‘Hello, Mr Barwell,’ I say as I walk into the room, having first checked that he doesn’t have any other visitors and knocking lightly on the door. I’m disappointed to see that Will isn’t there, but I realise that he’s probably off sorting out his affairs before moving down to look after his father.

Mr Barwell is sitting up in bed, a copy of The Times spread out in front of him and a pencil in his right hand, frowning at the crossword.

‘Coke and Rum initially served in saloon,’ he says without raising his eyes. ‘Of course, how stupid of me. Coke and Rum initially is the first letter of each word, which makes Car, of which saloon is a type.’ He fills in the letters with a flourish before raising his eyes to look at me quizzically. ‘I’m sorry, you look familiar but I can’t place you.’

‘I’m Tilly,’ I tell him. ‘I was one of the nurses who treated you when you came in yesterday.’

His face clears. ‘Of course you are. Sorry. I, umm, wasn’t exactly at my best. Thank you for everything you did. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I am to have put you all to so much trouble. Please, take a seat if you’d like to and you have time. How come you’re not wearing your uniform?’

‘I’m not on duty,’ I tell him. ‘I just wanted to call by and see how you were.’

‘That’s extremely kind of you. I’m as well as can be expected, I suppose. They’ve taken so much blood out of me for all the various tests that I’m starting to think they have more of it than I do. They’re worried about liver damage, apparently, and that I might be cuckoo.’ He taps the side of his head. ‘A very nice man came to see me this morning and left behind a questionnaire. I started to fill it in, but there’s pages of it, all about how well I sleep, whether I’ve had suicidal thoughts before and so on. I tried to explain to him that it was a one-off moment of madness, but he wasn’t having any of it.’

‘They are thorough,’ I agree. ‘But they mean well, I promise.’

‘Yes, well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?’ he says with a smile. ‘You’re all in cahoots.’

‘I prefer to think of it as a holistic approach,’ I counter. ‘It’s no good fixing you up physically and then releasing you if you’re still broken emotionally, is it? You’ll just end up back here and you might not be so lucky next time. Plus, there’s lots of support we can put in place for you, to make things easier for you when you go home.’