When I turn around, a tall, slim man with sandy hair is standing there. He is pushing a wheelchair with a boy of six or seven in it. For a moment, I have the strongest feeling that we have met before, but we can’t have. And I have no idea how to handle this situation. Despite my time on the bus ride, I still have no idea what to say. So I just come out with it.

‘I’m Jennifer Arden,’ I say. ‘You don’t know me. But I’ve come about Sarah Jones.’

The worst of it is, he hasn’t heard. I blurt it out, right there by reception, in front of the little boy and with no warning to Alastair. He goes pale. That’s a cliché, I know, but he really does. He’s very good, though; he doesn’t lose his composure. His first thought is clearly for the boy in his care. In that gesture, I can tell at once the kind of person he is. Nurturing. Responsible. Protective. And then, here I am.

‘Will you give me twenty minutes?’ he asks me. ‘I’ll be on a break then. Will you wait here until then?’

There is a little line of chairs by reception. I point to them. ‘Can I sit here?’ The nurse on reception is watching us the whole time. ‘Will that be okay?’ I ask him too, and he just shrugs.

Alastair and the boy head through the main doors to the ward and they fall closed, snicking behind him. I sit down and place my handbag on the chair beside me, sliding my hands between my thighs. I try not to think too hard about where I am. I should have eaten something before I came. I’m feeling light-headed. But I will wait for Alastair and then we will talk. It’s all right, I tell myself. It’s all right.

On the clock on the wall above reception, the hands seem to move very slowly. The reception phone rings; the nurse on duty answers it and there’s a murmured conversation. From where I am sitting, I can see through the doors with their big glass panels into the main ward inside. There’s one bed in particular, with blue and red balloons all around it. Maybe just to say get well, or maybe for a birthday. When children are in here long enough, I imagine all kinds of dates come and go. There is a girl in the bed with a tube in her nose. I have no idea what she might be in there for, but what I see is her family gathered round her bed. I can see a woman who looks to be her mother sitting at the head, a man in a chair on the other side. And I see a couple, what looks to be grandparents, by the side of the bed.