She pushed the telephone aside and swung her legs gingerly out of bed, groaning a little as the full force of the headache hit her. Her eyes ached too, when she looked sideways into the bathroom mirror, and there were shadows beneath them that needed camouflage. She had drunk too much as she sat wedged between two directors of a knitwear company with whom she had signed a contract. Both of them had made heavy-handed attempts to proposition her, and she could not disguise her boredom without a good deal of help from the waiter with the champagne. The line on her forehead was still red and difficult to conceal entirely. She examined the scar in the mirror and frowned. Then she shrugged off her anxiety and dressed quickly, flinging hairbrushes, rollers and make-up, and an apple from the fridge into a large bag. As she left the sitting room she picked up the two novels she was currently reading. They passed the time during the long hours of sitting around, while lights and backdrops were put in place and clothes were discussed and changed and then changed again. This was not a session she wanted to do, but she was still limited in the jobs she could accept. No outside close-ups, in case her hair blew away from her face. No multi-page stories for the better fashion magazines, because she could not change her hairstyle radically enough for the contrast demanded by the best photographers. She had a sense of being damaged goods and it made her nervous.

There was also the problem of her flat. Marina could no longer manage the stairs, and they had to meet in cafés or restaurants, or at her parents’ apartment when her father was away on business. But Camilla did not want to sell her home and she was aware that whatever she did, her mother would soon be unable to visit her anywhere. Unless she went through a miraculous remission. This deliberate calculation made her ashamed, and she wondered if other people with a dying relative were heartless enough to think things out in this way.