A New Life

At cocktail parties, I’m often asked what exactly it is I do and my response is always the same – that I help people to leave their old life behind and to start a new life. “Oh, so you’re a shrink,” some would say. “Well, I suppose in a certain way I am,” I would say. “Or are you some kind of guru or mystic, who lives in an ashram in India?” they’d ask.

With a drink in one hand and a smoke in the other I’d say, “Well, let me tell you then.” And so, like that I’d begin to explain what it is I do. But first I’m always careful to look around and survey the room. On the odd occasion I’d spy a former client out enjoying themselves in that crowded room, now living their new life. Our eyes may cross briefly, but you won’t so much as see us wink at one another. In my line of work discretion is essential. When I spot a former client I’m always quick to change the subject, before I find myself in an awkward position. Otherwise everyone wants to know more and I happily tell them about the time I helped some or other housewife become an exotic dancer at a men’s club, or how I helped a boy who stammered at school to make a killing off selling his start-up company to Amazon, or how I helped an alcoholic back-office clerk become a national weight lifting champion. I’ve helped divorcees get back together, transformed street hobos into heads of listed companies and helped turn nerds into sex gods. Everyone wants to know – how do I do it? What’s your secret? And I tell them, it’s really simple, you get the client to write down exactly what they want from a new life and then you help them to picture this new life, in detail, every day, as if they’ve already living it. It’s my clients who are actually doing all the work. All I’m doing is pointing them in the right direction and getting paid heaps to do it.  

“If people pay you so much money why can’t they just figure all this out themselves? Wouldn’t it be a heck of a lot cheaper for them to just go to the library and borrow a couple of self-help guides and read all about how to do this stuff themselves?” Some may ask. See, that would be a lot easier. But a lot of people are more than happy to pay some professional to tell them what to do. And why should I complain, as long as they’re paying me.

Except I do complain. I say to hell with the job. After 30 years it just isn’t worth it any more. This amazing revelation befell me some months back when I found myself lying in hospital. And I was only trying to help the man. You’re probably wondering how I landed up there in hospital, right? Well, let me tell you how.

It all started with this man I was trying to help, his name was Jekyll. “Like the name of the book,” he told me over the phone when I asked him to repeat it. That itself should have been enough of a warning sign. But for someone who has experienced all kinds of things in life, I seemingly took no notice of it, except to joke about the origin of the name with him. “We’ll see you next Tuesday,” I told him. When that Tuesday came he entered my office and I waved him over to a chair that was positioned across the room from where I sat. What immediately struck me was the way he sat – dead upright, with a small notebook balanced on his right knee. It was as if this was a school or academy and he had wanted to ensure that he paid careful attention to every little thing I said. The notebook, he told me, was to ensure that he didn’t forget a thing, especially, he said, given how expensive my sessions were.

“Doctor,” he said, with a certain degree of confidence. “I’ve come here because I believe you can help me start a new life.”

“And how are things going?”

“Not so good. My job is killing me. In fact I don’t even think I’m cut out for this career any longer. I’ve been working at the bank for over 30 years now. It’s a dead-end job. I used to believe in it, but no longer. People hardly even come into the branch like they used to. Each year they get rid of more and more of us. Soon they’ll replace us all with robots or artificial intelligence. Then there’s my wife and I. Whatever we had died a long time ago. We’re like room mates who see each other occasionally in the kitchen for supper and living room for television. It’s been like that for years. That itself would be bearable if she weren’t always bickering and fighting with me. I don’t even have that many friends. None really, if I think about it.”

“I see. It sounds like perhaps you may just have a bad case of burnout?”

“Well doctor, if that’s what you call it. But whatever it is, I can’t go on like this.

“Of course. And tell me, if this is your current life, how do you picture your new life being?”

“Well I think about it all the time, usually when I’m in the office, at the back and my mind wanders off and I feel sleepy, usually after lunch. See what I see is me living it up in some tropical paradise, surrounded by people having fun, except we’re all making big money.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know, maybe working at a casino near a beach or heck, maybe even just playing the casino. Or we’re trading bitcoin, on our mobiles and there’s white sand and a turquoise ocean before us.

