Tom could see the accident unfolding vividly, even at this distance of so many years, could see Nicky losing his footing and falling, as if in slow motion, down the narrow gully between two huge, slanting rock-faces. They had been high up at that point, level with the midpoint of the cliff. Nicky didn’t fall all the way down; the gully was so narrow he ricocheted off either side like a pinball, and landed with not too big a thump on the compacted sand at the bottom. But somewhere on the way down he had dislocated his shoulder and when Tommy finally reached him, Nicky was white with shock, winded and shivering. Tommy was shocked too, and more frightened than he’d ever been in his life, but the strange calm of catastrophe had come over him and he’d taken off his own jacket to put around his brother and told him they had better go home.

For an hour they’d hobbled along together, Nicky starting to cry as the shock wore off and the pain set in. Tommy had hardly ever seen his brother cry, or not for a year or more, anyway. He could almost feel the pain in his own body. He set his eyes grimly on the track ahead, told his brother to lean on him, and tried to distract Nicky by telling him every story from Greek mythology he’d learned from the large illustrated book he’d got for Christmas. Nicky seemed to be making an effort to focus on the stories.

“Then what?” he would pant if Tommy paused for a moment in his telling, and Tommy learned to keep the flow of words moving quickly.

Mercifully, when they were halfway along the farm track, and still nowhere near the main road that led to their home, Robert Nairne drove past in his truck and, seeing from a distance that something was wrong, stopped to pick them up. Nicky was almost incoherent with pain by the time they were deposited home, but was clearly making an effort not to cry too much or too loudly, while Tommy rubbed his brother’s good shoulder in useless reassurance. Dr. Brown was called and arrived swiftly to fix Nicky. It seemed like magic to Tommy, who saw Nicky go from agony to being almost pain free in a matter of moments. His mum said Tommy shouldn’t stay in the room to watch, but his father said Tommy had earned the right.

“He just sort of pushed it back in,” Tommy told Nicky afterwards. They were sitting side by side in Nicky’s bed, eating white chocolate. Nicky was still groggy, but cheerful.

“What, just like that?” Nicky said. Nicky did not remember anything after the injection Dr Brown gave him, though he’d been awake the whole time, and had cried out when Dr Brown did his amazing trick.

“Yeah, just like that.”