All Because of You

by Melissa Hill

  Almost instantly, Glenn seemed to perk up. “Oh right, Natalie, is it? How are you?”

  “I’m good! How are you?” she replied cheerily. “I hope I didn’t wake you – you sounded a bit sleepy when you answered.”

  Glenn yawned again. “Well, I was on a late shift last night, but not to –”

  “Oh, silly me, I’m very sorry,” Natalie blustered. “I had no idea.”

  “Not to worry.” Then, when she didn’t say anything else, he said, “Erm, did you want to speak to Tara?”

  “Oh goodness, yes, sorry – that’s why I was ringing in the first place. Is she free?”

  “I’m not sure – she might be with a client. No – hold on – she’s just come into the room. Hey,” he said then, and Natalie knew he was talking to Tara, “it’s for you – that good-looking English girl we met on holidays.”

  Natalie raised an eyebrow at this description of her, but quickly lowered it again when she heard Tara on the other end of the line.

  “Natalie? Hi, how are you?” The other woman seemed pleased, but also a little perplexed, to hear from her. People exchanged phone numbers all the time on holiday with no real intention of keeping in touch, Natalie knew, and most of the time they were never to be heard from again.

  But this was different, and just then Natalie realised that meeting Tara in Egypt like that might not have been accidental. Their paths had almost certainly crossed for a very good reason. It was a heartening thought and one that convinced Natalie beyond doubt that she was doing the right thing.

  “I’m good – and you?” she replied. “How was your flight home? Great holiday, wasn’t it?”

  “Brilliant – I’m still telling people about our Cairo trip,” Tara said warmly. “And the flight was fine – long, but fine. How are things with you? It’s good to hear from you.”

  “Well, it’s great to talk to you too, although I must admit that I have an ulterior motive for calling.”

  “Oh?”

  “Tara, I wanted to ask for your help.”

  “My help with what?”

  “With my love life!” Natalie blurted, dying to tell her everything. She hadn’t bothered telling Freya about Jay – no doubt her friend would be too wrapped up in her own life to care. “I’ve just met the most amazing man, who I think could really be the one and I don’t want to –”

  “Whoah, hold on a minute,” Tara interjected. “What about Steve – the guy you told me was the love of your life, the one who was just about to propose?” Then she paused for a moment. “Or did you decide to dump him after he’d bowed out of the holiday?”

  “Well, no, not exactly.” Natalie wasn’t about to go into the shameful details of her multiple text messages or indeed Steve’s “psycho bunny-boiler” comments – not when she’d already convinced Tara that he’d been the man of her dreams. “I think we both realised that it just wasn’t meant to be, in the end,” she said with a deep sigh. “So I told him it would be better to move on.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “But it doesn’t matter because I’m over it now, and the other night I met the most amazing man and he’s taking me out to dinner on Friday night!”

  “Well, that’s wonderful, Natalie. I’m delighted you and Steve sorted things out so amicably. If you don’t mind my saying so, I had a feeling from what you were telling me that he might not have been the right man for you.”

  “Did you?” Natalie wrinkled her forehead. She didn’t know where Tara had got that idea. Maybe she wasn’t all that good at this relationship lark after all, she realised, her heart sinking.

  No, that was being stupid. Tara was a life coach for goodness sake and from what Natalie could tell, a very good one at that. She remembered how she’d so admired the other woman for the calm, controlled and serene way she seemed to live her life. And in the end Tara had been right, hadn’t she? Steve obviously wasn’t the man for her and Tara had seen that way before Natalie had. So, yes, of course she had made the right decision in getting Tara on board to help with Jay. Although she wasn’t actually on board yet because she had yet to ask her . . .

  “Well, I didn’t want to say anything but it did seem as though you and Steve wanted different things,” Tara went on. “Anyway, I’m pleased you found someone else. I never doubted for a second that you would.”

  “Thanks, Tara. Oh . . . can you hold on for a second? I’ve a call coming through on the other line.”

  Hoping it might be Jay, Natalie decided to take the call, but was sorry she did when it turned out to be one of the brats from Blast whining about the lack of press interest in their latest release. The cheek of the child, ringing her directly! Natalie would certainly have a word with his manager about that! After listening to his rants for a minute or two, she eventually fobbed him off and returned to Tara.

  “Hi – sorry about that – that was just some spotty boy-band member I handle, who thinks he should be treated like a rock god just because he’s got his nose pierced. Ozzie Osborne, he isn’t,” she added wryly. “Anyway . . . oh, God, are you still there?”

  There was a smile in Tara’s voice. “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Good. Now, where was I? Oh yes, as I was saying, I’ve met this new guy now – an Irish guy! Well, he grew up somewhere in Ireland, so obviously I immediately thought of you and decided you’d be the ideal person to help me!”

  “Help you with what?”

  “Well, with making this relationship work,” Natalie replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.”

  “But how can I help with –”

  “Because you’re Irish, of course! You know how Irishmen’s minds work.”

  “Natalie, I really don’t think –”

  “Please, Tara,” Natalie interjected before the other girl could say any more, “I really want the relationship to work – I need this relationship to work. I can’t mess it up.” Then suspecting that she might as well come clean, Natalie sighed. “Look, Tara, I haven’t exactly been honest with you. I didn’t ditch Steve – he ditched me.”

