‘You’re right, I still have to fill out a form and send it to my boss to have time off for a bloody smear test. And I work at a feminist magazine! I’d like to think people would be more understanding – especially when it comes to women’s issues.’

‘I hope they will be. I’ve decided to basically close my practice and just take some of my top-paying clients from home – it’s been really nice actually.’

Isla had opened her own therapy practice four years ago and it was thriving. Word-of-mouth (and social media) recommendations counted for a lot these days so, when a famous Millennial author had recently written a book with a chapter on therapists, and had told her millions of Instagram followers about how great Isla was, literally overnight she was inundated with emails and texts from young, wealthy girls wanting the same magic fix. Isla had always been interested in the inner workings of other people’s minds, and she knew from an early age that she wanted to do something that involved talking about feelings. She called it ‘Headonism’, which was a shit pun the girls had all come up with at Jono’s years ago, but it stuck. It made sense: therapy had become much more normalized now, at least with women in their late twenties and thirties. ‘Off to see my therapist!’ was the new ‘Off to get a haircut!’ If anything, you were weird if you didn’t have one these days.

Isla pours herself more fake beer, dribbling some onto the grass, and gets herself in a different comfortable position on her front.

‘So this woman came to see me the other day. Obviously I can’t use her real name or anything – let’s call her Marnie. She had paid the premium amount that comes with last-minute bookings, she sounded desperate, so I agreed to do it. I asked her to fill out a form online beforehand, which had some big questions on such as, “What’s your relationship like with your parents?” to “Have you ever been in a traumatic environment?” She left most of it blank, so I had no idea what she was coming for.’

‘Right,’ I nod, chewing on a grape.

‘This was a first session, so it was technically a chemistry meeting, getting to know each other and generally having a warm-up session, but she seemed very adamant that she wanted to dive on in. She had been struggling to come to terms with the fact that she had recently had an abortion, and the deep feelings of regret that followed shortly afterwards were haunting her. She’d had the termination at seven weeks and, immediately after the operation, she just wanted to make a U-turn. Marnie kept saying she wanted her baby back. She said she couldn’t leave the house. She couldn’t be around anyone. She cried at everything. She was worried that she was innately bad. That she might kill someone else.’

‘Wow, poor woman.’

‘I know. But I really struggled to find my empathy, Olive. “Poor her” wasn’t my immediate reaction, and it really scared me. I tried to cover it up but I felt my face get hot in the session. I was so angry. I would do anything to get pregnant. And there this woman was, opening up to me and paying me to give her zero judgement. I wanted to call her an idiot.’