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‘You considered me as a partner?’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Except for the fact that you have no idea of social behaviour, your life’s ruled by a whiteboard and you’re incapable of feeling love – you’re perfect.’

She walked out, slamming the door behind her.

I turned the machine on. Without Rosie in the room, I could safely test the samples and then decide what to do with them. Then I heard the door open again. I turned around, expecting to see Rosie. Instead it was the Dean.

‘Working on your secret project, Professor Tillman?’

I was in serious trouble. In all previous encounters with the Dean, I had been following the rules, or the infraction had been too minor to punish. Using the DNA machine for private purposes was a substantial breach of the Genetics Department regulations. How much did she know? She did not normally work on weekends. Her presence was not an accident.

‘Fascinating stuff, according to Simon Lefebvre,’ said the Dean. ‘He comes into my office and asks me about a project in my own faculty. One that apparently requires that we collect his DNA. As you do. I gather there was some sort of joke involved. Pardon my lack of humour, but I was at a slight disadvantage – having never heard of the project. Surely, I thought, I would have seen the proposal when it went to the ethics committee.’

Up to this point, the Dean had seemed cool and rational. Now she raised her voice.

‘I’ve been trying for two years to get the Medical Faculty to fund a joint research project – and you decide not only to behave grossly unethically but to do it to the man who holds the purse strings. I want a written report. If it doesn’t include an ethics approval that I somehow haven’t seen yet, we’ll be advertising an associate professor position.’

The Dean stopped at the door.

‘I’m still holding your complaint about Kevin Yu. You might want to think about that. And I’ll have your lab key, thank you.’

The Father Project was over. Officially.

Gene came into my office the following day as I was completing an EPDS questionnaire.

‘Are you okay?’ he said. This was a timely question.

‘I suspect not. I’ll tell you in approximately fifteen seconds.’ I completed the questionnaire, calculated the result, and passed it to Gene. ‘Sixteen,’ I told him. ‘Second-highest score ever.’

Gene looked at it. ‘Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Do I have to point out that you haven’t had a baby recently?’

‘I don’t answer the baby-related questions. It was the only depression instrument Claudia had at home when my sister died. I’ve continued using it for consistency.’

‘This is what we call “getting in touch with our feelings”, is it?’ said Gene.

I sensed that the question was rhetorical and did not reply.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I think I can fix this thing for you.’

‘You have news from Rosie?’

‘For Chrissakes, Don,’ said Gene. ‘I have news from the Dean. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, but DNA testing without ethics approval – that’s “career over”.’

I knew this. I had decided to phone Amghad, the golf-club boss, and ask him about the cocktail-bar partnership. It seemed like time to do something different. It had been a weekend of rude awakenings. I had arrived home after the interaction with the Dean to find that Eva, my housekeeper, had filled in a copy of the Wife Project questionnaire. On the front, she had written: ‘Don. Nobody is perfect. Eva.’ In my state of heightened vulnerability, I had been extremely affected by this. Eva was a good person whose short skirts were perhaps intended to attract a partner and who would have been embarrassed by her relatively low socio-economic status as she answered questions about postgraduate qualifications and appreciation of expensive food. I reflected on all the women who had completed my questionnaire, hoping that they might find a partner. Hoping that partner might be me, even though they did not know much about me and would probably be disappointed if they did.

I had poured myself a glass of Pinot Noir and gone out to the balcony. The city lights reminded me of the lobster dinner with Rosie that, contrary to the predictions of the questionnaire, had been one of the most enjoyable meals of my life. Claudia had told me I was being too picky but Rosie had demonstrated in New York that my assessment of what would make me happy was totally incorrect. I sipped the wine slowly and watched the view change. A window went dark, a traffic light changed from red to green, an ambulance’s flashing lights bounced off the buildings. And it dawned on me that I had not designed the questionnaire to find a woman I could accept, but to find someone who might accept me.

Regardless of what decisions I might make as a result of my experiences with Rosie, I would not use the questionnaire again. The Wife Project was over.

Gene had more to say. ‘No job, no structure, no schedule. You’ll fall apart.’ He looked at the depression questionnaire again. ‘You’re falling apart already. Listen. I’m going to say that it was a Psych Department project. We’ll make up an ethics application, and you can say you thought it had been approved.’

Gene was obviously doing his best to be helpful. I smiled for his benefit.

