Margaret Rose Sherlock loved the soda bread. Hegs loved it too, though his daughter never allowed him to put butter on it, and consequently he found it difficult to swallow dry, coughing loudly and irritatingly as he ate. Jane refused Hospital food and searched her purple holdall for half a beef burger patty that she had upon her entry to Accident and Emergency. She looked for it with such fervour and a fixed determination that I was certain if she could locate it, it would indeed save her life and give us all a boost.

Shane was nil-by-mouth.

The butter in Hospital was real and straight from a factory in teeny gold-foiled patties.

‘More coffee?’ Michal offered.

‘I’d like some,’ Margaret Rose said, but Michal ignored her, as he continued to pour for me in a highly exaggerated action. I was determined to keep Margaret Rose on side and offered her my cup. She declined with a gracious hand wave and turned her head away. The coffee came with an ivory plastic wand. No silver spoons, no chink-clink of cutlery. But it was, for all intents and purposes, a luxury item, and one of the last things I could stomach, so I didn’t care. Or complain.

‘They were stealing the teaspoons,’ Michal said, reading me.

‘Who? The patients?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘and they think Polish are stealing everything. They blame Polish for everything, y’know? But it’s not just Polish, it’s everyone, stealing, Irish stealing too …’ he said, glancing quickly at the floor. ‘And in maternity they’d steal anything, yuss? It gets way more crazy up there. The hormones … turning them into mad stealers.’

‘Fuck,’ I said, ‘really … d’you think the hormones turn them into kleptomaniacs? Nesting?’

Michal considered this. ‘Hmm, maybe. Perhaps. I dunno.’

Jane began tightly rolling herself in my curtain, waving her long arms above her head, then she swan-dived forwards and clapped her own performance. I clapped too, like when a baby does something slightly dangerous but exciting.

‘No sure why all the stealing …’ Michal said, still mulling it over, as he began unravelling Jane like a roll of new carpet. Jane Lohan hadn’t had one single visitor during her time on the Ward and Margaret Rose said that this was very sad for a woman with nine children, a husband and a dog.

I received some cards and texts from the boys. Mostly lines of emojis. Turds, cherries, hearts, soccer balls, cats, laughing faces, pizzas at dinnertime. I sent back salad and fruit emojis. They’d return a green vomit face. And for as long as Alex remained innocent I could chat to him about silly things, emojis, nail varnish colours, Jane’s dog.

I balanced/bargained my avoidance of opening up, being honest, with Google statistics on death, reckoning death most often comes as a shock, crossing the road, lighting the fire, swimming, getting on a train (getting off a train), slipping out of the bath, shower falls, airway obstruction from boiled sweets, allergies, drowning, taking selfies, feeding the cat, slipping out the back door, removing a wasp nest, dropping the boot of your car on your head, masturbating in an aeroplane toilet, glueing your nostrils shut. I figured, the way the world works, Alex could very well be gone before me.