Chapter 36

We went to Disneyland – Rosie, Phil and I. It was great funand appeared to be a success in improving all relationships.
Rosie and Phil shared information and I learned a lot aboutRosie’s life. It was important background for the difficult butessential task of developing a high level of empathy for oneperson in the world.
Rosie and I were on our way to New York, where being weirdis acceptable. That is a simplification of the rationale: in realitywhat was important for me was to be able to make a newstart with my new skills, new approach and new partner,without being held back by others’ perceptions of me –perceptions that I had not only deserved but encouraged.
Here in New York, I am working in the Department ofGenetics at Columbia University, and Rosie is in the first yearof the Doctor of Medicine programme. I am contributing toSimon Lefebvre’s research project remotely, as he insisted on itas a condition of providing funding. I consider it a form ofmoral payback for using the university’s equipment for theFather Project.
280/290We have an apartment in Williamsburg, not far from theEslers, whom we visit regularly. The Cellar Interrogation is nowa story that Isaac and I both tell on social occasions.
We are considering reproducing (or, as I would say in a socialencounter, ‘having children’). In order to prepare for thispossibility, Rosie has ceased smoking, and we have reduced ouralcohol intake.
Fortunately we have numerous other activities to distract usfrom these addictive behaviours. Rosie and I work in a cocktailbar together three evenings a week. It is exhausting at times,but social and fun, and supplements my academic salary.
We listen to music. I have revised my approach to Bach, andam no longer trying to follow individual notes. It is moresuccessful, but my music tastes seem to have been locked in inmy teens. As a result of failing to make my own selections atthat time, my preferences are those of my father. I canadvance a well-reasoned argument that nothing worth listeningto was recorded after 1972. Rosie and I have that argumentfrequently. I cook, but reserve the meals of the StandardisedMeal System for dinner parties.
We are officially married. Although I had performed theromantic ritual with the ring, I did not expect Rosie, as amodern feminist, to want to actually get married. The term‘wife’ in Wife Project had always meant ‘female life partner’.
But she decided that she should have‘one relationship in my life that was what it was supposed tobe’. That included monogamy and permanence. An excellentoutcome.
I am able to hug Rosie. This was the issue that caused me themost fear after she agreed to live with me. I generally findbody contact unpleasant, but sex is an obvious exception. Sexsolved the body contact problem. We are now also able to hugwithout having sex, which is obviously convenient at times.
Once a week, in order to deal with the demands of living withanother person, and to continue to improve my skills in thissphere, I spend281/290an evening in therapy. This is a small joke: my ‘therapist’ isDave and I provide reciprocal services to him. Dave is alsomarried and, considering that I am supposedly wired differently,our challenges are surprisingly similar. He sometimes bringsmale friends and colleagues from work, where he is arefrigeration engineer. We are all Yankees fans.
For some time, Rosie did not mention the Father Project. Iattributed this to the improved relationship with Phil and thedistraction of other activities. But, in the background, I wasprocessing some new information.
At the wedding, Dr Eamonn Hughes, the first person we hadtested, asked to speak to me privately.
‘There’s something you should know,’ he said. ‘About Rosie’sfather.’
It seemed entirely plausible that Rosie’s mother’s closest friendfrom medical school would know the answer. Perhaps we hadonly needed to ask. But Eamonn was referring to somethingelse. He pointed to Phil.
‘Phil’s been a bit of a screw-up with Rosie.’
So it wasn’t only Rosie who thought Phil was a poor parent.
‘You know about the car accident?’
I nodded, although I had no detailed information. Rosie hadmade it clear that she did not want to discuss it.
‘Bernadette was driving because Phil had been drinking.’
I had deduced that Phil was in the car.
‘Phil got out, with a broken pelvis, and pulled Rosie out.’
Eamonn paused. He was obviously distressed. ‘He pulled Rosieout first.’
This was truly an awful scenario, but as a geneticist myimmediate thought was ‘of course’. Phil’s behaviour, in pain andunder extreme pressure, would surely have been instinctual.
