‘When we’re in there, if anyone coughs, leave the room.’

Mum turned to her while she said this and she looked stern, as she always did when she was serious. Lydia wanted to ask why, but held back, as it was clear that her mum didn’t want to say any more.

They were led out of the main building and on to a path running alongside a high fence with barbed wire on top. Behind it white dogs were barking and throwing themselves against the wire mesh. She saw two faces watching them from a barred window and they waved and called out to her.

‘Hey, sweetie! Up here, darling!’

She marched on, looking straight ahead. It wasn’t far to the next building.

Mum was carrying the bag in her arms and Lydia reached out for her hand. It wasn’t there. Another jab in her tummy, like on the bus when it bumped over the edges of potholes. They went up a staircase with harsh green walls; the colour almost hurt her eyes, so she kept looking at Mum’s back instead, putting her hand on it as they walked upstairs.

They stopped on the third-floor landing, followed the guard who pointed down a long, dark corridor that smelt stale and of bleach at the same time. Every door they passed had a bin with TBC written on it. She looked in one that wasn’t properly closed and saw tissues with blood clots.

This place was called the hospital wing, and the room they entered had eight beds in a row along one wall. The men’s heads had been shaved, and they all looked pale and tired. Some were lying down. Some were wrapped in a sheet and had been propped up in a chair and a few were standing talking by a window. Dad was sitting on the bed at the far end.

Lydia stole a look at him and thought that he looked smaller than before.

He hadn’t spotted her. Not yet.

She had to wait for quite a long time.

Mum went to him first. And they spoke to each other, argued about something, not that she could hear what they said. Lydia kept watching him, and after a while she realised that she didn’t feel ashamed, not any more. She thought about the last year, about her schoolmates’ taunts that didn’t hurt any more, not when she stood here, so close to him. That sick feeling inside her and the pain in her tummy had gone away too.