‘Then you’d better take care,’ Arnold cautioned him, ‘or you and the rest of your company could find yourselves getting beaten up by some of the thugs whose activities your play is about.’

‘Does that mean you actually care what happens to me?’ Matthew asked jocularly.

Arnold gave him an agonized glance. ‘Don’t ask bloody stupid questions! And if I may say so, you’ve lost weight since I saw you last. Are you working him too hard, Pete?’

‘We have been going at quite a pace.’

‘The flesh doesn’t seem to drop off you, though.’

‘I don’t use up the nervous energy actors do each time they give a performance, Sir Arnold.’

And Matthew is giving one this evening, thought Marianne – of a son at ease with his father. When she saw the two of them together, what with Arnold’s antics and Matthew’s putting on a brave show, it was sometimes like watching comedy and pathos side by side. Arnold had just let his mask slip though, and fatherly feeling was briefly visible.

‘Directing,’ Pete went on, ‘doesn’t knock the hell out of you in the same way and expending your energy is just for the duration of rehearsals.’

‘After which you no doubt sit in the wings noshing chocolate while Matthew knocks the hell out of himself on stage,’ Arnold said rudely.

‘Bananas, as a matter of fact,’ Pete replied with a bland smile. ‘Chocolate doesn’t agree with me.’

Only for Matthew would Pete put up with what he has from Arnold over the years, thought Marianne.

The arrival of several of Arnold’s guests together could not but be a relief to all four. Introductions were made and drinks served. Arnold was constrained to hide his dismay when Matthew and Pete were engaged in conversation by the cabinet minister, who proclaimed himself a theatre buff.

Marianne had not known until Arnold primed her for her duties that she was to be the sole female. A situation which would have sent Lyn into a panic – and on past occasions probably had, she was thinking, when the final guest made his appearance.

Marianne’s first impression of Simon Newman was of a bearded man of medium height whose smile was somewhat quizzical.

Arnold added after introducing them, ‘Marianne is a novelist, Simon, but you must have heard of her.’

‘I have to confess I haven’t. Am I going to be forgiven?’

His style matches his expression, thought Marianne. ‘Certainly by me, though possibly not by my brother,’ she said. ‘I understand that you are a ghost writer, Mr Newman, so there’s no likelihood of my having heard of you.’