The doctors’ surgery smells of fresh paint and has newly laid grey floorboards and beech-wood chairs.
I type Tom’s date of birth into the computer screen and we take a seat beside the fish tank. Tom kneels by a beads-frame toy and starts clacking beads around. They seem to be a fixture in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries, those things. Tom never gets bored of them.
There’s a beep and my eyes flick to the LED board.
Tom slides counters along, click, click, click.
No. Not our name yet.
Click, click … click.
Another beep. Another name. Still not us.
I turn to Tom. He’s stopped moving beads, eyes dreamy.
‘Tom?’
He doesn’t reply.
I stand.
‘Tom. Tom.’ I shake his arm.
But Tom doesn’t react.
He’s staring into space.
Then he falls to the floor, rigid and jerking his legs crazily, eyes rolled back in his head.
It’s such a shock that at first I just stare, heart pounding.
Oh God.
‘Help!’ I hear myself sob. ‘Please help us! Call an ambulance. My son is having a seizure!’