David was sitting on his own near the front, with three sandwiches in a neat stack. He waved away the ripple of acknowledgement as if he hadn’t done anything particularly special. For some reason, Tara found that annoying. He could at least pretend to look modest. Two thank-you cards, in the space of two days? What was he, some kind of magician? Was he hypnotizing clients?

To compound Tara’s annoyance, Hero gazed at David, tilting her head in a sort of benign yoga blessing, while he maintained an awkward semi-eye contact, as if he wasn’t sure if she was performing some official kind of religious benediction. Tara had never imagined there could be a hand gesture more annoying than air-hook inverted commas, but Hero’s humble namaste bowing – which everyone seemed to be taking up now – took the gluten-free biscuit.

Jacqueline cleared her throat to continue. Tara wondered if there would be a note from Amy and Don Bishop, a couple she’d ‘signed off’ before the floods, after nearly a year of working through Amy’s affair with their financial advisor. It had been a gruelling process that had turned up a lot of old grievances, and Amy and Don’s combined obstinacy had stretched her professional ingenuity to its limits. Tara had been surprised but pleased when Amy had announced she felt they were at a point where they could carry on the rebuilding process on their own, and stopped rebooking appointments. She had a folder in her top drawer with every personal note she’d received from clients over the eight years she’d been qualified, and it would be nice to add the Bishops to it.

But instead Jacqueline swept on with one of her familiar meeting-punctuating phrases; this one was the phrase that signalled the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the lecture. ‘Of course, we’re a team here at the Centre so let’s take a moment to applaud everyone for their positive contribution.’ She started clapping, file clamped under her arm, and everyone joined in, albeit in a less enthusiastic way than before. Tara managed three claps and across the room her CBT colleague Emily raised her forefingers in a discreet ‘one nil’ gesture. Emily kept a beady-eyed tally on the thank-you cards, and the split between what she called ‘the docs and the quacks’.

‘Now then!’ Jacqueline beamed round the room. ‘I’m delighted to say that Kasia will be talking to us today about a vital element of everyone’s practice – self-care. Over to you, Kasia!’

She stepped back, and a tall blonde stood up in front of the carved oak frieze depicting a bountiful if geographically suspect harvest scene resplendent with hops, grapes, pomegranates and sheep. Kasia was holding two teddy bears and an orange, which looked ominously like props.