The world fell apart the next day.

Uncle Mike cooked a full breakfast – bacon, eggs and sausages. Jim would’ve loved it, the creep. Gran nibbled at the corner of a piece of toast, but I think that was more for our benefit than hers.

Then Sonja turned up.

‘I’m afraid I have some news,’ she said, ‘that you are not going to find . . . that won’t please you.’ She took a deep breath. I knew what that was. She had something to spit out and she had to do it now. She fixed on Gran’s eyes. ‘Dr D’Ath has informed us that he does not immediately support your request for voluntary assisted dying and he will not sign off on it. At least, not yet.’

It’s weird how some words can hit you over the head like a hammer. There was a stunned silence for a moment. Then we all started talking at once. Sonja held up a hand.

‘One of the conditions required is that the doctors involved must be certain that the person requesting voluntary assisted dying is in full control of their faculties; that is, they are not suffering from a mental illness or dementia or any other condition that can impede full understanding and therefore full awareness of what is being requested.’

‘But I know what I’m asking,’ said Gran. Her voice was weak, whether from despair or pain I couldn’t tell. ‘I’m not senile.’

‘I know,’ said Sonja. ‘But I have no power here. For what it’s worth, Dr Gardner shares my view, but your GP . . . well, he’s not convinced.’

‘He thinks my grandmother has dementia?’ I suddenly found that I was standing. ‘Or she’s senile or something?’ I pointed at Gran. ‘She’s smarter than anyone in this room. Her body might be falling apart, but her brain is as healthy as ever. What the . . .?’

‘It’s not the end,’ said Sonja. ‘This is just a setback. We can find another doctor . . .’

But I had already left the room.

It was a twenty-five-minute walk to the doctor’s surgery but I did it in fifteen. When I went in there was the normal waiting room full of people sitting on plastic chairs looking like they’d given up on life itself. I took a chair in the corner and waited.

Doctors came and went, picking up cards from the reception desk and calling out the names of people who then followed them into their offices. There was no sign of Dr Death. Then he emerged, with his ridiculous waistcoat and watch fob, took a card from the counter and opened his mouth. He shut it again when I appeared in front of him.

‘I need to speak to you,’ I said.

Some guy behind the reception counter tried to intervene.

‘Do you have an appointment, young lady . . .?’

But I ignored him. I took a step closer to Doc Death. He took a step back.

‘You remember me?’ I said.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I know why you’re here. But I cannot talk to you about another patient, Ms McKellon. You must understand that.’

‘And you must understand that unless I talk to you in your office I will scream the place down, you will have to call the police and have me dragged out of here. Is that what you want?’

I could see him weighing up the possibilities and for one moment I thought he might go for that option. But then he sighed and turned. I followed him into his office and he closed the door.

‘I realise you’re upset,’ he said.

‘Do you?’ I replied. ‘Well, that makes everything okay then, doesn’t it?’

‘I cannot discuss a patient’s case with you, even if you are a relative,’ he said. ‘I could get struck off.’

‘Look,’ I said. I’d try the reasonable approach for a while. I could always go into full crazy mode later if that didn’t work. ‘My grandmother is dying. She is in pain, horrible pain, and you have the power to help her. To help her in her final wish. What possible reason could you have for denying an old woman the relief she so desperately needs?’

The doctor sat down, ran a hand through his hair. Then he tugged on his waistcoat. It was a nervous reaction, a kind of tic, because I’d seen him do it before.

‘Let me tell you what I believe, Ms McKellon,’ he said. ‘In general, okay? No names, no specifics.’

I didn’t think that was going to work, but it appeared sensible to hear him out, so I nodded.

‘I have been a doctor for forty-five years,’ he said. I inwardly groaned. If I was going to hear his life story, I probably wouldn’t need his help. Gran would be long dead and buried. ‘But I still hold sacred the oaths I took when I graduated. Most people think of the Hippocratic Oath, but that is hopelessly out of date and wasn’t ever legally binding. Doctors adopted the Declaration of Geneva, which is also not legally binding, but is more of an ethical statement.’

‘Doctor . . .’

