Branimira was Morpheus’s perfect parent.

And now she is gone.

Charles is uncertain what to do with the cheese. He doesn’t feel he can put it straight back into the refrigerator again, so he pats it, approvingly, then pushes it into his trouser pocket.

‘It’s actually inadvisable to keep cheese in plastic,’ Avigail volunteers. ‘It needs to breathe. If a plastic wrap is too tight the cheese is way more likely to develop bacteria.’

Ying Yue turns to inspect Avigail. Ying Yue is deeply impressed by Avigail’s insights into cheese preservation.

Charles turns to inspect Avigail. Charles is borderline hostile to Avigail’s insights into cheese preservation. No. He isn’t borderline. He is actively hostile.

Fucking know-it-all.

‘Cheese automatically produces ammonia,’ Avigail continues, ‘it’s a natural by-product of cheese and it needs to be released. The plastic interferes with this. For that reason you’re much better off storing cheese in parchment or wax paper.’

‘Parchment?!’ Charles jeers. He is visualising vellum.

Cheese in vellum?

Ridiculous!

Charles strongly suspects that Avigail is both a fat-head and a perfectionist. He can see – in Avigail – what an insidious and abhorrent trait perfectionism is. Not only insidious and abhorrent but unattractive. Perfectionism is signally unattractive.

If Charles didn’t dislike/fear Avigail so much he would actually pity her.

But pity is exhausting and he needs to partner himself right now. He needs to be practising self-compassion.

I mean why was she hiding behind a wall earlier?

(Avigail. The wall. Earlier.)

Is it appropriate for an estate agent to leave a property mid-viewing and then hide behind a wall on an adjacent street?

Charles despairs for Avigail.

What am I feeling? Charles asks himself.

Pity (for Avigail. He can’t help it. Poor thing. He pities her).

Guilty (for saying he likes cheese when he doesn’t like cheese. Although he doesn’t dislike cheese. He is indifferent to cheese. Surely this is people-pleasing by any other name? Surely this is fawning? Am I flight, freeze, fawn after all? Charles wonders).

Bemused (cheese in pocket feels awkward and slightly cold against thigh).

Worried (strange noises coming from direction of living room/work room).

‘So I think we’ve probably got the sum of the kitchen by now,’ Avigail says, satisfied that she has offered all the information she currently possesses on the packaging of cheese (although she has plenty more to say on the storage of cheese, in general). ‘Shall we head through to the living room? Uh … yes …? Everyone?’

Nobody reacts.

The ‘everyone’ is mainly directed towards Wang Shu. But Wang Shu has no intention of interrupting her important phone call (in Chinese) so turns her back on Avigail and talks MORE LOUDLY THAN EVER into her phone. Wang Shu is now facing the wall which Avigail is pretty sure (in ALL cultures) means ‘screw you’.

There is a brief pause as Avigail ponders how best to negotiate this situation. During this hiatus there is the sound of something being violently shoved or knocked over in an adjacent room.