Caroline

De Pijp is where she starts from, and twenty-nine years have taught her to ask about movement before she asks about anything else. Which side you sleep on, whether kneeling is out, how you get up from low furniture: four lines in a message settle all of it. She is a brunette who works in Spanish and English, and she writes back in short practical sentences rather than long reassuring ones. None of this is a treatment and no relief of any kind is claimed for it. The hour is arranged so a sore part of you is left alone, and that is the whole of it.

Caroline decides which bookings she takes and may decline any of them; she sets the limits for what a session includes, says what they are, and may end a visit at any point, as the terms set out.