‘Choice,’ he screamed. He stood over me as he stared down, white with rage. ‘What the fuck does she mean you chose not to know?’ He looked at Moran in desperation. ‘What the actual fuck, Sinéad? You CHOSE not to know? What the fuck?? Is this some sort of a fucking wind-up?’

Moran shook her head.

I was so glad they had shoved a tube in my throat and damaged my voice. I put my hand out to catch him, my finger, to grab some of his anger or something, like a mother puts out a tissue, but he hurled it back on the bed. So he could piss off with his anger and his shock.

Whose business was it anyway? Rhetorical question.

‘I don’t want to … I mean … I can’t actually even … touch you, sorry,’ he said. ‘I mean. Christ. Oh, Sinéad, love, oh, my God, look at the state you’ve got yourself in. Jesus Christ.’ It was the lines and tubes. They said Sick as Fuck. He pulled a sheet up around me, and then covered me with a quilt. Finally.

‘She doesn’t have cancer,’ he muttered finally. ‘She’s … a cold …’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Moran said to him, ‘but she choose to keep it to herself.’

His eyes widened and he frothed at the edges of his mouth. ‘Are you mad?’ he screamed. ‘You choose fucken kitchen blinds, and car hybrid engines. You CHOOSE a fucken takeaway. You even CHOOSE a bottle of wine. And my God, you’re good at that.’

Ouch.

‘Ah, no, they can’t be … It can’t be serious. This has to be some sort of wind-up?’

He was pacing to the toilet door and back. Jane was following him, turning just seconds after him at the doorway and re-entering the Ward like two demented soldiers.

‘It’s a joke … it is a joke, isn’t it? I mean … they just said Terminal.’

‘They did, correct,’ Jane said, fanning him, ‘terminal. Yes, that is indeed what they said.’

‘Maybe you need to calm down a little, this isn’t helping anyone,’ Moran offered, as Margaret Rose unscrewed a bottle of lemonade and offered it to Alex. He stared at her, then at the drink, bewildered.

‘They’re wrong, aren’t they? Aren’t they?’ Alex said to Jane, who continued to fan him.

‘Well, she’s very thin, I don’t think they’re wrong, but they’re good in here, though I have yet to locate the kitchen …’ she said, scanning the Ward. ‘I mean, they dressed me and I’m very happy now, you see … I’ve made new friends.’

He looked at her, puzzled, and put his hands up to his head and then down, and up and down – he repeated the same action over. ‘I mean, I’ve taken, I’ve been, I … I’ve booked our holidays … and see, we have a new fridge coming, and the kids have, the kids, you know, they’ve concerts, and Nathan has a thing in the aquarium with the seahorses. Nathan loves seahorses. And the fridge is great, it opens the other way, so it won’t be constantly banging at the door and I think you’ll like the way the hinges …’ He trailed off.