‘Does that take a few points off the score?’ he said, waving the EPDS questionnaire.

‘I suspect not.’

There was a silence. Neither of us apparently had anything to say. I expected Gene to leave. But he tried again.

‘Help me here, Don. It’s Rosie, isn’t it?’

‘It makes no sense.’

‘Let me put this simply,’ said Gene. ‘You’re unhappy – so unhappy that you’ve lost perspective on your career, your reputation, your holy schedule.’

This was true.

‘Shit, Don, you broke the rules. Since when do you break rules?’

It was a good question. I respect rules. But in the last ninety-nine days, I had broken many rules, legal, ethical and personal. I knew exactly when it had started. The day Rosie walked into my office and I hacked into Le Gavroche’s reservation system so I could go on a date with her.

‘All this because of a woman?’ said Gene.

‘Apparently. It’s totally irrational.’ I felt embarrassed. It was one thing to make a social error, another to admit that rationality had deserted me.

‘It’s only irrational if you believe in your questionnaire.’

‘The EPDS is highly –’

‘I’m talking about your “Do you eat kidneys?” questionnaire. I’d say genetics one, questionnaire nil.’

‘You consider the situation with Rosie to be the result of genetic compatibility?’

‘You have such a way with words,’ Gene said. ‘If you want to be a bit more romantic about it, I’d say you were in love.’

This was an extraordinary statement. It also made absolute sense. I had assumed that romantic love would always be outside my realm of experience. But it perfectly accounted for my current situation. I wanted to be sure.

‘This is your professional opinion? As an expert on human attraction?’

Gene nodded.

‘Excellent.’ Gene’s insight had transformed my mental state.

‘Not sure how that helps,’ said Gene.

‘Rosie identified three faults. Fault number one was the inability to feel love. There are only two left to rectify.’

‘And they would be?’

‘Social protocols and adherence to schedules. Trivial.’

30

I booked a meeting with Claudia at the usual café to discuss social behaviour. I realised that improving my ability to interact with other humans would require some effort and that my best attempts might not convince Rosie. But the skills would be useful in their own right.

I had, to some extent, become comfortable with being socially odd. At school, I had been the unintentional class clown, and eventually the intentional one. It was time to grow up.

The server approached our table. ‘You order,’ said Claudia.

‘What would you like?’

‘A skinny decaf latte.’

This is a ridiculous form of coffee, but I did not point it out. Claudia would surely have received the message from previous occasions and would not want it repeated. It would be annoying to her.

‘I’d like a double espresso,’ I said to the server, ‘and my friend will have a skinny decaf latte, no sugar, please.’

‘Well,’ said Claudia. ‘Something’s changed.’

I pointed out that I had been successfully and politely ordering coffee all my life, but Claudia insisted that my mode of interaction had changed in subtle ways.

‘I wouldn’t have picked New York City as the place to learn to be genteel,’ she said, ‘but there you go.’

I told her that, on the contrary, people had been extremely friendly, citing my experience with Dave the Baseball Fan, Mary the bipolar-disorder researcher, David Borenstein the Dean of Medicine at Columbia, and the chef and weird guy at Momofuku Ko. I mentioned that we had dined with the Eslers, describing them as friends of Rosie’s family. Claudia’s conclusion was simple. All this unaccustomed social interaction, plus that with Rosie, had dramatically improved my skills.

‘You don’t need to try with Gene and me, because you’re not out to impress us or make friends with us.’

While Claudia was right about the value of practice, I learn better from reading and observation. My next task was to download some educational material.

I decided to begin with romantic films specifically mentioned by Rosie. There were four: Casablanca, The Bridges of Madison County, When Harry Met Sally and An Affair to Remember. I added To Kill a Mockingbird and The Big Country for Gregory Peck, whom Rosie had cited as the sexiest man ever.

It took a full week to watch all six, including time for pausing the DVD player and taking notes. The films were incredibly useful, but also highly challenging. The emotional dynamics were so complex! I persevered, drawing on movies recommended by Claudia about male-female relationships with both happy and unhappy outcomes. I watched Hitch, Gone with the Wind, Bridget Jones’s Diary, Annie Hall, Notting Hill, Love Actually and Fatal Attraction.

