‘Actually,’ said Elizabeth, sitting down next to her boyfriend, before reconsidering and moving to the other sofa. ‘There’s something we wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Please don’t tell me he’s proposed,’ said George.

‘No, I don’t believe in traditional marriage,’ said Wilkes. ‘It only encourages outdated notions of a woman’s place in society.’

‘Hear, hear,’ agreed Elizabeth. ‘Although I would like a nice day out at some point in the future. I’ve always imagined having my wedding reception at the Savoy. What do you think, Daddy?’

‘It depends on who’s waiting for you at the other end of the aisle, my love. And whether or not he’s run a wet flannel over his face that morning.’

‘Actually, before we get into our big news,’ said Wilkes, ‘there is something else I’d just like to clarify. Going forward, I mean.’

‘Have we become a commercial business?’ asked George. ‘Are you going to give us directives and goals, then drill down to incentivize our core competency?’

‘This is the great news I mentioned earlier,’ he said, turning to Elizabeth.

‘Oh yes, I forgot about that. Is it to do with the lepers?’

‘The leopards?’ asked Beverley, frowning. ‘What leopards? If you think you’re bringing a leopard into this house, then you have another think coming. It would eat Ustym Karmaliuk on sight, and who knows what it might do to Achilles? It would be such a shame to spoil that beautiful face. He’s the only one of my children who one might call conventionally attractive. No offence.’

‘What’s your great news?’ asked Elizabeth, choosing to set this latest insult aside as she turned to her boyfriend. Wilkes broke into a proud, self-satisfied smile.

‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘from now on, I would appreciate it if you would stop referring to me as he.’

‘I’m sorry?’ said George.

‘That’s all right. No need to apologize. You weren’t to know.’

‘I wasn’t apologizing. I was expressing the fact that I haven’t the slightest clue what you’re talking about.’

‘Whatever this is,’ said Elizabeth, ‘perhaps it can wait until another time? When we don’t have our other news to impart?’

‘If you’re pregnant—’ began Beverley.

‘I’m not. Wilkes doesn’t believe in ejaculating inside a woman. He calls it a form of colonial ingress.’

‘The other news is important, yes,’ said Wilkes. ‘But so is this. It would just mean the world to us if, from now on, everyone could make an effort to get our pronouns right.’

‘What’s he talking about now?’ asked Beverley, turning to her husband and making the hand signal that she always employed when she wanted a large glass of wine. He opened a new bottle, suspecting that she’d need a lot of it before the night was over, and poured an extremely healthy measure.

‘As of today,’ continued Wilkes, ‘we are officially non-binary.’