‘You must hear me out, Ms McKellon, or I may have to take up your first suggestion. Please. I think what I have to say might help you understand.’

I doubted that, but kept quiet.

‘Among other things, my oath said that I will respect the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died, that the health of my patient will be my first consideration and that I will maintain the utmost respect for human life. These are things I believed in then and believe now.’

‘Doesn’t respect for life also include respect for the patient’s wishes about their own life?’ I tried to keep my voice as calm as possible.

‘Indeed. Which is why I believe in voluntary assisted dying and therefore took the necessary course.’

‘You are not revealing secrets about Gran,’ I pointed out. ‘She has made no secret of her wish to die.’

‘That’s true. But my reasons for . . . having doubts are not about that.’

‘So what are they about?’

There was silence while the penny dropped.

‘You can’t tell me because that would break doctor–patient confidentiality,’ I said.

‘Here’s something about VAD that you may or may not know, Ms McKellon,’ said Dr Death. ‘Doctors must be certain – certain, that when a patient requests assisted dying they are of sound mind, at the time of their request. At the time of their request.’ He spread his hands. ‘You must see the logic in that. Someone who is suffering from hallucinations or mental illness or – well, I won’t bore you with a whole range of possible ailments – might not know exactly what they’re asking for. As a doctor I must protect a patient in that situation.’

My patience was starting to wear thin.

‘Look, doc,’ I said. ‘I was told that and I understand. But Gran is whip-smart; she knows exactly what she’s doing, what she’s saying. She destroys me at Scrabble. She’s saner than anyone I know.’

The doc mulled that over for a moment.

‘Let me give you a hypothetical situation, Ms McKellon,’ he said. ‘What if a doctor had been told by a patient, long before that patient requested VAD, that he or she was in a romantic situation with a well-known Hollywood actor, that he or she was on first-name terms with royalty, that . . .’ He held up his hands. ‘Hypothetically, of course.’

‘Hypothetically,’ I replied, ‘I’d use my judgement and come to the conclusion that the patient was indulging in a harmless fantasy, maybe bringing some drama into a humdrum existence, maybe just joking to amuse those around her. Or him.’

‘That’s very plausible,’ he said. ‘And that’s something I would have to check out very carefully. Because if your judgement was wrong, Ms McKellon, and the patient died without fully being aware of the implications, then that would be a terrible, terrible thing to have to bear for the rest of your life.’

I had had no idea what I was going to say when I arrived at the doctor’s surgery. All I knew was that I had a burning rage inside and that it had to come out. Now . . . I don’t know. I felt deflated, as if his words had punctured me. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand his perspective. Despite my anger, I could do that. But it was all that stuff about the hypothetical. Gran wasn’t a debating point. She was a human being and she was suffering, and she knew exactly what she wanted.

‘Tell your grandmother,’ he said, ‘that I will be around tomorrow to examine her again. That was always my intention, you know. A diagnosis, particularly a diagnosis that has so much riding on it, can’t be rushed. Tell her Dr Death will be there in the morning.’

I almost asked, but I didn’t. You couldn’t be a doctor for that long, with a name like that, and not know what patients were bound to call you. So I just nodded. And then I left his office, walked past the reception desk and stepped out into a day bathed in pale sun.

I didn’t have anywhere to go. I couldn’t go home, and I couldn’t bear to go back to Gran’s just yet. So I went to school.

School is a strange place when all the kids are in class. I say all, but there were the usual dropouts lurking in the grounds, smoking or vaping or just hanging out with other losers. I ignored them. The yard – sorry, the campus – was deserted and the buildings seemed ominous somehow, like they were watching or listening. I felt a chill run up my spine.

What was I doing here? I went inside and wandered down a few corridors. I passed doors and could see teachers mouthing something at their classes, but I kept going. No one saw me, no teachers coming out of staffrooms or any of that. I walked.

Then I stopped.

