work on solving the problem.’

  ‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve said? Do you realise how much trouble you’re in? You and Rosie?’

  ‘Of course. So, I’m invested in finding a solution. Which is presumably your goal as well. We should begin by identifying any damage that needs to be rectified.’

  Allannah came in, and I gave her son some of Dave’s sample blocks to play with, showing him how they fitted together.

  By the time I had completed the preparation of an orange peel and rosemary infusion, and given the orange segments to Blanche’s brother, Allannah was crying.

  ‘I don’t know what to make of you. I’ve threatened to have you thrown out of the school; I’ve told you Gary could come around and…and you’re giving us tea and blocks and being so calm’—she laughed—‘and I can’t think of anything that needs to be fixed. Except me, I guess, for not taking her to the doctor myself.’

  ‘So, zero action required?’

  ‘You know, Gary says “chill out” all the time, and you’re just permanently chilled.’

  ‘I presume he was unhappy about the ophthalmologist.’

  ‘I haven’t told him. Blanche only told me last night. I feel I have to keep her confidence. And there’s something else. She wants to get immunised.’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to her directly about that.’

  ‘No, but Hudson has. And you’re encouraging her to be a scientist. Which you’ll understand we have mixed feelings about.’

  ‘Science is—’

  ‘Don’t bother. We have to accept that she’s getting old enough to make her own decisions. And because she’s not a baby, they spread the injections out, so no system shock, right?’

  I considered my answer. ‘Zero evidence of system shock in older children.’

  ‘Bette
r I sign the form than she has to ask someone else. And you know I let her have a phone. You persuaded me on that one, too.’

  I did not think of it at the time, but when Hudson arrived home, I asked him, ‘How did Blanche afford a phone?’

  He had already left the kitchen and was on his way to his room before he responded. ‘I bought it for her.’

  In the bar that night, I briefed Rosie on the Allannah confrontation. She admitted that she would probably have reacted exactly as Allannah had expected me to—combatively. I suspected that Hudson’s approach would be more like mine: rational and problem-focused…and effective. Yet Rabbit had cited ‘dealing with conflict’ as an area in which he considered Hudson deficient.

  I also shared the information about Blanche’s phone. I hoped Rosie would be able to explain the unease I felt about Hudson purchasing expensive objects for another eleven-year-old.

  ‘Does that mean he has a phone of his own?’ said Rosie.

  ‘Why would you assume that?’

  ‘Who is Blanche going to talk to on her phone?’

  I walked over to Hudson, who was discussing the app with a customer.

  ‘Do you own a phone?’ I asked.

  He nodded and resumed his conversation.

  ‘How much money does he have?’ Rosie asked.

  ‘I don’t know. He trades books; the bar pays him for helping with the app; he’s been doing some work on Carl’s website.’

  ‘What about Dave? Did Dave pay him for helping with the blocks?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘It’s not like he’d tell us. He’s getting a lot more secretive.’

  ‘He’s in danger of becoming an entrepreneur. A capitalist.’

  ‘In danger of?’

  I was no longer accompanying Hudson to and from school, nor to his appointments with Phil, Carl and Eugenie, as a result of his tram pass and apparent mastery of the public-transport system. In the bar, he was generally in conversation with customers—frequently Merlin and Tazza—or coding.

  At home, he spent most of his time in his room. I explained to Rosie that this was normal for an eleven-year-old.

  ‘You’re using yourself as a reference,’ she said. ‘Bad science. When you were a kid, there was no internet. For all his supposed confidence in adult company, he’s still very vulnerable. Perhaps because of it.’