The researcher drapes the towel over the front of Kerry’s red velvet dress, which makes her breasts look even bigger. I look away. They torture me, make me forget we’re meant to be friends. I must find out which part of the brain is responsible. It might help me feel less dirty.

The powder smells of vanilla and musk, though the musk might be caused by other people’s sebum. Kerry’s face is now tangerine, but she looks older, more together.

If only I could go back to how I felt about her before we started sixth form. Finding her attractive is inconvenient. No, it’s agonizing. Sometimes I think we’d make an excellent couple, in the future, but other times I catch her looking at me as though she can’t stand the sight of me.

‘You next.’

‘Don’t you have professionals to do this?’ I ask.

‘The presenters do. And the famous people. But you’re kids,’ the researcher says. She’s only a few years older than we are. ‘This is your fifteen minutes of fame. Enjoy it while it lasts’

I close my eyes as the powder rains down on my face, trying not to inhale. When I open my eyes again, my skin is matte in the mirror, like the corpses in my Edwardian anatomy book. It’s not surprising no one fancies me.

‘Now you . . . ah.’ The researcher looks down at the orangey shade of the make-up and back up at Joel’s ghostly face. She’s only just realized how ridiculous the shade will look on him. ‘You can probably go without.’

I bet the TV people will like that. The sicker he looks, the better the story.

Joel shrugs. He doesn’t seem to care about anything, certainly not being in a TV studio to talk about being the Millennium Miracle.

They’ve put in an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, which will give him an instant shock if he suffers another arrhythmia. It’s incredible technology, and I’ve been trying to talk Kerry into asking Joel to let me take a look, but she says I’m being ghoulish. Which is not true: surely it’d only be ghoulish if he was actually dead.

I talked about the ICD when I went for my interview at Sussex Med School. That, and the resuscitation and my involvement, and how it had confirmed how strongly I feel about becoming a doctor. I’m pretty sure it tipped the balance. But I still have to get the grades and while hard work gets you Bs, only brilliant minds like Kerry’s are guaranteed triple As.

‘Once we get onto the studio floor, please keep as quiet as possible because we’re broadcasting live,’ the researcher says.