‘That wouldn’t have worked,’ Helen said sadly. There was nothing in the story that amused her, and a heavy, uncomfortable weight of foreboding pressed on her.

They passed through the College gates. It was the middle of a busy afternoon and hurrying people jostled past them. A forest of bicycles stood tangled against a sunny stone wall.

‘No, it didn’t,’ Tom agreed. ‘There was a kind of grimness about his hitting the bottle that I’ve never seen in him before. We’ve got drunk together often enough, God knows. But last night it was different. He was determined to go on, and on. I tried to get him to talk, but he wasn’t interested. He got very aggressive when I tried to take the bottle away. And I wouldn’t fancy a fight with Oliver, drunk or sober. In the end it was me who collapsed.’

Helen nodded. ‘And today?’

‘The same.’

‘Poor Oliver,’ she said.

‘Poor nothing.’ Tom’s anger flashed up again. ‘What Oliver chooses to do to himself is Oliver’s business, any week except this week. But tonight, and for the next ten nights, he has to get on that stage and act. Now he says that he won’t do it. I’ll see that he does, but I won’t have him walking through it pissed. Jesus, I hate all this backstage drama. It’s unprofessional.’ To Tom that was the sharpest criticism of all. Helen almost laughed.

‘They aren’t professionals.’

‘They are while they’re working for me.’

Yes, Helen thought. You’ll see to that.

‘You know,’ Tom said, ‘I saw all this coming. I had a row with Pansy about it. In the end she told me – promised me – that she would keep Oliver happy until the show was on.’

So that explained the raised voices she had heard in Pansy’s room.

‘You mean you arranged it between you in advance? Rather cold-blooded, isn’t it?’ Only last night she had thought that Pansy and Oliver looked the perfect couple again.

‘Yes,’ Tom said levelly. ‘That’s the way it often has to be, Helen. Not pretty, but realistic.’

They reached the low doorway in Canterbury Quad that led to Oliver’s rooms. Helen read the white-painted name board again, Lord Oliver Mortimore. Tom turned in the doorway.

‘As it happens I wasn’t quite realistic enough. Pansy only understands surfaces. I should have known that as soon as the first night was over, and she was sure of a critical success, she would think that the rest of the run wasn’t important. She wanted to go off with Stephen Spurring, and that was what mattered.’

Helen understood. But she was pricked by what she saw as Tom’s coldness. Her sympathy was all with Oliver. He had lost Pansy now, and Helen remembered vividly what that loss felt like.