She gasps, loudly.

‘Please do not say such things inside my clinic, Olive. We deal in positive energies here, and such dark thoughts about sterility will not be tolerated. We will not have negative omens brought into this space. I have a lot of women who come through these doors who desperately want children. And I am their only hope. We must always think positively!’

‘But this is the whole point: I think you’re being pretty insensitive to my feelings.’ Many women’s feelings.

‘I’m sorry to say it Olive, but it is insensitive of you when so many women are struggling hugely with conceiving. Women whose eggs have not frozen properly. Bodies and wombs that aren’t working. You have a healthy womb, I can sense it.’ She closes her eyes and stretches out her palms. ‘You have nothing to complain about. You’re pursuing needless drama.’

‘Hey,’ I say, stepping back. ‘Stop visualizing my womb. That’s private.’ I put my hands over my stomach area.

‘Look, I understand. But you have to understand that your feelings of not wanting a child will never be as important as a woman who desperately wants one but can’t.’ I feel guilty again for even being here. Cyril is describing women like Isla.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘The women I meet, who want kids, or have miscarriages, those are the women that our society needs to support. These women who come through my door desperate for my help. The women who have lost partners because they can’t conceive, the women who have suffered multiple miscarriages and are putting themselves at risk, the women with illnesses, the women who are desperately grieving and coming to terms with having missed their biological window to have a baby. You will be fine; you have made an active decision. You will go on holidays and live your own life. Statistically, you will live longer and be richer than women with children! You will do as you please. We must think of those women whose lives are on hold until they have a child. It is their dream. And it is my dream to help them.’

I gulp. ‘Well,’ I know I sound defensive, but my mouth keeps moving, ‘how do you know that there aren’t women out there, like me, suffering with the fact that they feel a bit like an outcast?’

‘What you are talking about is loneliness. Loneliness can be cured. But it does not compare to the desperate women I help and tend to in my clinic. These are vulnerable women.’

I am hot with rage. I don’t know if I’m angry because Cyril is so right, or so very wrong.

I get out my Dictaphone and start to talk into it as I walk to the bus stop. Ranting, asking rhetorical questions, describing what just happened. I’m sure I could write a piece on this. On Cyril.

‘Olive recording. Part two, notes. Research Cyril back story. Why do homeopath fertility experts rub me up the wrong way? Is it because their position makes me feel inferior and jealous? Because deep down I wish I was “normal”? Interview some of her past clients – see what they say. Has she ever convinced someone that they want kids, when deep down they might not? Do we not care about women with no maternal feelings in society? Must we change them? Or disregard them? What did I like about Cyril? What did I not like? Unpick own emotion vs what factually went on in the room.’