‘Faith, I don’t have any wine.’

I’d had a quiet weekend in, while Jordan worked at the office almost round the clock, again. I started and finished a second-hand book my mother bought me, The Rosie Project. Saturday evening, thinking a glass of Malbec would go down well, I’d discovered the few bottles of red I’d stashed were gone. The white wine I was sure was in the refrigerator door was also absent.

‘I’ll have some for you,’ Faith says. ‘I’m getting quite trolleyed.’

I pop into the kitchen. With one ear strained on downstairs, I hear Jordan and Robert communicating about consumer surveys and market penetration. They show no signs or interest in coming up – and I deliberately haven’t reminded Jordan tonight is the launch. If I can get away with him giving me his stock-standard level of interest, at least for this first episode, with the little sausage, I’ll be happy with that. I check the kitchen cupboard for booze. Cream sherry and tawny port aren’t appealing. I return to the front room, sans alcohol, and take my seat on the sofa. On the television, Faith appears in the flesh.

‘You look like Giselle Bundchen,’ I say. On screen, she’s even more mesmerising than in real life. ‘Faith, you look like a supermodel.’

The camera pans in and Faith smiles seductively into the camera.

‘Oh no, my nose!’ she howls into my ear. I hear a quick succession of swallows.

‘What about it?’

‘It’s ginormous!’

It’s not. It’s the television angle – I had the same shock the first time I saw my backside on the small screen. Faith has a Princess Diana type of nose. She’s beautiful, and so is her nose. Even magnified by the television.

‘It’s just the angle, Faith. Your nose is perfect.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Darling, you are perfect.’

Faith says, very quietly, ‘Gracie, thank you.’

We natter throughout the first block of advertisements. A promo for a furniture clearance sale, a jingle for a steam-cleaning vacuum, then an ad for another new dating app. When the show returns, I’m almost beginning to enjoy myself, sitting here watching our antics on the telly, as I giggle with Faith down the line. An awful grinding sound interrupts our call. Grrnnnnnnn.

I shall explain. When Jordan moved in, he insisted on setting up my landline to make free calls via the Wi-Fi. I’ve never once had cause to use it, but, guaranteed, whenever Jordan is downstairs on his computer working or playing a shoot-em-up multi-player game that sucks the bandwidth, it’ll be my phone call with my mother or Faith that’s scrambled.

‘Jordan, are you on the internet?’ I shout in the general direction of downstairs, without getting up.

With some indignation, Jordan shouts back, ‘We’re working.’

I heard the sound of machine guns killing zombies start up moments ago.