‘She was a bit crazy, actually,’ he said, pulling the shirt over his head. ‘Kind of neurotic, raging jealous, got quite difficult at times …’ He unbuttoned and pulled off his work trousers, tossing them on top of the discarded shirt. His boxers were navy blue and had squirrels on them. They weren’t the kind of boxers that a man would buy himself. They were Christmas-present boxers from a girlfriend.

‘Oh …’ I said, in sympathetic, encouraging tones, trying to make my interest sound neutral.

‘Yeah,’ he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling on a pair of jeans. ‘She used to go crazy if I got a text when I was with her, who is that texting you and all that stuff.’

I made a murmuring, non-committal noise.

‘Trouble is, once someone gets like that, there’s nothing you can do to reassure them. Anything you say … I’d get home after a twelve-hour shift and she’d accuse me of being with someone else. Seriously, when you’ve done twelve hours of stitching people and dealing with all the aggression and the vomit and everything, to have someone level that particular accusation at you …’ He shook his head and I thought, gosh yes, how unreasonable of her. ‘She turned up at the hospital once, to check where I was. Shame, I liked her but she was just so insecure …’ He trailed off. ‘I guess it wasn’t really her fault. Not everyone can understand.’ He stood to pull the jeans up, turned to me and gave me another brilliant smile, less amused this time, more admiring. ‘That’s what I like about you.’

I took a sip of coffee. ‘I’m not crazy?’

‘You’ve got a sense of perspective. You’re a teacher, you get this stuff, people needing you. She worked in PR, didn’t have a clue about the public sector, no idea what it’s like.’ I felt a flush of pride. I had a sense of perspective – nobody had ever credited me with one of those before. I felt as if I was only just realising how important it was to have one, and how well it reflected on me that I did. To have a man like Matty, who actually saved people’s lives, put me in the same bracket as him. I began to feel that I was the sort of person who saved other people’s lives as well.