‘What’s his name again?’ she leans in so Margaret won’t hear her.

‘George.’

‘Ok, George. Shall we take a walk? Shall we go somewhere a bit quieter?’

He rocks back and forward and makes a wailing sound that could mean anything. She takes it as a yes. I help her to lift him out the chair. We’re both on edge in case he hits out again, but there’s no resistance. We walk him through the door and it swings shut behind us and in the corridor there’s only the ghost of the song and the rain hitting the fire door and he breathes out as if he’s relieved. Margaret’s wiping tears out of her eyes with a proper cotton hanky.

‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘it takes time to settle in. It’s new, that’s all.’

‘I don’t want to leave him.’

‘You can come as often as you want,’ Alison says, so matter-of-fact, so sure of the right thing. ‘Go home now and sleep. Get some rest and things will look better in the morning.’

It’s meaningless really. But it’s what she needs to hear.

We settle him in his room and shut the door behind us. We just stand there and look at each other for a minute.

‘Another satisfied customer.’

‘Don’t make me laugh. Seriously. I’m on the edge today as it is.’

‘We’ve got medication for that, Sana.’

‘Stop it.’

‘How’s your leg?’

‘I’ll live.’

‘Do we need to fill out an incident form?’

‘It’s hardly life-threatening.’

‘Procedures must be followed.’

‘I’m not going to sue, I promise.’

‘You wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.’ She looks at me, waggles her eyebrows up and down.

I laugh. ‘That’s terrible.’

‘Whatever gets me through the day.’

We stop by the staff room. My shift’s almost over. I’ll get wet waiting for the bus. I’ll have to listen to Ewan summarising his OFSTED preparations over dinner. Staffroom politics and paranoia. My stomach rumbles and I put my hand on it, suck it in to try and control the noise. I won’t have anything to say that he’ll want to hear. A dull ache in my groin, in the pit of my stomach, like there always is this time of the month. A good sign. Please God, a good sign.