I went back into the kitchen where Mark was now sitting at the bench, and slumped down next to him. I could see where the whole thing was heading. Somebody had to be hauled over the coals, and the Department has a way of making sure nothing is ever their fault.

At some point a bunch of paramedics arrived – people in white coats with first-aid boxes – and they charged down the hall and into the children’s room like they were suddenly the big experts on how to take care of disabled kids.

I followed them back down there – nobody stopped me – and saw them putting their big plastic medical boxes down and getting on their knees, close to the kids, taking their blood pressure, taking their temperature, that kind of thing. I was saying, ‘What are you expecting to find, exactly? You certainly won’t find anything wrong with them. Not with the care I’ve been giving them. You can see they’re perfectly content here, they’re in good health. What are you looking for?’

Nobody would answer me. It was like I didn’t exist. One of the female ambos, a young Indian girl, was examining the face of one of the Yugoslav children – Sonya, or maybe it was Nadia – like she was trying to get her – Sonya or Nadia, whichever one it was – to open her mouth and say ‘Ah’, but that wasn’t going to work with a vegetable child. So finally she prised her mouth open, and then she – the Indian girl, I mean – she fell right back onto her bottom, like what she had seen in Sonya–Nadia’s mouth had really shocked her. She said, ‘Oh God!’ really loud, so everybody heard, and everybody was standing looking at her, on her bum on the ground, saying, ‘Oh God!’

I said, ‘For goodness sake, pull yourself together!’

She looked at me like I was a witch or something – just horror on her face – and she said, ‘What’s in her mouth? Are they ants in her mouth? What have you done?’

I said, ‘Ants? Are you mad? What makes you think they’re ants?’ But some other doctor had rushed over and was holding Sonja–Nadia by the face and was looking in her mouth and saying, ‘Jesus.’

I was quite offended. I said, ‘It’s not ants! It’s only fishing line.’ And the Indian girl, still on her bum, still with her mouth open, still acting all horrified, said, ‘You’ve got fishing line in her mouth?’ as if she’d never heard of such a thing.

I said, ‘Of course I have, it’s for her tongue.’ But it was like nobody could understand what I was saying. The Indian girl scrambled up, racing around to all the kids, opening their mouths and looking in, and saying, ‘They all have it! They all have it!’ And people were demanding to know, ‘Why have they all got fishing line in their mouths? What are you doing to them? What’s going on?’