The Coach Sept25

 

 

Life coach at the adjacent table at KV, the inevitable happened.

You have the expertise… you… can couch life? it may have been.

Now how in the heck did that get out?! Even mid-stream a wiser sort might have wriggled round at the last minute. There had been a lazy attempt; too late.

Lady a Penny Wong lookalike, recently savaged by the old lion Paul Keating.  Very close. Could have been related, the two onslaughts, or digs.

Turned out of course lady was only in the biz of righting a listing saiboat, one that had run into choppy waters. Nothing too serious. Get the client to ID their predicaments, the problem, and nudge forward from there. Only patient, gentle, hesitant steering.

The mention of enjoy it while you can earlier wasn’t really referring to the growing gloom. Climate, geo-pol, the alienation & anomie not really her bag. Concentrate on the positive was the way for the sailors & yachties. Got you a fair way.

In the end had the cheek to remark on the phone fixation through the course.

Well, madam, it was a surprise we travelled so far.Thought was it was gonna fizzle pruuuty quickly.

And by the way, that there was standard working author on the job, revision of the Sikh thing here, actually. Nothing of Fbook or Insta. (No opportunity to get that point in, as it turned out.)

 

 

 

Here is the evidence, virtual ink barely dry:

 

When R___ removed her mask for her own lunch the former firm, handsome, middle-aged woman in her resplendent saris suddenly showed grotesque. It came as a complete shock. All at once here was a deformed creature from the studio make-up department, or some carnival sideshow. An utter fright, where the recoil must have been perfectly plain. It had been impossible to hide. Tiny mouth gaping wide, sharp, biting incisors. Whatever the woman now spoke seemed not to properly emerge from that cavern. The lady had never appeared at the Buffalo Road outlet pre-Covid; never revealed herself properly. The first cancer had been back in the ‘90s; more recently she had exceeded all the expert opinion with her pancreas. A number of weeks the name had been difficult to recall. Finally an entry was made on the phone. R___ was used for both genders in the Punjab, signifying heroism. In fact it was actually far from clear whether the illnesses had anything at all to do with the matter here. At some point earlier the cancer might have been in the jaw, but there seemed nothing malformed there. Some of the physiognomies from the sub-Continent, Mainland China and the wider Malay world continued to startle, even 8 - 9 years later. The prognathous jaw was one case; the oft remarked single eyelid another. (In fact the latter continued to defy a practised observer). This was a particular kind of Covid story, twelve months almost into recovery.

 

 

NB. Revised again since, naturally.