The doors swished shut behind her. Suddenly everything was quiet. Mr Hancock hadn’t spoken a word. My throat closed up. Despite all that money, he just looked like another poor old man. Mona turned the chair around and slid in behind him to pull it into the lift. I forced myself to look down at him. The old man locked his pale eyes on mine. Slowly, he ran his tongue across his top lip, so slowly I thought I must’ve imagined it.

I can hear Mr Hancock’s voice as I walk towards room 214; faintly, not because his voice is faint, given his age, but because I am still far away. I am taking my time. If something happened to him now, I could say I had been on my way. But nothing is happening. He is just having a singalong. Timmy comes out of room 205 wheeling the broom trolley. He rolls his eyes at me, he’s doing it again, then scuttles off towards the lift. Timmy is twenty-three and the star of Christmas karaoke.

‘Isn’t he adorable?’ said Melissa after his performance of Cher’s ‘Believe’, with that peculiar balance of affection and condescension towards the less fortunate that comes from old money. Well, charming Timmy has no time to deal with Mr Hancock’s terrible performance. I don’t blame him. I don’t want to deal with it either. I wait for him to disappear into the lift. I pause at the door marked 214 with my hand on the knob. I suck a big breath in and breathe out through my mouth. My nose feels sticky, plugged up. My face hurts. My poor head. This must be my punishment for getting distracted.

Dusty Springfield. ‘Wishin’ and Hopin”. Mr Hancock’s favourite song. Before each verse you can hear the phlegm collecting at the bottom of his throat. I push the door open. The singing stops.