This Too Shall Pass by S. J. Finn Page A

Marlowe Downs was more than a stroke of luck, it was a celestial experience. When I first saw him, James was standing in the courtyard just outside the staff kitchen window where I stood making a coffee. His round Phil Collins features nodded at Elliot who towered over him, swamping him with his excited, jagged speech. Watching them with half an eye as I pushed on the coffee plunger, I could tell I was going to like this guy. He was dressed in plaid pants and an olive green shirt that changed colours when he twisted or laughed, showing a tinge of magenta, then shades of steel blue. His hair was cropped closely to his scalp and he wore jewellery, chunky silver rings and leather bands around his wrists. To be truthful, I think it was his teeth – straight, gaps between each, stains from black coffee and cigarettes marking them – that convinced me about him. Those stains were a suggestion of rebelliousness in a land of conformity. Even eccentricity was a kind of tradition at Marlowe Downs, but a jewelled man with stained teeth? That definitely was not a typical occurrence.
    â€˜Hi!’ I said, walking through the open door, squinting into an ill-defined sun.
    â€˜Oh, Monty.’ (Elliot, doing his bit.) ‘This is James. New psychologist. This is Monty, full-of-guts-and-knowledge Monty from the country.’
    â€˜Hi,’ I repeated as we shook hands, Elliot’s reference to the country, and the “full of guts” thing, resonating in me with mild irritation.
    â€˜Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Welcome to MeadowLea.’ (This was actually Renny’s joke, and technically a steal.)
    James laughed.
    â€˜Thank goodness for polyunsaturates,’ Elliot chipped in, his hands deep in his college professor pants as if he really might have a couple of six-shooters hidden there.
    â€˜Which team are you in?’ James asked, a generous grin still hugging his face.
    â€˜Same as yours,’ I widened my eyes. (News of his arrival had already been announced.)
    â€˜Feel like a school kid,’ he said.
    We both laughed.
    James’s office was on the opposite side of the building to mine, past an internal courtyard where a fernery was home to two tortoises and many goldfish. I enjoyed walking through the place to visit him. It was like going on a small trip, especially when I had a new destination – somewhere other than the kitchen – to go. Depending on my mood, I’d either wing along the corridors or slink around them clandestinely trying to avoid the long breath that would be needed to supply answers of this and that – requests, which invariably meant more work in an already busy schedule. It, the slinking, always reminded me of TS Eliot.
    And indeed there will be time
    For the yellow smoke that slides along the streets
    Rubbing its back along the window-panes;
    There will be time, there will be time
    Those words. I’d repeat them endlessly. Always in those corridors. I wasn’t even sure what they were about but to me they seemed about breathing. I guess they kept drawing me along, helped to protect me.
    See? Even I was becoming eccentric.
    James was fastidious, his room so tidy it was a mirage of itself. His files were to envy. While mine were piled in nasty towers outside my filing cabinet, his sat beautifully, well behaved and up-to-date, in the sleeves allotted to them.
    â€˜You’re obsessive,’ I scolded him one night after I’d crossed the labyrinth to talk him into doing a cognitive test on a kid I thought had Asperger’s. (Trying to rouse a psychologist was like trying to wake sleeping beauty without a prince on hand.)
    â€˜I like it neat.’ He didn’t move from his desk where a slim file sat open, his hand poised to continue.
    â€˜My office is like an upturned ship compared to this.’
    He laughed. ‘So long as you remember to jump before it goes down.’ He finished his note, swinging his hand in a signature