It was a novelty to be able to walk down from Hammersmith to meet him. It was right on dusk, and the light, already soft, was turning fuzzy. Even so, Holly was sure it was Genevieve she spotted. She was walking towards her, a solitary figure in boots and a khaki jacket. Then the figure turned back and left the Thames path pretty smartly, disappearing into a side street.

‘I think she was avoiding me,’ Holly told Ben when he showed up. ‘Why would she do that?’

‘Because you smell.’

She barged him with her shoulder. ‘She saw me. Then she split.’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Worse things happen at sea.’

And out in the open, by the river, with the sky turning purple and birds flitting overhead, it was possible not to mind or even care all that much. She understood why Ben was doing what he was doing, making room for himself to live in a different way, removed from the all-consuming nonsense of an actor’s life, the constant jockeying and fruitless auditions. She admired it, in fact. It was as if he’d flung open a window to let in a fresh breeze.

But she, unlike Ben, was still in the acting game. Very much still in. There was no way to do this job that was not a headlong tilt. Anyway, she loved it. She loved almost everything about it. Even – yes – auditions, making the rounds in her sneakers. Acting was the thing she was meant to be doing; this was an article of faith around which she had built her world. It justified every effort. It justified obsession and sheer bloody-mindedness. It justified everything and more – and then more, and more, and more.

But still, the sighting of Genevieve by the river – this bugged her.

Genevieve was Genevieve Wishart. Holly regarded Genevieve as her nemesis, partly because she thought it was funny to have a nemesis, and if she was going to have one then Genevieve seemed made to order. She was more than usually beautiful, in an actressy sort of way, and she had an artlessness about her that won people over. She was artlessly nice. Unbearably, supremely nice. Holly found this irritating; she liked people who had more personality, more bite.

She had known Genevieve since Guildford, the drama school. Straight off, she had come across as precious, a rarefied creature from the leafy depths of southwest London, the banker-and-broker belt that stretched away to Surrey. Since then she had gone on to become the breakthrough actress of their year, effectively cornering the market in playing the ingénue. One year she was Cécile in Les Liaisons dangereuses, the next she was Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. She had done plays at the Donmar, the Barbican and the National Theatre. Holly had once stood in for her as understudy, in a production of Miss Julie at the Young Vic. Genevieve hadn’t done as much work of late, or not that Holly was aware, but this probably just meant she had big things in the pipeline.