Such life-and-death situations occur regularly in the animalkingdom and Phil’s choice was in line with theory andexperimental results. While he had presumably revisited thatmoment many times in his mind, and his later feelings282/290towards Rosie may have been severely affected by it, hisactions were consistent with the primitive drive to protect thecarrier of his genes.
It was only later that I realised my obvious error. As Rosiewas not Phil’s biological daughter, such instincts would not havebeen applicable. I spent some time reflecting on the possibleexplanations for his behaviour. I did not share my thoughts orthe hypothesis I formed.
When I was established at Columbia, I requested permission touse the DNA-testing facilities for a private investigation. Theywere willing to let me do so. It would not have been aproblem if they had refused. I could have sent my remainingsamples to a commercial laboratory and paid a few hundreddollars for the tests. This option had been available to Rosiefrom the beginning of the Father Project. It is now obvious tome that I did not alert Rosie to that option because I wassubconsciously interested in a relationship with her even then.
Amazing!
I did not tell Rosie about the test. One day I just packed mybag with the samples that I had brought with me to NewYork.
I started with the paranoid plastic surgeon, Freyberg, who wasthe least likely candidate in my assessment. A green-eyed fatherwas not impossible, but there was no other evidence makinghim more probable than any of the previous candidates. Hisreluctance to send me a blood sample was explained by himbeing a generally suspicious and unhelpful person. Myprediction was correct.
I loaded Esler’s specimen, a swab from a fork that hadtravelled more than halfway around the world and back again.
In his darkened basement, I had been certain he was Rosie’sfather. But afterwards I had come to the conclusion that hecould have been protecting a friend or the memory of a friend.
I wondered if Esler’s decision to become a psychiatrist hadbeen influenced by the suicide of the best man at his wedding,Geoffrey Case.
I tested the sample. Isaac Esler was not Rosie’s father.
283/290I picked up Gene’s sample. My best friend. He was workinghard on his marriage. The map was no longer on his wallwhen I went in to submit my resignation to the Dean. But Ihad no recollection of seeing a pin in Ireland, Rosie’s mother’sbirthplace. There was no need to test the table napkin. I tossedit in the waste bin.
I had now eliminated every candidate except Geoffrey Case.
Isaac Esler had told me that he knew who Rosie’s father wasand that he was sworn to secrecy. Did Rosie’s mother – andEsler – not want Rosie to know that there was a family historyof suicide? Or perhaps a genetic predisposition to mentalillness? Or that Geoffrey Case had possibly killed himself in thewake of the news that he was Rosie’s father and that hermother had decided to remain with Phil? These were all goodreasons – good enough that I considered it highly likely thatRosie’s mother’s one-night encounter had been with GeoffreyCase.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the DNA sample thatfate had delivered to me without Rosie’s knowledge. I was nowalmost certain that it would confirm my hypothesis as to herpaternity.
I cut a small portion of the cloth, poured over the reagent,and let it sit for a few minutes. As I watched the fabric in theclear solution, and mentally reviewed the Father Project, Ibecame more and more confident in my prediction. I decidedthat Rosie should join me for this result, regardless of whetherI was right or wrong. I texted her. She was on campus andarrived a few minutes later. She immediately realised what Iwas doing.
I put the processed sample in the machine, and waited whilethe analysis proceeded. We watched the computer screentogether until the result came up. After all the blood-collecting,cheek-swabbing, cocktail-shaking, wall-climbing, glass-collecting,flying, driving, proposal-writing, urine-mopping, cup-stealing,fork-wiping, tissue-retrieving, toothbrush-stealing,hairbrush-cleaning and tear-wiping, we had a match.
284/290Rosie had wanted to know who her biological father was. Hermother had wanted the identity of the man she had sex with,perhaps only once, on an occasion of emotion-drivenrule-breaking, to remain a secret forever. I could now fulfil bothof their wishes.
I showed her the remains of the blood-stained singlet fromJarman’s Gym with the sample square cut out of it. Therewould be no need to test the handkerchief that had wipedMargaret Case’s tears.
