‘Just a suggestion, Lily. And as I say, I can’t talk specifics, but what I can say is that I think your daughter’s a wonderful young woman who is wrestling her demons with a lot of courage.’

‘I didn’t say she wasn’t wonderful,’ I snapped. ‘I love my daughter very much.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ she said.

She was like some infuriating troll in a fairy tale, refusing to let me cross a bridge until I solved some impossible riddle. I tried to breathe, to calm my mounting fury.

‘I just don’t know if this…’ – my hands flung out into her ridiculous room unbidden – ‘if working with you, is actually helping her get happier. That’s all I want. For my daughter to be happy. My feelings – my emotions – are irrelevant.’

‘Right.’

‘A world in which she doesn’t want to spend Christmas…’ – I could hear my voice rising, sharp as a knife, and I tried to blunt it – ‘with her own family, I just don’t see how that can be right.’

Amber’s look of sympathy – or was it pity? – was more than I could bear.

‘Christmas is such a triggering time, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘All those expectations we have about it. Wanting it to be perfect. Look perfect.’

That sly suggestion of my superficiality – I hoped my expression told her I hadn’t missed it.

‘I want my family to be together, under the same roof, where they belong. Like any mother would.’

A horrible thought occurred to me: did this appalling woman know what roof my daughter was spending Christmas under, when I didn’t? She continued in her infuriating sing-song drone.

‘It’s hard sometimes, isn’t it, to accept the fact that what our children want – what they need – is different from what we want.’

I forced myself to take a breath.

‘Do you have children, Amber?’

Something crossed her face, disturbed that implacable calm she’d so carefully cultivated. Of course it did – even Amber wasn’t made of stone. It didn’t worry me then, it simply gave me a nasty jolt of satisfaction, like a rat in a lab successfully nudging his furry nose against the cocaine lever.

‘I can’t reveal personal information to you, Lily. I’m sure you know that.’

‘What – is it the first rule of therapist’s club?’ I shot back.

She refused to smile.

‘It’s one of the many ways I keep my clients safe.’

‘So you think it’s right what she’s doing? Rejecting us?’

She placed her hands deliberately on her denim knees, as if she was trying to push down the rising tension.

‘It’s not about what I think. My job is to support her.’

‘What, so if she was about to hurl herself off Hammersmith Bridge, your job would just be to support her? That’s a ridiculous statement!’