“I’ll wait by the car,” murmured Jiannis as Dr Dalal scurried Harmony into a small room with coffee machine, old magazines and a bowl of plastic flowers.

“Has anyone explained the situation to you?” Dr Dalal spoke with one hand resting over the pager at her hip, like a gunslinger ready to shoot into action, shifting her weight constantly from one foot to another, seemingly oblivious to her constant motion.

“Mum seems fine. The nanos got the clot.”

“Yes . . . yes, they did. But the question is, what caused the clot? Ms Meads, you need to know that this was possibly just a warning shot. We’re doing a few more tests to see if there are any obvious causes, but I would be surprised if this is the only stroke your mother experiences. Does she have K-blast or Zenblood?”

“Uh . . . no. Don’t think so.”

“I would really recommend that she gets them. I’m going to be prescribing them for her during her stay, but she really needs to be on them long-term. I’ll write them down; you can contact the insurance company when she’s released.” A scrawl of paper, words barely intelligible, shoved briskly into Harmony’s hand. “All better! Good, good!” sung Dr Dalal merrily, and she scampered away without another word.

Karen was released home three days later.

“Stairs are still a little tricky,” she mused, “And things don’t taste quite right, but I’m coping. Don’t you worry about me!”

“Mum, do you have K-blast or Zenblood?”

“Never heard of them.”

“You were on them while connected to the hospital’s Wi-Fi.”

“Oh really? What do they do?”

“They’re supposed to help you not get strokes.”

“Well then, I’d better get them, hadn’t I?”

“Yeah. I think that’d be a really good idea.”

“Can you do it for me? You know I’m not very good with this app thingy. It’s all just renal function this and optional upgrade that. Doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“Sure. I’ll check it out.”

She forgot about it, of course, for a few days. Work was busy, busy, busy: some really big sales going through, some fantastic properties coming on to the market, and there was always Jiannis and his friends. He was proud of her, really proud; wanted her to be at everything, meet everyone.

She only remembered on Sunday morning while he was cooking black pudding breakfast. Jiannis cooked huge breakfasts, feasts of taste, of sensory delight, and of course never put on any weight, shitting most of it out unchanged within a few hours, his nutritional upgrades having extracted what they needed as the mass of avocado, bacon, syrup, pancake, fried egg, tomato, mushroom, sausage, bean and prosecco moved through his digestive tract.

The sight of black pudding sizzling in the pan, the sudden smell of hot, dry blood, hit her nose with a start of sensory delight and immediate guilt.

“Shit,” she hissed, grabbing her phone and logging into her mum’s app account. Karen wasn’t ever any good at remembering passwords, and Harmony’s resentment at being used as an IT consultant for so many years had dwindled into resigned calm as she realised it was just easier – simply easier – to do it herself.