This Too Shall Pass

by S. J. Finn

  ‘Do you feel sorry for him?’

  ‘No.’ He had looked up at me, open-faced. ‘He’s going to be something important one day, like the prime minister or something, I reckon.’

  I nodded, thinking there was no accounting for what he thought or how he came to his conclusions.

  When we were nearly home I turned to him – encouraged, perhaps, by our previous discussion.

  ‘Your dad and I haven’t been able to get along very well since we’ve been apart. I feel bad about it and I’m sorry it’s like it is.’

  ‘It’s alright, Mum. But I think Dad is very mad at you.’

  Given Dave hardly ever lost his temper, I wanted to know how Marcus knew this. But there was something about his face that brought me to my senses. I hadn’t made the comment to elicit information from him, and wasn’t I perpetuating what I’d just apologised for if I started to probe for an answer? We were back in St Kilda, the tram spinning along the old train track down Canterbury Road. I looked out of the tram’s window at the verandahs of some double-fronted terrace houses across the road. One sported an Australian flag hanging limply, another had a mannequin with a pink wig and wearing a floral dress. I kissed Marcus’s head and thought what a strange reality it is that he wouldn’t remember much of anything that had happened in his life up until now – that none of us do. I mused that, whether they remember or not, it still matters what happens to children. Everything matters; the mind is in full swing, no matter what the memory is collecting in its seemingly random fashion. In the end, as the tram pulled up at the terminus, I was glad Marcus wouldn’t remember Dave and I splitting up; then again, that meant he also wouldn’t remember us being together. Reality bites. That’s the truth. Reality totals, like a tsunami in full force, everything else.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The front foyer was littered with kids, mothers, one dad, and toys that had been bought new for the visiting auditors and were now, some months on, already shabby from robust play. It was 8.45 a.m. and I didn’t have an appointment until 10 a.m. Some time to do much-needed file work, to pursue closures.

  I took the guff from my pigeonhole, two phone messages floating like shed feathers from the pile to the floor. The mother with the undiagnosed personality disorder had called – a moment’s heaviness piled on me when I saw that message. I needed to talk to her anyway. I had done everything I could for the family. If I couldn’t help them after over two years of involvement, maybe it was time for someone else to try.

  ‘Good morning,’ I smiled, a little forced, at someone I didn’t know sitting in for the receptionist (Patricia, the woman usually in the role, had been taking a lot of time off lately). Walking back past the ruckus down the wide hallway towards my room, I noticed Nigel’s handwriting amongst my notices. Before I had arrived at my door, I’d brought the slip of paper to the top of the pile; the others were mainly academic and research papers that people deposited in all of our pigeonholes perfunctorily, and were less eye-catching. At my office, beginning to decipher his scrawl while simultaneously unlocking my door, I read it, my satchel still over my shoulder, one step into my room.

  Dear Monty,

  Thank you for this information. (What information? I don’t remember giving him anything that required a response in writing or that would have stood out from the dozens of papers I shared with the team all the time.) I have problems coming to terms with homosexuality partly because of my belief system, which is Biblical and condemns homosexual behaviour as sinful. The gay community would proclaim that 10% of the population is gay. The truth probably is that only 1-2% is. The rest adopt homosexual behaviours. The 1-2% probably have a genetic basis to their condition. I can sympathise with people who are homosexual in their gender orientation but have problems in condoning homosexual behaviour, which I think is (“not normal” was crossed out) abnormal or sinful. I use the Bible as my standard – so this is more a faith position because I believe the Bible is the word of God and if God created us then what is Biblically condemned cannot be of God. However, man has marred His perfect creation and therefore sinful behaviours will be evidenced.

  My position is therefore to love the homosexual as a person although I am not able to condone with his/ her behaviours like any other sinful behaviours like adultery, murder or stealing etc.

  Hope this is helpful to you to know as a member of your team.

