Our romantic highlights include building flat-pack furniture, checking floors and dimmer switches

Armed with latex gloves and a mask, Charlotte Cripps heads off to her dad’s house, where he is self-isolating, to deliver provisions but when she can’t find her keys her mind wanders back to happier times

Illustration by Amara May

I’m just off to my dad’s where he is self-isolating. There’s only so much TV one man can watch and I worry for his sanity. And of course, mine. He wants four green peppers, a Radio Times, and a new landline phone that works in case the mobile networks go down again. He’s set up with a work laptop – not bad for an 87-year-old – but he needs a resident technician to help with all the computer hitches.

I leg it to High Street Ken where I can get him a phone and my hands are raw from all the hand washing and gel I’m applying every five minutes. I’ve always acted as his travel companion/travel agent/secretary and general dogsbody but how am I going to manage it as a working single mum?

I have to let myself into his house while he waits in the garden where we talk three metres apart. I’m wearing latex gloves and a face mask that cost me £2.99 from my local chemist. I can’t take any risks. But I can’t find the keys to his house. It’s Ok I can ring the doorbell and tell him to back off through the letterbox, but if there is an emergency I need them.

That’s when I remember Alex; I see him vividly standing there with all his client’s keys, which he wore around his neck. I will never forget the day he added my set to his collection. It wasn’t like we were moving in with 2.5 kids and a dog. In fact, I wasn’t moving in. But I had hoped he would do U-turn at the last minute. But no – although he did carry me over the threshold – his men swarmed the place ready to do it up so he could move in alone. Had I made a big mistake? I called the psychic who told me to chill out and stop going on about him.

Soon the highlights of our relationship included building an IKEA futon with him until the early hours, checking out the glossy new floors in my sitting room and the dimmer switch in the bedroom. Not everyone’s idea of romance, spatting over the complicated instructions. We were like an old married couple building furniture – but we weren’t even officially together. It was a continual challenge explaining to people what the hell was going on.

Then came the phone calls about the boiler not working and council tax. Was I turning into his landlady? Didn’t he get it? We were meant to be together not ships passing in the night. So when my sister suggested I visit her in Brazil, I jumped at the chance.

I popped over to Alex’s – or mine – however you want to see it – with a spring in my step. “Hasta luego,” I was saying to myself as I arrived at the front door he had painted a smart pink. He knew it was my favourite colour and had spotted a pink front door in Chelsea and had excitedly sent me a photo of it. At least it showed me he cared.

But I wasn’t living with him and he was more interested in spreadsheets than settling down with me. Was the psychic a fruitcake and taking me down the wrong path? “You either believe me or you don’t,” she kept saying. Most of the time I got her answerphone – did I need to tread carefully in case she blocked me? What would I do without her?

Alex handed me a Christmas card of a thorny rose. I’d obviously got under his skin, I thought, as I noticed his artistic handwriting in an ink pen. “Happy Christmas Love Alex” – no flourishes there. At least it didn’t say “kind regards” which a few of his emails had done recently, which devastated me, until my friend told it was an automatic sign off.

But I’d gone round to tell him about Brazil. As always he was busy sitting at a desk toting up client’s bills. I had given up keeping tabs on what was going on between us – if in fact anything? I stood there thinking “I really must just walk out now” but another part of me was thinking “is he going to stop working soon so we can have a nice time together?”

Then his phone rang and I said it: “Must go, I’m of to Brazil in the morning. See you later I said as I bolted out of the door.”