Ultimately, the entire father problem was caused by Gene. Healmost certainly taught the medical students an oversimplifiedmodel of the inheritance of common traits. If Rosie’s motherhad known that eye colour was not a reliable indicator ofpaternity, and organised a DNA test to confirm her suspicions,there would have been no Father Project, no Great CocktailNight, no New York Adventure, no Reform Don Project – andno Rosie Project. Had it not been for this unscheduled seriesof events, her daughter and I would not have fallen in love.
And I would still be eating lobster every Tuesday night.
Incredible.
AcknowledgmentsThe Rosie Project was written quickly. I poked my head upfor just long enough to consult with my writer wife Anne,daughter Dominique and my novel-writing class at RMIT, ledby Michelle Aung Thin.
After being adopted by Text Publishing, the manuscriptbenefited enormously from the attentions of my editor, AlisonArnold, who understood exactly what I was aiming for, and thepassionate support of Michael Heyward and his team, inparticular Jane Novak, Kirsty Wilson, Chong Weng Ho andMichelle Calligaro. Anne Beilby’s efforts in bringing Rosie to theattention of international publishers have ensured that Don andRosie’s story will be told in thirty languages.
But the underlying story has a longer pedigree. It began as ascreenplay, developed during screenwriting studies at RMIT.
Anne, my son Daniel and I workshopped the original plotduring a walk in New Zealand. A work-up for the characterswas published as The Klara Project: Phase 1 in TheEnvelope Please in 2007 and I completed the first draft of thescreenplay, with a different plot and a nerdy Hungarian Klarainstead of Rosie, in 2008, having taken some time to decidethat it was a comedy rather than a drama. The story changedsignificantly over five years, very much for the better, and forthat I have to thank the many people who encouraged,criticised and pushed me not to be satisfied with what I had.
The faculty at RMIT taught me the principles of story-telling, aswell as offering specific advice on the script. Special mentionsare due to286/290Clare Renner, Head of School; Tim Ferguson, comedy legend;David Rapsey and Ian Pringle, seasoned film producers whodid not stint on the tough love; and Boris Trbic who gave mean appreciation for the screwball comedy. Cary Grant wouldhave made a perfect Don. Jo Moylan was my writing buddythrough a year of the most radical changes. Making short filmswith the audiovisual students, under the leadership of RowanHumphrey and Simon Embury, taught me much about whatworked and what didn’t. As I watched my extraneous dia-loguehit the digital equivalent of the cutting-room floor, I learned alot about writing economically. Kim Krejus of 16th Street ActorsStu-dio organised talented actors for an enlightening reading.
I am fortunate to belong to a talented and hard-workingwriters’
group: Irina Goundortseva, Steve Mitchell, Susannah Petty andMay Yeung. Rosie was regularly on the agenda, and Irina’senthusiasm for the short story was instrumental in my taking itfurther. Later, Heidi Winnen was the first person outside myfamily to suggest that the novel might have potential.
The script benefited from the astute feedback of screenwritinggurus Steve Kaplan and Michael Hauge. Their involvement wasin turn made possible by Marcus West of Inscription and theAustralian Writers’
Guild who sponsored a prize for romantic comedy writing in2010.
Producers Peter Lee and Ros Walker and director John PaulFischbach also offered valuable criticism.
The path to publication began when The Rosie Project wonthe Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an unpublishedmanuscript in 2012, and I acknowledge the Victorian StateGovernment and the Wheeler Centre for sponsoring andadministering the award. I also thank the judges, Nick Gadd,Peter Mews, Zoe Dattner and Roderick Poole, for their bravechoice.
Many other people have supported Rosie and me on thesix-year journey from concept to published novel, notably JonBackhouse,287/290Rebecca Carter, Cameron Clarke, Sara Cullen, Fran Cusworth,Barbara Gliddon, Amanda Golding, Vin Hedger, Kate Hicks,Amy Jasper, Noel Maloney, Brian McKenzie, Steve Melnikoff,Ben Michael, Helen O’Connell, Rebecca Peniston-Bird, AprilReeve, John Reeves, Sue and Chris Waddell, Geri and PeteWalsh, and my fellow students at RMIT.
Don’s lobster salad is based on a recipe from Teage Ezard’sContem-porary Australian Food. Perfect for a romanticevening on a balcony with a bottle of Drappier roséChampagne.

The End