‘Are you cold? Let’s move away from the door,’ you said, and wheeled me to the other side of the waiting room.

With the man out of sight, I sipped on my tea to raise my blood sugar, as you advised.

‘You know, a fear of blood is common. It’s physiological.’

‘Yes . . . I’ve always been like this. Since a kid.’

But I hadn’t. I hadn’t at all.

I learnt a lot about you during that hour. Some of which I hadn’t already found out from the internet. The fact you’d moved into your flat a year ago. Another family heirloom. Your father wanted to sell it, but you convinced him to keep it because you loved the Georgian architecture and huge windows. It still looked like you’d just moved in – bare walls, no curtains (though you hated curtains). It still didn’t feel like home. Nowhere had felt like home for a long time. You missed your brother, who had emigrated to New Zealand, you believed to escape your father, whom you both hated.

‘Why would you hate your father?’

‘Oh . . . it’s complicated.’

You tried to read a classic novel every month. Currently Great Expectations. You watched too much TV and played poker every Tuesday night at your friend Paul’s house. It was the only time Tanya, his controlling wife, was out of the way, as she visited her parents Monday through to Wednesday because they were old and losing it, but you wished it happened on Fridays because you don’t get in until well gone eleven, which wasn’t ideal for school nights.

‘Every Tuesday? You must be a good player by now. Show me your poker face.’

You did and I laughed. Then employed my own to disguise how appealing I found it.

You loved to travel and detailed some places you’d been. Thailand was your favourite destination. Followed by Peru. I told you I hadn’t been anywhere apart from Benidorm and London. Unless you count Llandudno.

‘You should come out to Thailand with me. You’d love it, I swear.’

You know, Samuel, you really shouldn’t say things like that to people. Not if you don’t mean them.

‘Can I let you into a secret, Constance?’

I nodded. Unable to look you in the eye.

‘I don’t like hospitals either.’

I laughed. ‘What do you mean, you don’t like hospitals? You’re a doctor.’

‘I know. You’re right. I was just trying to make you feel better . . . Anyway, enough about me. What about you? What about your folks?’

A nurse shouted my name.

As you know, it wasn’t broken. Just badly torn ligaments and bruising. I was gushing words of relief as you wheeled me down the corridor, my crutches in hand. But as we approached the exit, a tall, blonde female doctor was walking towards us and you hurriedly turned off down a side corridor and stopped.