“Who’s the ‘we’ you speak of, if I may ask?”

“Oh right. Yes, that would be myself and some buddies. Just having a fun time. All the time.”

“But I thought you said you didn’t have any friends?”

“Well of course. But this is my new life we’re talking about, where I’d have many, loads.”

“And your wife, is she in this picture you have of your new life?”

“No, absolutely not. I’d have left her by then. We’d have split up. And I’d have not a single worry in the world, the kids having left the house and no health scares. Not like my old man who went down from the big C, if you get what I mean.”

“So, you’re pretty certain you want to end it with your wife then?”

“Hell yes.”

“I see. Well, it seems you’ve got a very clear picture of what you want out of your new life. If I am not mistaken, you’re on some island or tropical place, maybe working at a casino – does it have to be a casino?”

“No, not necessarily. But I do like gambling.”

“I see. Well, what else could we make it, if not a casino?”

“Well, let’s see”

And at that point he flicked open his notepad and ran off a long list of things, as if he knew how this all went, like he’d been speaking to a previous client of mine. The names rolled off his lips. “Airplane pilot, dive instructor, tour guide, hotel matron, resort manager, boat captain, entertainer, taxi driver, trance DJ, lifeguard, card dealer, bar tender, sports bookie.”

“That’s quite a list,” I said. “What I’m getting there is that you’d like just about any job that you can do on a tropical island or beach. Am I right?”

“Well, yes. Everything except working at the bank again.”

He laughed. So did I. A smile stretched across his face.

“Doc, look I want you to help me get to this place; to leave my wife; to get a new life.”

“Okay,” I said. “Let me ask you one thing. If you really want to do it, leave your wife and go live in this tropical place what’s holding you back? Why haven’t you done it already?”

This is when he looked hard at me, staring intensely.

“Doc, aren’t you supposed to help me?”

“I am. That’s why I am asking you the hard questions.”

“Well, I don’t know. I just can’t seem to do it. What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing Jekyll, you’re just a little bit scared of change and that’s normal. It’s nothing to feel bad about. What you have to ask yourself is how important this all is to you. Other than fear, is there anything else holding you back? Maybe, I don’t know, money or perhaps what others will think – your family or your children, for example?”

“That’s it, my children. They’ll hate me for it. I have, well I have done the sums, the money isn’t an issue. It’s the kids.”

“Have you tried talking to them?”

“What, telling them I will leave their mother and head off to Bali or Cancun or wherever? Are you crazy?”

“Perhaps it’s time to tell them. You may be surprised how supportive people can be if you are honest and open with them.”

I told him this was obviously very important to him, that otherwise he would not have come to talk to me. “What do you have to lose?” I asked him.

“Okay, I’ll talk to them,” he said, as he jotted down something in his notebook.

“Great, and how do you feel about everything now?”

“I’m really excited about it all. I think I can do this. I can tell my wife it’s over. She’ll be mad. She may even tell me I’ve lost it. But you know what, not doing anything about it will be worse. I just can’t carry on like this any longer.”

“Well, I think we’ve come to the end of our first session. See you next week again, the same time. On your way out just speak to Lucinda, the receptionist, she’ll slot you in.”

The next week I saw Jekyll again. We’d only had one session, but things were already moving. He told me how he’d spoken to his wife, said he wanted a divorce, that she had flipped out at him, shouting and ranting and going off, telling him he was crazy and that he wasn’t a kid anymore and had to act like someone with responsibilities. That next session he said he was worried that he’d been too rash. It had only been one session after all. But I told him that it was good to follow your heart, that he’d done the right thing. He’d started things without any delay. He must just focus on that island resort, fix that picture in his mind. I asked him if he had any tropical places in mind. He again ran off a short list: Bali, Tahiti, Bora Bora, St Kitts and Nevis, The Virgin Islands, Fiji. I told him that was good, that he should continue researching places and that as added inspiration he should consider sticking up pictures of these places at his office perhaps (I didn’t say his home, because I could already see his wife tearing them down, if she was even still staying there). Now, what about his kids, I asked him. Didn’t he think it was time to have a chat to them about his plans, before his wife got hold of them? He said I couldn’t be more right, that he was going to call them both up and try see them this evening at a bar or restaurant. He knew one near where he lived that had a Jamaican theme and served different island cocktails. It was perfect, didn’t I think? he asked. I nodded. For I knew how important I was to support the client in their journey to their new life.

