I don’t bother asking who’s taking care of his emotions because I know. Nobody. Nobody watches out for his worry or morale or loneliness.

I try not to think about any of the things I now know about comas. Some patients are lucky and can go into rehabilitation after two weeks without a stay in the veg compartment. Seven percent, or seven in a hundred.

Fifteen percent go straight into the freezer compartment, as the pathology department is known. And the rest live in a coma and stay there. Expressed as a number: forty thousand people in Britain every year.

The ones who wake up remember what people have said to them while they were in a coma.

“Salut, Papa,” I say. Ever since I found out he’s from Brittany and that both my parents are therefore from France, I try to skip French lessons less often. I rummage in my rucksack for the book I’ve planned to read to him, then wheel over the roller stool, bend down to his ear, and whisper so that my voice doesn’t crack, “Salut. It’s the thirteenth of June 2016. This is Sam, your son, speaking. I’m thirteen, going on fourteen. You are Henri M. Skinner. M for Malo, and Skinner as in . . . no idea. I don’t know very much about you. You used to be called Le Goff. You’re forty-five years old and a war correspondent. Were, before my birth. Almost four weeks ago you had an accident. You’ve been in a coma for the past twelve days and have had a cardiac arrest. You are at the Wellington Hospital, which is pretty expensive, and the director is called God. Outside it’s warm, and girls are wearing red feathers in their hair. Scott’s currently in his second rebel phase. He hasn’t stopped smoking, but he does still want to study psychology. And I was just with Eddie at her publishing house. Today, for starters, I’m going to read you a passage from A Song of Ice and Fire, volume one.”

My father’s very far away. I can make out the black aura of pain that’s always hanging around him like a fine mist. Nonetheless, I continue.

“It must be time for tea soon. You’ll be fed something tasty through the tube into your tummy, probably blended cucumber sandwiches and electrolytes with a drop of milk. I’m going to eat my school sandwich. Oh yeah, I bunked off school again. If you don’t agree with that, I suggest you wake up and tell me yourself.”

I peer at my father. Do I sense some tension in him? He’s exhausted and seems a little blurred, that’s it.