The day after the birthday dinner was the last day of rehearsals. Holly didn’t want to be there. All her being – her joints, her very tissue – protested, and she was overly aware of the muscles in her face. Between scenes, she looked at the others blankly, then compensated by over-acting when they got back to it. Her performance was off-key. Here she was playing Anna, this proud, powerful woman, and yet she felt weaselly and low. Here she was being forced to confront her own massive fucking blind spot. She was not so different from Anna, in this department. The blind spot department.

She was hardly able to look at Genevieve. She messaged Zora: Does she hate me?

‘Holly,’ Miles said as they were wrapping up, ‘just checking in. What’s happening? Are you okay?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘No. My rabbit died.’ It was three weeks ago, but he didn’t know that.

‘Oh geez. Sorry to hear it.’

Genevieve, hearing the exchange, waited for Holly to pass. ‘Sorry about your rabbit,’ she said. And she did look genuinely sorry.

Behind them, Rhys and Miles continued debating the meaning of the play. ‘It’s about futility,’ said Rhys. ‘Don’t you think, Holly?’

Holly was sick of the back-and-forth about what it was all supposed to mean. They were scratching around for an idea, a grand theory to resolve the messiness of the work. How would I know? she wanted to snap. And was about to when Genevieve spoke up. She’d been collecting her things, winding the cord of her earphones around her phone, ready to rush off like always. She reminded them of something they had read at the beginning of rehearsals, in the photocopied notes that Miles passed around.

‘Don’t forget that Chekhov wrote the play for the actress he was in love with, Maria Yermolova,’ she said. ‘When it comes down to it, it’s really a tribute. He wanted her to play Anna, so she’s got to be important, maybe more so than Platonov.’

Everyone stopped talking and turned to look at her. It was an insightful thing to say. More than that, it struck Holly as generous. Generous to Anna, and therefore to her.

Holly cleared her throat. ‘Genevieve,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk you.’

‘Okay. If you like.’ Genevieve was nonplussed. ‘I’ll just be a minute. I need the loo.’

‘I’ll be outside,’ said Holly.

Waiting on the street, she thought of what she would say. Cars were spitting past in the bright afternoon sun. She repeated words in her head, learning them like lines, but she wasn’t sure if she could say them. Then Genevieve came out and Holly saw her face, which was a mirror of how she was feeling herself, apprehensive and wary and relieved at the same time.