The Rosie Effect (37 page)

I couldn’t walk away. I was being
prevented
from walking away.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. I visualised numbers, alternate sums of cubes behaving with predictable rationality, as they had before humans and emotions, and as they would for all time.

I was aware of someone leaning over me. The flight attendant.

‘Excuse me, sir, would you mind bringing your seat fully forward for take-off?’

Yes, I would fucking mind!
I had already tried and it was broken, and the almost
zero
probability that it would make any difference to anyone’s survival…

I breathed. In. Out. I did not trust myself to speak. I felt the steward reaching across my neighbour, jiggling my seat as the meltdown began, and the seatbelt prevented me from moving.
I could not let this happen in front of Rosie.

I started my mantra, steadying my breathing again and keeping my voice toneless.
Hardy-Ramanujan, Hardy-Ramanujan, Hardy-Ramanujan.

I don’t know how many times I said it, but when my mind cleared, I could feel Rosie’s hand on my arm.

‘Are you okay, Don?’

I was not, but the reason had reverted to the original problem. And I had a further five hours to find a solution.

36

‘Don, I have to sleep. I’m not going to change my mind between here and Los Angeles. I really, really appreciate you trying. I’ll call when I get home. Promise.’

Shortly after Rosie put her seat back and closed her eyes, the steward returned and offered our neighbour an upgrade. I assumed the seat would remain vacant: I was accustomed to having empty seats beside me, except on full flights, as a result of my special status with the airline. A win-win outcome for my neighbour and me. But he was replaced by another male, estimated age forty, BMI twenty-three.

‘I guess you’ve figured out who I am,’ he said.

Perhaps he was a celebrity who expected to be recognised—but I doubted that celebrities travelled in economy class. I provisionally diagnosed schizophrenia.

‘No,’ I said.

‘I’m a federal air marshal. I’m here to look after you—and the rest of the passengers and crew.’

‘Excellent. Is there some specific danger?’

‘Maybe you can tell me that.’

Schizophrenia. I was going to have to share my flight with a mentally ill person. ‘Do you have ID?’ I asked. I was trying to distract him from his delusion that I possessed special knowledge.

To my amazement, he did. His name was Aaron Lineham. As far as I could tell from approximately thirty seconds of close examination, the ID card was genuine.

‘You got on the plane with no intention of travelling, am I right?’ he said.

‘Correct.’

‘What was your purpose in boarding the flight then?’

‘My wife is returning to Australia. I wanted to persuade her to stay.’

‘That’s her, in the window seat, right?’

It was definitely Rosie, making the low-level sleeping noises that had begun during the baby-development project.

‘She’s pregnant?’

‘Correct.’

‘Your kid?’

‘I presume so.’

‘And you couldn’t persuade her to stay with you. She’s leaving you for good and taking your kid?’

‘Correct.’

‘You’re pretty unhappy about that?’

‘Extremely.’

‘And you decided to do something about it. Something a little crazy.’

‘Correct.’

He pulled a communications device from his pocket. ‘Situation confirmed,’ he said.

I guessed that my explanation had been satisfactory. He was silent for a while, and I looked beyond Rosie into a clear sky. I watched as the wing dipped and centrifugal force held me in my seat. Without the horizon as a reference point I would not have known the plane was turning. Science and technology were incredible. As long as there were scientific problems to solve, I still had a life worth living.

Aaron the Marshal interrupted my reflections.

‘Are you afraid to die?’ he asked.

It was an interesting question. As an animal, I was programmed to resist death to ensure the survival of my genes, and to be afraid in circumstances that threatened pain and death, such as a confrontation with a lion. But I was not afraid of death in the abstract.

‘No.’

‘How long do we have?’ asked Aaron.

‘You and me? How old are you?’

‘I’m forty-three.’

‘Approximately the same age as me,’ I said. ‘Statistically, we both have approximately forty years, but you appear to be in good health. I am also in excellent health, so I would add five to ten years each.’

