Nurse

I was supine on the slab and a nurse was rigging me up via wires and tubes to machines and monitors. She was an exemplary old-school nurse combining human kindness with efficient manual dexterity. Had she been vaccinated against Covid, I asked her? Oh yes, of course she had, she said. And what about you, she said. Have you had the mandatory pre-treatment Covid test? ‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I had it tomorrow.’ (My automatic confusion of the French words for yesterday and tomorrow could, I suspect, be explained in psychoanalytical terms.) Now another, younger female nurse appeared by my side. She was lovely and reminded me of a young