  Nigel (smiley face)

  What? Was this a joke? The air left my head rather like I’d been twirled on my feet, a chuckle bouncing out of me. It couldn’t be true. Surely no one could write this sort of tripe to their work colleague, let alone to their boss. I laughed, albeit hollowly, walking my body, which had become strangely light, to my desk. I lowered my messages, papers and my satchel, trying to read the letter again. ‘I can’t believe this!’ I muttered under my breath, turning in my office, propping up against my desk and looking at my open door, expecting him, Nigel, or someone, to come to see me, see how I was, given this outrageous intrusion, this condemnation of me.

  When no one did appear I went to find James. He was having coffee and a cigarette with a newly arrived intern. I was all smiles and welcomes, the letter like a burning Judas in my fingers.

  ‘Can I talk to you?’ I asked him and then turned to the intern, ‘I’m sorry Beth, would you mind?’

  Of course she wouldn’t.

  ‘I’ll see you at the department meeting after lunch,’ James said to her.

  ‘Yes, see you Monty.’ She waved, smiling crookedly.

  I beckoned to James to shift further away from the door of the staffroom.

  ‘I need to show you something.’

  James read the letter, a frown niggling his forehead as the words peeled across his retinas.

  ‘This is out there. He’s a bloody fanatic.’

  ‘Forget fanatic. He’s homophobic.’

  ‘Fundamentalism at its worst.’

  ‘He shouldn’t be writing me letters like this. Firstly, he’s questioning my experience of being homosexual, insinuating I’m putting it on, and then he’s saying it’s akin to adultery, murder and theft. That’s not right. He’s a fucking psychiatrist. He shouldn’t be saying this stuff. Even if he thinks it, he should be keeping it to himself.’

  James was re-reading.

  ‘Actually,’ I took the chance to keep talking, ‘he shouldn’t be working with children.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ James held out the letter to me.

  ‘I don’t even want to touch it.’

  ‘You know he’s a complete nuff, Mont.’

  ‘Still hard to take.’ I was getting surges of anger now. ‘Does he just want me to curl up in a corner, disappear? Maybe that’s what I should do?’

  James held my gaze.

  ‘I’m going to have to speak to him,’ I said, seeming to recover. ‘To pick on me is one thing. But the clients… it’s like we’re running some kind of wacky establishment, something halfway between Fawlty Towers and one of those strange hotels you see in films, that people go into and never come out of.’

  ‘Good luck,’ James said, a rather nervous smile spreading on his face.

  I took the letter.

  Nigel’s office, along the corridor from mine, was open and, having not long arrived either, he was standing over his desk, perhaps looking at his schedule for the day. I was relieved to see him there and free.

  ‘Nigel,’ I said in sotto voce. ‘Can I see you in my office for a moment, please?’

  The words had come out plainly enough. I turned, a little light-headed. He followed.

  ‘Take a seat,’ I said, remaining calm, going slowly, not wanting to repeat a previous mistake when I had asked him about why he was suggesting a boy reside with his violent father instead of his mother. The conversation had finished almost before it had started that day.

  ‘I presume this is a personal letter?’ I held it up and then put it down to show I was in control, and that I found it altogether odious and didn’t wish to touch it.<
br />
  ‘Yes,’ he answered, unflinching.

  ‘Well, I don’t care about that. What I do care about is the fact you feel this way. I find it disturbing and, given your position, particularly concerning.’

  ‘It doesn’t affect my work.’

  ‘Do you have any clients grappling with this issue in their lives?’

  ‘No. I’ve not come across it, ever, as far as I’m aware.’

  ‘As far as you’re aware? You do know that high amongst the risk factors for youth suicide is the issue of homosexuality?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What you seem to feel, however, is that people choose to be homosexual.’

  ‘Being part of a minority group can be attractive.’

  ‘Not in a school playground, the last time I was aware.’ I turned, gestured a little disgustedly at the letter. ‘Personally, I’m not interested in the fact you feel this way. Even as a member of your team. But as your team leader, I don’t want you working with any client who is dealing with this issue.’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘Alright.’ I repeated the word. It was hard to believe he was agreeing to this so readily.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he said, his smile sunny, if not a little pressed on his face. He stood and walked out of my office, leaving the door open.

