People are let go all the time; ninety-nine per cent of apprentices don’t make the grade because of injuries or attitude or lack of talent. But not me. I am the one per cent. Everyone knows it.

Rossiter stares at me for a moment. ‘With a metal box in your belly? Even if we wanted to get you back out there, our insurers wouldn’t allow it.’

I shake my head. ‘I’m indestructible now. I’ll outlive the rest of you.’ A doctor told me that when I’m ninety and at death’s door, someone will have to turn the thing off, or it’d keep shocking me back to life. I’m about to explain when Rossiter sighs and puts his hand on my arm.

‘Son, do you know the average speed a football travels at? Over seventy miles per hour. The top speed recorded is one hundred and fourteen miles per hour. David Hirst, four years ago. That’d catapult your bloody pacemaker through your ribcage and halfway across the stadium.’

‘The doctors must have told you, Joel,’ Coley says.

I feel something hot as lava building inside me. Rage. Rage at what they’ve said, rage at the decision being made without me, rage at this whole thing that’s happened to me . . .

‘Told me what?’

‘That this thing you’ve had put in is not compatible with professional sport.’

‘No. I wouldn’t have had the operation if they had.’

‘Maybe you’ve forgotten,’ Coley adds. ‘Your dad told us you were having help with your memory.’

I want to rip the stitches apart and yank the fucking ICD out. I’ll do anything for one last chance.

Rossiter pulls on his leather gloves, the wanky kind with holes on top. ‘Joel, I’m as disappointed as you are. You were one of the most talented players I’ve ever seen. But chin up, lad. Give the campaign some thought. You don’t have to be playing to keep football in your life.’

I don’t move as he leaves, and Coley follows him out of the room.

‘They never told me, I swear,’ I say to Diane. ‘Nobody told me.’

She shrugs. ‘The doctors never told my aunty she was dying, either. Nobody wanted to be the one to say it out loud.’

My scar burns, my head throbs. Am I really the only person who didn’t understand? My life did end in 1999. Tim and Kerry should have walked away and let me die on the Lawns . . .

That would be better than this.

I see Kerry’s face, hear her voice, that afternoon in the chippie when we talked about the operation. I can almost smell stale fat and feel the vinegar stinging my fingers as she says, It’s got to be your best shot.

Did she know it was a lie?

Would she have done that to me?