We were interrupted by an announcement. ‘Good
afternoon. This is the first officer. You may have noticed the aircraft turning. We’ve had a minor problem, and air-traffic control has asked us to return to New York. We’ll be commencing our descent into JFK in approximately fifteen minutes. We’re sorry for any inconvenience, but your safety is our first priority.’

Almost immediately, conversations commenced around us.

‘Is there some mechanical problem?’ I asked Aaron.

‘It’s going to take us about forty minutes to get back to New York and deplane. I’ve got a wife and kids. Just tell me, am I going to see them again?’

If it was not for the evidence of the plane turning back, I would have insisted on a more thorough examination of Aaron’s ID. Instead I asked, ‘What’s happening?’

‘Pregnant woman buys a ticket home, checks three big bags. Man known to the airline for unusual behaviour follows her without any bags, acts suspiciously, then tries to get off the plane before it leaves. Gets agitated when he’s refused. Then he prays out loud in a foreign language. That was plenty—but now you tell me she’s leaving you. What would you make of that?’

‘I’m not skilled at analysing human motivations.’

‘I wish I was. I don’t know if they’ve got it wrong or if we’ve turned around in time. Or if you’re the coolest guy I’ve ever met, sitting here chatting while your life ticks away.’

‘I don’t understand. What is the nature of the danger?’

‘Mr Tillman, have you packed a bomb in your wife’s bags?’

Incredible. They had profiled me as a terrorist. On reflection, it was not incredible. Terrorists are not exactly average.
My non-standard behaviour was reasonably interpreted as increasing the probability I would do something else nonstandard, such as commit mass murder because my wife was leaving me.

It was flattering to be judged as cool, even if on a false premise. But now a planeload of passengers was returning to New York. I suspected the relevant authorities would want to blame me in some way.

‘There is no bomb. But I would advise you to assume I am lying.’ I would not want a marshal to rely on the word of a suspected terrorist in deciding whether there was a bomb on board. ‘Assuming I am telling the truth, and there is no bomb, have I done anything illegal?’

‘Not as far as I can see. But I’d be willing to bet on TSA finding something.’ He leaned back. ‘Tell me the story. I’m not going anywhere. And I’ll try to work out if we’re all going to die.’

I tried to think of some way of reassuring him.

‘Surely if there were a bomb, the scanners would have detected it.’

‘We like to think so, but you can draw your own conclusions.’

‘If I wanted to kill my wife, I could have done it without killing a planeload of people. In our home. With my bare hands. Or a variety of domestic items. I could have made it look like an accident.’ I looked into his eyes to demonstrate my sincerity.

As Aaron the Marshal requested, I told my story. It was difficult to know where to start. Numerous events required context for full understanding, but I estimated that there
was insufficient time to include the complete story of my life prior to becoming a terrorism suspect. I began with my initial meeting with Rosie, since the events of interest to Aaron were Rosie-related. Predictably, this meant leaving out important background information.

‘You’re saying basically that before you met your wife, there was no one else.’

‘If “basically” means “excluding dates that did not lead to relationships”, the answer is yes.’

‘First time lucky,’ he said. ‘I mean, she’s a good-looking lady.’

‘Correct. She vastly exceeded any expectations I had for a partner.’

‘You thought she was out of your league?’

‘Correct. Perfect metaphor.’

‘So you didn’t think you deserved her. Now you’ve got the chance for a family. Mr Don Tillman, husband and father, that’s another league again. You think you’re up to playing in it?’

‘I’ve done considerable research on parenthood.’

‘There you go. Overcompensating. If I was a motivational speaker, I’d have some advice for you.’

‘Presumably. It would be your job to motivate me.’

‘What I would say is you haven’t
visualised
it. If you want something you’ve got to visualise it. You’ve got to see yourself where you want to be, and then you can go get it. I was a security guard, going nowhere, when I heard about the air marshals’ jobs after 9/11. So I visualised it and here I am. But without the vision, nix.’

One thing I had learned about pregnancy was that there was no shortage of advice.

Rosie slept through my conversation with Aaron and the agitated conversation of other passengers, but was woken by the announcement to prepare for landing.