  It was a hollow victory. My mind swept up the scattered pieces to examine them. What if a child’s parent was homosexual? Their aunt or uncle? One of their siblings? Two of them? Three or four of them? It was not a good sign for the future. It was certainly not a good sign for psychiatry: one step forward, twenty-five back – back to the days when our big fat diagnostic book had listed homosexuality as an illness, when young people would be sent off for analysis with the explicit hope they would return as heterosexuals. As for our discussion, the good doctor hadn’t even needed to mention Freud, not even to defend his stance.

  In a stunned state I sat on, in my chair. From the outside, I mused, someone might be forgiven for thinking Freud was God; from the inside they’d be a fool. God was God and we’d made him into a monster.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Renny was gobsmacked. ‘He can’t send you a letter like this. It’s harassment. You’ve got to do something. What’s-his-name: Ivan, Ernie? He should put his big toe in.’

  ‘Elliot.’

  ‘Show him. See what he thinks.’

  I nodded. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Somebody should stick up for you. Psychiatrist or not, no one should be able to say this to you.’

  ‘I stuck up for myself. I told you what I said to him.’

  ‘Yes, but you should have support over this. He’s a religious zealot. A bigot. He should be disciplined.’

  I thought about this over the next few days. Renny was right. Although I’d held her back from taking the letter to the press, I did have to do something. So one morning, a week after receiving the letter, the corridors of Marlowe Downs suitably icy and dark from an absconded sun, I went to see Elliot.

  ‘This is disgraceful!’ He reacted in a serious manner.

  I told Elliot about the discussion with Nigel that had taken place in my office.

  ‘I didn’t really care at first,’ I said, my words firing rapidly as he re-read the letter. ‘Thought it was so far left-field it was ridiculous to worry about. But after he left my office, having given in so easily, I started to get angry.’

  Elliot, unusually quiet, looked rather blankly at me. After a moment, he clarified: ‘He said he wouldn’t see families affected?’

  ‘Yes, but what does that mean, Elliot? Does it include extended family, or kids that haven’t been truthful with themselves about their sexuality? Maybe they’ll keep it from him?’

  ‘It’s closed-minded,’ Elliot said, looking at the letter again, almost as if he was checking it was real. ‘Leave it to me. I’ll talk to Anton.’

  There was no reason to doubt Elliot. He would, I believed, do what he could to vindicate me, but the mere thought I needed to be vindicated should have sent alarm bells ringing in my head. I had done nothing wrong. I walked out of Elliot’s office feeling tall and potent and as if things would be put right. Nigel Pathmanathan would be put back in his box.

  Only a little distracted by wanting to tell James I’d shown Elliot the letter, I saw two clients. But I eventually went looking and, as at other times lately, I couldn’t find James in any of his usual squats: smoking in the courtyard, scribbling at his desk, making dense black coffee in the staff kitchen. I went outside to the car park to see if I could spot his sedan and yes, there it was, polished so the sun shone yellow medallions on every panel, sitting dutifully in its usual spot, complete with the tartan brown-and-orange patterned seat covers he’d shown off to me.

  I went to the main reception desk to see if he might be using one of the large family therapy rooms, or perhaps seeing a child in one of the inpatient units.

  There was nothing in the book.

  ‘Have you seen James?’ I asked Mali, the receptionist who seemed to have taken over permanently from Patricia.

  ‘He’s gone for a swim in The Meuse.’ The Meuse was the nickname for the small indoor swimming pool on the grounds at Marlowe Downs. It was named after the river in Belgium, dubbed by someone long gone who’d deliberately played on the word, "muse". A swim in the over-chlorinated water was meant to deliver inspiration and wisdom but I’d been to Belgium and driven along the side of the actual river, a polluted but rushing torrent, the banks of which were flanked with steel walls of industry. So, inspiration from such a dip had always seemed to me extremely unlikely. But I don’t mention any of this to Mali.

  ‘Swimming,’ I said. ‘How impertinent!’

  This made Mali laugh, her ring of giggles beating away a little longer than necessary.

  ‘He’s trying to get fit, Monty.’

  I had my back to her, having taken the opportunity to check my pigeonhole for the second time in an hour.

