When she walks out of the cubicle thankfully the room is quiet. But at the far end of a row of pink-marbled sinks one other woman stands bent like a flower toward the mirror, fixing her lipstick. Her hair is cropped, her eyes fine and free of make-up. Becks recognizes her immediately. She is Sharon McManus, a director known for her big attitude and her low budgets. Becky has met her once before, briefly, at a festival gala. She doubts she is remembered. Sharon’s film Relics from the Near Future has screened today and been deemed a success. Becky recalls the photos on Deadline; like everyone, Becky toggles between being at the festival and reading about it, so that she’ll know where she is. On stage, taking questions afterwards, Sharon had raised both her arms and kicked out a leg, dressed half in flowers and half in sharp-suited lines: half like a woman and half like a man. The way Sharon kissed her lead actress? She looked so content, like the puzzle of her life is completed in such moments.

Becky walks to the sink and runs the tap, pressing cool damp tissues to her puffy eyes. Perhaps they can be saved. She can hear the conversation outside getting louder, bolshier – nearing the pitch of the summertime pavement crowds outside a pub at closing.

‘Boy trouble?’ says Sharon.

‘That’d be nice.’

‘I heard you blowing your nose. Very unladylike. I was impressed.’

‘Oh God. Sorry.’

‘No, fuck that. Trumpet it out. Don’t go dabbing it away now.’

Becky could, perhaps, paper the cracks with jokes, and then run to her room. But she feels the place inside that her crying has hollowed out and is suddenly too tired to cover up, weave round, edit and hide.

‘I just fucked up,’ she says.

‘How badly?’

‘Nobody died but … I got asked about something I’m working on and I felt like I couldn’t land it. I just allowed myself to be … It’s my job, my only job, to defend this thing and I let this guy …’

‘Shit on it?’

‘It wasn’t even that bad. I just did a rubbish job defending it. And now I feel like I’ve let someone down.’ Medea. ‘Even though … Even though it doesn’t matter to anyone except me.’

‘Been there a few times myself.’

Becky feels Sharon assess her. She feels sure she is looking at the running mascara, the tangled mess of hair and lopsided clothes, but that she is doing it with kind eyes while formulating something.

‘Never mind,’ Becky says. ‘I’ll just … I don’t know. Try and learn from it.’

‘What are you selling here anyway?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Come on, I’m asking. I’m not going to shit on it. You’ve made me curious.’

‘Yeah, but now it’d be pitching to a director.’