At the entrance, on the counter, there is the visitors' book. Deirdre writes the time of arrival, two thirty-five, and signs. Above her line there are four. Three are from this morning.

The glass door to the lounge is open. Inside there are seven armchairs and five people. The television is on with no sound. The lounge has three windows and they are all shut.

The first-floor corridor is thirty-two paces long. The doors are numbered from eleven to twenty-two. The thermometer is on the wall, between fifteen and sixteen, at eye level. At half past two it reads thirty.

Deirdre has a plastic bag in one hand and the car keys in the other. The bag is square and weighs little.

In room fourteen there is her mother. Peggy is eighty-seven. She lies on top of the sheet, her arms outside it. The sheet is pulled back to her knees. The nightdress is open at the top two buttons. On the bedside table there is a glass with a finger of water in it and a bent straw. On the inside sill, lined up against the glass, there are seven greeting cards half opened, and behind the cards a plastic bottle full of water with the label turned to the wall.

The window of room fourteen is shut. On the frame, top right, there is a metal catch fixed with two crosshead screws. The screw heads are full of paint.

Deirdre sets the bag on the bedside table, next to the glass. She sits down. She stands up again.

On the glass there is a white sticker. In black it says opening restricted to 100 mm. The sticker is worn at the corners.

On the noticeboard, at the entrance to the floor, hangs the copy of a purchase request. It is dated March. It asks for twelve tower fans certified for healthcare use. At the bottom there are a reference number and a date of receipt. There is nothing else. Beside it, on the same noticeboard, is the August rota. On today's shift there are two names. One is crossed out with a single line and written again above it.

At two forty Deirdre takes the box out of the bag. She lifts the tape with her fingernail. There is no price tag.

Marta comes to the door at two forty-five. She has a notepad in her hand.

"Madam, that is not allowed."

Deirdre sets the fan down on the bedside table.

Marta speaks quietly. She does not lean on the doorframe. She says that two years ago an appliance brought in from home tripped the circuit for the whole floor at two in the morning. She says that on the same circuit there are the pumps for the pressure-relief mattresses. She says that on this floor there are nine pressure-relief mattresses.

Then she says they asked for the certified fans in March.

Deirdre says her mother has not slept for four nights.

Marta says she knows. She says that in nineteen there is a man of ninety-three. She says that in twenty-one there are two. She says that if she lets this one through, she cannot say no to the other eleven beds.

The two of them stay standing. Peggy breathes with her mouth open. On the back of Peggy's hand, where the needle goes in, the tape is curled at the edges.

The tea trolley comes along the corridor. It passes the door and moves off. One cup knocks against another at every joint in the floor.

Marta looks at the clock above the door. She says the round is at half past three.

At three the thermometer between fifteen and sixteen reads thirty-one.

Ten past three. From the corridor comes the noise of a stretcher. The wheels squeak on the left. Marta turns in the doorway. Someone calls her name from the far end. Marta goes out.

The doorway of the room stays empty.

Deirdre has the plug in her hand. The fan is on the bedside table, lying flat. It is white, three blades, round guard. On the box the tape is half open.

Deirdre does not put the plug in.

She goes to the window. She puts both hands on the frame and pushes. The window slides ten centimetres and comes to the end of its travel. The knock is dry. She pushes again. The same knock.

She goes back to the bedside table. She picks up the fan. She puts it back inside the plastic bag. She folds the cable in three and tucks it down the side. The bag has two handles and stands up on its own.

She goes out of the room. In the corridor there is the linen trolley, standing against the wall, between fourteen and fifteen. On top are the towels folded in stacks of six.

Deirdre sets the bag on top of the towels, the handles towards the corridor. Through the plastic the box shows. On the box the photograph shows.

Then she goes back into the room. She sits on the chair beside the bed. She keeps the car keys in her hand.

Twenty past three. Marta comes back from the far end of the corridor. She passes the trolley. She stops.

She looks at the bag. She does not touch it.

She comes into room fourteen. She goes to the bed. She pulls the sheet up twenty centimetres and leaves it there. Then she goes to the window and opens it as far as the catch. The knock is dry.

"That is as far as it goes."

Marta goes out. The trolley stays where it is.

At four the thermometer between fifteen and sixteen reads thirty-one. Into room fourteen air comes through the ten-centimetre gap. The curtains do not move.

Peggy sleeps on her side, her mouth open, a hand's breadth from the glass. On the glass, level with her mouth, there is a round bloom. It widens and it narrows.

On the trolley in the corridor, inside the bag, the photograph on the box shows a woman sitting in front of a fan that is running.