"I don’t think she rates email as an invention at all"

ALL IS suspense and tension upstairs in bed; we are watching the final episode of The Last Tango in Halifax, series two, on Netflix. 

Or to put it another way, observing a load/wait/buffer circle go round and round, interrupted sporadically by a brief, gripping snippet.

“It’s like watching one of Kaa’s eyes,” I say, staring at the circle.

“Kaa?”

“The snake from Jungle Book. With the freaky eyes.”

“It’s bloody frustrating is what it is.”

An exhausted battery, and charger-cable, held feebly in place by sellotape, only adds to the tension but in Halifax, Celia and Alan are about to wed, and we’re hoping against hope that Caroline and Kate will resume their affair, so we’re mustering the spirit of the Blitz.

We watch Kaa until suddenly, he’s seen off by Caroline and Kate, who appear on screen.

“We’re in business!” we say, high-fiving each other.

The phone rings.

“That’s your Mum,” I say.

“Why mine?” he says

“My mum never rings at this time.”

“It’ll be about the iPad,” he says, “where’s the phone?”

“Down the back of the sofa in the conservatory,” I say.

“Press pause,” he says, getting out of bed and dislodging the power-cable.

I grab the cable and check the screen anxiously; Caroline and Kate have disappeared but at least Kaa’s back.

“Don’t watch anything without me,” he says from the stairs.

“Your mum rang this morning,” I shout downstairs, sellotaping the cable back in, “I tried to explain to her the way an email address works — you know, how the devil is in the detail — but I don’t think she rates email as an invention at all. Not half as much as the Kenwood Chef.”

“Hi Mum,” he says, re-entering the bedroom with phone.

My mobile rings.

“Well, there you are,” my mother says, “I’ve been trying your landline all evening but gave up. I expect it was stuffed down the back of the sofa with the battery flat like it usually is.”

“If you want to send an e-mail, Mum,” my husband says, “the address has to be exact, down to the last dot. So it’s... No, you don’t need to get pen and paper, just type it into that box I showed you.”

“I’ll phone you on the landline in a minute, Mum,” I say, “Dave’s mum is having trouble with her iPad.”

“Tell her from me to keep going,” she says, “I couldn’t live without mine. Don’t know how I’d get through the night without the BBC World Service. I sometimes wonder if they actually invented it specifically for insomniacs. Not beyond her at all. Very user-friendly, the iPad.”

“Mum says tell her to keep going,” I say, but my husband puts his hand up, in the manner of a garda stopping a car; it is a delicate business, trying to forestall his mother, a woman of fixed opinions, from fixing a new one on the matter of the iPad that he and his sisters bought her for Christmas. For once an opinion is fixed, it is fixed forever and ever amen, and right now, it appears she is on the very brink of amen.

“No, Mum, you don’t spell dot,” he says, “you just put a dot in. You insert it into the address. Press the full-stop key on your iPad. On the keyboard. What do you mean ‘locked up?’”

Amen hangs in the balance; it is all coming down to a dot.

“Since we’re on the subject of iPads,”my mother says, “I meant to say, if you ever mention Candy Crush again in your column — you should mention that it’s very good for your synapses, and this is very important as you get older. I mean, I’m sure having to work against a clock, like you have to do on Candy Crush, has it’s health benefits.”

“No, Mum, press it,” my husband says, “tap lightly. Remember, not with your fingernail — but don’t press down for too long.”

Is my daughter there by any chance, my mother wants to know, “maybe she can get me off this blasted level that I’m stuck on, on Candy Crush? I mean your sister’s taken herself off to Goa, so she can’t help me and I’m demented. I’ll phone you back in a minute.”

My husband gets into bed, phone dangling in his hand. He looks defeated. I think it’s an amen.

We gaze at Kaa. The phone rings, just as Caroline and Kate appear onscreen again.

“Pass me the phone,” I say, “my mum’s stuck on Candy Crush.”

“Be quick,” he says, “I think we’re really in business this time,” and he passes me the phone, knocking out the charger-cable.

The screen goes black.