Away from the feverish pitch of rehearsals, they were quiet, calm days. In a break between scenes Tom came back and sat beside Chloe. She felt at once as he stretched his legs next to her that he was physically tense with concentration. She knew that this production was a very small deal for him, and she admired his absolute dedication to whatever he had in hand, however unimportant it might seem.

They worked well together now. Early on Tom had recognised Chloe’s efficiency and had promoted her from dogsbody to informal production manager. Now he came to her to discuss whether a prop needed changing, or to beg her to produce coffee and sandwiches, or to think aloud about how to make a curtain line more effective.

Chloe was used to the discipline of her own world and found it interesting as well as easy to do what he needed.

‘You’re a godsend,’ he had told her once. ‘I think I’ll take you back with me. How d’you fancy fame and fortune on Broadway?’

‘It’s you who’ll be getting the fame and fortune,’ she told him coolly. ‘I don’t see myself as a jewel in the back room. Anyway, you couldn’t match my salary. Don’t top copywriters earn more than directors’ gofers?’

‘I expect so,’ Tom had said imperturbably. They had laughed, but their relationship had never settled on an easy personal footing.

Chloe would have liked Tom to respond to her as most men did. She was used to being found attractive, and being treated with the little, flattering extra attentions that went with it. But there was nothing of the kind from Tom. He was impeccably polite and unvaryingly businesslike. Too obviously, the play was their only interest together.

Could he, she wondered, be gay? Would that explain his exasperated but still fascinated loyalty to Oliver? No, she thought. Tom Hart was straight. She decided at last that he was simply frigidly professional, and wondered idly what he would be like when the professional mask dropped.

‘Now,’ he was murmuring, ‘I think we’ll just do the last scene once more before letting them go. Looks like they’re getting to rebellion point.’ Tom worked his cast hard, but he was sensitive to the moment when they would do no more.

Under his direction the play’s four pairs of lovers formed up and struck a pose as if for a wedding photograph. The men stood stiffly with their wives-to-be on their arms, smiling against an imaginary sun into an imaginary camera. It was a pretty final tableau. Chloe nodded her approval once again with a slight sigh.

‘How neat. Four happy couples, ready to live happily ever after.’ The tangles of the plot were all unravelled, neatly plaited and tied off. ‘Pity it’s not real life.’