I grin. ‘You wanna see a really nasty tackle?’ Even as I start to unbutton my pyjama top, I’m beginning to regret it. But I’ve committed now. I pull the two sides apart to show them my chest. ‘I woke up thinking I’d done ten rounds with Tyson.’

But they don’t laugh, they cringe. My torso is black and blue and purple and green, like Joseph’s Technicolor dream coat.

Murray pulls a face. ‘That must have hurt.’

I’m about to tell him I didn’t feel a thing because I’d been dead at the time, but I stop the words coming out. ‘No big deal. I’ll be back on the pitch before you know it.’

Coley is still staring at my chest. ‘You can’t rush getting fit again, all right, Joel?’

He’s never used my first name before. At the club, apprentices are treated worse than squaddies. In our first year, they broke us down – cleaning the bogs, skivvying for the adult players. This year, they’re building us back up again as footballing automata. We put up with it because nothing in the world feels as incredible as playing.

Coley’s eyes meet mine, and a flash of understanding passes between us.

I put on my best determined face. ‘Sure, coach. But I won’t let you down. The game is everything to me.’

‘All right, Greenaway. However long it takes, we’ll wait for you.’

Chapter 9: Kerry

12 January 2000

‘No one is looking. But you’ve got to hurry!’

Blood rushes in my ears as Joel scuttles out of the bay behind me, towards the double doors.

I don’t want him to leave the safety of the ward, but if I don’t help, he’s threatened to sneak out alone, and I can’t risk that. Plus, I need him to trust me tonight.

The nurses are distracted by undertaking painstaking surgery on a lemon drizzle cake brought in by someone’s relative. They don’t see us dash along the corridor and into the emergency stairwell. We’re planning to walk down to the WRVS cafe together.

Except now he’s panting like a pensioner on eighty fags a day. ‘Maybe we should take the lift after all,’ I say.

He doesn’t even have the puff to argue, so we wait for him to get his breath back. We’re on the fifth floor and I stand guard next to the top step, so if Joel does collapse, at least he won’t tumble down the stairs.

This is the new me: ready for action. In the dinner queue, on the bus, at Churchill Square Shopping Centre, I scan the people nearby for signs of imminent cardiac arrest.