The Rosie Effect

by Graeme Simsion

‘We need truth-tellers,’ said Seymour. ‘We need technical people. If my plane’s going down, I want someone like Don at the controls.’ I would have assumed he would want an expert pilot rather than a geneticist flying the plane, but I guessed he was attempting to make a point about emotions interfering with rational behaviour.

Then Rosie appeared. I was stunned. She was wearing the amazing white dress that she had used only once before: on the occasion of our marriage. Unlike the stereotypical wedding dress, it was – to use a technical term – elegant, like a computer algorithm that achieved an impressive outcome with just a few lines of code. The impression of simplicity was enhanced by the deletion of the veil that she had worn twelve months earlier.

‘To the world’s most perfect woman.’ It was lucky my father was not present. Perfect is an absolute that cannot be modified, like unique or pregnant. My love for Rosie was so powerful that it had caused my brain to make a grammatical error.

I left her when the band started to get noticed. Thought I could do better. Rock star and all. I never really did. I could say they were all the same, but the problem was I was all the same. When you have the same problem with four women, you start to think it might have something to do with you.’

I was suddenly angry. I wanted to shake not just Lydia but the whole world of people who do not understand the difference between control of emotion and lack of it, and who make a totally illogical connection between inability to read others’ emotions and inability to experience their own. It was ridiculous to think that the pilot who landed the plane safely on the Hudson River loved his wife any less than the passenger who panicked.

As is usual with these occasions, there was low-quality alcohol, uninteresting snacks and too much noise for productive interaction. Incredible to collect some of the world’s most eminent medical researchers in one place and then dull their faculties with alcohol and drown out their voices with music that they would probably require their children to turn down at home.