There are a number of reasons why the booklets exist, the least useful of which is for preliminary reading, although that is their official capacity. They live in a discreet corner of the visitors’ waiting room and we only hand them out when a patient is looking particularly bad. If the relatives haven’t actively picked one up (often this happens spontaneously) we fold one into their palm to snap them out of their denial. Get them used to the idea.

Normally, we’ve called the family in ahead of this moment. These ‘difficult calls’ summon a family to the patient’s bedside. We give these calls to the voluntary nurses. ‘Candy-stripers’: our American boss, Dame Melissa Barnes – ‘Call-Me-Melissa’ – likes to call them by their vintage name. She once confessed to me she might consider enforcing white-and-red pinafores as a uniform for the volunteers. She thought it would be quaint. ‘Of course,’ I said. I find it infantilizing: an excellent way to keep them in their place. We give the difficult calls to the candy-stripers so that they grow a thick skin. That is also the only official reason.

Guess what? Telling people that their relative is going to die is an unpleasant and thankless task and it’s a lie when people say that you never get used to it. In a private care home like ours, where palliative care starts at three thousand pounds a month, without counting meals or toiletries, not even a fucking minibar for when the family visit, you get used to it. This place is engineered for a single purpose: to administer the death of the rich in the most graceful, effortless manner.

We give the calls to the candy-stripers because we can’t stand going through the motions again. The statements of sympathy are like magic spells: they lose their power after they’ve been repeated a certain number of times. You stop believing in them. And without sympathy, how can a professional nurse be expected to do her job properly? We need a break once in a while. The candy-stripers are volunteers: they don’t mind dealing with the difficult calls. They like to feel essential. Are we sure we want them to? It’s a big responsibility after all.

Of course we’re sure. We have a million other things to deal with. And we don’t want to talk to the relatives, who sweep in only for the grand finale, having rejected the very same experience we curate, handed it over to paid staff, a less pressing matter in their busy lives. Do I ever want to have a heart-to-heart over the phone with horrible Miss Hancock, for instance? Prepare her for the death of her equally horrible father? Not in this lifetime.