It had cost a sum of £35,000 plus the cost of travelling to Slovakia three times to get the android made. Six years ago, when she bought it, that was about what you'd expect to pay. Nowadays, Odede thought as she fixed the android's hair, you can get them for less but they are still a niche product. An unusually unique thing to have in a house.

After her step-mother had finally died in her hospital bed, Odede inherited and then sold the old house. Some of the money she saved, some she spent, and life went on. The idea to buy the android came from a conversation that she'd had one hungover Sunday morning with a work colleague. It was her idea. She hadn't seen them in any adverts. At that point, she wasn't even sure if you could buy them.

But after some research on the internet and a few emails here and there, Odede found a Slovakian university teacher that would help. He had planned the whole thing after she wired him the deposit. He booked her flights, found a place where they scanned her body in a 3D imaging machine and took a thousand reference photos. He went as far as getting his uncle out of retirement (a tailor) to make a replica set of clothes of the ones she felt the most comfortable in.

With the android she bought, Odede thought, this unique experience. And the story, which she would lay out to anyone who visited her apartment, telling them which parts were made of whichever new silicon or plastic or metal the engineers had used. The experience of having hours of Skype conversations recorded, and then intricately poured over by the language programmers, whose first language wasn't even English. And, of course, what it was like to live with an android.

No-one ever asked about it, but these days Odede spent more time talking about what it was like now that she - and not the android - was aging. Just around the edges, around the eyes, she thought. But noticeably so, especially in comparison.

This morning Odede stood staring at the android while she ate her cereal, lost in thought, chewing and frowning. The android was benign and silent as always. It sat on their sofa, it's perfectly lifelike hands placed still on the glass table.

In the kitchen, Odede rinsed her cereal bowl under some cold water and left it next to the sink. She put her coat on, and her scarf.

'I'm going to work now,' Odede told the android.

Its hands upon the table, the android turned towards Odede and in a familiar voice said goodbye.