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degree from Oxford. He started his own company at twenty-four. At twenty-five he was selected as one of five young people to represent Britain during Giscard d’Estaing’s European Youth Convention. At present he is a management consultant for a large international company based in London but will take his own company further when he has gathered more experience. He is writing a book in his spare time. He likes to keep fit and enjoys white collar boxing. He sky dives, he dives with sharks. He practises chi kung. He makes electronic music. He writes poetry. He is funny. He is kind. He loves life, attacks it head on, dangerously, seeking adrenalin, sometimes foolhardy, learning from his flaws while exploring, always, his spiritual resources. He is full-blooded, down to earth, but at the same time he is an intellectual.
    I’m boasting about my son. But what seems important is that Professor Benir should know about Miles’s brain, the brain that he and his team are now responsible for. He must know that it is exceptional.
    I apologise for boasting, I say to the professor, but what I have told you is true and it is breaking my heart that one of the things defining Miles was that he was an intellectual and now he is brain-damaged. I find that the most difficult thing to come to terms with. I wouldn’t mind anything else, his legs, his arms, anything, but not his brain. He used it with such vitality, it was crucial to his enjoyment of life, right down to his particular wit and sense of humour. Can I ask you for the truth, Professor Benir: what form is this brain damage going to take?
    He waits some time before answering. Miles lies quite still next to us, only the faintest movement visible as his chest rises and falls with the intake of each breath. Now that the swelling in his brain has subsided, the shunt that was draining off the excess fluid has been removed. There are no longer any tubes coming out of his nose or mouth; the tracheostomy and PEG have taken care of those. Void of expression, his strong, closed face is intimidating in the stillness of its silence.
    Professor Benir looks back up from Miles to me. The damage is not to his intellect, he says. That is not the area of the brain that is damaged. But he has suffered a very serious trauma to his brain. What is crucial now is that he begins intensive rehabilitation. We have done our work here, the surgery is complete; the important thing now is for you to arrange the next stage for him. We could move him to our Neuro-Rehab Clinic 40 kilometres away from Innsbruck but I think it would be best for him to return to England, where you and he will be at home. I would recommend the Acute Brain Injury Unit at Queen Square in London, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, which has an excellent reputation for neuro-rehabilitation. And please, he says, gently laying his hand on my arm, don’t worry about boasting. I asked you to tell me. I wanted to know about him. I am very sorry that this has happened to your son. I wish him, and all your family, very well.
    Now we must get Miles home – how, and where to, such obvious and crucial questions that we have deferred facing for the past five weeks. Such a lapse seems extraordinary, though for a time we had talked of staying in Austria until he was well enough to leave. We know better now. And so we get to work, David, Ron and I researching London hospitals that offer neuro-rehabilitation, contacting anybody we know who might be able to help or advise us. Friends who are doctors are invaluable, generous and patient with their time.
    It takes a week of intense negotiation. After a flurry of telephone calls to London hospitals Miles is finally offered a bed in the Intensive Care Unit at University College Hospital, to be reviewed and assessed before being moved to the Acute Brain Injury Unit at Queen Square, the ABIU. Our twin goals have been the ABIU