My anger had evaporated during the altercation with Jerome; I was relieved that it had not driven me to punch him. My emotions had felt out of control, but my martial-arts discipline had trumped them. This was reassuring, but now I was filled with a general feeling of hopelessness. How would I explain my behaviour to Rosie? I had never mentioned the meltdown problem, for two reasons:

1. After such a long time, and with my increased base level of happiness, I believed that it might not recur.

2. Rosie might have rejected me.

Rejection was now a rational choice for Rosie. She had reason to consider me violent and dangerous. And she was pregnant. To a violent and dangerous man. This would be terrible for her.

‘Hello?’ It was Sonia on the intercom.

‘It’s Don.’

‘Don? Are you okay?’ Sonia was apparently able to detect from my voice—and possibly the omission of my customary ‘greetings’ salutation—that there was a problem.

‘No. There’s been a disaster. Multiple disasters.’

Sonia buzzed me up.

Dave and Sonia’s apartment was larger than ours, but already cluttered with baby paraphernalia. It struck me that the term ‘ours’ might no longer be applicable.

I was conscious of extreme agitation. Dave went to fetch beer, and Sonia insisted that I sit down, even though I was more comfortable walking around.

‘What happened?’ said Sonia. It was an obvious thing to ask but I was unable to formulate an answer. ‘Is Rosie all right?’

Afterwards, I reflected on the brilliance of the question. It was not only the most logical place to begin, but it helped me gain some perspective. Rosie was all right, physically at least. I was feeling calmer. Rationality was returning to deal with the mess that emotions had created.

‘There is no problem with Rosie. The problem is with me.’

‘What happened?’ Sonia asked again.

‘I had a meltdown. I failed to control my emotions.’

‘You lost it?’

‘Lost what?’

‘You don’t say that in Australia? Did you lose your temper?’

‘Correct. I have some sort of psychiatric problem. I’ve never told Rosie.’

I had never told anyone. I had never conceded that I suffered from a mental illness, other than depression in my early twenties, which was a straightforward consequence of social isolation. I accepted that I was wired differently from most people, or, more precisely, that my wiring was towards one end of a spectrum of different human configurations. My innate logical skills were significantly greater than my interpersonal skills. Without people like me, we would not have penicillin or computers. But psychiatrists had been prepared to diagnose mental illness twenty years earlier. I had always considered them wrong, and no definitive diagnosis other than depression was ever recorded, but the meltdown problem was the weak point in my argument. It was a reaction to irrationality, but the reaction itself was irrational.

Dave returned and handed me a beer. He had also poured one for himself, and drank half of it rapidly. Dave is banned from drinking beer except on our joint nights out, due to a significant weight problem. Perhaps these were extenuating circumstances. I was still sweating despite the air conditioning, and the drink cooled me down. Sonia and Dave were excellent friends.

Dave had been listening and had heard my admission of the psychiatric problem. ‘You never told me either,’ he said. ‘What sort of—?’

Sonia interrupted. ‘Excuse us a minute, Don. I want to speak to Dave alone.’ She and Dave walked to the kitchen. I was aware that conventionally they would have needed to employ some form of subterfuge to disguise the fact that they wanted to talk about me without me hearing. Fortunately, I am not easily offended. Dave and Sonia know this.

Dave returned alone. His beer glass had been refilled.

‘How often has this happened? The meltdown?’

‘This is the first time with Rosie.’

‘Did you hit her?’

‘No.’ I wanted the answer to be ‘of course not’, but nothing is certain when logical reasoning is swamped by out-of-control emotions. I had prepared an emergency plan and it had worked. That was all I could claim credit for.

‘Did you shove her—anything?’

‘No, there was no violence. Zero physical contact.’

‘Don, I’m supposed to say something like, “Don’t fuck with me, buddy,” but you know I can’t talk like that. You’re my friend—just tell me the truth.’

‘You’re also my friend and therefore aware that I am incompetent at deception.’

Dave laughed. ‘True. But you should look me in the eye if you want to convince me.’

I stared into Dave’s eyes. They were blue. A surprisingly light blue. I had not noticed before, doubtless as a result of failure to look him in the eye. ‘There was no violence. I may have frightened a neighbour.’

‘Shit, it was better without the psycho impression.’

I was distressed that Dave and Sonia believed I might have assaulted Rosie, but there was some comfort in realising that things could have been worse, and that their primary concern was for her.

Sonia waved from the entrance to Dave’s office where she was talking on her phone. She gave Dave a thumbs-up signal, then jumped up and down with excitement like a child, waving her free hand in the air. Nothing was making sense.

‘Oh my God,’ she called out, ‘Rosie’s pregnant.’