The next morning I wait until I hear their voices moving along the corridor before I leave my room, heading towards them as if I might be on my way down to breakfast. Laura and Dr Orzasky are walking together, in conversation. Martin, behind them, the third point in the triangle. Laura quickens her pace when she sees me, opens her arms, kisses my cheek. ‘Wonderful. You’re here.’

I nod quickly, unable to think of anything to say.

The doctor grins at me.

‘We’re just up from breakfast,’ says Martin.

‘I’m late today,’ I say. ‘I didn’t sleep very well.’

‘Nor did we. Nor did we,’ says Laura. ‘The motel had fleas, I’m sure of it. I was more comfortable in my sleeping bag.’

‘You slept nearly nine hours,’ Martin tells her. Then to me, ‘I persuaded her to sleep in a proper bed. Paul says it might be a long day.’

‘All I got was a sore back,’ continues Laura. ‘Though the shower was nice.’

She reaches her hand out and places it lightly on my forearm.

‘Will you come?’

Inside the room the boy is silent, a thin stream of spittle leaking down one cheek, which Laura wipes deftly with a tissue. His hands above the cotton bedspread are clenched slightly inwards from his wrists like claws or dried flowers. The chair near the head of the bed has been pushed back against the wall, and Dr Orzasky pulls it forwards again, scraping it over the lino, to sit next to Hugh’s head. He says nothing at first, again aligning his breathing with the boy’s, then speaks on the out breath.

‘Hello Hugh – this is Paul – Orzasky – again – I’m here with – your father – and your – mother and – a new friend – of yours – called Jess – who is – very – pretty.’

He glances at me quickly, winks, and continues, while I look at the woven bedspread and away from Laura’s smile.

‘In a – moment – I am – going to – touch you – gently – on your arm. – Now you – can feel – the pressure – of my hand. – I am – pressing – in time – with your – breathing. – Wherever – you are – right now – whatever’s – happening – in your world – I want you – to just go – with it – to feel – how it feels – and don’t – be afraid – I’m here – with you.’

In the silence that follows, Martin examines his fingers, and Laura keeps her gaze fixed on her son. Dr Orzasky goes back to his breathing. And for several minutes there is just the rise and fall of breath. Slow in. Slow out. It is a comforting, familiar sound, and soon I notice that my breathing falls in with theirs, my shoulders loosen. And then Hugh coughs. At first I think it is the doctor clearing his throat. We all glance quickly towards him. But he has leaned in closer, looking intently at the young man’s face, frowning in concentration.

‘Oh, I heard that,’ he says approvingly. ‘I know what you mean.’ And then he too coughs. A deeper, fleshier sound. He waits half a minute and coughs again. In the silence of the room Laura and Martin exchange glances. Dr Orzasky closes his eyes and from outside a magpie’s cry bubbles up and up and I remember suddenly sitting in a classroom as a child, the gouged wooden desks and the scrape of pencils on paper; outside, blue sky and bitumen and beyond that the oval, and somewhere beyond that Hil’s house and knowing that she will be there at three to get me.

There is another cough, and another, longer, and then a third that stretches into a rasping sound and gagging. Laura starts, and reaches towards the boy’s head, as if to raise it. The doctor places his free hand on her forearm and holds it until she looks at him. He shakes his head a little then clears his throat loudly, a full, phlegmy vowel sound. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ he says, expansively. ‘It’s good to clear the throat. Isn’t it Hugh?’ And he does it again, louder still. The boy lies still. From across the bed, Martin raises his eyebrows slightly at Laura. We have all stepped back except the doctor, who is once more looking intently at Hugh; bent, almost hunched, towards him, matching him again breath for breath.

The room seems hot and heavy with small irrelevant sounds, the vacuum cleaner from downstairs, the b-b-b as Martin, gazing now at the ceiling, forces tiny bubbles of air through his pursed lips, like a fish. I wonder if I should turn on the ceiling fan, or maybe just leave. Laura clears her throat as if to speak. And this time Paul Orzasky makes a sudden swift chopping motion with his hand in front of her, shakes his head and mouths the word ‘no’.

Laura’s shoulders stiffen. She takes a breath, closes her mouth and turns away, and suddenly from the bed comes a low growling sound.

‘Yeaaah,’ sighs Paul Orzasky, ‘that’s great.’ Without looking away from the bed he reaches his hand towards Laura again and takes her wrist, patting it softly, rhythmically with his thumb, as if to both soothe and restrain.

‘Yeah,’ he says again, full voiced now, and then close to the boy’s ear, rasping, almost growling himself, ‘it’s good to clear it out, isn’t it? Good to get it out.’

