This Too Shall Pass

by S. J. Finn

  Anyway, I was listening to my favourite of Celia’s mob, Dr Rosie Whelan, quietly explaining what she knew about the syndrome, as Elliot burst in.

  ‘Monty, can I speak to you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I got up, muttering that I’d be back in a moment.

  ‘Why is your girlfriend writing to me?’ he said, furiously, when we had removed ourselves to the other end of the large staffroom, where a depleted and surprisingly old library of textbooks were shelved. ‘I thought we’d sorted this out.’

  Elliot was staring down at me intensely. Even with his crimson hair, and perhaps because of his hardly-rimmed glasses – which he didn’t always wear – he looked like an owl, an unhappy one.

  ‘I thought you said you were fine, that you’d dealt with it, that you were happy with Nigel’s response.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said a little weakly, trying to remember what it was I had said. ‘But, well.’ I started, ‘as I said to you, the rot started to set in later. What did happen about it?’

  ‘I was going to talk to Anton,’ he said, still snorting discontent.

  ‘There’s no point in talking to Anton,’ I said, as if clarity had suddenly entered my head. ‘He wouldn’t be interested and, quite frankly, because he’s not a psychiatrist Nigel is not going to take any notice of him.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Musgrove. We’ll go and see him.’

  I nodded.

  ‘But this, this is unfair. Just come and see me when you’ve got a problem.’

  He stalked off and I was left with that odd feeling that occurs when convergences collide. While, on the one hand, he was incensed by the letter, on the other it had got him off his backside. What was puzzling about this, though, was that I remember thinking Renny’s letter sounded like nothing more than a professionally scripted nudge, and, given his ire just now, I wondered how exactly did he and others think I should respond to Nigel’s letter? Was I supposed to be okay about what had been written to me, while Elliot could be enraged about being asked to give me some support? Was empathy – a keystone, or so I would have thought, in our line of work – in such short supply?

  Keeping to his word, the meeting was scheduled to take place two weeks later. Elliot came to my office as arranged. We’d go together. He seemed to be back to normal with me, making me feel I’d held out appropriately. In fact, I was very hopeful of the whole thing coming to a resolute conclusion. It didn’t matter that Elliot had had a hissy fit. I could live with that. I even remember thinking it might work in my favour – that he might repeat his outburst in Albert Musgrove’s office, but at the indecency of Nigel this time.

  On the day, as I quickened my gait to keep up with his long step, I reassessed. Collected as he was now, Elliot was most unlikely to have any run-away-at-the-mouth action – still, it didn’t count out a good shooting-from-the-hip. I tried to reassure myself that there was always the possibility of a maverick comment or two.

  At the hospital he parked the car in the staff spots near the buildings. We walked through the corridors, me having to throw an extra step in between every three of his to keep up. On the fourteenth floor of the northwest building we came across Musgrove’s office and could hear him on the phone through the door. We waited and it was then that a bloom of nervousness opened its eye in me. I took a big breath and smiled at Elliot.

  ‘Feel a bit nervous,’ I admitted.

  ‘Don’t you feel nervous. You’ve done nothing wrong.’

  In Albert’s office there was the usual coating of certificates and honorary mentions on the walls. Through the windows, without venturing right up to them, I could see over the gardens towards the zoo. A wash of misty blues and greys drifted across the canopy of gum trees. The wind was strong.

  ‘Monty,’ Albert Musgrove held out his hand, which I duly shook. ‘Take a seat.’ He gestured towards the part of the office away from the windows where sofa chairs were arranged around a coffee table. ‘I hear we have a problem.’

  While registering that Elliot hadn’t really said hello – a small nod of the head, a mumble of acknowledgement – it wasn’t until later that the implications of it sank in. Then I couldn’t help think that they had spoken already that day, if not in the last hour or two. Oblivious to this at the time though, I launched into what I thought were the main points. I’ve always tried to be brief in this kind of setting. It comes from supervising people and appreciating brevity in them. But while I was in there explaining what had happened I had that strange experience of watching myself from outside the situation. For a moment, I was floating somewhere in the echelons above us, observing.

  ‘Why did he send you this letter in the first place, do you think?’ Musgrove asked.

  ‘I can help on that count,’ Elliot said. ‘He was responding to information The Also Foundation, a gay organisation, sent us. I’d asked Monty to pass it onto her team.’

  I had completely forgotten this. In fact, even Elliot saying it didn’t bring the memory back. It wasn’t that I doubted it – the amount of correspondence we received to disseminate could fill a truck or two every month. There also wasn’t any reason why Elliot would lie about this, and I was just happy that he had included himself, even peripherally.

  ‘Can I see the letter?’ Albert said.

  I produced it from a manila folder I was clutching, sitting forward in the low chair to hand it to him. He was leaning back, an arm folded over the tilt of the chair’s backrest, his legs crossed so that one of the points of his shoes arrowed up to the ceiling, and, as I handed the letter to him, I found myself having to shift my face in case his shoe struck me.

  He read it. ‘It’s a personal letter,’ he said, as if surprised.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s personal then.’ Albert was smiling a grin that said: And aren’t you a little silly for not knowing it.

