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tense, could sleep in the living room. Until we can find a bigger place.’
    ‘Of course. We should buy Bud a fold-up bed.’
    ‘What? Don, babies sleep in cribs.’
    ‘I was thinking of later. When it’s big enough for a bed. We could buy one now. So we’re prepared. We can go to the bed shop tomorrow.’
    ‘We don’t need a bed yet. We don’t even need to buy the crib for a while. Let’s wait till we know that everything’s okay.’
    I poured the last of the previous evening’s pinot gris and wished there was more in the bottle. Subtlety was not getting me anywhere.
    ‘We need the bed for Gene. He and Claudia have split up. He has a job at Columbia and he’s staying with us until he can find somewhere else to live.’
    This was the component of the Gene Sabbatical that may not have been well considered. I should probably have consulted with Rosie before offering Gene accommodation. But it seemed reasonable for Gene to live with us while he lookedfor his own apartment. We would be providing for a homeless person.
    I am well aware of my incompetence in predicting human reactions. But I would have been prepared to bet on the first word that Rosie would say when she received the information. I was correct by a factor of six.
    ‘Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.’
    Unfortunately, my prediction that she would ultimately accept the proposition was incorrect. My series of arguments, rather than progressively breaking down her resistance, seemed to have the opposite effect. Even my strongest point—that Gene was the best-qualified person on the entire planet to assist her in completing her thesis—was rejected on essentially emotional grounds.
    ‘No way. Absolutely no way is that narcissistic, cheating, misogynist, bigoted, unscientific… pig sleeping in our apartment.’
    I felt that accusing Gene of being unscientific was unfair, but when I started to list Gene’s credentials Rosie went to the bedroom and shut the door.
    I retrieved George’s card to enter it into my address book. It included the name of a band: Dead Kings. To my amazement, I recognised it. Due to my musical tastes being formed primarily by my father’s record collection, I was familiar with this British rock group whose music had been popular in the late 1960s.
    According to Wikipedia, the band had become active again in 1999 to provide entertainment on Atlantic cruises.Two of the original Dead Kings were actually dead, but had been replaced. George was the drummer. He had accumulated four marriages, four divorces and seven children, but he appeared, relatively, to be the psychologically stable member. The profile did not mention his love of beer.
    When I went to bed, Rosie was already asleep. I had made a list of further advantages of Gene living with us, but decided it would be unwise to wake her.
    Rosie was, unusually, awake before me, presumably as a result of commencing her sleep cycle early. She had made coffee in the plunger.
    ‘I figured I shouldn’t be drinking espresso,’ she said.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Too much caffeine.’
    ‘Actually, plunged coffee has approximately 2.5 times the caffeine content of espresso.’
    ‘Shit. I try to do the right thing—’
    ‘Those figures are approximate. The espressos I get from Otha’s contain three shots. Whereas this coffee is unusually weak, probably due to your lack of experience.’
    ‘Well, you know who’s making it next time.’
    Rosie was smiling. It seemed like a good time to introduce the additional arguments in favour of Gene. But Rosie spoke first.
    ‘Don, about Gene. I know he’s your friend. I get that you’re just being loyal and kind. And maybe if I hadn’t just discovered I was pregnant… But I’m only going to say this once and we can get on with our lives: we do not have space for Gene. End of story.’
    I mentally filed the ‘end of story’ formula as a useful technique for terminating a conversation, but Rosie contradicted it within seconds as I swung my feet