The atmosphere of the surgical unit was that of a cocktail party half an hour in

Standing at the door was a hospital porter. He was resting an elbow on the back of a heavily padded wheelchair. A strapping lad, wholly masculine, a credit to us all. He regarded me levelly with a sort of Byronic boredom. I was fetching in a paper shower cap, paper gown, knee-length stockingettes and paper socks inside claret slippers decorated with the West Ham football club logo of crossed riveting hammers. The slippers – a Christmas present – arrested his survey.

‘West Ham,’ he said. ‘We sold you Payet.’ ‘You did,’ I said. ‘Fat and moody, but what a player.’ At La Timone hospital in Marseille everybody supports Olympique de Marseille or OM. You sometimes see hospital administrators in the replica shirts. ‘Marcelo Bielsa made him the player he is,’ said the porter. ‘Before Bielsa he was a crazy man.’ ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said. He looked pensively at me for a while, then motioned me into his bathchair, as if such ignorance should be passed over.