The doctor wasn’t old enough. She looked barely out of medical school and her manner was officious. She spoke to us in a bare consulting room off the corridor. It had squares of rough beige matting on the floor, a cheap settee and several matching armchairs with wooden arms and lightly padded seats. An insipid picture of a vase of flowers hung on one wall. On the other was the stencil of a gawky cartoon dog and cat, grinning.

‘We are grateful, Doctor.’ Richard sounded lost. He always tried to ingratiate himself with important people in the hope it made a difference. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’

We were sitting side by side on the settee. It was low and our knees rose awkwardly. I reached across and squeezed his hand. His fingers were cool and firm and familiar in mine. He pulled away, giving me an absent-minded pat in the process. We made you, this man and I. We were happy once, before our small family broke apart.

‘The brain bleed is extensive.’ The doctor spoke with exaggerated care, as if we were half-wits. ‘That bleeding puts a lot of pressure on brain tissue. It’s still unclear how much damage it has caused.’

She sat forward on the edge of her chair with her hands neat in her lap. She gave the impression she didn’t plan to stay long.

‘Why?’ My voice was abrupt. ‘She was in a child seat, wasn’t she?’

Richard cut in at once. ‘She was. I’ve already—’

I nodded, carrying on. ‘That’s the point of it, surely? It protects her.’

The doctor hesitated. ‘The seat probably saved her life.’ She lifted her forearm and demonstrated a rippling motion with her hand. ‘But even strapped in, the force of the impact still causes internal trauma to the brain. We call it a coup injury. The soft tissue is thrown forward against the inside of the skull, you see. That causes blood vessels to tear and bleed and the blood has nowhere to go. So it can invade brain tissue and cause damage.’

Richard blinked. ‘So what—’ he hesitated, groping for the words ‘—what does that mean?’

The doctor looked at a spot on the wall behind us. She had no softness in her face, just awkwardness.

‘The prognosis isn’t clear. If there’s no change, we’ll keep her comatose for as long as twenty-four hours and then review the bleed.’ She drew her eyes from the wall and glanced at me, at Richard. ‘The coma supports recovery by reducing cranial pressure.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Her body has been through a significant trauma. You do realise she was resuscitated? She’s done well to get this far.’ She hesitated. ‘There’s also the possibility of a contra-coup injury. Bleeding caused by a secondary impact at the rear of the skull. But so far, there’s no evidence of that.’

Shouting outside. Voices far below, called from another universe. My car was in the car park, waiting. A space where your seat should be. The footwell strewn with toys and biscuit wrappers and empty juice cartons.

‘She’s a fighter,’ I said. ‘She’ll be OK.’

The doctor cleared her throat. ‘In my experience, in cases like this—’

‘How many exactly?’

She paused, gave me a questioning look.

‘How many cases have you had? Like this?’

‘Jennifer!’ Richard, embarrassed.

The doctor’s face was impassive. ‘In my experience, stability at this stage is crucial. It’s the body’s best chance of recovery. I suggest you go home and get some rest tonight. We’ll call you at once if there’s any change.’

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No. I’m staying.’

Richard frowned. ‘Maybe the doctor’s right. If she—’

‘I’m not leaving her. I’m her mother.’

He shook his head at the doctor, as if to apologise for me.

I didn’t care. All I wanted was to scoop you up into my arms and leave this desperate, sterile place and take you home and draw the curtains and settle in the lumpy armchair in the corner of your bedroom and rock you and hold you close and never let you go.

The doctor rose to her feet. At the door, she turned back and looked at me.

‘I can assure you, she’s getting the best possible care.’

---

They didn’t let me see you often. In the early afternoon and in the early evening, I was allowed to sit beside you for a short time, to hold your hand in mine and press it to my lips, to stroke your cool, smooth forehead and sing to you. You seemed so far away, my love. Flown from me to an unknown place.

I strained forward to check the slow, steady flutter of your breathing, proving to myself that you were still with me, still in this world. The machines by your bed whirred and pulsed and numbers on monitors climbed and fell and sometimes flashed and on another screen, a line rose and fell in an eternally undulating wave.

A television screen on a mechanical arm was tucked up high against the ceiling. A white enamel sink stood against the far wall with surgeon’s taps beside shiny metal dispensers of liquid soap and paper towels and, underneath these, a white metal pedal bin labelled Offensive Material.

No clock in sight. This was a room outside time, where day and night, morning and evening were the same sterile nothingness and the only rhythm was the suck and puff of your breath inside the mask. And I sat there, watching you, aching for you, dreading the footsteps that would come to make me leave.

The hours away from you were heavy. The waiting area was largely deserted. I tried to imagine Richard and Ella at home. She would be resting and he would be fussing over her, awkward and slightly inept but gentle. I wondered how much of him was there with her, and how much was here with us and how anyone could split themselves in two like that.

