‘Let’s leave that thought for now, but I love these ideas,’ said Miles.

In this way the reading continued, with much boisterous interrupting. Genevieve alone was quiet, sticking strictly to her lines. Visible onscreen, she sat sipping a mug of tea and kept tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, only to have it swing loose again. Her once long hair was now a bluntly cropped bob, an anti-style statement that also managed to be stylish. Holly thought it looked annoyingly excellent.

‘Sorry, this connection’s a bit dodgy,’ Genevieve said as they took a break. ‘If it freezes I’ll call back.’

‘Are you living in the country?’ Holly asked.

‘Oh god, no. We’re in Chiswick.’

Holly blinked. Genevieve was just down the road, ten minutes from the theatre. Everyone else had schlepped across London. For Holly, who lived in Bethnal Green, the commute took an hour each way, a walk to Whitechapel tube station and then the District Line.

Genevieve was wooden as she read her lines that day. ‘It was hard reading by Skype,’ Miles conceded later. ‘And she’s not feeling a hundred per cent. It’s early days.’

They couldn’t find the rest of Pickles, she and Ben, when they looked that night. There was no doubt the pelt was his; it was distinctive, mottled and silvery like the trunk of a birch tree. Holly was angry at Ben, blaming him for the rabbit’s death. In truth, she was angry at them both, for their shared failure as a couple to protect the animal in their charge, their first additional family member.

Later, in bed, she woke Ben. ‘It was me,’ she said.

‘Say what?’ He was groggy.

‘I think I let the rabbit out. I was up late last night, learning my lines in the courtyard. I’m sorry. Oh god. Poor Pickles.’

She should have been more careful. She was anxious about the play, that was the problem. And she was right to be anxious. She was starting to realise why Platonov was rarely performed. Who in their right mind would attempt to stage such a play, with its convoluted plot and impossibly large cast? Miles was still cutting the script down, refining the adaptation. He went back and forth on how much was necessary. Should they cut the scene where Platonov harassed a woman and she fell back into the caviar cart? If they kept it, how could they fake a whole cart full of caviar, and was it necessary for it to be a caviar cart as such?

On day two of the read-through, Holly made a point of arriving early. Genevieve dialled in again, smiling bravely and dabbing a tissue at her nose. By late afternoon, when they finished the final act, the group’s initial high spirits had given way to a flatter mood. No one admitted to feeling daunted, but the reality of the task was making itself felt.