The rhythm of the ventilator: beat beat suck; beat beat suck. She’d been lying to herself when she’d said she’d understood the situation, even on a superficial level. She hadn’t at all.

The pressure in her chest was intensifying – she tried to take a breath and couldn’t. She coughed and then she started to keen, a sound dragged from the bottom of her lungs. Her chest heaved as if she’d been sprinting. She pushed the chair away from the bed, buried her face in her knees, covered her mouth. She tried to bring it under control – head down, steady your breathing, Steady Your Breathing – but she couldn’t do it; the sound, the movement, were whooping, self-perpetuating, like the states Lennie had used to get into as a toddler, when nothing worked except crying herself out.

The bar of light from the doorway widened then narrowed again – the guard, the nurse, she didn’t see. Stop it! Christine’s voice, hissing, shaming. Stop it, Robin. Get yourself under control! What will people think? You’re hysterical! Could Peter hear her? Or the other children on the ward, injured and ill, scared by this crazy woman weeping in the night?

She should have known – why hadn’t she? The black eye – there had been a warning. It didn’t matter that Corinna hadn’t told her; she’d always known when something was going on in Robin’s life, she hadn’t needed to be told. But when Corinna had needed her, Robin hadn’t been there.

She was aware of movement in the room now and again, a rustle of paper, wheels as a monitor was rolled closer or further away. At some point, the nurse lowered the rail and she dropped her face into the blanket. She flinched at a hand on her shoulder but it stayed there, steadying.

She cried for Peter, she cried for Corinna and Josh. She cried for herself. Finally, exhausted, she stopped and let her eyes close.

She jerked up to find herself drooling, the pristine blanket smeared with mascara. How long had she been out? Minutes? Hours? She pulled up her cuff and scrubbed at the marks, trying not to disturb Peter’s arm.

‘It happens, don’t worry about it,’ said a voice from the gloom behind the bed. The nurse, replacing one of the bags on the IV stand. ‘It’ll be changed in the morning, no harm done. Better that you let some of it out.’

Robin stood up. Her back and neck ached, and her legs were stiff. She backed away a few steps as if she’d just staggered off a boat.

‘Take care of yourself,’ said the woman quietly. ‘Go home and get into bed.’