SHE HAS THE afternoon to herself. She does not wish to go home. Nor does she wish to stay any longer in the room and watch the rest of the day’s rehearsal, and so she climbs on the bus into town, the rackety old 73: Kingsland Road, Shoreditch, Old Street, Angel, King’s Cross. The sky is low and yellow, and it is starting to rain as she gets off at the library. She stows her coat and bag in the lockers, flashes her library card at the guard on the door of Rare Books, finds a seat and sits down. In the hush she closes her eyes.

She is hollow; there is nothing inside her, nothing tethering her, not talent, not success. Johnny is right—she has lost something. Or many things. Or she never had them. She is the sum total only of her failures. She is so hollow she could float up over these people, their heads bent in industry, up and out over this city, this city that she has loved, but which does not love her back, which does not give her what she needs to live, only to survive.

She is going to go downstairs and get her stuff and call her agent and tell her she is pulling out of the play, that she is giving up this excuse of a career.

She goes down to the coatroom and picks up her coat and bag, walks out across the echoing foyer towards the doors, and then she sees him. She knows it is him even though he is facing away from her. He is hunched and he is not speaking, but it is clear that whoever is on the other end of the phone is speaking a great deal. Lissa hangs back, hands in the pockets of her coat. After a short time he turns off his phone and she sees him stand, perfectly still for a couple of seconds, and then look up. She goes to him and touches him on the arm. Nathan jumps.

“Lissa. Hey.”

“You OK?”

He pushes his hands through his hair. His eyes look wild. “I just need to . . . cigarette. Have you got one?”

“Sure.”

They make their way past the security guards, out to the small overhang that offers a little shelter from the rain, which is falling in earnest now. She hands him the tobacco, stands back while he rolls.

“Sorry,” he says, as he puts the cigarette to his mouth.

“For what?”

He looks up at her and his eyes are startled. “I don’t know. I’m just—used to saying sorry, I suppose. Sorry for smoking. I shouldn’t be smoking.”