‘I’ll put you down as conscious responsive,’ she says brightly and starts to check my pulse with a plastic clip she attaches to my index finger.

‘Well, we’re just going to run you up the road for a quick once-over at the hospital. With head injuries it’s always better to be safe.’

I pull my finger from the clip and get to my feet. All this commotion, the flashing lights, the noise, it is all making me queasy, dizzy.

‘Do you need my consent?’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘But the sensible thing for you would be to—’

‘Great,’ I say, wrapping my coat around me. ‘Then I’m not going.’

7

Wednesday

I sit perched on the edge of a hospital bed as a nurse swabs around my head. She disappears and then returns with a small surgical-looking pack. Her eyes are so blue. If I had managed a few more steps before my legs gave way again, I wouldn’t be here.

‘Just going to pop some stitches in that for you,’ she says. Her tone is chirpy, chirrupy even; designed to neutralise fear.

‘Hopefully, it won’t scar too much, my love. Just hold still. There.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t necessary really.’

‘Actually, that was a bleeder, that one there. You’d have got it all over your clothes,’ she says. By the time her thoughts have caught up with her voice, it’s too late. She pretends that my clothes would have been worse for a bit of bloodstaining.

My jeans were in decent condition when I pulled them out of a recycle bin at the supermarket. Clothes seem to be turned out nearly new these days – rejected just to make cupboard space. This large red-checked shirt wasn’t missing a button when I found it. And this grey jumper, ridiculously, is cashmere, from my life before. I keep it because it’s warm – there’s no room for sentiment. My greatcoat is from a charity shop. It was a bitter winter, colder than this one when I went in with a little begged money, looking for socks. I came out with this coat, heavy, woollen. The staff took pity on me and I was too cold to be proud.

‘So have you got far to be getting home to?’ she says as she works away.

She stops suddenly and closes her eyes slowly.

‘Well, the world’s my mattress,’ I say, as brightly as I can. I wince and the paper on this gurney tears as I shift on it.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘Is there nowhere you can go, for a night even?’ she adds as she finishes up.