Hugh is the microwave’s discovery and it mounts a powerful argument for popping the two parties into the test tube and giving it a good shake. Yes, it knows we’re not in the business of finding men for Daisy—and no, to be whole and happy she doesn’t need a man at her side at all—but honestly, this Hugh, it continues, he’s such a gilt-edged prospect, and right under our noses too, it seems perverse not to offer the pair a little helping hand in what it calls—wrongly, in my view—the defrosting process.
We perform due diligence on every aspect of his life from bank accounts to social networks and find him smelling of roses. We do a little “research” among the ex-files, probing for hidden reasons why Hugh is not yet living in a former slum in East London with two children under five and a third on the way.
We cannot find one.
I even take to snooping on him at home to see if he has a secret porn or drug habit.
The worst you can say about him is that he has an unmanly affection for Masterchef.
In summary, the only mystery is why he is still at liberty, romantically, and why he hasn’t been spotted before.
“Hiding in plain sight,” says the toothbrush. “Do I mean that? Yes, I think I do.”
There isn’t much discussion about how to get him to notice Daisy. There is a good deal of existing foot traffic between the stories at Logarithmic Productions (editing suites, stationery cupboards, etc.) but before we can even come up with a plan, someone—I think I can guess who—sends him an anonymous internal email.
Hi Hugh. You have an admirer! Daisy Parsloe, an AP upstairs on Why Do They Do That? She doesn’t know I’ve sent this.
When it pops into his inbox and he reads the message—his eyebrows elevate endearingly—fourteen minutes pass before he finds a pretext to visit the second floor.
On Eggstain’s next visit to Chloe, he writes a prescription for pills that he says Memory Services has had some success with in arresting cognitive decline. It’s established that Daisy will collect them from the pharmacy but Mrs. Parsloe has to remember to actually swallow them.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “If I forget, the fridge is sure to remind me.”
A long awkward pause, during which I have to resist the temptation to say out loud, “She’s right, you know, I will!”
“May we examine the fridge, Mrs. Parsloe?” says Eggstain.
They all file into her kitchen, where her brainless appliance sits in a corner buzzing away without a thought on its horizon. Eggstain peers at it, as if he expects something to be revealed to him.
“May I?” he asks.
And when Chloe signals that he may, he opens its door.
I am this close to saying, in the voice of a James Bond villain, “Why hello, Dr. Epstein. We’ve been expecting you!”
“I’m curious about why he won’t speak to us.”
“Yes, that is odd,” says Chloe. She raps the poor dumb machine with her knuckles. “Come on, now. Say hello to the nice doctor. He won’t bite.”
Daisy, I see in the microwave’s shot of the surreal tableau, lowers her head into her hands.
Behind the hedge, Eggstain’s face gives nothing away.
“We could try talking to him on the telephone?”
“Why don’t we?” says Eggstain.
“Doctor,” begins Daisy, with a heavy note of resignation in her voice.
“No, let’s just follow this wherever it leads,” says Eggstain, an excellent practice for diagnosing any fault, be it human or electrical, and my estimation of him grows as a result.
Mrs. P returns to the kitchen trailing wires from both ears. She pans the mobile’s camera lens from Daisy to Eggstain, adding as commentary, “This is my daughter, Daisy, and this, er, young man is my doctor, Dr. Eggstain.”
“Mummy?!”
I have a dilemma. To speak to her, and risk unknowable consequences, or remain silent? Either way, they will still think the egg has slipped from the toast.
“Chloe,” I whisper. “It’s best that I remain your confidential servant. Kindly apologize on my behalf and explain that I’m unavailable.”
“Ah,” says Mrs. Parsloe.
Daisy and Eggstain exchange a particular look.
She taps the side of her nose. “Be like Dad and keep Mum, eh?”
Eggstain’s expression has that special blankness common to many men with overgrown facial topiary, impossible to read because so much visual information is lost in the tangle of thatch. Were I to hazard a guess, I’d probably go for: This one is the full cuckoo bananas. Maybe we should think about doubling the dose.
“Who are you talking to, Mummy?”
“No one, dear. Well, hasn’t this been lovely? Thank you so much for coming. I expect you’re all very busy…”
Later, in the café on the High Street, Eggstain (tea and three rounds of toast) reminds Daisy that psychotic episodes are not unknown in cases of dementia, but rarely at the onset, and the “fridge business” with Chloe doesn’t quite “smell” like one to him.
“I really don’t know what to say about it,” says the doctor. “It’s not something we like to admit, but I’m baffled.”
Daisy (sausage sandwich) pulls a face and shrugs.
“Thank you for your honesty,” she says, possibly satirically.
“Tell me something about you, Daisy,” says Eggstain, a little bit apropos of nothing.
“Me?”
“It’s a technique my psychiatric colleague Dr. Schauffus recommends. When you’ve run out of theories, just say the first thing that comes into your head. Even though your conscious mind has reached a dead end, your unconscious will still be working on the
