Helen perched herself in a patch of light on the window seat. In front of her the pinnacles and towers of Oxford shone a pale, buttery gold. Helen sighed with pure contentment.

Chloe handed over a wide china bowl of coffee and a croissant wrapped in a napkin. She licked her fingers greedily, pushed back the tumble of red hair and said, ‘Now. Let’s see …’

They opened a paper apiece and riffled through to find the place. ‘Here,’ Chloe murmured. ‘Oxford. As You Like It.’

There was a second or two of silence as their eyes skimmed and then they were shouting simultaneously, not listening to each other.

‘Helen, just hear this! “A magical evening … outstanding performances … see it if you possibly can …”’

‘Mine’s even better!’ Helen shook out her paper and read, ‘“This is, quite simply, the best student production I have ever seen. I would go even further and say it is the best As You Like It I have ever seen, and there have been a good many. So far as I know this is Mr Hart’s debut as a director in this country. If he can be persuaded to stay here, our theatre will be the richer.”’ They made awed faces at each other. ‘Who’s that?’ Chloe craned to see which paper it was. ‘Not very often he goes over the top like that. What does the other one say?’

Helen found it. ‘Oh, listen. “A star was born in Oxford last night. Pansy Warren is a bewitching, enchanting Rosalind. She has the makings of a great Shakespearean actress … Umm … Miss Warren is well served by Lord Oliver Mortimore’s suitably aristocratic Orlando, and by the most sensitive direction that I have seen in Oxford for a very long time. Greg Hart, the great name of Broadway, will be proud of his son today.” Chloe, how fantastic. How pleased Tom will be … everyone will be …’

Chloe rocked back on her heels surrounded by the crumpled sheets of newsprint. ‘I knew it was good,’ she kept saying, ‘but I hadn’t a clue it was that good. Not a clue. Who said that about Pansy? A star is born?’ Still only half believing they went back to the notices and read them through again. Then they lifted their cups and toasted the production and each other in cold coffee.

Then, with a jug of iced orange juice and a bottle of champagne from Chloe’s store, they went along to Pansy’s room. But the door was shut, and there was no response to their knocking.

‘Oh dear,’ Chloe said. ‘I was so looking forward to drinking the health of a new-born star.’

‘Absent friends, then.’

They drank the Buck’s Fizz together, sprawled in the patches of sunlight that glowed on the faded Persian rugs. The champagne and the play’s acclaim made them giggly.