‘Here you are. Have a blow.’ William blew and caught his breath. She waggled her head at Peregrine, who said: ‘It’s all right, William. You didn’t do it.’ And walked away.

‘There you are! Now you’re in the clear, aren’t you?’

‘If he means it.’

‘He never, never says things he doesn’t mean.’

‘Doesn’t he? Super,’ said William and fetched a dry sob.

‘So that’s that, isn’t it?’ He didn’t answer. ‘William,’ Emily said. ‘Are you frightened of the head? Quite apart from anyone thinking you did it. Just between ourselves.’

He nodded.

‘Would you be if you’d made it? You know? It’s a long business. You take a mould in plaster of Mr Barrabell’s face and he makes a fuss and says you’re stifling him and he won’t keep his mouth open. And at last, when you’ve got it and it’s dried, you pour a thin layer of some plastic stuff into it and wait till that dries and then the hardest part comes,’ said Emily, hoping she’d got it vaguely right. ‘You’ve got to separate the two and Bob’s your uncle. Well – something like that. Broadly speaking.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you see it in all its stages and finally you’ve got to paint it and add hair and red paint for blood and so on and it’s rather fun and you made it, frightening but you know it’s just you being rather clever with plaster and plastic and paint.’

‘That’s like the chorus of a song, “With plaster and plastic and paint,”’ said William.

‘“I’m producing a perfect phenomenon,”’ said Emily. ‘So it is. You go on.’

‘“I’m making things look what they ain’t,”’ said William. ‘Your turn. I bet you won’t get a rhyme for “phenomenon”,’ and gave another dry sob.

‘You win. When’s your mama coming for you?’

‘About four, I should think. She’s buying our supper. It’s her afternoon off.’

‘Well, you can wait here with me. Perry’s got stuck into something up there. Have you heard how he came to restore this theatre?’

‘No,’ said William. ‘I don’t know anything about the theatre except it’s meant to be rather grand to get a job in it.’

‘Well,’ said Emily, ‘come and sit down and I’ll tell you.’

And she told him how Peregrine, a struggling young author-director, came into the wrecked Dolphin and fell into the bomb hole on the stage and was rescued from it and got the job of restoring the theatre and being made a member of the board.

‘Even now, it’s a bit like a fairy-tale,’ she said.

‘A nice one.’

‘Very nice.’

They sat in companionable silence, watching the men working on the stage.

‘You go to a drama school, don’t you?’ Emily said after a pause.