  ‘I can see I’m going to be the last one resisting fitness,’ I said, trying to assess if I needed to scoop up two new messages that lay there, or if they could wait until tomorrow. (Occasionally a pallor would come over me: Who? What? Oh, you must have it wrong, I don’t work at Marlowe Downs, I just ended up here today and in fact I need to get myself home. Usually these attacks would come on in the late afternoon. But today the dread had, like an unexpected change in the weather, weighed in early. It was only 11.30 a.m., 11.45 at the most, and I had an afternoon of appointments scheduled, the last two being consultations to schools in Hoppers Crossing. It was going to be a long day.)

  ‘Well, he’s a great disappointment.’ I was sardonic, turning back to her, leaving my pigeonhole alone.

  ‘He should be fit if he’s going to be a father one day.’

  ‘A father! Now you’re really scaring me, Mali.’

  ‘No, I just say that because he would be a very good father. In the future.’

  She wasn’t really going to let me get away with my disparaging comments so I just nodded. ‘Well, if you see him, tell him to get his fit body around to my office. It’s nothing urgent, just need to talk to him.’

  I walked out of the reception area and through the large waiting room, smiling at a mother who looked stricken with nervousness, probably at the thought she was in a place like Marlowe Downs. She smiled back apprehensively but, I thought, appreciatively.

  I had predicted correctly about the arduous afternoon, and in the end I could only marvel at my ability to get through the hard hours it was comprised of. Even better – a few gems came out of my mouth, which I put down to the expectations of the job. I’ve seen it before, when the mere fact that I’m there and know what I’m supposed to do provides considerable inspiration. There was, of course, also a great hankering for the working day to end, which, in my experience, occurs more quickly when you’re the one doing some of the talking. My saving grace: I was not one for becoming vague. Whether I was with clients or talking to other professionals, I’d learnt early on
that in the end it hurts more to lose momentum.

  And then, a final and further reprieve, there was a message on my phone, which I’d let ring out during the last consultation. I listened to it sitting in the car. ‘Hey Mont, it’s James. Hope you’re okay. Ring me if you need me.’ The relief of hearing his voice coursed through me. I sat in the school’s car park, my eyes closing for a second in thanks. I did need him, not for anything specific, but in exactly the way he had just helped. He was like a net for me in those years and no matter the terrain of our relationship, care remained a staple.

  THIRTY-SIX

  When days passed and nothing came of the conversation I’d had with Elliot, Renny couldn’t help herself: she wrote a letter to him. I wanted to see it and I didn’t, I wanted to stop her sending it but I also wanted it sent. In the end, after she read it aloud to me, I nodded my consent, knowing I was handing her power of attorney, so to speak. While I was half convinced that the whole thing was becoming a little soap opera-ish, there was another part of me that couldn’t get over the gall of the good doctor, Nigel Pathmanathan, and the other doctors, nurses, psychologists and all the allied health professionals, not to mention the establishment itself, that would allow this kind of thing to go on. How could they? When I considered the implications in my quiet moments, there was something very disturbing about it. Tnat’s why I let Renny send her letter, even though I knew at the time that I was letting her interfere in something that wasn’t her business.

  Elliot was furious. His shock of grey hair, now a mahogany red from a packet of L’Oreal, came bobbing and forward-thrusting into the staff lounge a day or so later. I was sitting with a couple of women -Celia’s cohorts – from the autism team. One of them had lent me a book cataloguing syndromes because I was trying to diagnose a seven-year-old girl who had pixie-like features and displayed a lot of delays. We were discussing Williams syndrome. A debate was raging in my head as to whether the child should be tested, given the fact that the syndrome was in mild form – if existing at all. She was enrolled at a special school and the mother had no illusions as to her daughter’s learning delays. What purpose would the diagnosis have? Possibly lots, but possibly it held hidden drawbacks as well? The girl’s mother was on her own and had some odd behavioural traits herself. She’d taken her daughter to visit the family of another student and hadn’t left for three days, apparently. Why that had happened, how it had happened, needed to be sorted out before the helpfulness of diagnosing the child could be assessed.