In here. In this room with my mother. Not going outside.

And she had nodded and smiled.

OK!

My limbs were stiff and unyielding but they improved. And finally one day, my back taut and protesting, I sat up on the edge of the bed, the pale blue gown open at the back. I looked at my dangling legs for the first time in months. They were ivory white with scars running here and there. They looked pitiful and thin because they were. These were not the legs of a summer-Devon Merboy. I felt my chin trembling, my mouth working, and I cried with shame, with self-pity. My mother came round the bed and gently wrapped her arms round me, held my head against her breasts, and through my misery I could feel hers. The first time in months that I had thought of someone else.

Soon I was shuffling a few steps, and sitting in a chair, my back padded by water-filled cushions. And then they began to come into my Aladdin’s cave — the psychologists, the physiotherapists, the surgeons, the ear specialists, to try to persuade Merboy to emerge from his shell. They measured me, tested me, goaded me to do more, to push harder, they tried to make me mind, little by little. The eye specialist — a stern, tall man with grey beard and steel glasses - came with his equipment and motioned for me to sit without even introducing himself with a note. This stung me and for the first time I decided to show off, slipping from my bed and limping to the seat as well as I was able, my back creaking in protest. I was in place before my mother made it half-way round the bed to help me. I looked at her and she smiled, for the first time since my birthday. It was horrible to see the way her mouth was pulled sideways by the small gatherings of skin stitched together to compensate for the tears. But it was a smile I became used to, even though my mother learned quickly to hide it with her hand. When he had finished the tests the Eye Man looked at me gravely and held out his hand for my notebook.

John — I have to report that you have the sharpest eyesight I have ever come across. You could see the needle in the haystack.

Eye Man handed it to me and his sudden smile dazzled me.

One day, five months after I had arrived on the stretcher, maddened by damage, a short, plump young doctor, without a white coat, wearing a spotted red and white bow-tie and red braces, came into my cave, saluted me and sat on the edge of the bed. He had his own notebook and he wrote:

Hello John, Tm Harry. How do you feel today?

OK

That’s good. You’re doing very well. You’re the big success story of Tommy’s.

Who’s Tommy?

It’s the name of the hospital. St Thomas’. Tell me, what do you like doing best?