Claudia also suggested I watch As Good as It Gets, ‘just for fun’. Although her advice was to use it as an example of what not to do, I was impressed that the Jack Nicholson character handled a jacket problem with more finesse than I had. It was also encouraging that, despite serious social incompetence, a significant difference in age between him and the Helen Hunt character, probable multiple psychiatric disorders and a level of intolerance far more severe than mine, he succeeded in winning the love of the woman in the end. An excellent choice by Claudia.

Slowly I began to make sense of it all. There were certain consistent principles of behaviour in male–female romantic relationships, including the prohibition of infidelity. That rule was in my mind when I met with Claudia again for social practice.

We worked through some scenarios.

‘This meal has a fault,’ I said. The situation was hypothetical. We were only drinking coffee. ‘That would be too confrontational, correct?’

Claudia agreed. ‘And don’t say fault, or error. That’s computer talk.’

‘But I can say “I’m sorry, it was an error of judgement, entirely my fault”, correct? That use of “fault” is acceptable?’

‘Correct,’ said Claudia, and then laughed. ‘I mean yes. Don, this takes years to learn.’

I didn’t have years. But I am a quick learner and was in human-sponge mode. I demonstrated.

‘I’m going to construct an objective statement followed by a request for clarification, and preface it with a platitude: “Excuse me. I ordered a rare steak. Do you have a different definition of rare?” ’

‘Good start, but the question’s a bit aggressive.’

‘Not acceptable?’

‘In New York maybe. Don’t blame the waiter.’

I modified the question. ‘Excuse me. I ordered a rare steak. Could you check that my order was processed correctly?’

Claudia nodded. But she did not look entirely happy. I was paying great attention to expressions of emotion and I had diagnosed hers correctly.

‘Don. I’m impressed, but … changing to meet someone else’s expectations may not be a good idea. You may end up resenting it.’

I didn’t think this was likely. I was learning some new protocols, that was all.

‘If you really love someone,’ Claudia continued, ‘you have to be prepared to accept them as they are. Maybe you hope that one day they get a wake-up call and make the changes for their own reasons.’

This last statement connected with the fidelity rule that I had in my mind at the beginning of the discussion. I did not need to raise the subject now. I had the answer to my question. Claudia was surely talking about Gene.

I organised a run with Gene for the following morning. I needed to speak to him in private, somewhere he could not escape. I started my personal lecture as soon as we were moving. My key point was that infidelity was totally unacceptable. Any benefits were outweighed by the risk of total disaster. Gene had been divorced once already. Eugenie and Carl –

Gene interrupted, breathing heavily. In my effort to get the message across unambiguously and forcefully, I had been running faster than normal. Gene is significantly less fit than I am and my fat-burning low-heart-rate jogs are major cardiovascular workouts for him.

‘I hear you,’ said Gene. ‘What’ve you been reading?’

I told him about the movies I had been watching, and their idealised representation of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. If Gene and Claudia had owned a rabbit, it would have been in serious danger from a disgruntled lover. Gene disagreed, not about the rabbit, but about the impact of his behaviour on his marriage.

‘We’re psychologists,’ he said. ‘We can handle an open marriage.’

I ignored his incorrect categorisation of himself as a real psychologist, and focused on the critical issue: all authorities and moral codes consider fidelity critical. Even theories of evolutionary psychology concede that if a person discovers that their partner is unfaithful they will have strong reasons for rejecting them.

‘You’re talking about men there,’ said Gene. ‘Because they can’t afford the risk of raising a child who doesn’t have their genes. Anyway, I thought you were all about overcoming instinct.’

‘Correct. The male instinct is to cheat. You need to overcome it.’

‘Women accept it as long as you don’t embarrass them with it. Look at France.’

I cited a counter-example from a popular book and film.

‘Bridget Jones’s Diary?’ said Gene. ‘Since when are we expected to behave like characters in chick flicks?’ He stopped and doubled over, gasping for breath. It gave me the opportunity to present him with the evidence without interruption. I finished by pointing out that he loved Claudia and that he should therefore be prepared to make all necessary sacrifices.

‘I’ll think about it when I see you changing the habits of a lifetime,’ he said.

I had thought that eliminating my schedule would be relatively straightforward. I had just spent eight days without it and while I had faced numerous problems they were not related to inefficiency or unstructured time. But I had not factored in the impact of the enormous amount of turmoil in my life. As well as the uncertainty around Rosie, the social-skills project and the fear that my best friends were on the path to domestic disintegration, I was about to lose my job. The schedule of activities felt like the only stable thing in my life.