I was thinking, how easy it is to be a young man. How interesting it would be to try it, just for a week or so, to walk around having allowances made for you all the time, to earn praise for just smiling and being ordinarily polite – or for slotting the drawers into a piece of furniture.

‘How’s work? Are you working this weekend?’

‘No. In fact, I might be coming off A & E soon. Well, I mean coming off earlies, lates, nights, that rota.’

I leaned forward. ‘You didn’t tell me that.’

He glanced in the rearview mirror. ‘Well, it isn’t definite. I was going to wait until it was, and surprise you. I know it’s hard for you.’ I couldn’t recall having complained about his rota. ‘You know, comes a point,’ he continued, ‘when you want things to be a bit more normal, bit more regular hours … other priorities.’

My mother looked over at him. He was still glancing at me, then back at the road, and didn’t pick up on it – but I did. Oh Mum, just stop, I thought.

‘What will you do?’ Mum asked.

He turned the steering wheel to pull into the road before the Close. ‘Fracture Clinic. I’d still be the on-call registrar for A & E.’

There was a fast-approaching blur of silver, then, and the side window that I had been resting against a moment ago pulled away and slammed into my head. Three other things happened in the same moment. My mother declared, ‘Ooh!’ in a high exhalation, as the airbag in the passenger seat inflated. Matty shouted. ‘Fuck!’ There was an enormous bang.

In the next moment, I was still sitting where I had been in the back seat, but my head was ringing. Our car was skewed diagonally across the road. Matty was leaping out of the driver’s seat.

I looked to the side. There was a small grey car on our left, at another diagonal, with the driver, a man, slumped over the wheel. I couldn’t tell how young or old he was but I could see the bald patch on top of his head.

Matty pulled the handle of my door but it didn’t open. ‘Are you alright?’ he said through the glass. I looked at him. A long diagonal crack in the glass was bisecting his face. I nodded. ‘Are you sure you’re not injured?’ I shook my head slowly. It was still ringing.

‘What about you, missus?’ he said calmly to Mum.

‘Yes, yes, I’m okay,’ Mum squeaked, her voice somewhat higher than usual.