The boy growls again, a long, stuck sound, like a car revving in neutral, that dies with his breath. And then the arm closest to Dr Orzasky, his left arm, lying bent across his chest, starts to twitch.

The doctor lets go of Laura’s wrist and takes Hugh’s arm lightly with both his hands, one above, one below the elbow. At first he holds the arm loosely, just following its motion.

‘Yes, yes,’ he says to the boy, ‘that’s a wonderful movement.’ And then gradually he begins to enlarge on the movement, or perhaps the movements just increase. It is hard to tell. It goes on for another minute or two, the arm opening a little wider each time, until the doctor has to move his chair back and take his hands away to avoid being hit.

‘That’s a big, open movement,’ he says, sounding impressed. ‘That feels fantastic.’ He pauses, then adds deliberately, ‘That feels fan-fuckin’-tastic.’ Almost immediately the other arm starts to twitch, then jerk, away from the boy’s chest. The movement increases rapidly, in staccato bursts, guided by Dr Orzasky, until it is matching that of the other arm, both open, stretched forwards and out, like a child. And there they seem to get stuck, still jerking rhythmically, but rigid, neither opening nor closing. Hugh is sweating, tiny raised bubbles across his forehead. And I am momentarily aware that all of us are giving off odour. It hangs above and between us, a clumped human smell of breath and perspiration and focus.

‘Whoa there. Hey buddy I’ll just give you a hand. Okay Hugh, I’m with you.’ The doctor stands and turns to face the boy, his back to Laura, and reaching across Hugh’s body takes his wrists in his hands. He stands like that for a few seconds and then gently but firmly begins to press the outsides of the boy’s forearms, as if to fold them back on to his chest. For a moment the boy’s arms appear to relax, as if about to subside towards each other, but then they tense again, pressing back against the doctor.

The two men seem to stay locked there against each other, exerting an equal, even force, until suddenly the boy’s mouth moves. A quick spasm. He grimaces, lips pulled back, the blood vessels beginning to stand out on his arms and temples. Even now, weeks after the accident, the skin of his arms is a soft brown, the muscles clearly defined. Laura takes a step forward, hesitates, glances at the doctor, her husband, her son, and speaks.

‘Is this necessary? I really don’t see—’ she begins, ignoring Paul Orzasky, who frowns, and opens his mouth as if to remonstrate. Perhaps he does. At the same moment Hugh lifts his face now towards the ceiling, arches his neck, opens his mouth and lets out a cry so loud it startles the pigeons on Viv’s elm, a band of sound so clear and wide it might have come from a trumpet, a horn, a conch. Steadily he opens his arms, pushing Dr Orzasky’s apart and finally away, all the time holding that long, pure note that keeps on and on, fading at last with the breath, only to be followed by another, and another.

*

Afterwards I go downstairs. In the garden, a young woman sits on a wooden bench with a pram in front of her, the child propped and plump. The woman pulls the pram close and then pushes it out to arm’s length, the baby laughing in hiccoughs of delight as it comes close again. ‘Bah,’ says the woman, and the pram goes back. ‘Bah, bah,’ a breath in his face each time they are near.

‘Bah,’ says the baby, and then, ‘ba ba.’

The woman’s face pulls to an expression of delight. She claps her hands. ‘That’s right,’ she says, pointing at his chest, ‘Bubba.

Bubba.’

‘Bubba,’ says the child again, beaming, and claps his hands.

‘Bubba. That’s right. You’re the bubba. My beautiful, clever Bubba.’

To reach the gate I have to walk past them and, as I approach, the woman looks up for a moment and includes me in her smile.

‘Bubba,’ she says again, as I pass.

Anna comes by unexpectedly the next afternoon, while I am napping. She taps lightly at the door and enters without waiting for an answer. ‘Hello Jess, how are you? The doctor tells me you’re doing well.’

‘That’s nice of him,’ I say, raising myself only slightly in the bed. ‘I’m not feeling very well.’ It’s true. My lower back aches. My head feels spongy, unreceptive.

‘Why do you think that is?’ she asks, pulling the chair by my bed around so that she is facing me.

‘I don’t know.’ I shrug and hunch further down into the bedding. ‘I just feel sick. I think I might be getting some sort of flu again.’

‘It’s that time of year.’ She nods. ‘A few of my clients are feeling under the weather. Have you sorted out what you’re going to do when you leave here?’

‘No, not yet. I—’ ‘So, you’ve got some decisions to make, then.’

‘I just need to be really well before I—’ ‘Jess, there are always plenty of viruses around. That’s life.

That’s what your GP’s for.’

‘I just don’t think I’m quite well enough.’

‘It’s time to go home, Jess.’

She says it quite gently, not taking her eyes from mine.

‘You have a child to look after.’