Margaret Rose lay on top of her bedcovers, smiling as she read. ‘Nice yar back.’ One eye was on the magazine, the other flickering about me, going from my eyes to my abdomen and back up again. The kitchen staff had left a tray in my absence, white doily, glass of milk, jam patties, butter patties, plastic small containers for drugs, and my blood-thinning shot, urine test pots.

‘Ya able far that?’ she asked, nodding at the tray. ‘How’d it go? You all right, loveen? Ya look a bit shook, if ya don’na mind me saying?’

I nodded.

‘Ya sure, pet? Ya OK?’

I nodded again.

‘They’re very noisy those scanners. Tell ya the truth, I don’na like them, they’re frightening.’

She came over and tucked me into bed, and rubbed my hair back off my face.

‘Look, love, there’s lots to think about. Ya have upset yar Alex, though, badly. Ya nade ta fix it. Did they let you see anything on their faces? Good or bad … in the scanner?’ Margaret Rose asked. ‘Did they look bothered?’

I shook my head.

They didn’t look at me at all.

Norah Jones had sung out, and the local hourly news had come on Galway Bay FM, with its talk of death and new roads and a new Ireland I had forgotten all about, as I lay there, encased and listening to the news of others and how they had died. Road accidents, war, early spring swimming.

Margaret Rose put my phone into my hand and climbed back into her bed.

‘Send him a text. It’ll get him outta yar head and ya can rest.’

She moved back to her own ringing Nokia, looking for my approval to take the call. I nodded. Any distraction.

The dinner arrived. It was always arriving.

No, I didn’t want any ice cream or fruit or fruit yogurt or fruit ice cream as I had missed the lamb stew.

No, no, I didn’t want prunes.

I shook my head.

No, I didn’t want another glass of warm milk.

No, I didn’t want any jelly.

Yes, I do feel awful that these are at worst my own first-world problems.

Yes, I am a cunt.

Yes, I am more than aware that we are all terminal cases.

Yes, I do feel awful and no, sometimes I don’t have the correct words.

Yes, when I find the correct words, you’ll all be the first to know. If I can ever speak again.

Thank you very much.

I have lost my voice and I don’t think I ever want to find it again. But what I really wanted to say just then, was that being dead doesn’t scare me, in fact I give it very little thought. Dying does. Those few moments. They terrify me.

The in-between.

Fuck.

Margaret Rose looked refreshed after her phone chat and tucked into a cold lamb stew, finishing it off with prunes and ice cream and then asked for some custard, for she said that anything cooked for you is better than anything you have to cook for yourself. A few bowls later and both lips were now dancing in synchronicity. She smiled over at me as she turned up her radio and began to sing along to Tammy Wynette’s ‘Stand By Your Man’.