First the two forearm bones were joined with stainless-steel plates at just the right length. Next, twenty-three separate tendons needed to be attached with the correct tension balance back to front to allow the hand to operate—too tight at the back and the hand wouldn’t close, too tight at the front and it would be a permanently useless clawed fist. Then the multitude of nerves had to be joined, with no convenient colour-coding to show which had to be connected to which. And finally all the blood vessels—arteries and veins, right down to the capillaries, some of them less than half a millimetre across—were sewn together under a microscope using thread much finer than a human hair. Only then could the skin be finally closed. And all of it done at an icy temperature to keep the hand ‘fresh’.

One doesn’t realise how the human hand does far more than allow you to stick two fingers up at the motorist who cuts you off at a roundabout or indicate that you are ‘okay’ by touching your thumb to your index finger. A hand has the grasp and strength to swing on a trapeze or to brandish a sword, but also the precision of touch to pick up a stray needle or play Scott Joplin ragtime on the piano. It can be an organ of sight, reading Braille for the blind, and what would sex be without a sensual touch?

Except that Marina hadn’t found my touch sensual, at least not with that left hand. Quite the reverse.

I had known that she didn’t much like looking at the scars, lumps and bumps on my forearm, so I had taken to wearing a thin tubular flesh-coloured bandage, even to bed.

In spite of the surgeon’s best efforts, the skin tones were not an exact match, with my new wrist and hand somewhat paler than further up my arm. It was a mixture of strange sensations—the hand felt and behaved like my own, but it didn’t quite look the part.

I had to admit that I might have been insensitive to how the differences in appearance may have affected the way Marina regarded it.

Each potential transplant recipient undergoes a series of intense psychological tests to discover whether they are a suitable candidate. The whole series of probing questions is designed to reveal any potential future emotional problems.

Perhaps they should also submit the patient’s partner to the same examination.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ Charles asked, bringing me back to the present.

‘What can I do?’ I asked.

‘Well, you could go after her to Holland and beg, but I’m not sure it would work, especially if there is someone else.’

‘It wouldn’t work either way.’