By the next week he’d told the kids. They weren’t happy. But he had to stick to the plan, I told him. He was feeling better than ever and said that it already felt like he had a new life. I asked him when he was leaving the bank. He told me as soon as he’d booked his tickets. Where was he heading off to? It was a secret, he said. He’d send me a postcard from wherever it was he was going and that way I’d know where he’d landed up. I couldn’t believe the guy. So much so that at cocktail parties or get-togethers his was the story I’d regularly return to. My colleagues were fascinated by the story. But they always gave me that look like was I sure this was all real. For a second I too thought it couldn’t really be happening. And then he disappeared, just stopped coming. I imagined Jekyll out on some tropical island, reclining on a beach chair sipping one of those pink drinks with a pineapple speared through by one of those paper umbrellas, like the ones I often saw at one of the numerous cocktail parties I continued to attend, even after I left the hospital.

Well, I suppose by now you’re wondering how exactly I landed up in hospital and what Jekyll had to do with it, if anything. A few weeks after Jekyll disappeared I received a phone call. It was early January and I’d just got back to the office a few weeks before and was looking at a postcard that had come while I was away at our beach home with my wife Betty for the summer holidays. On the postcard stood a white sandy beach with behind it a turquoise sea and in the distance two lush fingers of land jutting out to form a bay. Palm trees framed the image on either side. I picked up the phone. The voice on the other end was that of a man, perhaps in his thirties or thereabouts, who said his name was Jethro. He mentioned that he’d got my number from an old acquaintance. I’d come highly recommended, he said. Well, could he come see me this week? He gave him a time on Friday afternoon, the last slot of the day. Putting the receiver down I picked up the postcard again and turned it over. There wasn’t a whole lot written there. I noticed that it was postmarked “Charlotte Amalie, Virgin Islands” and signed off as “yours, Peter (Jekyll)”. “Living the life. Thanks for all your help.”

A mild sense of satisfaction came over me to know that he’d gone through with it all, which was why I was surprised when that Friday a tall, well-built man strode into my office accompanied by a fierce-looking woman at his side. “My sister,” he said. “I’m sure you won’t mind if she joins us.” By some undersight I’d left the postcard propped up on my desk, perhaps because I liked the picture on it or because looking at it reminded me of a job well done with Jekyll. But really things may well have gone the same way even had it not been standing there.

We were really still busy introducing one another when Jethro shot up out of his chair and raced for my desk. Gripping the postcard and pointing to it, and imploring the woman with him, he began going on about what a fraud I was. He was fuming. It was then that I realised who he was. But I was too afraid to call out to my receptionist to intervene, in case this only made things worse. Instead I tried to get him to calm down.

Holding the postcard and jabbing it repeatedly as if to make a point, he said his father had led a simple, honest life until I’d got involved. Who did I think I was trying to involve myself in his family’s life? The woman was nodding and mumbling in agreement. I should have consulted them before encouraging him to take off to some island. Now he was out there spending his last money. Who did I think would have to go in and rescue him? the woman chimed in. Had I not thought this through before I’d advised him? There was hardly a chance to get a single word in. My receptionist says when she found me on the floor I was unconscious. The doctor said I must’ve hit my head against a table when I fell or was knocked down. I was lucky that it was only a few broken ribs and bruises, he said. I had to close my practice for a week while I spent time recovering and then I went to the police to lay charges.

As I’m sitting here I’m still shaking. A colleague says it’s just anxiety, that it’s natural. He asks me how long I think I can still go on practicing. At my age, isn’t it time to pack it all in and move to the sea? It’s a new year, he says. What I really need, he says, is a new life.