The Portable Veblen: Shortlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016. Elizabeth McKenzie

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      “Nice.” Veblen cracked open a head of red leaf lettuce. Her favorite part was the center of baby leaves, and she removed it quickly before her mother could see and ate it.

      “Before I forget, I have a strange lump on the back of my neck. Will you look at it, please? Linus doesn’t have an eye for this sort of thing.”

      “How about later after we’re out of the kitchen?”

      “Now!” her mother said.

      Veblen placed the lettuce on the counter, and parted her mother’s hair with her wet hands. She saw a dime-sized swelling. “Yes, you have a little bump here, does it itch?”

      “No. Is it red?”

      “Pinkish.”

      “Is it indurated?”

      “What’s that?”

      “Is it hard, with clearly defined margins?” asked her mother.

      Veblen squinted at the bump. “You tell me.”

      “Is the texture peau d’orange?”

      “What’s that!” Veblen asked, exasperated.

      “The 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 СКАЧАТЬ