‘I’m all right, love.’ She’d already had so much tea that she felt like one of those balloons filled with water. And what if she was on the lavatory when a call finally came. No, she’d stay within five seconds of the phone, and then perhaps it would be almost as if she did have a mobile, and was able to join in properly like all these other people; be a proper mother when James needed her. Which she’d always tried to do, even when it hadn’t been easy.

It felt unjust that it should come down to not having a phone. She couldn’t have imagined that staying up with the latest gadget would be part of what it meant to care for someone. Look at her, sitting helplessly with her equally helpless old machine. They were alike: analogue creatures in a digital crisis.

Lee kissed her on the top of her head. ‘I’ll keep fighting with her,’ he said, meaning the computer. In his heart he knew it was not a winnable fight. Jean’s internet connection would never be reliable until she changed provider, as he’d several times suggested she might do. This current lot were useless. He’d had more or less enough of their quirky little error messages. ‘Oops! Something seems to be wrong.’ Like he was a ninety-year-old being looked over by a kindly doctor. He didn’t know whether he was getting crotchety or whether customer service messages were getting more juvenile. Either way: when he moved in here properly, he’d sort this out. If he moved in here. If he was able to start that conversation.

He sighed, glanced at his phone. There was nothing more from Sally. Nor from anyone. The new twenty pounds of credit had hardly been touched because, really, there were only so many people they could text. Five of the texts – dictated by Jean, tapped out by him – had gone to James, and who knew whether they had been seen, whether that 75p had just gone down a well. Of course he’d spend a lot more than that if it could somehow solve this problem. He’d do anything for Jean; he’d said as much in Zizzi only last Wednesday. It was just not at all clear what they could do about this.