‘No.’ I shook my head.

‘I’m sorry, I just hear them at station this morning, when they giving us the orders, always hearing, hearing always hearing. So sorry.’

Margaret Rose was under her running shower. Steam crept out beneath the door.

Jane had fallen back asleep after her morning salutations and revelries.

Suddenly like slaying spectators, numerous teams of doctors descended on our peace.

clip-clop clip-clop. winks. pinches. oh, but no, you doctor. oh, no, but you doctor. my my. oh phelbbbbbbbbotomy. you know. and blood. you know. iPhones. clip clop clip clop.

Ms Jo Moran looked more delicate than usual, and was without her Cosmo as she made her way to the edge of my bed. Her followers swarmed behind her, glancing this way and that. One young intern whose Ted Baker glasses had fogged up, tripped over her and she shrieked out like a kitten. He wiped his lenses on his tie and then let them fall to the floor. He would never make it. Hegs coughed loudly and they all threw a fast glance at him, like a mother at her son in Tesco’s to have manners, leave the sweets back.

They shut my curtain around themselves.

‘So, how are you today?’ Ms Jo Moran asked.

She repeated the question and Ted Baker lifted my headphones out of my ears and clean off my head, without permission. He began rolling them in his hand. All business. Fuck. I had him wrong. ‘You gave us a right fright yesterday, but great you’ve no tube … that’s great. It was your heart more so, and not so much the lungs … but still we’re concerned …’ Ms Jo Moran said, with lispy emphasis on ‘still’.

Speak Up. For Fuck’s Sake. Speak Up. But it was no use, nothing was happening. I apologised. Again. No one heard me.

Some head consultant arrived, late to the party, partially shaven, leaving behind an odd clit-tickler under his chin. Looking for bloods and age and occupation again, over and over again this diagnosis of my socio-economic situation, my diet habits, my childhood trauma, and anything else that could make that picture society needs to see. He directed none of his questions to me. How society can help me succeed, or not succeed. He’d met me before. But forgotten. And before. Forgotten that time too.

‘You’re reading, I see, do you like reading?’ First look at my eyes. ‘I like reading. But never have time. You know,’ he said, tapping his stethoscope. Pretend-pleasant, to feel himself more connected, and more at ease, but he wasn’t letting me in on the secret destruction of my own body. He broke eye contact. Those were secrets they kept to themselves. If he only knew I was just beginning to trust books again, and he wouldn’t fuck this up on me. I reimagined the canals, the waterways, and the salmon – their journey. He leaned his shoulder towards the canary-yellow neck of Ms Jo Moran’s cashmere turtleneck and looked at my belly, then he noted a long list of instructions, his chin moving down and up. ‘We’re going to order another scan, how’s the pressure in the abdomen, do you mind if I?’ as he laid his cold hand on my gown. I could feel my knickerless bottom on the bed. Please don’t roll me over. ‘Hmmm. And maybe another abdo scan, if that’s all right with you?’ he said. ‘Shouldn’t be too long, though that said, we can’t be sure there won’t be a big RTA on the M6 and then you’re not a priority, are you?’