In my cardiology ward clerk job, I wore a dull-red smock with off-white polka dots. The spots on this paediatric smock are mint green. The background is strawberry-wafer pink. I will look like a walking cupcake as I approach the polished woman.

‘Okay, okay. I’m going.’ I grab the roll of blue paper towels we keep on a nearby shelf for such emergencies, then emerge from the shelter of the curved reception desk.

I squat in front of the woman. ‘You’re not burnt, I hope?’

She shakes her head no.

I offer her some paper towels and she begins to dab at her clothes while I wipe the floor. Trudy has marched across to direct this little scene and glower at the woman. I wouldn’t have imagined that somebody with curlicue hair like Shirley Temple’s could be intimidating, but Trudy is, despite being a mere one and a half metres tall. I know about Shirley Temple because my grandmother loves her, and endlessly watched her films.

‘No hot drinks allowed in Paediatric Outpatients,’ Trudy says. ‘Did you not see the signs?’

The woman stands, elegant and willowy beside Trudy. ‘I’m sorry. I was desperate for caffeine.’

The child is watching all of this with quiet fascination.

‘Children can be scalded by hot drinks. That is why there is a bin by the entrance,’ Trudy says.

‘I was tired,’ the woman says, ‘but that’s no excuse.’

Trudy softens, but to detect the softening you would need to be accustomed to monitoring every gradient of the human anger scale.

‘Come with me,’ Trudy says to the woman. ‘You need to book your daughter in and have her details checked.’

‘Let me grab her first.’ The woman moves towards the front of the pushchair to unfasten the child, who immediately begins to squirm.

‘Helen will watch her for a minute,’ Trudy says.

I am on my knees, mopping coffee. I straighten up, so my shins are resting on linoleum that is printed to resemble a giant jigsaw puzzle, and my bottom is on my heels. The little girl is staring at me, pursing her lips as if she is about to blow out birthday candles. Her hair is the colour of copper, the same shade mine used to be before I soaked it in black dye. It is baby fine, and her mother has arranged the front in a ponytail-spout above her forehead, to keep it out of her eyes. The spout is a white jet, and adorable on this child, though I wonder if her hair colour is a symptom of whatever medical condition has brought her to the paediatric unit today. Her skin is ivory perfect, though perhaps a bit too pale.

I glance at the mum, whose own hair is dark and artfully highlighted. It reaches the bottom of her neck. She pushes it behind her ears and says to me, ‘Is that okay?

‘Absolutely,’ I say, and she follows Trudy.