Marshall adjusted the eyepieces and torches on the dissecting microscope to best visualize the necessary parts of the mouse. Yoshi sat beside him instructing him through the surgery and extraction of the prostate, and spleen as a negative control.
“I’ve got a couple of old breeders that should probably be culled. Do you want to start up an old-age primary culture?”
“Mmm. I guess I should. Do you have any digest medium?”
“In the coolroom. In the yellow rack I think. It’s probably a couple of weeks old, though,” said Yoshi.
“Meh. It’ll be fine.” Marshall waved a dismissive hand at him. “If you want to go get them I’ll stay, clean up here and get everything set up.”
*****
Marshall pulled himself out of the couch and came around the table to greet Hazel properly. She tilted her head to his kiss and he sat on her lap, propping his arm on the back of her chair to absorb some of his weight.
“D’you have a good night?”
“Meh. It was alright. Same old, same old. Not too busy, which was nice.”
“Cool. So, we were just talking over there and I just want to know where you stand on this: would you dump me if I got the letters A, T-and G tattooed on the back of my hand?”
Hazel looked across at Pilar, who shrugged. “OK. I may regret this, but what the hell is A-T-G?”
“OK. Well, when cells make proteins, there needs to be some sign from the mRNA to tell the ribosomes to start making the protein. ATG is the code sequence that signifies this. So ATG literally means START! I think it’d be cool to have the code for START! tattooed on the back of my hand to remind me to get shit done.”
“Marshall.” She turned her torso to face him front on and made sure he was looking her in the eye. Pilar gave a snort. “I have no idea what you just said, but it is undoubtedly the nerdiest thing you have ever said to me, ever.”
“Thanks.”
“That wasn’t a compliment. But to answer your question: no, I wouldn’t dump you for it. I would laugh and pour scorn on you, but I’d still stay with you.”
“Good. That’s all I wanted to know.”
“OK. Get off now; your arse is bony.” She gave him a push and he duly stood up.
“You guys right for drinks then?”
They raised their glasses in confirmation, and Marshall wandered off to the bar pulling his wallet out of his jeans.
*****
So it was little surprise when, with the departure of another groupie family from the community, that Albert bought up their farm at the end of the dam and started working his very own land by the time he was twenty. Dad stumped up much of the money to buy the farm and get him started, and as a gesture of pride, love and goodwill told him unequivocally that not a cent was to be re-payed either now or in the future.
Albert moved into the shack that had been built 14 years earlier by Matthew Elliot who, 6 years earlier, had sold up and moved to a nearby community to take over the running of his new wife’s father’s farm. Since then, the shack had been inhabited by 3 different groupie families, each of which found the land infertile and inhospitable and so defaulted on their loans and moved away to the city in search of an easier life.
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