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though her fingers were never going to be long enough to be good. That’s my fault; I brought the stubby hands to the marital table. Alice brought the even temper, the sense of fun, and all the looks.
    And the sad eyes.
    When did
that
happen? Is that
my
fault?
    In the cot next to the bed, Lexi cries as if her heart is breaking.
    So sad.
So sad!
    I want to roll over and comfort her, before she wakes Alice. In my head, I do.
    ’S OK
, I whisper.
’S OK, sweetheart, go to sleep
.
    But I’m the one who sleeps, down the dark years.
    When I wake again, sliced white bread is laid out in neat squares for buttering. For a party, perhaps? A catered event, and here’s all the bread, waiting for the tuna and the cheese and the coronation chicken. I’m not hungry, but a sandwich would be nice. A sandwich and maybe a sausage roll, and a pint of Brains bitter. My mouth is so dry.
    I open my eyes anew and realize that it’s not bread; it’s ceiling tiles!
    I’m happy because that is dull enough to be real. No writhing Jesus , no giant man-crows, just square tiles suspended in a metal frame like the view at the dentist’s.
    I think it means I’m definitely awake.
    It must be night now. The tiles were off-white before, which is why they looked like bread, but now they’re grey, and in one place there’s a small black triangle where one has slipped or broken.
    There’s a miserable sound somewhere nearby. It’s the sad whine of a puppy left out in the rain. Shivery and cold.
    My head’s not working, so I slide my eyes to the very corners of their sockets, so that the ceiling disappears – at least, the bit over my head does – and I’m looking over there, to my left.
    There’s a water jug and beyond that a bed, so I assume I’m in a bed, too, because I’m lying here on
something
, which makes that
another
bed. And two beds in one room indicate a hospital. Or a dorm room. But I have a sense I’ve already graduated from Bristol, where I shared with Artie Rinker, who could whistle through his belly button.
    So, a hospital then.
    The snow-sky passes silently by, and my arm flaps at the window
.
    There’s a man in the other bed. And there’s a machine beside him with a soft grey-lit screen. That’s where all the blips are coming from – they sound in time to a point of light jerking across the screen. There are tubes running to the man’s arms and stomach, and somebody stands over him. This person’s back is to me, but even in the dim glow of the screen, I can see he is wearing blue scrubs.
    Two and two equals a doctor.
    This is my moment.
    I call out to let him know I’m awake. Or, at least, I thought I was going to call out, but I can’t hear myself. I try to clear my throat, but my tongue is big and sticky and I can only really make a little
whirr
. I try again to speak, and realize that my lips are moving but nothing else is. No air is coming up from my lungs to shape itself into words in my mouth. I’ve forgotten what every newborn knows.
    I try to sit up, but that doesn’t work either.
    I nearly panic, but all I can do is look at the ceiling, at the little black triangle, and tell myself to calm down. I have to get pretty stern with myself: calm down, Samuel Galen! This is
not
an emergency. I have time. I have lots of time. I have been here for a thousand years already; another minute won’t hurt.
    I concentrate on sensible things; on what I know. The man in the bed must be the one who swore and begged; whose wife and children wept when they visited. The mumbling and the crying wasn’t Lexi at all, because Lexi’s almost thirteen, not a baby in a cot. That bit must have been a dream, I think.
    So much of life is.
    Also, if this is a hospital then the man in the next bed must be a patient. Like me? I suppose so, if the crash I dreamed was real. And if we are patients, then the doctor will not ignore me, whether I can shout or not. If I am a patient, then I am here to be cared for, and that’s what doctors do.