–I was twenty. You know I was a nurse, too, Ruth. One year older than him, almost to the week. It’s funny. Within moments of us meeting, total strangers, such professionals, our faces were closer together than they came for quite a while after that.

–He was soaking wet. Sodden. Covered in wet earth. And everybody else so clean and bright.

They’d bombed the city water pipe, and he was out there. He smelled of mud. Even through the stinky antiseptic. I probably even said, you smell of mud.

–He only looked at me properly once, very quickly, very fully. And I knew.

–Have you had that, Ruth? Have you felt that, ever? Well. Hold out for it . . . I shouldn’t say that to you. But. If it ever comes to something like this, for you, it will matter. That you’re with the right one.

–Sorry. I said. I chatter. Okay. Say,

You told me once that you’d rather I die first.

I was angry when you said it. But.

I understand it now. I understand.

It wasn’t so I didn’t have to go through losing you. But so you didn’t have to watch me being brave. And know about the awful thing of me carrying on bravely.

–We see it, don’t we? Us nurses. The carrying on.

–She told him, didn’t she? Doctor Sandhu.

–Thank you. I know you’re not meant to say.

–I could see. When they spoke this morning. They looked so strange, watery, through this pod. Just dim shapes. But I know. He would have held his eyes open too wide; he would have stroked the scar on his jaw.

–That’s funny, isn’t it? That thing. That the first time I touched him was to pull that scar together. That it could have been another nurse. But it was me.

–I stitched a thread to him, he says. And him there, I could tell, just thinking. Over what had happened, the men they hadn’t managed to save. They’d gone back and forth, pulling them out of the water that was spilling out of the pipe. It was sort of still going on in his eyes.

–We joke I sewed in some sort of secret communication device. Not just the thread he jokes about. He says, when I feel the smooth skin there, run my finger on the scar, I can hear you tell me things.

–You must have silly things like that. With. Are you with someone?

–Colin. You must have silly things with Colin.

–Sorry. I didn’t mean to say you didn’t have the right thing with him. Earlier. I’m a bit. Sorry. Chattering. Could you read out what I’ve said.

–Yes,

So you didn’t have to watch me being brave.

–Write,

I understand that now.

I know you hate the idea of me being in pain, but I am not. They’ve seen to that.