‘I’ll be fine once I get back to the blood and gore in A & E.’

‘What if you could have blood, gore and helicopters?’

‘Nah, I looked at the air ambulance years ago, you have to be a grizzled old consultant or army medic to do that.’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s changed. I read it in the BMJ mag. Pre-Hospital Emergency Medicine is becoming a specialty in its own right. Adrenaline, zero hierarchy. No long-term relationships with patients. Your dream job.’

I google it on my phone. He’s right. As I read the role specification, my mind is already whirring with the things I’d have to work on to get my application to stand out: my physical stamina and strength, my portfolio, my commitment to the specialty.

There are only a handful of places available each year, and I don’t tick all the boxes.

Yet.

Even though the new, improved Robodoc is more touchy-feely, she’s still bloody-minded. As soon as I’m home I’ll start a list of what I must do to become the inevitable candidate.

I work hard, but start to play hard too. I meet Marek on a team night out the following spring – something I’d have endured, not enjoyed, before counselling. It’s a light and sound show in the woods, very Brighton. The installations are hidden amongst the trees – giant birds with ethereal voices, a harp that plays itself, the strings being pressed by invisible fingers.

‘Someone fancies Kerry . . .’ one of the F1s says in a sing-song voice that’s loud enough to be heard all the way back to the hospital.

‘Bullshit.’

But I look up and . . . she might be right. That guy is staring at me, and I don’t think he’s an ex-patient I’ve sewn up wrong.

The man is too pretty for me, with an Edward from Twilight vibe, tall with very dark hair and skin so pale in the blue lights that I’d be getting him X-rays for TB if he’d just walked into the department.

He walks over before I have time to hide behind an exhibit. ‘Do you like the show?’

‘It’s fun,’ I say. ‘You?’

‘Fun. Yes. I think it would be more fun if I could walk around with you? I’m Marek.’

I am about to say a polite no – I’m with work people, after all. But instead I say, ‘Kerry. Yes, tag along.’

As we walk through the glades, he tells me he’s Polish and he’s in Brighton for a week looking for somewhere to live, before he takes up a position in the Archaeology Department at the university.

‘Permanent?’

‘Two academic years only.’

I’m relieved. Whatever this is – and I know already that it is something – mustn’t distract me from my work. I imagine Earl leaning back in his IKEA counselling chair and wagging his finger at me. I laugh.