And so she sat there, hand still clasping Connie’s, and closed her eyes and listened to the faint institutional sounds beyond the room: doors closing, shoes squeaking, a phone ringing. She drew her focus back into the room. The light was making a very faint buzzing sound that Emma hadn’t noticed before. It was impossible to hear anything beyond the bulletproof windows so instead she focused on her own breath. Then suddenly she felt it, the connection, the absence of fear, the freedom beyond the confines of herself. It was as if it had always been right there, just waiting for her. But in her momentary joy she became conscious of the experience and immediately disconnected from it.

Emma put the diary down. She got up again and went to the window again and looked out at the beautiful day. ‘Actually, sod it,’ she said decisively, turning back to Connie. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

Emma buzzed herself straight out of the room and when she came back in she had a wheelchair with her, some blankets and a male nurse. Together they lifted Connie and got her into the chair. Although she was quite tall, she weighed nothing; it was like lifting a child. Emma tried to be gentle – her damaged body made her a liability, but she didn’t make a sound. It was as if she were beyond caring. The nurse put socks on Connie’s feet. Connie let them move her about. Emma wrapped the blankets around her and pushed her out of the room.

Despite having worked here for eight months now, Emma had never actually been out in the grounds before. The gardens were well kept, the grass mown, the bushes clipped. There was nothing fancy or ornate, no actual flowers, but it was pleasant enough. A path ran down the middle towards the old wall at the end where the brook ran by and where the huge trees stood. Connie looked different outside, more pathetic, like a gawky bird fallen from the nest. The cold air was turning her nose and her cheeks red, the sunlight making the tufts of her hair glow a coppery brown. Emma pulled out her woollen hat from her bag and put it on Connie’s head. There was a bench halfway down the path and Emma stopped there, putting the brake on the chair and sitting down on the seat. Emma glanced back at Connie’s wing of the building, its ugly uniformity, its electronic doors, its peculiar turrets. She turned Connie’s chair away from it so for one moment Connie might forget she was in an institution. And maybe it worked because shortly after Connie twisted to the side to feel the sun on her face. She shut her eyes. There was a beauty about that face, a nobility.