The Rosie Project (Don Tillman #1)(30)

‘Changed my mind.’ She gave me a stained paperback. ‘Memorise this. I’ve got to get to work.’ She turned and left.

I looked at the book – The Bartender’s Companion: A Complete Guide to Making and Serving Drinks. It appeared to specify the duties of the role I was to perform. I memorised the first few recipes before finishing the bathroom. As I prepared for sleep, having skipped the aikido routine to spend further time studying the book, it occurred to me that things were getting crazy. It was not the first time that my life had become chaotic and I had established a protocol for dealing with the problem and the consequent disturbance to rational thinking. I called Claudia.

She was able to see me the next day. Because I am not officially one of her clients, we have to have our discussions over coffee rather than in her office. And I am the one accused of rigidity!

I outlined the situation, omitting the Father Project component, as I did not want to admit to the surreptitious collection of DNA, which Claudia was likely to consider unethical. Instead I suggested that Rosie and I had a common interest in movies.

‘Have you talked to Gene about her?’ asked Claudia.

I told her that Gene had introduced Rosie as a candidate for the Wife Project, and that he would only encourage me to have sex with her. I explained that Rosie was totally unsuitable as a partner, but was presumably under the illusion that I was interested in her on that basis. Perhaps she thought that our common interest was an excuse for pursuing her. I had made a major social error in asking her about her sexual orientation – it would only reinforce that impression.

Yet Rosie had never mentioned the Wife Project. We had been sidetracked so quickly by the Jacket Incident, and after that things had unfolded in a totally unplanned way. But I saw a risk that at some point I would hurt her feelings by telling her that she had been eliminated from consideration for the Wife Project after the first date.

‘So that’s what you’re worried about,’ said Claudia. ‘Hurting her feelings?’

‘Correct.’

‘That’s excellent, Don.’

‘Incorrect. It’s a major problem.’

‘I mean that you’re concerned about her feelings. And you’re enjoying time together?’

‘Immensely,’ I said, realising it for the first time.

‘And is she enjoying herself?’

‘Presumably. But she applied for the Wife Project.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Claudia. ‘She sounds pretty resilient. Just have some fun.’

A strange thing happened the next day. For the first time ever, Gene made an appointment to see me in his office. I had always been the one to organise conversations, but there had been an unusually long gap as a result of the Father Project.

Gene’s office is larger than mine, due to his higher status rather than any actual requirement for space. The Beautiful Helena let me in, as Gene was late in returning from a meeting. I took the opportunity to check his world map for pins in India and Belgium. I was fairly certain that the Indian one had been there before, but it was possible that Olivia was not actually Indian. She had said she was Hindu, so she could have been Balinese or Fijian or indeed from any country with a Hindu population. Gene worked on nationalities rather than ethnicities, in the same way that travellers count the countries they have visited. North Korea predictably remained without a pin.

Gene arrived, and commanded The Beautiful Helena to fetch us coffees. We sat at his table, as if in a meeting.

‘So,’ said Gene, ‘you’ve been talking to Claudia.’ This was one of the negatives of not being an official client of Claudia: I did not have the protection of confidentiality. ‘I gather you’ve been seeing Rosie. As the expert predicted.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not for the Wife Project.’ Gene is my best friend, but I still felt uncomfortable about sharing information about the Father Project. Fortunately he did not pursue it, probably because he assumed I had sexual intentions towards Rosie. In fact I was amazed that he didn’t immediately raise the topic.

‘What do you know about Rosie?’ he asked.

‘Not very much,’ I said honestly. ‘We haven’t talked much about her. Our discussion has focused on external issues.’

‘Give me a break,’ he said. ‘You know what she does, where she spends her time.’

‘She’s a barmaid.’

‘Okay,’ said Gene. ‘That’s all you know?’

‘And she doesn’t like her father.’

Gene laughed for no obvious reason. ‘I don’t think he’s Robinson Crusoe.’ This seemed a ludicrous statement about Rosie’s paternity until I recalled that the reference to the fictional shipwreck survivor could be used as a metaphorical phrase meaning ‘not alone’ or in this context ‘not alone in not being liked by Rosie’. Gene must have noticed my puzzled expression as I worked it out, and elaborated: ‘The list of men that Rosie likes is not a long one.’

‘She’s gay?’

‘Might as well be,’ said Gene. ‘Look at the way she dresses.’

Gene’s comment seemed to refer to the type of costume she was wearing when she first appeared in my office. But she dressed conventionally for her bar work and on our visits to collect DNA had worn unexceptional jeans and tops. On the night of the Jacket Incident she had been unconventional but extremely attractive.