‘I can see how you’d feel like that,’ Suzette says, and it takes Lucy a moment to register how Suzette can see her feeling. Stripped. Right. Yes, despite the tattoo she still does feel stripped. How could she not, on some level?

‘Have you ever thought about temporary prostheses?’ Suzette asks. ‘For instance, knitted prostheses?’

‘What?’ Lucy laughs.

‘I’m being serious.’ Suzette smiles. ‘They’re very popular among breast cancer survivors in America.’

‘Knitted prostheses,’ Lucy mulls. ‘So, like, you stick them in your bra?’

‘That’s right. What do you think of that idea?’

‘What do I think? Well it’s … I don’t know. It’s a bit of a cop-out or something, isn’t it? Like … they’d be so pretend. There’d be something so inauthentic about them.’

‘Isn’t all image inauthentic, but sometimes we’re more aware of it than at other times? Isn’t that what you’ve been saying, in part, today?’

‘Was that what I was saying?’ Lucy asks. But why wouldn’t you throw a dog a bone if you have a secret octopus tattoo? ‘I mean, I guess I kind of was,’ she offers. ‘Like how with clothes you sometimes feel authentically you, and other times less so, even though they’re the same clothes and you’re the same person wearing them.’

‘This is interesting, what you’ve said here, Lucy. “Sometimes you feel authentically you and other times less so.” Do you think that it’s possible to be and feel authentic and inauthentic simultaneously?’

Despite her faultless demeanour, Lucy’s starting to wonder about Suzette; she seems to be a little lacking in subtlety. Yet maybe that’s a psychologist’s job—to prod you where they want you to go? ‘I dunno. I suppose so,’ she says.

‘I have a suggestion. Given the sort of hands-on person you are, it could be cathartic for you to knit your own prosthetic breasts.’

‘You want me to knit myself a pair of breasts?’ Lucy asks, raising her eyebrows.

‘Hear me out.’ Suzette smiles. ‘The process of making them could help you acknowledge and accept, in a more practical way, what you already know: that your old breasts are gone and that any replacement will be just that—a replacement. You don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to. I think what will be more important is the process of making them. But if you try wearing them every now and then, on days when everything else is too much, and if they make you feel a bit better, I want you to say to yourself: “It’s okay to take the easy option sometimes.” Give yourself permission, Lucy. You might find that they feel too inauthentic. Or you might find they feel authentic even in their inauthenticity, and, really, it just doesn’t matter. Because what I’m thinking, Lucy, is that by knitting and wearing them whenever you feel like it, you’ll be taking back some semblance of control. I want you to try to think of them as clothes, not as body parts. Do you think you can do that, Lucy?’