I was outside Miss Smith’s classroom. She was sitting at her desk, probably marking some work. I shifted so I could see what class it was. Her Year Nines, ejected straight from the fiery depths of hell. The freckled kid – I couldn’t remember his name – sat in the front row; he was doing something on his phone. And then I saw my hand reach for the handle, turn it and push inwards. Miss Smith glanced in my direction and smiled. Some of the kids looked up as well. They didn’t smile. The freckled kid kept staring at his phone.

Until I snatched it from his hands, dropped it on the floor and smashed my heel into it. It gave a very satisfying crunch. Even through my shoe I could feel the glass as it splintered. Somewhere a bell rang and I found myself back in a corridor. There were bodies all around, kids smashing into each other, yells and laughter and backpacks jostling, teachers shouting not to run and no one taking any notice. I allowed myself to be swept along, but I probably didn’t have much choice, looking back on it. The crowd had its own mind.

The next thing I was aware of was walking through the yard, kids wandering everywhere, so it must have been some kind of break. Recess? Lunch? I didn’t know. There was a group of students sitting at a bench and I recognised a few of them from my classes. I didn’t know them. I didn’t really know anybody, but I walked up anyway.

‘Do you want to see some magic?’ I asked.

They stared at me for a moment. I hadn’t realised it was a difficult question, but I repeated it anyway.

‘Piss off, freak,’ said one of the kids. He might have been in my Soc Ed class; then again, he mightn’t. I took a pen from my pocket.

‘Watch while I make this disappear,’ I said.

‘You disappear,’ said someone else.

I did the thing with my pen, but for some reason my hands wouldn’t do what I asked them to. Making a pen disappear? I’d done it thousands upon thousands of times. But now I dropped the pen and it rolled under the bench, so I had to get on my hands and knees and stretch out for it. Some of the students laughed but I didn’t pay attention. My fingers just nudged the pen further out of reach. It didn’t matter. I had plenty of pens. So I stood and got out another one.

‘Watch,’ I said.

I fumbled it. This was like asking someone why they couldn’t lift a hand – it wasn’t something you had to think about; it just happened when your brain gave the order. So too, for me, with vanishing a pen. I felt like crying.

Next thing I was at another bench with kids I didn’t know and I was asking them the same question and getting pretty much the same response and I was fumbling pens and dropping coins and getting more and more angry at my body and my mind, especially my mind, for not doing what it was supposed to do. This time I knew I was crying because when I bent to pick up a coin, I saw a drop fall onto the concrete, then another drop added to it, widening the edges and they were coming from me and I realised I was sobbing as well as crying and I didn’t hear, not at first, when someone called my name.

‘Grace.’

I picked up the coin. Stood. Turned.

Simon was there.

‘Grace,’ he said again.

Behind him I saw teachers moving towards me and students moving away from me. I remembered breaking someone’s mobile phone. Was that what all of this was about? I almost laughed. It was like those television shows where FBI agents move towards someone who is a danger to the public. Determination on their faces, a sense that menace is here but it’s their job to face it.

‘Do you want to see some magic, Simon?’ I asked.

He reached a hand towards me, but I backed away.

‘Grace, stop it,’ he said.

‘I can’t stop it,’ I said. ‘It’s what I do. It’s what I am.’

I turned to a group of students who had gathered at a distance, like they were watching the aftermath of a car wreck. Some even had their phones out. I wondered if I could make them disappear. I stepped forward and they stepped back.

‘Do you want to see some magic?’ I yelled.

Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and I twisted and screamed. Sometimes I can bear to be touched. Right there and right then, I couldn’t. Simon’s face was close to mine.

‘Grace. Please stop.’

That was when it all fell apart. The screaming, the torrent of words that came from my mouth were mine, but I had no control over them. Something inside me broke.

‘I can’t stop. I can’t stop. This is who I am. Don’t you see?’ I might have turned to the gathering audience. ‘I am Grace McKellon and I am a magician. I don’t have friends. The only family I’ve got are dead or dying. Magic is the only thing that’s mine. It’s the only thing I am.’

And then I was in Simon’s arms. He held me close and, after the first few seconds when I tried to break free, I stayed there, fixed. He put a hand on the back of my head, pressed my face to his shoulder. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

‘I’m your friend, Grace. I’m your friend and I’m asking you to stop.’