Of lambs and slaughter

Life in the Spigeltent with with Tippy, Gus and Plastic Man ... The slaughterhouse beckons ... Eventually tipstaves have to find themselves ... Or remain forever directionless 

Springtime in the courts and the lambs have grown fat on the comparative benevolence of judicial masters and mistresses. 

Gus, bursting forth from the chrysalis of poor weather and bad man-induced melancholy, is back in maddeningly acerbic form. 

"So, when do you start at the slaughterhouse?" he inquires sweetly one morning as we trip blithely along Phillip Street. 

"Three months to go, mate," he presses. "You can kiss all this goodbye," he adds, flapping his arms about in an all-encompassing flourish. 

I fancy I snuff the first blooms of jasmine on the breeze, mixed with heady notes of petrol. 

I will not take the bait.

"When are you shoving off on your odyssey of self-discovery?" I retort, pushing him into the path of a palm tree. "Hope you don't get lost finding yourself." 

I ponder whether palms are native to the street, thriving in concrete climes populated by loquacious mammals in wigs and flapping capes.

"Thank you for the question," he says as we ascend the steps of the law courts building, thrusting his palms outward in a stop-sign gesture reminiscent of a certain Prime Minister. 

"I make no apologies for availing myself of the scriptures of the School of Life," he adds at the lifts. "First stop Tokyo, early January."

I sigh deeply. The lift smells, as always, of cleaning products.

The availability of career options - a graduate position at a factory just metres away, the probability of others should I pursue them - has rendered me indifferent to all of them. 

"It's your Gen Y sense of entitlement," Gus diagnosed weeks earlier, kicking off his shoes and waving his sock-clad toes in my face one evening. They are striped, slightly sodden, with individual toes. 

He is probably right. 

Gus is a rare breed in our ranks, having neither secured nor sought employment next year. 

Vague plans about the construction of orphanages or teaching at English schools have been floated. 

"It's all very middle class," he assures me coolly. "I will discover myself in the third world, before nipping off to a tropical island somewhere, or for a spot of shopping in Gay Paree."

He means it, though, and I shall miss him dreadfully.

As luck would have it, Plastic Man and I have received offers from the same shop.

Our relationship is an ever-evolving thing: every day it seems we like each other a little bit less.

I blame Gus entirely.

He has taken to caricaturing us all, and Plastic Man spied a particularly skilful portrait of his smug visage on my desk one morning.

It's all in the way he carries his neatly-coiffed head. Stiffly, like a stuffed animal.

I meant to take it home and stick it on the fridge.

Since then, he has treated me with a studied air of cold civility. 

"Good morning, Julian," I squeak meekly as we enter chambers.

He nods curtly and sweeps past me with an armful of dry cleaning.

"I do hope you end up in neighbouring cubicles next year," Gus whispers. 

"What's he on about?", Emma asks, exiting her judge's chambers with a precariously balanced load of books.

"You know he was having a meltdown yesterday in the rare book room, don't you," she breathes.

"I went in there to find some crusty tome by a long-dead obsessive and he was just sitting there, quietly hyperventilating."

"I think he's reassessing his career," she continues. "All this finding himself stuff, it's just a front for a gnawing sense of directionlessness, I reckon."

I take three books from the top of her stack.

"Tell me more, my friend," I say, taking her arm as we head up to the library. "Tell me more."

A newfound spring in my step has nothing to do with the weather.

"You two," Emma says severely, "are appalling."