  “Oh, I’m very sorry about that, Natalie.”

  “He told me I was needy and stifling! God only knows where he got that idea,” she said huffily. “And, Tara, he called me a sodding bunny-boiler!” There it was out, and surprisingly, Natalie felt liberated.

  If this was going to work Tara needed to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. She needed to know exactly what kind of raw material she had to work with if she was to help Natalie get this dating lark right. So she might have been full-on and stifling when it came to Steve, but she was trying to change, wasn’t she?

  “Gobshite,” Tara replied in that lovely Irish brogue of hers. “No wonder he didn’t reply to your text messages.”

  Then, for a split second Natalie wondered whether Tara meant that she and not Steve was the “gobshite” in question.

  “Well, maybe I overdid it on the text messages,” she said quickly.

  “How? You sent him what – two or three in an entire week?”

  “Um, thirteen actually,” Natalie clarified meekly.

  “Oh.”

  “It was a bit much, I suppose.”

  Tara seemed at a loss what to say. “I suppose it must have been.”

  “So, Tara, this is why I’m phoning you now. I don’t want to make the same mistakes with Jay as I did with Steve or any of my old boyfriends. I don’t want to frighten him away, nor do I want to act too cool and distant either. It’s like in that Goldilocks story, I want to get this one just right. And I want you to coach me how to do it.”

  “You want me to coach you? But Natalie, there are hundreds of relationship coaches in London that you could use and –”

  “I want you, Tara. As I said, Jay’s Irish, as you are, so you’ll know better than most how Irish guys’ minds work. You’re perfect for this. And,” she added quickly, “I suppose I don’t want everyone in London knowing that I’m taking dating advice. I know it’s silly, but –” />
  “Well, of course – I can understand that, but still –”

  “Please, Tara,” Natalie interjected plaintively, “I really need you to help me do this. My love life has been a disaster for so long, and no matter what I do, I always seem to get it wrong. Now I’m thirty-two years old and evidently I haven’t learnt anything. I need help.”

  “I know but, the thing is, I’m not convinced that what I do exactly suits your needs. I usually help people work through emotional problems and –”

  “But this is an emotional problem!” Natalie interjected, now decidedly harried. “To be honest, I’m getting quite emotional as we speak. I want this to work!”

  There was a brief silence at the other end, and Natalie worried that she’d said too much.

  “Look,” she said, softening her tone considerably, “there’s no point in my muddling along forever and messing things up even further, is there? That would be foolish. I need to get this problem sorted.”

  “Yes, but it’s not that simple.”

  “Tara, if I’m carrying a few pounds, I get them lipo’ed, if I spot a few wrinkles, I get them botoxed, so why should this be any different? At our age, I’m sure you know as well as I do that holding onto our looks is as much a battle as holding on to a relationship. And as one mostly depends on the other, I have to do something!”

  Tara laughed. “I’ve never heard it put quite like that, but you sound very sure.”

  “I’m sure, Tara. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  Tara seemed to be thinking about it. “It’s not usually the way I operate, Natalie. Coaching has a very defined mode of operation and just because he’s Irish doesn’t mean I can –”

  “Tara, I just need some help!” Natalie cried. “I just need some guidelines as to how the hell I should handle this! And if you don’t help me, I don’t know who can!”

  “Well, what about your girlfriends?”

  “They don’t care,” Natalie groaned. “They’re all too busy with their own lives and their own relationships. None of them have been on the scene for years, and they’re bored with me and my relationship problems.” Natalie was silent for the moment. “Will you help me, Tara?” she then asked, her voice plaintive. “Because I really can’t afford to fuck this up.”

  “But you said you barely know this fella Jay – how do you know he’s worth all this?”

  “Well, I suppose I don’t know that yet, but for once, I’d like to give it a fighting chance. I’ve been trying to get it right for so long and failing that I don’t know what right is any more. I’m either too full-on or too indifferent or –”

  “I should tell you that I’m no expert either, and I can only go on what you tell me –”

  “You’d be fantastic – I know it. And obviously I’d pay whatever rates you charge like any normal customer –”

  “Well, we can work all that out some other time,” Tara interjected, “but –

  “So you will help me then?” Natalie cried gleefully. “You’ll help me with this, coach me on how to properly handle Jay?”

  “Well, if you’re sure you really want this, then I’ll certainly try,” Tara finished, with the resigned tone of someone who was seriously wondering what on earth she’d let herself in for.

  Chapter 18

  Tara settled herself comfortably on the couch and tucked her legs beneath her. It was the following afternoon, and she and Natalie were having their first telephone coaching session.

  In all her years in coaching, she had never come across someone like Natalie, someone who seemed to know exactly what she wanted. Usually, her clients’ main problems were that they didn’t know what they wanted, and this could only be discovered by gently discussing the workings of their lives and eventually coaxing out their ultimate ambitions. Then, having come to this realisation, the coaching process could begin, and once they’d achieved their aims, her clients generally went off and did their own thing. Tara had never yet been approached by someone who already knew exactly what he or she wanted and simply wanted her help in achieving it. Which meant that her usual more rigid coaching methods had to go straight out the window.

