A sharp-edged metal object that might slice my gut open from within sounds like a brilliant excuse to me, but then I’m not an expert. And I’m not sure if the edges were sharp. They probably make them rounded so nobody cuts their fingers. I’d better ask someone. The nurses and doctors on Ward 10 are bound to be more interested in cancer, but anyone working on the world’s top illness must first have been trained in the basics of Fruit Rush can-component ingestion, surely. I just need to catch someone’s eye … although ideally not hers.

Too late. The nurse with square-cut grey hair and tortoiseshell glasses on a chain around her neck is approaching. ‘You’re still here?’ she says.

‘Yes. Marion’s still dying,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Can’t really leave halfway through.’

I don’t want to discuss the ringpull situation or anything with this woman – Bridget, according to her badge. I already know she doesn’t have my best interests at heart, or else she’s not bright enough to work out that they might differ from her imaginary version of them. She hasn’t left me alone since I decided to sit in the ward corridor. She wants me tidied away, next to the deathbed. So far this morning she’s tried, ‘Has the doctor sent you to wait out here?’ (No) and ‘You can take that chair into Gran’s room if you like.’ (No, thanks. Actually, I only just brought it out.)

‘I know it’s hard, but you’d probably feel better if you were in there with Gran,’ she says now.

Stop calling her that. She’s not your gran. Why not try calling her Marion like I do and always have?

Bridget extends her neck to peer sympathetically down at me. It makes me think of those sticks with pincers on the end that council workers use to pick up litter in public places.

This has been happening ever since Marion was admitted to hospital: the people who work here keep reminding me of inanimate objects, even as they move around freely, and the things on the ward remind me of living creatures. The shiny silver hand-sterilising unit on wheels makes me think of a pelican every time I walk past it.

I walk past it a lot. I leave Ward 10 as often as I can – for an extra bar of mobile phone signal for all the calls I’m not making; a drink when I’m not thirsty; painkillers from the hospital shop when I don’t have a headache; a magazine I can’t focus on; extra-strong mints. Any excuse. It doesn’t do me much good, though; I still have to come back here, to Ward 10. A dying grandmother isn’t like a crap movie at Cineworld – you can’t decide to sack it and leave halfway through.

‘I’m sure your brother’d appreciate the support too,’ Bridget adds.