But suddenly the sky seemed to lighten and the diesel-heavy air of the car park softened and sighed in my ears. I could feel the gritty surface of the wall under my fingertips and hear the swish of traffic out on the dual carriageway. The stitching on the leather strap of my handbag was coming undone and I stared down at the tiny frayed ends of thread and the puckered edges of the stitch punctures. Real time and place blurred and swam almost out of my reach. It was one of those rare moments of extreme physical and mental awareness, when even the smallest incident seems to contain infinite richness and a profound meaning that only narrowly evades capture. I was wide awake, but I felt the altered dimensions of a dream world beckoning me. I swung my feet up on to the wall and rested my head on my bent knees. Behind my eyelids, in this quietness, I could talk to Ted and he to me. The dialogue had always been running back and forth between us, in this other place, the old skeins of angry words and bitter words tangled with the words of love and faith, which were the ones I wanted to hear and speak now.

We failed each other, I said, I you and you me, but it was not a failure on such a scale that we are apart now, today of all days.

I was still sitting there, caught up in my inner conversation, when the driver climbed back into his seat. He tooted his horn at me as he rolled away and at once I jerked back into ordinary awareness. I should be sitting at my father’s bedside instead of hovering out here with my mind freewheeling in space. I hurried across the car park and in through the revolving doors, past the coffee shop and gift stall, and took the lift up to the ward. In the airless, medical-scented atmosphere I already felt as if I had been at the hospital for days.

Ted was still asleep. His mouth had fallen open and his breath clicked faintly in his throat. I took my seat once more beside him but didn’t try to hold his hand in case I disturbed him.

The hours passed slowly. The nurse who looked in from time to time explained that he was connected up to monitors that were watched over at the nurses’ station. He was stable, he said, at present.