  Tara had begun by asking Natalie some background information about her relationship history so far and was quite frankly shocked at what she’d heard.

  It was pretty obvious from the outset that Natalie had been incredibly (almost scarily) full-on with her previous boyfriends. In fact, it was horrifying how quickly she pushed on, trying to bring the relationship further in order to achieve her ultimate aim – a ring on her finger.

  “So you’ve already decided that this Jay person might be the one,” Tara said, keeping her voice neutral. “Do you feel you already know enough about him to make a judgement like that?”

  “Probably not,” Natalie replied sheepishly. “I’m just going on how he makes me feel.”

  “OK, so he makes you feel good – why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it’s because even though I know I like him and he likes me, I still don’t know where it will all go from here.”

  “And that excites you?”

  “Yes.”

  “More than Jay himself?”

  “Well . . . well, yes and no.”

  “Yes and no?”

  “I mean, yes, of course Jay excites me, but the idea that this could really be the right man for me excites me just as much.”

  “Just as much – or more?”

  “Oh, Tara, I bloody well wish you’d just come right out and say what you think!” Natalie said irritably. “All these questions are getting us nowhere.”

  “That’s how coaching works, Natalie. You’re the one with the answers – not me.”

  But she decided to change tack and, rather than talk about Jay, proceeded to talk some more about Natalie’s previous relationships. “Tell me, why do you think your other relationships haven’t lasted the course?” she asked casually. “That they haven’t resulted in the proposal you wanted?”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking about that,” Natalie replied solemnly.

  Tara couldn’t help but smile at her earnestness. When faced with a question like that women often blamed themselves – their weight, their clothes, their attractiveness. But, she suspected, not this woman.

  “I suppose some men might be quite frightened of me. Now, not wanting to blow my own trumpet here, but, as you know, I’m very successful in what I do. I have my own place here in London, a fantastic social life, lots of good friends and a bloody great lifestyle. So when it comes to men, perhaps I’m not really giving off the right vibes – you know, the ‘nicey-wifey’ type vibes. I think I might be too self-sufficient, too independent for them to think seriously about marrying me. And that’s what I’ve been trying to change.”

  Tara thought for a moment before speaking. “OK, so you treat the entire process like a piece of PR then?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you just admitted that you think that you, the real you, isn’t doing the job. You think men are threatened by you. So you consciously try to change that.”

  “I suppose I do, yes.”

  “So if you try to control the way the man you’re with thinks about you, you don’t really behave like yourself around men then, do you?”

  “What? Of course I do!”

  “No, you don’t. Maybe you think you do, but, Natalie, from what you’re telling me, you don’t. Don’t you think that’s a strange irony? That you’re so focused on directing the relationship where you want it to go that you don’t seem to focus on whether or not you actually want it – or if you’re really enjoying it? You said that you went to a cricket game with some guy, even though you hate cricket?”

  “Well, yes. But relationships are all about give and take, aren’t they?”

  “Of course they are, but didn’t this imply that you were prepared to sacrifice your own enjoyment simply to take the relationship to the next level?”

  “I suppose tha
t could be true. But it didn’t matter – I had nothing else on so . . .” The rest of her sentence trailed off.

  “Still, by doing this, you effectively compromised your own enjoyment in the hope of moving the relationship forward. How did you know that you even liked this man enough to want to settle down with him?”

  “I suppose I didn’t,” Natalie said simply.

  “OK, then,” Tara clarified, “from what you’ve told me, you meet a man, start going out with him and then do your utmost to push the relationship to where you want to get it. You don’t seem to believe in letting things just run their course and go where they will. Instead, you’re determined to direct proceedings – yes?”

  “But I can’t afford to just wait around for things to happen!” Natalie argued. “That’s not in my nature.”

  “I know, but think about what you’re really doing. Aren’t you trying to control and manipulate your relationships in the same way you try to control and manipulate your clients? Don’t get me wrong, I can completely understand why you do it, but the important thing is that it’s not yielding the results you want.”

  On the other end of the line, Natalie was silent.

  Tara went on softly. “Natalie, don’t you think that you’re so obsessed with your long-term goal – that is, the ring on your finger – that you haven’t given any thought to what will happen after that? Tell you what, let’s imagine that one day you do achieve that goal – how will you feel then?”

  “I’ll be the happiest woman alive!” Natalie joked, but Tara sensed there was truth behind her words.

  “Happy that you’ve found a man you really love and that you can happily spend the rest of your life with? Or happy because you’ve finally got the ring on your finger? Have you ever really thought about what might happen after that, Natalie?”

  “Not really,” she admitted shamefully.

  “Look, I’m sorry if this sounds harsh to you, but the point I’m trying to get across is that you need to think seriously about what happens after the ring and the big white wedding. You need to think long-term. My advice for when you meet this guy Jay on Friday night would be to try your utmost to put the long-term aim out of your mind. Try and decide if you actually like him or enjoy spending time in his company. If all you focus on is whether or not he might be the one, you’ve lost the battle.”