The Portable Veblen: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016. Elizabeth McKenzie
texture of orange peel.”
Veblen squinted again. “I’d say it’s more like the skin of an apple, or maybe a pear. Maybe Paul can look at it,” she said, sighing.
“As long as he doesn’t talk down to me, that’s all I ask,” her mother said.
Veblen finished making the salad and brought it out like a victim. Linus had furnished Paul with a beer.
“Local brew, one of those designer jobs,” said Linus.
“I taste some lemon,” Paul said, nodding.
“We make our own blackberry wine on good years.”
“How is it?”
“Sweet, nice for a dessert wine. We end up with thirty bottles or so, give them to friends. I’ll send one home with you.”
“Great,” Paul said. “Love dessert wine, especially with some nice Gruyère.”
“I like it with pie.”
“Luncheon is served,” called Melanie, bringing out the casserole and placing it on a woven Samoan mat on the table. “Paul, I want you here. Veblen, at the head. Linus, would you open that special bottle of champagne?”
“Right,” said Linus, returning to the kitchen.
“No, out here!” Melanie yelled. “Watching the cork fly is festive.”
Linus shuffled back with the bottle, untwisting the wires around the cork.
“Don’t aim it at us!” Melanie cried.
“It’s not ready yet.”
“You’re aiming it at us!”
Linus turned toward the house.
“Not at the wall! We want to watch the cork fly! Turn around.”
Linus turned and began to wiggle the cork.
“Wait, you need a cloth.”
Veblen handed him a napkin to put under the neck of the bottle. Paul tapped his fork on the table. The cork popped, and shot all of about three feet.
“Bravo!” Melanie cried. “Now, let’s make a toast to your visit. May there be many more!”
Glasses clinked and Paul and Veblen smiled at each other across the table. If Paul were gracious about this day, she’d love him forever.
“Paul, we’re certainly impressed by your research project,” Melanie said. “I imagine you’re already heavily involved, preparing to dig in?”
“Absolutely,” Paul said. “I’m getting a lot of support from Hutmacher, basically anything I want. We’re going to get off to a good start.”
“There’s got to be a bucket load of red tape for those babies,” said Linus.
“More than I realized,” Paul said.
“Several of my medications are made by Hutmacher,” Melanie added.
“Hurrah!” Paul said gamely, raising his glass.
“And Veblen tells us you’ve been looking at houses?”
“Oh. That’s kind of a hobby. Looking. I was pretty much raised on a commune, by the way.”
“Are you planning to have a commune?”
“No, the opposite, I want to live behind a gate that no one can get through.”
“You’ve got to escape the way you were raised,” Linus said. “Boy, do I know it.”
“I just want you to know that Veblen is going to be living in comfortable surroundings,” Paul said.
Melanie said, “Well, Veblen, you’ll really have surpassed me. I don’t know if Veblen has mentioned it, but I’m very interested in medical matters, having a complicated history myself. You can never be too prepared when dealing with the health care system, wouldn’t you agree?”
“That’s right. Patients really need to advocate for themselves these days,” Paul said.
“That’s a refreshing attitude.”
“I know you’ll find it difficult to believe, but most doctors feel that way.”
Veblen’s mother dished out steaming mounds of her creation. “I’ve received atrociously condescending treatment over my recent migraine business,” she said. “It’s a wonder cads like these stay in practice.”
“What seems to be the nature of the condition?” Paul asked, and Veblen’s dread distributed itself through her limbs.
“Well, starting four years ago, just after my yearly flu shot, I experienced an array of symptoms ascribed to migraine equivalence or transient ischemia. Obviously, and as you know, many known foods and chemicals precipitate the condition.”
“Absolutely,” Paul said. “Sodium benzoate, cyclamates, chocolate, corn—”
“Peas, pork, lamb, citrus, onion, wheat, pears, the list goes on. Symptoms of mine have included imagery, hypothermia, aphasia, a feeling of rotating. Further, I’ve had facial paralysis, paralysis of the upper limbs, and narcolepsy. I don’t believe this fits in the typical migraine profile.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call it typical,” Paul said, hesitantly.
“Now, I have learned in time that a middle-aged woman with unusual symptoms can easily be labeled a crackpot, a psychosomatic case, a malingerer. Further, my general physician recently told me I’m ‘too observant.’ How can I agree with that? If not me, who, then?”
Veblen was breathing rapidly.
Paul looked at Veblen and said, “Yes, patients need to be proactive.”
“I can’t tell you how pleased I am to hear a doctor say that!”
“Now, the cause could be nonorganic—” Paul began.
Veblen winced.
“Nonorganic? Psychosomatic, is that what you’re saying?”
“No, not in that sense—”
“What do you mean? If a migraine falls outside their specialty, many physicians don’t realize that it is no longer considered psychosomatic.”
Veblen said, woodenly, “Mom, let’s eat.”
“I can’t speak for ‘many physicians,’” Paul said, “but I’m a neurologist and—” He stopped abruptly to sip his champagne, temples pulsating. His jaw was seizing like a tractor, and Veblen’s stomach ached. “You sound like you know more about it than I do,” he said, mildly.
Perfect answer!
“That’s very likely true, which is a sad story in itself. I have this central stationary scotoma when in hot or warm showers, and with exercise. I see a blur, followed by an irregular opaque gray area. Rest restores normal sight. But if I walk on a cold day, the central scotoma is lighted and nonmoving.”
“Interesting,” Paul said.
“Oh, another piece of the puzzle!” Melanie exclaimed, almost gaily. “Two years ago, I found an area on my chest that was dead—numb without feeling. Located right here—” She pointed to an area at the top of her left breast. “It was about five by five centimeters. That large! It remained dead until about six months ago, when suddenly … Remember, Linus, I realized that my dead spot had feeling again. Is that related?”
“Mmm. Could be,” Paul said.
With that, Melanie swiveled in her chair and reached for a few typed sheets of paper that had been stapled together, hidden behind a ceramic bowl full of miniature pinecones.
“This is a complete