She hears the buzz of her phone on the coffee table and opens up the screen. Her heart leaps when she sees there’s a new message. It’s from Neil Watson. He’s the guy she’s hired to find Jamie. Does he have news?

She sinks down on the sofa to read his message.

‘I’ve looked everywhere. I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s any more that I can do. Usually there’s a lead, but I haven’t been able to find one. Perhaps we should start searching internationally.’ Internationally? Surely Jamie couldn’t have gone abroad? No one has been travelling in Covid, have they? But then she remembers how resourceful Jamie can be. What if he’d found a way to go back to Thailand? Is he locked down abroad? Is that why she can’t find him?

It’s been hard enough looking for him in Brighton, but how will she find him anywhere else in the world?

She closes the email and then opens her Instagram account, but she can’t really focus on the jolly colourful posts from the people she’s following. Sighing, she clicks on her messages. There are dozens that she can’t find the energy to deal with. Mostly they are from people wanting follow-up information about some of the suppliers she’s recommended, some wanting her to like links and pages, but she leaves those and opens one from a girl she did a course with a while ago.

Everything OK? You haven’t posted anything new for a while?

Her followers have noticed her re-hashed posts, then. She’s about to respond, give an excuse, when she stops herself.

She can’t post anything about her life at home when it doesn’t exist any more. Those chairs and sofas belong to the Melania Trump lookalike. Having not told the truth about the house being sold, she feels more of a fraud than ever.

And she thinks of Helga and, all of a sudden, she knows she’s going to do it. She’s going to take the plunge. Before she gives herself time to chicken out, or has even looked in the mirror, she presses the Live button and starts talking.

‘So … this is me,’ she says to the recording phone screen. ‘Raw and, as you can see, pretty much unfiltered.’ She can’t believe she’s actually doing this. ‘As one of my followers, Hayley, pointed out, I haven’t posted anything fresh for a while. But that’s because there’s been a lot of change going on for me. Changes that I didn’t think would happen to me at my age. But you see, it seems that I’ve unexpectedly found myself homeless. This is what’s left.’ She scans round to the wall of cardboard boxes.

‘I know I always said that I didn’t want to move again, having made my dream home, but I had no choice in the matter. So here I am. And I feel like I’m at a crossroads in my life and, well’ – she pauses – ‘and I think I need to talk about how my home became un-made.’