Stop. It’s not a thing that needs thinking of right now. The thing that she is thinking of is the experience of sleeping in a strange bed, a strange room, strange building. Not even considering how disturbing it is to be surrounded by all these people: nurses constantly grabbing at you to check this, adjust that; and the other patients, all of them seemingly on different schedules so that the minute after one finally stops the yapping or moaning another starts; and then the visitors who cry or laugh or drone on and bloody on about the most banal bullshit. An hour or so ago there was an old fella somewhere out of her line of sight who would not shut up about a book he was reading. Napoleon this and Nelson that and in between ten different lectures about ten different warships. Normally she’d have yelled at him to pipe down and give ’em all some peace but the fall has knocked the boldness out of her. She feels too small and exposed as it is. A newborn kitten, defenceless against the loud, bright, hugeness of the world.

‘That’s hospitals for you,’ the nice nurse—Kon—says breezily when she complains about the racket. She realises that not only has she not slept away from home in over fifteen years but she has never had a hospital stay. When she was born, she supposes, but not in her recallable life.

Miraculous that she never ended up here as a kid, when you think of all the out-of-date food, car rides with drunk drivers and no seatbelts, scavenged bikes without helmets, cigarettes left to burn out in the living room ashtray, father with a temper enough to kill a man. Lucky, but not so surprising, to have avoided it since. Or unlucky and quite surprising if you consider the reason most women her age had at least one stay in hospital.

Michelle had been in those two times, at least: Will, a tough little sweetheart from the first. Barely cried or fussed from the minute he popped out. Once, when he was a couple of months old, Michelle had come around for a cuppa with Nic and Mum. Will was such a good sleeper, they slid his carrier under the table while they drank tea and chatted. When it was time for Michelle to leave, none of them remembered the new fella, left him sleeping out of sight. Poor Michelle had been in a mad panic, roaring back in after ten minutes to find Nic and Mum watching telly, oblivious to the little bub, awake but silently smiling away under the table still. God, they’d laughed about it later, when Will was old enough to laugh along with them. No trouble at all, this one. You’d forget he was even there. Literally!