‘What’d happen if I had a heart attack in the supermarket? What would they do then?’
Deidre draws her cheeks in, which, without any teeth, means a complete rolling-in of the lower half of her face.
‘Do you mean if you had a cardiac arrest?’
‘Yes. Would they still jump up and down on me?’
‘Well – yes, I think they would.  They’d have to, really. Unless they can see your Do Not Resuscitate order, they’d be obliged to.’
‘Here. Look at this’ she says, shuffling forwards in the armchair and pulling her dressing gown apart, like Superman getting ready to change. Except in this case her chest isn’t emblazoned with a letter S, but a puckered strip of flesh down the centre, like a giant zipper tricked out in wax.
‘They cracked me twice. Once to start the heart and then a few hours later when it all went wrong. Broken ribs, collapsed lung. I was in a bad way. Months in hospital.’
‘I’m sorry to hear it.’
‘That’s why I want two copies of that form. One for the folder, one for the handbag.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘I’m not going through all that again. Months in hospital. Operation after operation.’
She fusses with her dressing gown, uncovering her knee, covering it up again.
‘I watched it all happen, you know. Them working on me. From above.’
‘I’ve heard of that! When you die on the table but you can see and hear everything.’
‘No. I meant the knee. They couldn’t give me a general anaesthetic so they numbed me from the waist.’