The Rosie Effect

30

Dave’s office, which was now my bedroom, was a disaster! His desk was covered in paperwork, the stack of seven filing trays was overflowing and the cardboard boxes with dividers that he was using instead of a filing cabinet were in danger of tearing from internal pressure. It was obvious to me why his business was failing.

Lectures were over for the year. My mouse-data analysis was being performed competently by Inge and I was not required by the Lesbian Mothers Project. It would have been a perfect opportunity for joint activities with Rosie. Instead I had vast unscheduled time. I volunteered as a filing clerk.

Dave was desperate enough to entrust his business to a geneticist with an aversion to administration. And I was looking for anything to divert my brain from constructing mental images of Rosie and Number 34.

‘Invoice copies go in this file,’ said Dave.

‘But you have them on the computer already. There’s no need to print.’

‘What if the computer blows up?’

‘You revert to backup, obviously.’

‘Backup?’ said Dave.

It took only two days of focused work, omitting lunches, to fix the system.

‘Where are the files?’ said Dave.

‘On the computer.’

‘What about the paper files?’

‘Destroyed.’

Dave looked surprised, in fact shocked. Correction, devastated.

‘Some of that stuff came from customers: orders, authorities, sketches. It’s all paper.’

I indicated the scanner function of the device I had acquired for $89.99 and identified the remaining problem.

‘You’re creating your invoices individually. Don’t you have an application for that?’

‘It’s too hard to use.’

I seldom find computer programs difficult to use, but I struck some problems with accounting rules, due to not being an accountant. While Dave was at work, I enlisted professional help from Sonia, who had now ceased working in anticipation of the birth. She was unfamiliar with the software, but was able to answer all of my accounting questions.

‘I can’t understand why Dave didn’t ask me for help with this. He’s always saying it’s under control, but it obviously isn’t.’

‘I suspect that once he deceived you—in order to spare you stress—he found it increasingly difficult to admit to his deception over a long period.’

‘Married couples shouldn’t need to have secrets. I’ve told Dave that,’ said the woman who had posed as an Italian medical student and told me not to tell Dave because he was a worrier.

‘Can you print an aged debtors’ ledger for me?’ Sonia asked when the system was configured and all data had been entered. ‘I want to know how much we’re owed.’

The report was available from the menu.

‘$418.12, current.’

‘What about overdue?’

‘$9245, from four invoices. All issued more than 120 days ago.’

‘Oh, God,’ she said. ‘Oh my God. No wonder he didn’t want to buy a pram. If it’s been four months, there’s probably some problem with the work. Can you show me the invoices? The overdue ones?’

‘Of course.’

Sonia looked at the screen for a few moments, then pointed to the phone on the newly acquired four-in-one utility.

‘Does this work?’

‘Of course.’

Sonia spent fifty-eight minutes on the phone, employing a variety of tactics apparently tailored to create guilt, pity, fear or, in one case, merely awareness. She was incredible. When she had finished, I told her so.

‘I spend half my life doing it to ordinary people who’ve overspent on trying to have a baby. Something I can relate to. After that, this is a breeze.’

‘Are they going to pay?’

‘The wine bar on West 19th is going to need a call to the owners. There’s been a change of management since Dave did the work and it sounds like the last guy left a mess. But the other three are okay. They just needed a little push.’

Sonia raised the topic subtly at dinner.

‘I need some money to pay my credit card. Do you have anything?’

‘Not right now,’ said Dave. ‘I’m just waiting for money to come through. Everyone’s slow, but the work’s all good.’

‘How much did you say we were owed?’

‘Plenty,’ said Dave. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I am worried. If we need the money, maybe I can go back to work after the baby. Part-time.’

‘You don’t need to do that. I just need to get the money in.’

‘Tell me how much we’re owed, and I’ll decide.’

Dave shrugged. ‘You know me, I don’t keep track exactly. Twenty, thirty thousand. We’re good.’

The next morning, Sonia was angry with Dave—not at Dave as he had gone to work early. She was directing her anger towards me.

‘He’s out all day and half the night and he’s not earning any money. Is he actually working? Maybe he’s going to the library, like these guys who lose their jobs and can’t tell their wives. Is that what’s going on, Don?’

