‘Alice! For Christ’s sake – just let me do this, okay? For someone who’s always on that bloody Stream Cast, you’d think you’d have your webcam set up.’

I sit back and sigh. ‘You know that’s not how it works.’

Imagine what Rowan would see if it were the other way round. A pillow. A duvet. A ghost girl.

She finally manages to get it set up and puts the laptop on a pile of books at the foot of the bed before scrambling up next to me. And I can see us – all of us – squished in a line together on my bed. Watching. And it’s strange to look at this housebound family in another place, until we shrink to the square in the bottom corner and Dr Rahman’s face fills the screen instead.

It makes me jump, seeing her on my laptop. Because it’s not like a usual streamer, where I can trick myself into thinking that I’m there with them. It’s like she’s jumped from London and appeared here, inside my bedroom.

‘H-hello!’ Dad shouts, bending awkwardly and waving over my face. ‘Can you hear us, Dr Rahman?’

‘We’re-so-glad-you-could-fit-us-in,’ Mum says, like she’s speaking to someone who lip-reads.

I sink down a little bit as Dr Rahman pauses, looking at her notes.

‘Yes. Alice, tell me about this episode the other week. Your notes here say that your blood pressure dropped to eighty over forty?’

And that’s the other thing I like about Dr Rahman. She doesn’t speak to Mum or Dad. She speaks to me.

I tell her about the dropped spoons and the breathlessness, and I show her the recorded results on my heart monitor. And she asks questions, all the time writing, writing. And I tell her in as much detail as I can remember.

Video consultation = 3 spoons

When the fifteen minutes are up, she looks at her notes for a moment in silence and it feels like we’re watching a reality show where the host pauses before delivering the news that someone is going home.

‘I want to try you on some blood-volume enhancers. See how you get on.’

And we thank her for her time, shut down the video link and close my laptop before we celebrate. Because she listened. She heard. And she gave us something that’s worth a hundred more sessions like that one.

Hope.

39

Rowan

And now I am strapped to the chest of a boy who’s just finished work. We planned it this way.

‘Run,’ I say.

What is it with this girl

and running?

‘Where to?’

‘Anywhere.’ I look at the steps leading up to the busy road, cars thundering over the tunnel we found before. ‘Along the beach. As far as it goes.’

I look at my watch.

‘I’ve got to pick Jonah up in half an hour.’

But I do it. I run.