  ‘Does that make a difference?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said sonorously, a chuckle following.

  All my hot blood turned to boiling sand, granular and sticky, making me a little rigid. This was not going to go my way. They weren’t interested in the issue, the threat to Marlowe Down’s reputation it posed, or the effect something like this could have on a client - not to mention how it affected me.

  ‘I guess, Albert,’ Elliot said, ‘if someone had written you a letter saying they didn’t like Catholics, didn’t think they were real, it might be the same thing.’

  I thought this was bold and turned immediately to Musgrove to see what his response would be.

  ‘Well, I’m Anglican, but I get your point. As far as a response…’ He was nodding, looking at Elliot who was looking at him. ‘I’ll talk to Nigel. We play racquetball every Tuesday night. I’ll have a quiet chat to him.’

  Racquetball! I wanted to shout. Quiet chat!

  ‘My question to you,’ Albert said, turning to me, ‘is how are you going to go on from here? Are you going to be able to work with him?’

  My head dipped as I digested things. It couldn’t have been worse. Was this now my problem to fix? I looked up, containing myself as best I could. ‘Yes,’ I said, my voice sticking a little. ‘Of course.’

  I had been defeated. In the office of the boss, I wasn’t just sucking eggs, I was chewing on the very points of his dandy shoes I could see the soles of. (Isn’t that an insult in some cultures, to face the soles of your shoes or feet towards someone?) My eyes started to sting and I realised, rather than tears prickling them, they were hurting from having dried out, the sort of feeling you get on a long flight when your eyes have been open for far too long, hot air blowing on them.

  Elliot was all good humour as we left, as if he’d completed a task successfully. I felt like a wet plaster cast of myself, unravelling. I couldn’t tell Renny, for fear of her getting me fuelled up to walk out of my job. I blamed myself in the end – for not being able to stand up to them, for somehow letting down the entire sisterhood and brotherhood, for letting the establishment win.

  It was extremely hard no
t to show Elliot how dented I felt. I’m sure he noticed the brittleness in my voice as I responded between his inane chatter while we drove back to Marlowe Downs. Part of me didn’t care as long as I didn’t break down completely. I had been a fool. Nobody was really going to understand the implications of that letter except Renny, and she couldn’t help. As for the future, I’d have to go on obliquely. I decided, hollowly, that nothing on the outside could alter. The last thing I wanted was to give them the impression that they had got to me. I’d get on with Nigel Pathm-anathan, and treat him the same way I always had, if not with some degree of surprised fascination and interest that I’d work hard at not turning into condescension. Our professional relationship would not change. Nobody would notice that anything was different and nothing would ever be said about the letter again.

  To my credit – although it felt a lot like I was being complicit to a system that was inherently misguided -we worked together for another eighteen months with only the same slight undercurrent of bafflement and annoyance I had always felt at his calm, gentle, almost massaged narrow-mindedness. But something in me had changed. An unease was born. Revulsion spread in a slim layer over my brainpan, so thin that it hardly mattered, except that it had a pervasive power to get into every filament of my mind. I could sense it from that very afternoon. I’d become an observer, laying down my opinion silently, withdrawing yet again, one step even further back. And, like other blows I’d been taking, I knew its cost, felt the impact even as it was happening, and understood that it amounted to a change like the silent but undoubted turn that a tide takes.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Marcus witnessed – well, more than witnessed, was in the middle of – only one horrible scene that I recall between Dave and I.

  Renny had, by this time, stopped coming to the country with me. I had my own place now, having kept one of the houses Dave and I had owned together, the one out of town along a forested road. On this particular day there was a bushfire burning east of the area. I wouldn’t call it a pleasant day but it was clear and the wind was arriving in bouts rather than anything like a constant stream. Still, having listened to weather reports on the way up, I had decided, after picking up some photos and diaries, to drive back to the city with Marcus so that we could spend the weekend there. The fire front was a hundred kilometres from my house and not travelling very fast so I had left plenty of time to visit my property and grab some things.

  But first I went to pick Marcus up. I knocked at Dave’s door and waited, nodding the seconds away to myself while I did. Marcus opened up, his small enthusiastic form pushing forwards to give me a hug. But Dave was there behind him, one arm flapping in warning.

  ‘You’re not thinking of staying at the house?’

  ‘No, I’m going to pick a few things up, precious stuff, then I’ll turn around and drive back to Melbourne.’

  ‘I don’t want him going to the house.’

  ‘We won’t be long.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. There’s a fucking fire.’

  ‘Calm down, I’m going to be ten minutes tops.’

  ‘What about the bush down Alfie’s Lane.’

  ‘I’ve been listening to the reports. It’s not past The Cooper yet. That’s at least ninety kays away.’

  ‘I don’t care, you’re not taking him.’

  ‘This is not a wildfire situation, Dave.’

  ‘I’m not letting him go.’

  ‘He’s in my care now, Dave. I’m sorry, we’re going.’

  I took Marcus’s hand and we began to exit from the verandah. Dave was suddenly in front of us.

