Ying Yue is still clutching the bloodied tissue. She looks over towards the bin. She frowns and focuses very hard. Then she screws the tissue up into a tight ball and lobs it towards the bin. The overall distance between Ying Yue and the bin is about three feet, in total. There is no discernible reason for Ying Yue not to step forward and gently place the tissue into the bin. But she throws the tissue. And she misses the bin. The tissue hits Charles in the groin area and then ricochets on to the kitchen lino and slides across the floor. Before anyone can move to retrieve it, Morpheus, who has been loitering around in the hallway, darts into the kitchen to attack the tissue and play pitter-pat with it between his funny, naked, pink paws. Because Wang Shu has been talking on the phone (in Chinese) all the while, she has only been partially aware of the transaction re the tissue and is completely unaware of the existence of Morpheus. When Morpheus suddenly darts into the kitchen, Wang Shu (who is still talking on the phone) takes him – in his hairless state – to be some kind of bizarrely distended rat. A terrifying, supernatural creature. She screams (of course Wang Shu does not scream – she is constitutionally incapable of anything as feminine and pointless as screaming – she yells, she squawks, like an irate raven) and springs away from Morpheus into the gap between the fridge/freezer and the door. Unfortunately any sudden movement in a room so full of stuff is liable to cause a measure of disruption. Wang Shu knocks into the fridge/freezer on top of which Charles stores not only his kettle, but a tea tray full of tea accoutrements, and a second and a third kettle (which he has reason to believe will be more ergonomic/faster/cheaper to boil/less prone to producing limescale etc. than the one he currently uses), plus a collection of black teas, white teas, green teas and smoked teas, and teas to aid the promotion of digestion, sleep, liver and kidney regulation, nasal decongestion, calm, serenity etc. etc.

Avigail moves (her lightning responses are something Charles does find enviable) to support Wang Shu, although she finds herself actually unable to touch Wang Shu in the final instant because Wang Shu seems to have an inviolable space around her which it is absolutely impossible to penetrate (this is an essential part of something which – in informal lingo – you might call Wang Shu’s ‘personality’), so Avigail diverts to catch a couple of the items currently falling from on top of the fridge/freezer (a tea for menstrual cramps, a silver-plated cream jug).

Ying Yue (as Wang Shu’s mirror) is compelled to mimic her mother’s reaction (but with a little more finesse) so also springs back, in shock, against the surface behind her and accidentally knocks into a broom that happens to be leaning there. The broom falls forward. The broom’s handle knocks into Avigail (first), then hits the very tip of Wang Shu’s trainer (after). Wang Shu yells again – even louder (if that’s remotely possible) – and drops her phone.