‘Shall we carry on?’ Maron asks softly, her awkwardness hanging in the air. But the reality hits me. I could be here for hours. Bonnie will never sit here for that long. Not with a dirty nappy. She should be potty trained, it’s my fault she isn’t. I tried a few months ago but it was awful. I don’t know when I’ll be able to face it again. I’m sure Maron is judging me for that.

‘Please get out,’ I say to her. ‘I need to get dressed.’ She does as I ask. I turn Bonnie back to face the wall and put my torn dress and thick black tights back on. One stupid wax strip’s worth of hair missing.

‘You ruined that for me,’ I snap at my child. My poor child, who didn’t ask to be here. Who is off her head on sugar, her bottom probably starting to sting. ‘Come on.’

Bonnie and I go back to reception. I strap her into her buggy, and with as much attitude as I can muster, I ask the receptionist how much I owe, accepting that I took up a reasonable amount of their time.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ says Maron, with a look of sympathy on her face. Sympathy that I do not want.

‘Do you want me to reschedule your appointment?’ the receptionist asks.

‘Is Vera coming back?’ I snap, making a point of being dissatisfied with the service.

‘No,’ she tells me.

‘Then no, absolutely not. I will take my loyalty elsewhere.’

I turn and push Bonnie out onto the street. I am still hairy and I have no childcare. This is so unbearably awful.

As I get down the street I wonder, how must that have looked? To be so afraid of my daughter seeing me without my clothes on that I tried to hide behind a bed?

Maron must think I am a lunatic.

Yet it isn’t her opinion that matters. Bonnie thinks I am cruel. I shout at her. I tell her not to look at me. I push her away emotionally, sometimes even physically, and all so I can hide inside the prison of my own body.

How is that any different to what my own mother did to me?

I’m not sure it is.

Beth

I read on the Cosmo website that love and desire are two separate things in a marriage. That love is the easy bit, but desire is the challenge when you spend a lot of time with someone. The trick is to keep desire going, and to do that you have to reinstate some mystery. A distraction from the thing they have become accustomed to. Something new that makes them see your body in a new and exciting way.