Against The Odds Read Online Free PDF

drink
occasionally.”
    “Okay,
fine, thanks. I will try that too. See you on Friday.”
     
     
    *****
1Chapter 5
    Rebecca was tired. Friday was always a long day for her.
Today, she had spent most of the morning dealing with one of her
favourite patients, Carl Swain. He was a five-year-old boy
who , because of the
accidental death of his brother while horse-riding, had developed a
sleeping disorder. She worried about this small, intense boy and
had gone over with his parents to the fateful stables. It had been
a trying morning and Carl was no closer to overcoming his anxiety
about the horses. His parents had been disappointed and she had
gone back to her office feeling a dismal sense of frustration. She
looked at all her messages and tried to call back all, except one,
Clayton. He had left many messages in the last two weeks, but she
had never been able to call him back. She did not want to discuss
her butterfly or anything with him.
    She
looked at her diary and was further depressed at the prospect of
spending the next hour in a partners’ meeting. The firm, made up of
eight partners of psychologists, was starting to get unruly.
Perhaps they should not have brought in the two new partners from
the public hospital. They were proving to be exceptionally
difficult and did not seem to understand the vision of the firm.
They were fixated with their working hours and did not regard their
patients as special. They simply treated each patient as an
inconvenience. They also seemed to get into a lot of trouble with
the administrative staff, who did not like their ‘superior’
attitude. There had been many arguments and fights in the last two
months. They would invariably come to the meeting, argue about
petty things, like who would do their photocopying, and make no
meaningful contribution to their discussions. Perhaps she would
raise her concerns about Carl to deflect them from arguing, and
anyway, she needed help. That had been the reason for working from
the same place, each of them bringing in specialist skills and
knowledge. She had spent a few years in a single practice, but,
given all the work she did in court, she had felt pressurised to
bring in a partner. It had been her friend, Jessica, who
specialized in educational therapy, who had suggested they get a
team together. It had taken them two years to finally find
appropriate partners and suitable premises. All six of them had
enjoyed the support and friendship the firm provided. The
introduction of the two new general psychologists had tipped the
balance. This was aggravated by the fact that Tim did not seem to
understand that he could not sexually harass the administrative
staff. He seemed to think that they were all at his ‘pecker and
call’ as her secretary, Denise often said.
     
    The
meeting, however, had been less painful than she thought. Jessica
had met with the two earlier in the week and seemed to have gotten
through to them. She went back to her office to prepare the
evidence she would be giving in a domestic violence case for one of
Jonathan’s former colleagues.
    Denise
had gone off on a lunch date with some young man who worked in the
florist shop close by and Rebecca welcomed the silence in her
suite. As much as she liked Denise, she was noisy and bustling when
there were no patients. She seemed to move in and out of Rebecca’s
office to stop herself from being bored. The rest of time she
entertained herself with guessing what was ‘wrong’ with the
patients. She would study them, their clothes, demeanour, and any
other characteristics so that she could conclude that they suffered
from some compulsive or obsessive disorder. She was never close to
the truth, but her guessing kept everyone entertained.
     
    There was a light tap on the door and Tim popped his head
in. “Your appointment is
here. Your secretary does not seem to know what time your
appointments are. She has gone to lunch. She has written nothing in
the book. Shall I let him