It’s a dream. Of course. I could see everything in my mother’s house. Now I can see everything in this room.

But I knew her house. I’ve only seen this room vaguely, in shadows. I don’t know where it is. I don’t know… wait, though. I do know. I think this is a place the children brought me to. When? A while ago. The other side of a black hole.

My eyes are open, and I can see. I’m not dreaming. I really can see. How? Why?

I’m crying now. Silly old woman. Don’t cry. It blurs everything! And you can see it all again, somehow. Accept this miracle, I suppose. Or did they give me a new drug, or something? Who do I mean by ‘they’?

I’m going to get up now. I’m stiff. But I can put my legs over the side of the bed. There. I’ve been lying here too long. Feet on the ground now. I haven’t felt that for a while. The earth, pushing back up. Pushing and pulling. I might get pulled back down. Slowly then. Right. I’m up. I’m going to the window.

Seeing, standing, walking. Whatever they gave me, it’s marvellous!

I’m standing at my window. Look at the morning sunshine on the lawn! Let’s open the window. Of course it’s locked. This is a hospital or something. I remember coming in here. A long time ago? Or not? Anyway, this place is an institution, and we’re in England, and therefore there are rules. For your own good.

My father would call it a ‘benign dictatorship’. That’s how he ran our home. And my mother too. He laughed when he said it, but he meant it.

He only nominally supported democracy, anyway. Most people are too stupid to be allowed to make important decisions, he’d say. I argued with him about it, especially when dictators were popping up all over the world, and none could be described as benign. He maintained that was because they were foreigners. If the English submitted to a dictator, it would be fine, because they’d choose a nice one. Like the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who brought stability to the empire, then retired to tend his cabbages. I said Diocletian was a foreigner, but he waved the objection away. Everybody knew the Ancient Romans were prototypical Englishmen.

Goodness, I’m on form today. I’m looking at things. I’m thinking. I feel like I’ve been away. And now I’m back.

Now here’s Winifred. She’ll know why I’m feeling so much better.

‘Winifred, please can you open my window?’

‘Why do you want it open?’

‘Because look – it’s a glorious morning, and I want to breathe the fresh spring air.’

Winifred sniffs audibly.

‘The air in here is sufficiently oxygenated. And at an appropriate temperature.’