A few days later, Boydy comes to visit, and I end up in agony because he makes me laugh and I have broken ribs.

He brings me flowers! I have never been bought flowers before, ever, and it’s nice.

‘All right, Eff?’ He has a solemn expression. ‘I nicked these for ya. Some fella down the corridor’s died so I figured he wouldn’t miss ’em.’

I stare at him.

He keeps a straight face, but not for long. ‘Kidding! Gave up me daily doughnut ration to buy you these.’

That’s what makes me laugh. He is poking fun at himself, at me, at everything, and once I start to laugh I try to stop myself because it hurts, but I can’t, and I moan so hard one of the nurses comes scuttling in, tutting at Boydy, who’s helped himself to a banana from a bowl of fruit at the end of my bed.

I’m in my own hospital room, not a ward, probably because I’ve just come out of Intensive Care, and Dad has got up and left us alone.

Boydy sits on the bed, peels the banana and takes a big bite.

‘Glad you made it, Effow,’ he says with a full mouth. ‘If you’da snuffed it, there’da been a right ol’ kerfuffle. Turns out, I’m a hero. Fanks for that!’

I feel myself starting to laugh again. ‘Don’t!’ I say.

‘No, I mean it. People look at me a bit different. I’m not just the fat London loudmouth.’ He pauses and looks at me while he finishes the banana. ‘I know what they say, what they thought. I’m not daft. But it’s just me. It’s who I am. Bit loud, a bit brash. I can’t be anyone else. If you don’t like it, tough.’

‘But I do like it.’

He grins. ‘Yeah, well. You just got lousy taste, ain’tcha! You gonna eat those grapes?’

The nurse returns with a thermometer and a little cup of painkillers. While she takes my temperature, Boydy busies himself with the grapes, tossing them up and catching them in his mouth.

He finishes the grapes and takes something from his pocket: Jesmond Knight’s mobile phone.

‘He’s back from the school trip tonight. This is wiped as clean as a baby’s how’s yer father.’

‘Hang on, Boydy. It’s theft, isn’t it? I mean, you’ve effectively stolen his phone.’

Boydy grins. ‘Me? I fink you mean “we”. And besides, it’s only theft if you intend to permanently deprive the owner of his property. This, I was just borrowing. Thought I’d shove it through his letter box on the way home.’

When the nurse leaves, Boydy pulls up the chair next to me and leans in close.

‘So … did they find anything? The doctors? Anything weird? Any bits of you missing, or invisible?’

I shake my head.

‘You haven’t told ’em?’

Another shake. ‘Why would I? It’s got nothing to do with the accident.’

‘But it’s why your dad didn’t see you. It’s why it happened.’

‘And I became visible again when I died. Just like my tears, my sick, my blood. There’s no proof of anything. All that’s left is that last bit of the powder. You have still got it, haven’t you?’

His silence says everything.

Eventually he murmurs, ‘It was in my trouser pocket. I was wearing ’em when I jumped into the water to get you. It all washed away.’

‘All of it?’

He nods.

I’m not even angry. If anything, I’m relieved.

Those people who know me the best – they know the truth.

Everyone else? Well, ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof’.

I reach, wincing, for my laptop and open it up. I’m about to show Boydy the film I took of my last venture into invisibility when I remember that I’m naked in it. I don’t want to embarrass him so I fast-forward to when I’m lying down on the sunbed and things are not quite so obvious.

It’s not a bad picture, exactly. It’s in focus and in shot and everything. It’s just that the brilliance of the sunbed’s UV light creates a kind of blurry glow around me so that when I fade away, it’s …

‘Not all that convincing, is it?’ Boydy says, looking glum. It could easily be a simple home-made special effect.

‘It wouldn’t persuade anyone.’ Then I smile. ‘But we know the truth.’