‘Wow. I slept all the way to LA,’ she said.

‘Incorrect. We’re returning to New York. There’s a suspected terrorist on board.’

Rosie looked frightened and grabbed my hand.

‘No cause for fear,’ I said. ‘It’s me.’ It struck me that Rosie and I were probably the only people on the plane who were not terrified.

When we landed in New York, Rosie and I were taken to separate interrogation rooms while her bags were checked. It took a long time and I was left alone. I decided to use the opportunity to visualise being a parent.

I am not good at visualisation. I do not have a graphic representation of the streets of New York in my brain, or an instinctive sense of direction. But I can list the streets, the intersections, the landmarks and the subway stations, and can read the orientation information—
14 St & 8 Av SE Corner
—when I exit the subway. It seems equally effective.

I did not have a picture of Rosie and me with an actual baby. At some level I did not believe in it, perhaps because of my original Lydia-induced fear of being a parent, or perhaps—as Aaron the Marshal had suggested—I did not consider myself worthy. There had been some amelioration of both of these concerns: Lydia had given me provisional
endorsement, and Gene, Dave, Sonia and even George had recently provided positive feedback about my worth as a human being beyond the domain of genetics research.

Now I had to imagine the outcome.

It took a deliberate effort of will. I attempted to integrate four images of a baby and my emotional responses to them.

I imagined the pictures of the developing baby on the wall of my bathroom-office. No response. The process of drawing them had definitely had a calming effect, but the recollection of an image of a picture of a generic foetus or even the ultrasound photos did not have any power.

The mental picture of Rosie II, Dave and Sonia’s baby, was not particularly helpful—she was also still a generic baby.

The memory of the older baby that had crawled over me during the Lesbian Mothers Project was more satisfactory. I remembered the experience being fun. I suspected the level of fun might increase with the baby’s age, obviously with some limit. I recalled the fun generated by the LMP baby as being of the same order as that induced by a margarita. Perhaps two margaritas, but not sufficient to motivate me to life-changing actions.

The final image was of the actual Bud. I envisaged Rosie and the bump. I even envisaged it moving, evidence of human life. Minimal emotional impact.

I faced the same problem as I had during the Rosie Project. I was crippled—
challenged
—incapable of the feelings needed to drive normal behaviour. My emotional response was to Rosie. It was of a very high level, and if I could have redirected some of it towards the baby, as Rosie had apparently done with her feelings for me, the problem would have been solved.

Finally, an official (male, approximately fifty, BMI approximately thirty-two) opened the door.

‘Mr Tillman. We’ve checked your wife’s baggage and everything seems to be in order.’

‘No bomb?’ The question was automatic and, on reflection, stupid. I had not packed a bomb and it was extremely unlikely that Rosie had.

‘No bomb, smart guy. Nevertheless, we have broad laws against inciting an incident and—’

At this point the door opened again—no knock—and another official (female, age approximately thirty-five, estimated BMI twenty-two) entered. Given that I was dealing with officialdom, and probably at risk of some sort of penalty, this was annoying. I was definitely better at one-on-one interactions than situations involving multiple people. With Margarita Cop I had been fine; with Good Cop and Bad Cop less so. With Lydia alone I had made progress; the involvement of Sonia had required subterfuge that inevitably led to confusion. Even in our informal men’s group, the move from one relationship to six had created dynamics that I had overlooked. Dave apparently did not approve of Gene. I only knew this because Dave had told me so directly.

I barely noticed what the new official was saying, because my train of thought had led me to a massive insight. I needed to share it with Rosie as soon as possible.

‘We understand you’ve been subjected to some inconvenience, Professor Tillman,’ said the female officer.

‘Correct. Reasonable precautions to prevent terrorism.’

‘That’s very understanding of you. The flight will be leaving again in approximately an hour, and you and Ms Jarman are both welcome to board. They’re going to hold the Melbourne flight in LA for delayed passengers. But if you’d rather have some recovery time, we can arrange a limousine to your home and fly her business class on tomorrow’s flights through to Melbourne. We’ll upgrade you too if you choose to fly with her.’