The Actresses
Chapters (51)
Cover
THE ACTRESSES
Barbara Ewing
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About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
About The Actresses
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A class reunion at a London drama school in the 1990s reveals the successes and the failures of a group of famous (and not-so-famous) actors and actresses. There’s Juliet, the beautiful star of the stage, desperate for her big screen break; Pauline, an excellent actress overshadowed by her actor husband; and breezy, sexy soap star Molly.
But with the arrival of an old classmate no-one expected to show up, tensions build, and events take unexpected turns. Then an accusation of rape leads to a celebrity court case at the Old Bailey...
Women have always known that its not an equal playing field, and actresses most of all. Barbara Ewing’s perceptive and gripping novel is more timely and more relevant today than ever before.
Contents
Welcome Page
About The Actresses
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
About Barbara Ewing
Also by Barbara Ewing
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
Dedication
For Lesley and Dick
Epigraph
‘The important thing in acting is to be able to laugh and cry.
If I have to cry I think of my sex life.
If I have to laugh I think of my sex life.’
Glenda Jackson
1
In the Dorchester Hotel in London, in a suite at the top overlooking the dry parched grass in Hyde Park, a blonde-haired American woman aged fifty-six sat in a low-cut black petticoat expertly putting on make-up at six o’clock in the morning. She wore her glasses, to see clearly what she was doing.
A startling purple dress lay spread out on the bed: she had had it designed and made in New York, especially for this day.
It was already very hot and there was no breeze, no draught, no movement of air at all, just the heavy scent of expensive make-up and expensive perfume hanging there in the dark-panelled room in the early morning. Hardly a sound from Saturday morning traffic in Park Lane reached into the sealed suite.
The woman stared at herself for some time in the ornate mirror. Then she picked up the telephone and dialled the number again. A voice told her that Terence Blue was unavailable at present but perhaps she would like to leave a message after the bleep.
The woman hung up. As she always did.
*
‘I think,’ said Pauline Bonham to her husband, who was putting molasses on his head, ‘that I won’t go today, after all,’ and the morning sunshine streaming in through the open windows of their bedroom caught the blue silk of her dressing gown so that she seemed almost to shimmer, standing there.
‘Won’t go where?’
‘To the reunion.’
‘What?’