The Coach

 

Life coach at the adjacent table at KV, the inevitable happened. You think you have attained a position where you… can coach life? it may have been. Uttered. Now how in the heck did that get out? Even mid-stream a more canny fellow might have turned it around. There had been a lazy attempt, too late. Lady was 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 corner of righting a listing sailboat that had run into choppy waters, nothing too serious. Get the client to ID their position, the problem, and nudge forward from there. No commandeering; only patient, gentle steering. Her 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. That took you a fair way. In the end had the cheek to comment on the phone fixation through the course. Well, madam, it was a surprise we travelled so far; thought 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 nor Insta. (No opportunity to get that point in, it turned out.)

 

 

 

Here is the evidence, virtual ink barely dry:

 

When R___ removed her mask for her own lunch the former handsome, middle-aged woman suddenly appeared as a grotesque, deformed creature from the studio make-up department. A fright! The shock of it was impossible to hide and must have been perfectly plain to see. Tiny, round mouth gaping wide; sharp incisors seemingly biting in her speech. Whatever she had spoken seemed not to have properly emerged from the cavern. It was a reminder that the lady had never appeared at the Buffalo Road outlet pre-Covid. The first cancer had been in the ‘90s; more recently she had exceeded all the expert opinion with the incidence in her pancreas. A number of weeks the name R___ had been difficult to recall for the regular greetings in the queues at the resto; finally it had been recorded on the phone. R___ was used for both genders in the Punjab, yes; that had been correctly recalled from somewhere, news reports probably. In Punjabi it signified heroism. (R___’s own Paulo was let ride.) At some point earlier the cancer might perhaps have been in the jaw. Recalling the figure of the woman later, it seemed the likeliest explanation. It was a particular kind of Covid story, twelve months now almost into recovery.