  ‘Look at the air, Jen. There’s soot and burnt leaves raining down.’ He did seem to produce something that looked like a burnt leaf, but it felt like a trick, like a rabbit-out-of-the-hat kind of performance.

  ‘I can’t see anything.’ I had a high tensile tone in my voice.

  ‘You’re not going to take him.’ Dave’s last words had come through clenched teeth. His hands were around Marcus’s other arm and he began to pull. We were in line with the front fence by then and with the car in my sights, I gave a good yank on Marcus who yelped, his face crimping in fright. I reached over him and pushed Dave, which made no difference, except that because I’d gone towards him, he was able to gather Marcus in his arms and was attempting to scoop him up. I tried to stop him, the fracas going on for a few silent seconds. I could see terror swarming in Marcus but couldn’t stop myself from battling for control. It was three years and I had let control slip through my hands like a sunray. I had none, and I could see that I would never again be able to scoop my position as mother back into any sizeable clump.

  ‘Stop it,’ I screamed.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jen,’ Dave said, swinging away, Marcus in his arms now. ‘But I can’t let you take him.’

  Dave took a few steps back towards the house.

  I tried to compose myself, swallow against gruelling upset and a sense of hatred for Dave so acute it had amalgamated into sharp pain. I burst into tears.

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘Mum,’ Marcus bleated.

  I turned away from the two of them, pushing tears back into my eyes with pressed hands. Giving in took such guts. A pale silence expanded. I was aware of the separation. The them and the me.

  ‘Do you want to come in for a cup of tea?’ Dave said. ‘It’s probably important Marcus sees us being civil to each other before you go.’

  I didn’t want to but I felt so utterly hollowed out, so sickened by what had gone on, that I couldn’t leave either. I followed them up the driveway. Marcus, having squirmed from Dave’s arms, took my hand, staring up at me with his worried look. Inside, he sat on my knee while Dave made tea. Marcus could tell how deeply I was hurting. He didn’t speak, just curled his spindly, eight-year-old body up against mine, a replica of a tiny child in vitro, staying picture still. I was in need of comfort and allowed him to remain.

  I had no choice but to make the trip to the house on my own.

  I didn’t realise the extent of wrath that had been collecting in me until that day. I had been kidding myself about being Marcus’s mother for some time. As we drove back to Melbourne – me, unable to digest the roadhouse lunch I’d made myself eat – I kept looking over at him, thinking how special he was. I was also thinking there would be a lot that would never happen, things I had counted on, had instinctively woven into a future – travelling as a family, celebrating his achievements together – that were now not possible. And I had done it. I had laid out this future myself. This was the rune I had not only pulled from the bag of my destiny but sought out, pinned down, made sure I got.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Ithought this burst of the bubble and the fact that Dave and I had shared tea might better our relationship. Even Renny was saying that he and I had to talk. I don’t know if it was weakness or laziness or lack of caring, but I became sick at the thought of having to converse with him – it was almost as if I thought he was going to trick me, mock or make fun of me, which he’d never really done. (Although it’s fair to say that I never felt he treated me as an equal after we split up; or that he had accepted the relationship between Renny and I.) When I did finally pick up the telephone to talk to him I found myself holding the receiver an inch or two away from my ear. I was raw, protective of the nub of myself left standing.

  Funnily, it wasn’t his tricks or mocking that made me want to finish the conversation, it was his ridiculousness, his verbose and silly conversation, his unwanted sense of humour, his asides and unnecessary dissemination of information that was of no concern to me and which – at least to me – still reeked, albeit with humour, of control. The fight had seemed to release something in him. He’d always been a joker and had been talking in platitudes for some time, but now he began announcing those platitudes prior to delivering them, which seemed even more annoying than the bad jokes. Well, you know what they say: if you can’t dance the tango, get out of the way. Did people really say that? Or, Can’t
go without saying: up here for thinking, down there for dancing, in the middle for something else. Really, I know I might have laughed at him during our relationship but he just wasn’t funny anymore and without the other things – conversations, plans, achievements – it was getting harder to remember what I’d seen in him.

  Gone, perhaps, was the indignation that had, up until then, pulsed in me, the fiery type of upset that lives near the surface. Sneaking into its place was a dull, more disturbing, disaffection. It was palpable. A quiet cold sort of disturbance that sinks stone-like to the bottom of a well; the kind of sensation that munches respect like a shredder chews paper; a disquiet that even elephantine might won’t shift and is still there years and years and years later.

  More and more, my heart was shifting towards never wanting to speak to Dave again. And, more and more, I couldn’t shake this gouging, vacant feeling. It was now three years since I’d left, and this was possibly the lowest I’d felt. I took myself to work.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Life just keeps coming. My mother used to say that. It was the only thought I could hold for more than a few seconds while Mali was relaying an urgent message, a message that, because of its horror, I couldn’t quite grasp. I fought my way through the fug in my head.

  ‘The hospital is trying to get hold of you.’

  I watched my hand reach for my messages. It was the client Celia had asked me to see, the brother of her client. I was to go to intensive care. The whole family was there. There had been a terrible accident, a drowning. It wasn’t just one death, there had been many in the family.