The room is consequently very hot.

Wang Shu is still talking on the phone in Chinese.

On the very rare occasions when Wang Shu isn’t talking on the phone in Chinese she enjoys watching YouTube footage of cats falling.

Someone or something scaring the shit out of a cat makes her laugh so hard and so loud that sometimes her loving daughter Ying Yue fears for her well-being. And her sanity. She laughs and laughs and laughs until she sobs. And then suddenly – in an instant – every inch of happiness is sucked – by a giant, black vortex – out of the world and Wang Shu is rendered inconsolable.

This has made Ying Yue suspicious of pleasure. Ying Yue has not been raised in a faith tradition but she senses that pleasure often has dire consequences. The Christians were completely right about that.

‘Do you have a bin, Charles?’ Avigail asks.

Avigail could happily punch Charles square in the face for opting to do his washing today and for hanging it on a sodding free-standing heated rack in the tiny kitchen and then loitering next to it, hugely, and draining all available light and air from the room.

Avigail’s mother actually used a rather more antique version of this particular kind of dryer when she was a girl. It brings back bittersweet memories for Avigail. Whenever Avigail was home from hospital as a teen she would sit in the kitchen, gazing at her plate of gefilte fish patties (she was a slow eater until she stopped eating altogether) and imagine that the dryer was some kind of Tardis. A time machine that she could climb inside and use to travel to distant epochs/different galaxies. Yes. Away.

AWAY FROM FAMILY.

AWAY FROM GOD.

Charles has neglected to cover the rack in a sheet or duvet cover. Avigail believes that this is key. The idea is to do your sheets and duvets – your household linens – in the first wash so that when you do your personal items – your vests, smalls etc. in the second wash they can be hung within a modest curtain of fabric, the warm air is contained, and the dryer is therefore rendered both more cost-effective and more productive.

Charles is standing next to his kitchen bin with his foot applied to the little pedal so the lid is standing proud.

‘Would you like to dispose of your tissue in Charles’s kitchen bin, Ying Yue?’ Avigail asks, pointing.