‘Penny Bridge,’ she said, into the buzzer microphone at the front door. ‘Here for a 9 a.m. initial consultation.’
‘Come in Penny,’ a sober voice said at the other end. ‘We’re upstairs and to the left.’
The lock sounded and Penny pushed her way through into the terraced townhouse that, from the outside, could have been somebody’s home. On the other side of the door, though, it gave itself away as a corporate space, furnished with carpet tiles, strip lighting, and a fire extinguisher. It was chilly. Penny gingerly climbed the stairs, found the waiting room, and took a seat. On the table in the middle were various leaflets.
Post-Traumatic Stress and You.
You Don’t Have to Do This Alone.
CBT and Psychoanalysis: What’s The Difference?
A woman with short grey hair sat flipping through a copy of HELLO! and a student in a hoodie sat picking at the skin around his fingernails. Penny felt as if everyone was looking at her, assessing what her secret might be, but she was doing exactly the same in return. She wondered if the woman was weathering a divorce after years of putting up with a husband who never appreciated her. Maybe the student had questions about his sexuality. What would they say if they knew what Penny’s problem was? Oh, boo-hoo, you had three men fighting over you? How awful.
‘Penny?’ a woman said, appearing in the doorway. Penny stood and followed her into a stark room painted cream, with a cream sofa and a cream chair Penny recognized immediately as IKEA. There was a small table beside the sofa with a box of tissues on it. She couldn’t see a clock.
‘Can I get you a cup of tea, or some water?’ said the woman, who wore a name badge that read ‘Christina.’
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ said Penny, sitting on the sofa. ‘Thank you.’
Christina nodded. ‘And what brings you here today? This is our first time together, so I’ll be making notes as we talk. Is that okay?’
Penny nodded.
‘Thank you,’ Christina smiled. ‘So. What’s on your mind?’
Penny thought about how to begin. With Uncle David? Francesco?
‘Everything just feels a bit of a mess,’ she settled on, which was as good a summary as any. ‘And I’m having a hard time untangling myself from it, I think.’
‘Okay,’ said Christina, her voice slow, her tone neutral. ‘In what way does it all feel a bit of a mess?’
Penny shrugged. ‘I just don’t feel very happy, I suppose,’ she said, and saying that out loud to a stranger made her voice crack, like it had done when she’d talked to Clementine and Rima and Charlie. ‘And I don’t know what to do about it.’
Christina nodded. Her eyes were sympathetic but her face didn’t give away any kind of feeling about what Penny was saying.
‘That sounds like it would be a very heavy thing to carry around with you,’ she said.
‘It is,’ Penny said.
Christina let that hang in the air. She wasn’t desperate, it seemed to Penny, to drive the conversation forward at all or fill in the gaps after Penny had spoken. It made Penny nervous. Was she supposed to keep talking? Or was Christina just thinking about what to say next? When Penny had been to counselling throughout the cancer it was a bit more talkative than this, a bit more informal. Christina didn’t seem to want to go in for the role of a Chatty Cathy.
‘I feel like I’m letting everyone down,’ Penny continued, the thought just occurring to her in the space Christina’s silence had made. ‘I rely on my sister too much, and don’t support my uncle enough – he’s basically my dad, because dad left. Mum died. And I’ve been sleeping around a bit. Not sleeping around – god, this isn’t nineteen-fifty – but maybe I’ve been farming my self-worth out to men, like they might make me feel like it all makes more sense, or something. I don’t know. My friend Francesco said I was hurting people. He said he loved me, but then he said he changed his mind because he couldn’t love somebody who hurt people. Do I sound like a sociopath? Wait. Is sociopath the one who manipulates people? Maybe I mean psychopath? Narcissist?’
More silence.
‘Penny,’ said Christina, after a beat. ‘Can I ask you one question? You don’t have to answer it now. It can be your homework, in fact, if you think you’d like to continue with these sessions.’
Penny wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue – they hadn’t really done anything. Penny had basically come and recited a monologue for forty-five minutes and paid thirty pounds for the privilege. She could have done that on a voice note.
‘Okay,’ Penny said, uncertainly. ‘What’s the question?’
‘My question is this,’ said Christina. ‘What is it that you want?’
Penny blinked. What was it that she wanted?
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I want to be happy, obviously. That’s why I’m here.’
Christina smiled.
‘Take some time. Maybe go for a walk, or for a coffee on your own. Sit with your feelings. And ask yourself: what is it that I want? Because I suspect you already know the answer, and that really, you’re here for permission to want it. Most people are. But that’s okay. We can work on that together. First – just spend some time with the question, okay?’
Penny nodded. ‘Okay.’
Penny exited the townhouse and blinked in the morning sun. The showers from earlier had cleared, and her first instinct was to pull out her phone to record a Personal Podcast for her sister, but then she thought better of it.
