Hipper.

Chipper.

Clipper.

Tipper.

Flipper is a fairly particular word.

She visualises her commission going up in smoke.

Pouf!

Charles should actually be issued with a public health warning.

Charles is a fucking menace.

Flipper?!

Ying Yue touches her bad arm with her good hand and opens her mouth to speak but then defers, automatically, to Avigail.

Yet underneath …?

She is seen!

Ying Yue is seen!

And with flippers!

Ying Yue’s spirit animal is the dolphin.

Ying Yue is seen!

By this strange-looking gentleman with his long, pale face and his holey, black underwear!

Flip-pers.

What mean this word?

La la la.

Charles glances over at Avigail.

What is the story that Avigail is living now about this situation?

he wonders.

Avigail is actually quoting the Tao Te Ching to herself.

There is no calamity

Like not knowing what is enough,

she thinks.

Fuck you, Charles,

she thinks.

Flipper?

she thinks.

The oyster shell?

she thinks.

The broom?

she thinks.

Avigail is living at least five different stories. And they are all running in her head, consecutively. And none of them fit perfectly together or make absolute sense.

But that’s okay.

Yup. That’s absolutely fine.

Because good enough is more than enough. For Avigail.

Ha.

Yeah.

If only.

4.

CAT HAIR IS LONELY PEOPLE GLITTER

But Lucy Molloy …? Who? Who she? Who Lucy Molloy? Heh?

Lucy Molloy doesn’t own a cat. No. Lucy Molloy owns a tiny, ferocious Boston Terrier called Athena. Athena enjoys torturing small animals and large insects in Lucy Molloy’s paved back garden in Perth, Australia. Lucy Molloy’s current home is unfussy, white-walled and open-plan. She has a swimming pool. Lucy Molloy is in her mid-twenties and has glossy, straight dark brown hair. Lucy Molloy is very thin with larger than you’d expect, natural breasts. Lucy Molloy loves make-up. She obsesses over her brows and her lashes, although she isn’t an especially girlie girl. Lucy Molloy relaxes at home in oversized T-shirts. She rides a motorcycle, but in a way that seems utterly devoid of swagger. Lucy Molloy wears glasses sometimes even though it’s unlikely that there’s anything wrong with her eyesight. Lucy Molloy is married to the celebrated tattooist Dan Molloy. Dan Molloy tattooed her back with a huge, beautiful black and grey goddess Kali (the eyes staring, the tongue poking out). He also tattooed a knife on to her face. The handle hangs on her forehead, the blade disappears behind her eye and re-emerges on her cheek.

Dan Molloy’s own face is also covered in tattoos. They’re quite a startling couple to look at. But Lucy Molloy is, to all intents and purposes, one of the most conventional people you’re ever likely to come across. Watching her posts on YouTube – about her collection of Harry Potter memorabilia or her online tube dress purchases or her love of stickers or how she makes vegan brownies (Lucy Molloy isn’t vegan), or her trips to the beach or how she wants to get back into horse-riding – is like entering a realm of normalcy that is way beyond normal(cy). Lucy Molloy – she of the facial tattoo – celebrates an exquisite blandness. This is a real life that is utterly lacking in real-life anxieties. A drab, hallowed, exalted world that is strangely effortful in its effortlessness.