Charlotte Wood

And where there's her couch.

And there is the couch.

The couch is a gift that Jude gave to Sylvie for her beach house.

It's a cast-off of Jude's, but Jude's always got these beautiful furnishings and Danish this and Japanese ceramic that.

So somehow, at some point, she decided that Sylvie should have this beautiful white couch in her house.

And the others are like, oh God, the damn couch, because no one's allowed to go near it, no one's allowed to get anywhere near it because it might get dirty.

And Sylvie's house is actually a kind of, you know, run-down old beach house with crappy old 70s furniture, but this giant white couch in the middle.

And of course the dog is there now.

And Jude comes across the couch and thinks...

how beautiful is the couch it's a shame that all these things around sort of detract from the couch the others come along and go oh there's the couch it's a shame that that couch sort of takes over sylvie's beautiful house but from it was a gift from jude but jude's also very um concerned about what happens to the gifts that she gives people yeah so it's a generosity with caveats yes she's very and she talks about her own generosity quite a lot and

She has one memory of her sister-in-law sort of murmuring one day, well, it's not actually that generous if you have to keep talking about it.

And it just infuriated her.

Well, yes, but sort of sublimated rage.

And, I mean, she hasn't...

got that much to be angry about except of course the fact that she's spent 40 years loving a man who will never be really available to her but i like the fact that you i mean it seems that there's a certain lack of judgment about that she still has moments of joy with daniel and with the way that she describes this and daniel's great except that he's married

She has Daniel's voice in her head all the time, which is, Jude, come on, don't be so mean.

When she says something to one of the other women, she can hear her internal Daniel saying, look, they're your best friends, just be a bit nicer to them.

And also when she's huffing and puffing about how she does all the work in the kitchen, he's in her head saying, but you like doing all the work in the kitchen.

That's what your thing is.

So he's kind of a calibrating influence on her in a way.