But Mrs Marshall is looking at me hopefully. ‘Let her have a go, doctor. In for a penny.’

‘You have no authorization,’ he says. Yet I can tell the last thing he wants is to try again. This was the part Tim hated most too.

‘I won’t tell,’ Mrs Marshall says, her voice desperate and determined. She reminds me so much of Elaine.

I start to pull on blue gloves before I prep the collection tube. My pulse speeds up. I could probably be booted off the course for this. Why I am taking this risk?

Mrs Marshall is why.

Hanna shakes her head slightly when I look up and I ignore her. The vein is pale but I can see where the needle has to go. ‘Sharp scratch,’ I say to my patient and the point of the needle touches the faint line of blue and . . .

Blood begins to fill the Vacutainer. Mrs Marshall and the F1 exhale simultaneously. The liquid is defiantly crimson, the colour of life.

‘All yours,’ I say to the F1 as I place the filled vial back in the dish. ‘Beginner’s luck, eh?’

Now I feel it: that buzz. Knowing I made a difference to this patient. In this small way, I relieved suffering.

‘Not a word to anyone,’ he says, gaining everyone’s silent assent.

As I tape cotton wool to the inside of Mrs Marshall’s elbow, she touches my fingers with her other hand. ‘Beginner’s luck my arse, love. You can come back.’

No one says anything about it for the rest of the day, though on the coach home, someone starts singing ‘Bleeding Love’.

And the next day, Hanna informs me I have acquired a nickname: Dr Vampire.

Chapter 50: Joel

30 March 2011

By the time I come round from the operation to replace my ICD, I’ve had over four hundred get-well messages, and my YouTube subscribers have trebled to almost 12,000.

‘You’re trending,’ Mum says.

It wasn’t part of my grand plan. I almost didn’t post anything at all, but I wasn’t sure how long I’d be offline and I knew some of my younger followers might worry.

So last night, I did a little video talking about my ‘magic gadget’ – showing the relative sizes of the one that was inside me and the one that was going to replace it, using a pack of cards for my old one and a matchbox for the new, supercharged version.

The videos were Dad’s idea, a way to grow my training business after I finished my sports science degree. I only agreed to it to help him. He’s run out of chances in mainstream TV, so has rebranded himself as a digital talent agent, and needed to show his skills because, according to him, people nattering inanely on YouTube is the future of broadcasting.