‘i threw her in as a wild card,’ said gene when i woke himup from the unscheduled sleep he was taking under his deskthe next day.

gene looked terrible and i told him he should refrain fromstaying up so late – although for once i had been guilty of thesame error. it was important that he eat lunch at the correcttime to get his circadian rhythm back on schedule. he had apacked lunch from home, and we headed for a grassy area inthe university grounds. i collected seaweed salad, miso soupand an apple from the japanese café on the way.

it was a fine day. unfortunately this meant that there were anumber of females in brief clothing sitting on the grass andwalking by to distract gene. gene is fifty-six years old, althoughthat information is not supposed to be disclosed. at that age,his testosterone should have fallen to a level where his sexdrive was significantly reduced. it is my theory that hisunusually high focus on sex is due to mental habit. but humanphysiology varies, and he may be an exception.

conversely, i think gene believes i have an abnormally low sexdrive. this is not true – rather i am not as skilled as gene in71/290expressing it in a socially appropriate way. my occasionalattempts to imitate gene have been unsuccessful in theextreme.

we found a bench to sit on and gene commenced hisexplanation.

‘she’s someone i know,’ he said.

‘no questionnaire?’

‘no questionnaire.’

this explained the smoking. in fact, it explained everything.

gene had reverted to the inefficient practice of recommendingacquaint-ances for dates. my expression must have conveyedmy annoyance.

‘you’re wasting your time with the questionnaire. you’d bebetter off measuring the length of their earlobes.’

sexual attraction is gene’s area of expertise. ‘there’s acorrelation?’

i asked.

‘people with long earlobes are more likely to choose partnerswith long earlobes. it’s a better predictor than iq.’

this was incredible, but much behaviour that developed in theancestral environment seems incredible when considered in thecontext of the current world. evolution has not kept up. butearlobes! could there be a more irrational basis for arelationship? no wonder marriages fail.

‘so, did you have fun?’ asked gene.

i informed him that his question was irrelevant: my goal wasto find a partner and rosie was patently unsuitable. gene hadcaused me to waste an evening.

‘but did you have fun?’ he repeated.

did he expect a different answer to the same question? to befair, i had not given him a proper answer, but for a goodreason. i had not had time to reflect on the evening anddetermine a proper response. i guessed that ‘fun’ was going tobe an over-simplification of a very complex experience.

72/290i provided gene with a summary of events. as i related thestory of the dinner on the balcony, gene interrupted. ‘if yousee her again –’

‘there is zero reason for me to see her again.’

‘ if you see her again,’ gene continued, ‘it’s probably not agood idea to mention the wife project. since she didn’tmeasure up.’

ignoring the incorrect assumption about seeing rosie again, thisseemed like good advice.

at that point, the conversation changed direction dramatically,and i did not have an opportunity to find out how gene hadmet rosie. the reason for the change was gene’s sandwich.

he took a bite, then called out in pain and snatched my waterbottle.

‘oh shit. oh shit. claudia put chillies in my sandwich.’

it was difficult to see how claudia could make an error of thiskind.

but the priority was to reduce the pain. chilli is insoluble inwater, so drinking from my bottle would not be effective. iadvised him to find some oil. we headed back to the japanesecafé, and were not able to have any further conversation aboutrosie. however, i had the basic information i needed. genehad selected a woman without reference to the questionnaire.

to see her again would be in total contradiction to therationale for the wife project.

riding home, i reconsidered. i could see three reasons that itmight be necessary to see rosie again.

1. good experimental design requires the use of a controlgroup. it would be interesting to use rosie as a bench-mark tocompare with women selected by thequestionnaire.

2. the questionnaire had not produced any matches to date. icould interact with rosie in the meantime.

