She would probably never have figured it out if not for some loose talk in a restaurant soon afterwards. It was a birthday dinner for Graham, a fellow actor and a friend of Ben’s. The inside of the restaurant was dim, the sort of place where waiters dispensed with notebooks and took the orders empty-handed, looking smug. A friend of Genevieve’s called Zora was there, sitting on the other side of Ben. The conversation at the table was flippant, gossipy, fast-moving. Someone asked Ben about his work, how he was finding it.

‘Never better,’ he said. ‘Work has stopped being my whole life.’ And it was true, thought Holly. He had never been better. There was a contentment to his days. But either his friends couldn’t see it, or they did and they didn’t trust it.

When Holly mentioned the play, Zora nodded to show she knew already. Talk turned to Chekhov. Was he a dreamboat? someone wondered, bringing out a phone. Heads came together over the screen, a glowing oblong at the table.

‘His photo would say yes.’

‘He looked good in his skinny phase as a starving student.’

‘Zora, you can’t say that! He had tuberculosis.’

‘Oh, old Anton Chekhov. No, I’m not feeling that.’

‘The pince-nez isn’t sexy.’

‘No, it is not.’

By this time they were, if not drunk, then certainly drunk-adjacent. Graham raised his glass and began a rambling mock-speech, offering the wisdom of his years. He spoke about a visit to a distillery in Scotland. (‘I was with straight people, that’s what they do.’) He’d learned that scotch production relied on old sherry barrels for maturation. The barrels were shipped in from Spain, but with so much demand for scotch and not enough demand for sherry, the balance had been lost. ‘And I realised, you know, everything is connected. Like in that song in The Lion King, the circle of life,’ he finished.

‘Like you and Genevieve,’ said Zora, leaning across to Holly and raising her own glass to her. ‘Coming full circle.’ She was wearing a blouse with inexplicably wide sleeves, like flowing skirts for her arms.

‘How’s that?’ asked Holly.

‘Well, history, et cetera. When you took her part that time after Owen Rennes was a bit, you know.’

‘No, I don’t. A bit what?’

‘You don’t know? Oh wow.’ Zora smoothed her sleeves. ‘He was… overly friendly, shall we say. Then a bit nasty in the end. That’s why she quit the show.’

‘She quit? I thought she was sick. That’s what I was told.’ Holly’s head started to spin.

‘I don’t think that’s quite what happened.’

Holly leaned behind Ben to talk more confidentially with Zora. This wasn’t something for the rest of the table. ‘What do you mean? What did happen?’ Zora shook her head. ‘You have to tell me,’ Holly hissed.