But when the man speaks again, she says, ‘You’re welcome to wait in the relatives’ room.’ I hear the sound of shoes clacking towards the waiting-room door and I sit up, blinking at its beige nothingness. The back of the door opens towards me.

‘Mrs Prince’s brother is already there,’ the nurse is saying.

The door stops moving. The handle – depressed, half down – springs back, and the man says he needs to be getting home.

I spring from my chair to see who it is, but by the time I am in the corridor, the lift doors are closing, the visitor has escaped. I return to the nurses’ station.

‘Who was that?’ I ask the nurse. My hands are on the edge of her desk.

She does not lift her eyes from the paperwork she is filling in. ‘Someone from your sister’s work.’

‘Who? Did he give a name?’

‘He did.’ She frowns. Before I can press her, a set of swing doors to the ward burst open, and a silver-haired man in surgeon’s scrubs bursts through, followed by a pair of orderlies.

The nurse says, ‘This is Mr Lloyd. He specialises in cranial fractures and brain injuries. He’s here to assess your sister.’

I follow the surgeon into the ward. In an abstract sense, I know what to expect, but I feel sick – all the tubes and sensors, the beeping screens, have turned my unconscious sister into some kind of captive of a merciless machine. I think of Gulliver, tied down on Lilliput. I try to understand what the beeps, moving electronic cursor and flickering numbers are saying about Clare’s condition.

‘Hello, Mr Lloyd. I am Clare’s brother, Gil Peck. Is there anything you can tell me?’

‘Good to meet you,’ he says. Please save her, please save her, please save her. ‘Your sister has suffered a traumatic brain injury. It is a concern to us that she’s been more or less unconscious since the accident. We are going to take her downstairs now for a scan, to assess where she stands on the Glasgow coma scale.’ He talks drily, as if relating the details of the weather forecast. ‘Depending on what that shows, I may have to take her pretty rapidly into theatre.’

I hear but I don’t understand. The noise in my head is growing louder and all I can do is stare stupidly at my sister. The nurse nudges me. ‘Speak to her. Even though she is unconscious, she’ll be able to sense you are here. Just feeling someone who loves her will help, so hold her hand, if you like.’