Hannah locks herself in the bathroom and stares at her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks are flushed, but her lips are pale and set in a tight line. What is she doing here? She has a strange, uneasy sense that she has been summoned here, or that she has summoned the woman from the depths of her subconscious mind—that this woman holds some unearthly power, that if she goes back into that cold room, she might never come out again, might never leave this cheerless place. She uses the toilet, flushes, and washes her hands with the small, hard sliver of soap. In the hallway she hesitates—there is still time to run.

But the woman is waiting. She holds out her hands for Hannah’s coat, which she hangs on the back of the door. “Hop up then,” she says again, gesturing to the table.

Hannah slips off her shoes and complies. It is cold. Should she tell her how cold it is in here? The woman is wrapped up in her cardigan, but Hannah is only wearing her work dress. She pulls the blanket around her knees. It crackles and sticks to her tights.

“So,” says the woman, her head to one side. “What brings you here?”

Hannah’s lips are dry. She licks them. “It was strange. For you to approach me—and—and—this is unlike me, very unlike me, but I just felt compelled to call.”

The woman nods. “I sensed it,” she says.

“Sensed what?” says Hannah.

“Your need.”

“Need for what?”

The woman pauses, shifts in her seat. “A child.”

“Ah,” says Hannah, and then falls silent, her skin prickling with anticipation, with fear.

“Tell me,” the woman says.

“I— We’ve been trying. For a long time. For three years, and nothing. And then we started IVF. And I got pregnant. And lost the baby. And then we tried again. The IVF. And now my husband has left.”

The woman nods, as though none of this surprises her.

“Sometimes,” says Hannah, “I feel cursed. I don’t know why I should be cursed.” She is babbling now, gibberish. “I try and be good.” The woman is staring. Hannah is silent a moment, then, “It’s cold,” she says.

The woman gets up and turns the radiator dial a notch. “I have the heating off in the day.”

“Don’t you heat it up? When you have clients? Patients?”

“They usually like the blankets,” the woman says.

“Oh.”

“Would you like another?”

She looks down at the shiny, unpleasant blanket over her knees. “No.”

The woman rolls up her sleeves. She takes Hannah’s calves in her hands. Her palms are not warm. “All right,” she says. “I’m going to work on you now.”

“Work on me?”

“Just lean back and relax.”