The consultant shot the nurse a look. The nurse looked down at her sensible shoes.

‘Does anyone know that I’m here?’ I thought of Alex. I sat up in bed again. ‘I must let my boyfriend know.’

‘I’ll get the list.’ The nurse seemed grateful for an excuse to move down the ward. There was a sudden commotion from the bed next door, the bed that I couldn’t see. Someone was crying, racked with terrible sobs. The noise made my blood freeze.

‘I think I might like to get up,’ I began, but the consultant was already swishing through those curtains. I knew I couldn’t stay here, not next to that wall of sound, that ascending wail. I tried to collect my thoughts. I’d go and find a phone, ring Alex to come and fetch me. Gingerly I swung my legs down to the cold floor. A pain like a cold sharp blade shot up through my left foot but I tried to ignore it. I must escape those sobs.

I managed to limp as far as the first double-doors before I thought the pain might actually make me sick. The nice nurse caught up with me as I leaned on the wall in agony, sat me on a furry old chair by the door and held my hand, just for a minute. A middle-aged couple rushed through the doors, the frizzy-haired woman pressing a tissue to her mouth to stop the tears, followed by a younger man, beanie hat pulled down against the weather, all glittery with silver raindrops. He dropped his phone as he passed; it clattered to the ground near my feet.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered, sweeping it up again. He saw the nurse. ‘We’re looking for my girlfriend? She was on the coach.’

‘Go to the desk.’ The nurse pointed back the way they’d come. ‘They’ve got the list.’

He rushed back through the doors without any more ado, the couple following behind. An old woman in the bed opposite started to groan. Oh God.

‘I need to ring my boyfriend,’ I whispered when I’d recovered enough to talk. ‘He’ll be so worried. I never stay out all night.’ Did I?

‘Go back to bed. I’ll bring you the phone.’ But then the nurse looked up the ward, at the other nurses flying back and forth between those pastel curtains and then at the crash-cart that came slamming through the doors, and she changed her mind. She wheeled the phone to me where I sat. And I tried very hard not to look at that bed, and concentrated on making the phone call.

It took me three attempts to remember my home number. First I got the voicemail for some curry-house in Dalston; then some very disgruntled old man whom I’d obviously just woken up.