The ward stilled and quietened. I stood on a side table and pressed Minnie’s peeling ear back into place against the wall. I watched the nurse behind her desk, shuffling papers and chatting in a low voice to the young woman who came to relieve her. Resting the side of my head against my hand, I stared at the large clock on the wall behind her as it slowly turned towards night. The light above me emitted a low buzz. The floor shimmered with shifting, cloudy patterns. My mind was numb.

They were wrong. You wouldn’t leave me. You were a fighter. I sensed you there, reaching out for me, battling to survive. I closed my eyes, hunched my shoulders and strained to send you all the strength I had, to tell you I was here, willing you well.

‘There’s a café down the corridor.’

The nurse, a youngster with freckled cheeks, was bending over me. She made an attempt at a smile, pointed to the right, out of the ward doors.

‘It’s not much but it’s better than nothing. You haven’t eaten, have you?’

I shook my head. I felt sick.

‘It’ll close soon. I’ll come and get you if anything happens.’ She gave my shoulder a pat. ‘Go while you can.’

I tensed, ready to fight, then tilted and saw her face. Her eyes were kind. I heaved myself to my feet, swayed and she took my elbow to steady me.

‘Try to have something. You’ve got to keep your strength up.’ She paused, considering. ‘You might be here all night.’

The café wasn’t much, she was right. A sprinkling of a dozen plastic-topped tables with hard chairs and a counter selling tea and coffee, sandwiches and panini, bars of chocolate and crisps. The tables were deserted and the whole place felt forlorn, as desolate as a motorway service station at three in the morning.

I bought a bottle of fizzy water and settled in a corner, rested my head against the cold, whitewashed wall and closed my eyes.

‘Are you Gracie’s mum?’

A gentle male voice. I opened my eyes, sat up at once.

‘What’s happened?’

He smiled, put out a hand to calm me. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

He was tall with floppy dark hair and wore a grey cashmere coat. He was carrying a coffee in a takeaway cup and had a newspaper tucked under his arm. The Daily Telegraph.

‘May I?’ He nodded to the chair opposite mine.

I shrugged. What did it matter? What did anything matter apart from you?

‘Matthew Aster. I’m in paediatrics. Just coming off shift.’

I looked more closely. He looked about forty-five, perhaps a little older. His skin had a lined, lived-in look as if his life had been more interesting than easy. His eyes were intelligent and thoughtful and they were searching mine, waiting.

‘You’re a doctor? Are you treating Gracie?’

‘Not exactly but we’re a small team here. We talk. I saw you in IC earlier.’ He shuffled his feet. They stuck out from under the table. Black lace-ups, neatly polished. ‘I’m sorry. Not an easy time.’

He set the newspaper down on the table. There was a picture of the Royals on the front page, a smiling Charles and Camilla on their travels. I’d seen it on the newsstand as I went into the supermarket all that time ago. An image from another lifetime.

He gestured to the water. ‘Is that all you’re having? Can I buy you something?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m fine. Really.’

He pulled a Kit Kat out of his pocket, snapped it in two, set one stick in front of me and unwrapped the other, then ate it, sipping his coffee after each bite.

I peeled off the silver paper and nibbled the chocolate. The sweetness was cloying. I put it down. ‘Will she be alright?’

He narrowed his eyes. I wondered what the officious young doctor had told him about me. The mother’s difficult. Rude. No wonder the husband strayed.

‘It’s too early to know,’ he said carefully. ‘But she’s doing well. No sign of complications, so far. That’s very positive.’ He hesitated. ‘One step at a time.’

I sipped my water and looked past him into the drab hospital corridor. A stout woman was shuffling down towards the toilets on a walking frame, her head craning forward, her legs swollen.

‘This can’t be happening.’ I spoke almost to myself. ‘She’s only three. I just want to take her home.’

He reached forward and briefly covered my hand. His fingers were strong and warm with curling black hair above the knuckles. I thought of the way Richard had pulled his hand from mine and how comforting it felt to be touched, even for a moment.

I swallowed, trying not to cry. ‘She’s everything to me. Gracie. I’d do anything. If she needs, you know, organs, she can have mine.’

He nodded. ‘I know. I’m afraid it’s not that simple.’

The woman at the counter started to pack away the crisps and chocolate into cardboard boxes. He crossed to her, took one of the few remaining sandwiches from the fridge and bought it, then came back to me and set it on the table.

‘Just in case. It might be a long night.’ He reached into his coat pocket and took out a pen, scrawled ‘Matt’ on the top of the newspaper, along with a mobile phone number, and tore it off. ‘If you have any questions. Or if you just need to talk. Any time.’

He picked up his newspaper, nodded to me as if something unspoken had been agreed between us and turned away with a swish of his coat. He had a long, confident stride and a broad back. I stared after him down the corridor long after he had disappeared from sight.