It was unlikely. Dave discussed his work with me, in detail. He seemed to have plenty of it, but perhaps he was not charging enough, or was lying about the clients’ satisfaction level. I had been wrong about my friends before. I was still unsure if a central component of Gene’s identity was a manufactured fiction. Claudia was in a relationship with Simon Lefebvre. And Rosie was in love with another man.

‘If I have to go back to work, he can stay home and look after the baby. Maybe it’ll force him to take an interest.’

I retreated to Dave’s office and worked on the problem. One possibility was that Dave had not entered all of the invoices into the computer. This had been the case, but I had rectified the problem. There had only been two small ones. When I thought more about it, it seemed odd that Dave was almost up-to-date in recording his invoices.

A metaphorical light bulb went on. The obvious explanation was not that Dave had been unusually conscientious in one aspect of his administration. No! Dave had been consistently lax. He had failed to create the invoices at all.

I opened the file of scanned worksheets and began to match them with invoices. I was right. Most of his work had not been entered into the computer, hence not billed to the clients. There was a limit to what I could do to rectify the situation. Creating invoices required accounting knowledge that I did not have. If I made errors in billing, Dave might be perceived as incompetent or a cheat.

Fortunately I had access to a qualified accountant. It took Sonia and me until 3.18 p.m. to create the invoices: state taxes varied, invoices for labour and materials were filed separately, Dave had offered a variety of inconsistent mark-ups and discounts.

Sonia contributed comments that alternated between sympathetic and critical: ‘God, this is so complex. No wonder he put it aside.’

‘Eight thousand dollars. From three months ago!’

‘We’ve been living on cash from George. Dave’s an idiot.’

When we were finished we had a pile of envelopes ready for posting and had emailed numerous other bills.

‘Show me the creditors’ total first. I want to know what we owe before I get too excited.’

I checked: $0.00.

‘That’s Dave for you,’ said Sonia. ‘We can’t afford to eat, but no fridge manufacturer is going to have a cash flow problem because of Dave Bechler. Now you can show me the debtors’ total. I’ve been too scared to keep track.’

‘$53,216.65,’ I said. ‘Dave’s estimate of twenty to thirty thousand was incorrect. And it’s reduced because payment has arrived online for two of the invoices you phoned about.’

Sonia began crying.

‘You were hoping for more?’ I asked.

Sonia was now laughing and crying simultaneously. How can it be possible to make sense of such displays of emotion?

‘I’m going to make a coffee to celebrate,’ she said. ‘A real coffee.’

‘You’re pregnant.’

‘You noticed.’ It would have been impossible not to notice. Sonia was huge. The reminder to moderate caffeine could not have been more obvious.

‘How many have you had today?’

‘I’m Italian. I’m having da coffee alla da time.’ She laughed.

‘I’ll have an alcoholic drink with Dave when he gets home.’ I was being empathetic to Dave at a distance.

‘Dave caused this.’ The crying appeared to have stopped. ‘Don, you’ve saved my life.’

‘Incorrect. I—’

‘I know, I know. Don, when you said a therapist told you that you weren’t right for Rosie, I couldn’t ask in front of Dave, but you weren’t talking about Lydia, were you?’

English is annoying in not having unambiguous responses for answering a question framed in the negative. The simple addition of the equivalent of the French word si (‘Yes, I am talking about Lydia’) would solve the problem. Sonia, however, must have read my expression, as no verbal reply was required.

‘Don. Lydia doesn’t even know Rosie. She knows me.’

‘That’s the problem. I was approved for parenthood with you, but not with someone like Rosie. Lydia described Rosie perfectly.’

‘Oh God, Don, you’re making a terrible mistake.’

‘I’m following the best advice available. Objective, research-based, professional advice.’

Sonia would not accept the clear evidence that Rosie did not want me, evidence that was additional to Lydia’s assessment.

‘Do you want this marriage to work or not?’ she said.

‘My spreadsheet identified—’

I interpreted Sonia’s expression as I don’t want to hear about your fucking spreadsheet. Do you, emotionally, as a whole mature person, want to live the rest of your life with Rosie and the Baby Under Development or are you going to let a computer make that decision for you, you pathetic geek?

‘Work. But I don’t think—’

‘You think too much. Take her out to dinner and talk it over.’