Page 47 of ReTreat Yourself

Geoff looks at me with such a sad expression it instantly makes me feel awful.

‘I’m sorry, Geoff. You have a lovely accent. Very global. I was just trying to help but anyway, you don’t need it. Let’s just get on with it, shall we?’ I say briskly. I need to act like an actual life coach, not a speech and language therapist. I need to do what the stuff in the handbook and the internet tells me to do.

I get out some action planning tools, one of which is a pyramid of words. I can sense Geoff’s excitement; it feels genuine and it makes me excited as well. I actually think I can help him. I do.

‘You want to be a go-getter, don’t you?’ I ask him, drawing on my many wasted people-pleasing years at work.

He nods enthusiastically back.

‘But you are not sure of exactly what you want out of life, so naturally you are stuck on how to get it?’

He keeps nodding.

‘You are searching for business ideas because you associate a successful business with you being a success, am I right?’ He’ll need a neck brace if he continues like this.

‘Ah im so stuck raaht now,’ he admits.

‘Well, Geoff, with experience comes wisdom, which means that talent can often develop later in life for many people. So, for the next session, I want you to name one person you admire and whose career is similar to the one you would most like to develop for yourself. I want you to look into this person, Geoff, not up to them. Find out what their journey to success looked like, step by step. Understand?’

‘Yis,’ he says. ‘Journey to success, stip bah stip. Got it.’

I walk to the door to see him off.

He stops by Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen’s desk to make another appointment.

‘Nidi won’t be back for three weeks,’ I explain.

‘Why can’t ah see you for laff coaching?’ he says, his face falling. ‘Ah rilly think we are gitting somewhere. I really enjoyed this sishun.’

I gulp, the compliment almost too much. I nod to Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen to take the booking.

I am a life coach. I am a bona fide life coach with an actual client who wants to pay for my services. I feel like I’ve just done a line of cocaine as an instant hit of happiness pings round my brain.

‘See you at the singles event, Señor Jiff.’ She waves after him as he leaves. I roll my eyes, unable to keep from grinning.

‘Not you as well? Honestly, it’s Geoff,’ I say slowly to Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen, who looks confused. ‘J-E-F,’ I pronounce phonetically.

She looks at me, then down at the appointments book, then back up at me. I watch her turn the book round so that I can see his name and signature. It says Jiffrey Livison. I peer more closely at the signature and the printed name next to it. It does indeed say very clearly, for absolutely any idiot to see, Jiffrey Livison. JIFFREY effing LIVISON. Clear as day. Crystal clear. Un-fucking-mistakably clear.

I have been calling him Geoff, and he has been correcting me, not the other way around.

I tap my third eye rapidly and focus on my breath as the joy is sapped from my body.

You are on a journey. The beginning of a delightful learning curve. One of many. Breathe through it.

I can see that Maria-José-Inmaculada-Carmen is dying to smirk. I am not ready for that, so I swivel around to turn my back on her.

‘It’s okay,’ I say, suddenly remembering a much bigger emergency. ‘You can go home early.’

My sister is supposed to arrive tomorrow morning and I need to stop her boarding that plane.

19

I am severely regretting my decision to knock back a whole bottle of vino in under an hour last night. Snippets of me ringing my father late at night to try and get him to talk Ava out of coming – pointless, utterly pointless – are coming back to haunt me, along with the unwise decision to open a second bottle after the exchange didn’t go quite as planned. I replay the conversation in my head while I nurse a coffee.

‘But Dad, you have to stop her coming over.’

‘Nell, my darling, she’s already announced it on Instagram to all of her followers.’