73/2903. as a geneticist with access to dna analysis, and theknowledge to interpret it, i was in a position to help rosie findher biological father.

reasons 1 and 2 were invalid. rosie was clearly not a suitablelife partner. there was no point in interaction with someone sopatently inappropriate. but reason 3 deserved consideration.

using my skills to assist her in a search for importantknowledge aligned with my life purpose. i could do it in thetime set aside for the wife project until a suitable candidateemerged.

in order to proceed, i needed to re-establish contact withrosie. i did not want to tell gene that i planned to see heragain so soon after telling him that the probability of my doingso was zero. fortunately, i recalled the name of the bar sheworked at: the marquess of queensbury.

there was only one bar of that name, in a back street of aninner suburb. i had already modified the day’s schedule,cancelling my market trip to catch up on the lost sleep. iwould purchase a ready-made dinner instead. i am sometimesaccused of being inflexible, but i think this demonstrates anability to adapt to even the strangest of circumstances.

i arrived at 7.04 p.m. only to find that the bar did not openuntil 9.00 p.m. incredible. no wonder people make mistakesat work.

would it be full of surgeons and flight controllers, drinking untilafter midnight then working the next day?

i ate dinner at a nearby indian restaurant. by the time i hadworked my way through the banquet, and returned to the bar,it was 9.27 p.m.

there was a security official at the door, and i prepared myselffor a repeat of the previous night. he examined me carefully,then asked,‘do you know what sort of place this is?’

74/290i am quite familiar with bars, perhaps even more familiar thanmost people. when i travel to conferences, i generally find apleasant bar near my hotel and eat and drink there everyevening. i replied in the affirmative and entered.

i wondered if i had come to the right location. the mostobvious characteristic of rosie was that she was female, andthe patrons at the marquess of queensbury were withoutexception male. many were wearing unusual costumes, and itook a few minutes to examine the range. two men noted melooking at them and one smiled broadly and nodded. i smiledback. it seemed to be a friendly place.

but i was there to find rosie. i walked to the bar. the twomen followed and sat on either side of me. the clean-shavenone was wearing a cut-off t-shirt and clearly spent time at thegym. steroids could also have been involved. the one with themoustache wore a leather costume and a black cap.

‘i haven’t seen you here before,’ said black cap.

i gave him the simple explanation. ‘i haven’t been here before.’

‘can i buy you a drink?’

‘you’re offering to buy my drink?’ it was an unusualproposition from a stranger, and i guessed that i would beexpected to reciprocate in some way.

‘i think that’s what i said,’ said black cap. ‘what can wetempt you with?’

i told him that the flavour didn’t matter, as long as itcontained alcohol. as in most social situations, i was nervous.

then rosie appeared from the other side of the bar, dressedconventionally for her role in a collared black shirt. i washugely relieved. i had come to the correct place and she wason duty. black cap waved to her. he ordered threebudweisers. then rosie saw me.

‘don.’

‘greetings.’

75/290rosie looked at us and asked, ‘are you guys together?’

‘give us a few minutes,’ said steroid man.

rosie said, ‘i think don’s here to see me.’

‘correct.’

‘well, pardon us interrupting your social life with drinks orders,’

black cap said to rosie.

‘you could use dna,’ i said.

rosie clearly didn’t follow, due to lack of context. ‘what?’

‘to identify your father. dna is the obvious approach.’

‘sure,’ said rosie. ‘obvious. “please send me your dna so ican see if you’re my father.” forget it, i was just mouthingoff.’

‘you could collect it.’ i wasn’t sure how rosie would respondto the next part of my suggestion. ‘surreptitiously.’

rosie went silent. she was at least considering the idea. orperhaps wondering whether to report me. her responsesupported the first possibility. ‘and who’s going to analyse it?’

‘i’m a geneticist.’

‘you’re saying if i got a sample, you could analyse it for me?’

‘trivial,’ i said. ‘how many samples do we need to test?’

‘probably only one. i’ve got a pretty good idea. he’s a familyfriend.’

steroid man coughed loudly, and rosie fetched two beers fromthe refrigerator. black cap put a twenty-dollar note on thecounter, but rosie pushed it back and waved them away.

i tried the cough trick myself. rosie took a moment tointerpret the message this time, but then got me a beer.

‘what do you need?’ she asked. ‘to test the dna?’

i explained that normally we would use scrapings from theinner cheek, but that it would be impractical to obtain thesewithout the subject’s knowledge. ‘blood is excellent, but skinscrapings, mucus, urine–’

‘pass,’ said rosie.

76/290‘– faecal material, semen –’

‘it keeps getting better,’ said rosie. ‘i can screw a sixty-year-oldfamily friend in the hope that he turns out to be my father.’

i was shocked. ‘you’d have sex –’

rosie explained that she was making a joke. on such a seriousmatter! it was getting busy around the bar, and there were alot of cough signals happening. an effective way to spreaddisease. rosie wrote a telephone number on a piece of paper.

‘call me.’