Go for a walk, or for a coffee.
Penny texted Manuela and asked if she’d be okay setting up for service without her. It was a Tuesday, and it was still only 9.30 a.m. Manuela texted back right away, saying: no problem. Penny put some more money in the parking meter and looked around. She didn’t know this part of town very well, so it was a case of picking a direction and following her nose. She looked across the road at a tree-lined avenue that seemed to have signs of life at the other end. She walked.
The cool air felt good against her face – Penny hadn’t realized how warm she’d gotten at the therapy centre, like her emotions had been pressed up against her skin, asking for a way out. She tried to focus on the sensations in her body over the thoughts in her mind, but that lasted all of ten minutes before her tummy rumbled – she hadn’t had breakfast. She pushed through the door of the first café she saw, ordered a coffee and a croissant, and slipped into the window seat right as another woman was leaving. The woman smiled at her.
‘Enjoy,’ she said, even though Penny didn’t know her.
‘Thanks,’ Penny replied, slipping off her coat.
Penny sat in the coffee shop, cradling her oat milk latte and alternating between watching the hum-drum of the café play out, and idly watching the world pass by.
She thought of Bridges. The café she was in was similar, but bigger. Behind the counter was a young woman who looked as much of an art graduate as Stuart always had, managing to steam milk and grind beans and find extra ice when the other woman – plainer, more serious, her Levi’s so high-rise they almost reached her chest – navigated the till. People moved in and out. Two women in Lycra leggings debated loudly about sharing a scone, a middle-aged man with a very tiny dog ordered two almond croissants that looked crunchy and crispy and delicious enough to make Penny wonder if she should get one, too – even though she’d already had a chocolate one – and at one point a red-headed man in chef’s whites and an apron came out of the kitchen door carrying two plates of eggs.
‘Sorry, Aaron,’ the serious-looking girl said. ‘We had a rush on.’
‘It’s alright,’ said the chef, delivering the food to a couple sat looking at a laptop screen together, pointing at things and musing over numbers and colours.
Penny missed Bridges, and ached to be back there soon. She had to admit, she’d enjoyed Derbyshire more than she thought she would – Penny knew she’d improved her skills, and her ability to manage a team. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d done it. Apart from Uncle David falling ill in the first place, she wouldn’t change having been there. It made her appreciate the life she’d made in London all the more, and it had been pretty fun, in the end, until it wasn’t. What did she want? She wanted to be back in London, living the life she had designed for herself and not the one her uncle had given her, the one she’d felt powerless to refuse.
She thought about Francesco. If she’d never had to come to The Red Panda, would they have stayed together all this time? Penny weighed it up. It was entirely possible that they would still have tortured each other, still caused one another pain. Before she’d met him she was about to start a family, on her own, happily. He’d confused things. Without him, it made her path to parenthood clear. She could go back to the original plan. She was going to do it alone before him – why not do it now he’d gone?
As if on cue, outside on the pavement a mother stopped with her toddler in a pram, another child attached to a board at the back, similar to a skateboard attached width-ways, so he didn’t have to walk. The older child hopped off and bent down to pick something up off the ground, and therein commenced a seemingly rather intense discussion with his mother about something that made Penny understand that the mum was taking it all very seriously, when what was being discussed was undoubtedly not very serious at all. The kid came up to her knees. It was hardly world economic policy they were dissecting. The love in her face was like a punch to the heart for Penny.
A family.
Kids.
She ran a hand over her stomach. It seemed wildly unfair that she’d never know what it was to carry her own child, but at least she had her embryos. She also had a sister who, once upon a time, had offered to help.
Penny wanted it, deeply. In her late teens and early twenties, becoming a parent had never really occurred to her. And when the choice was made for her with the cancer, the early menopause, and having the biological right taken away from her, it had all made her realize how much she did want it.
She looked around the café. Yes, she missed her own. And more that, what she missed was something she hadn’t actually yet known. A child. Motherhood. Babies and toddlers and prams and serious discussions about what had just been picked up off the pavement.
The issue outside of the window was resolved and the little boy hopped back onto the two wheels behind the pram so his mother could keep pushing.
That’s what I want, Penny thought to herself. And I want it now.
Her eyes welled up with the knowledge of it.
Yup, she thought. I really do.
She’d put everything on hold for The Red Panda. For her sick uncle, who had given her everything. She’d done her duty. She’d even had a little excitement on the way – and, of course, a little heartbreak. That was life. But Penny wanted her agency back, now. She wanted to take back control.
I can’t believe I’ve buried this feeling all year, she texted Clementine as she finished her coffee. I’m ready, she said. My time here is almost up, and I know what I want next. I don’t care about a man. I want that baby!