She was early for the meeting with Pamela Angel at the Holborn Centre. She was too nervous to sit in the coffee bar there so she walked around the streets. She’d read the play on the train going home from the garden party: it had quite simply bowled her over. She knew, was absolutely certain, that this was an important new play. She’d been asked to look at the extraordinary part of an old homeless tramp who’d once trained to be a teacher, a wonderful part. There was nevertheless a niggling, almost superstitious feeling at the back of her mind: if I do this part then I am old, I will have left the younger parts behind for good. But she knew she’d be able to do the part well, it was a first play by a new writer, there would be interest in this production. Tramp tramp tramp went Emmy Lou’s feet and Emmy Lou’s thoughts down Red Lion Street as big lorries hurtled past.

She had worked on the script till one o’clock in the morning and she read well: for Pamela Angel the director; for the writer, a fierce young woman with very, very short orange hair called Eurydice Smith; and for an extremely young man called Colin who was the producer. Over thirty years Emmy Lou had honed almost to perfection the feeling in the air in an interview room: there were some variables she couldn’t allow for like had they offered the part to someone well-known or someone’s lover, but all things being equal she almost always knew. And this time she didn’t even have to wait.

‘We could say we’d let you know by the end of the week ‘ said Pamela Angel shaking her hand, giving her a big warm smile, ‘but we need you now, this afternoon, and I’d like to offer you the job now, I’d love you to do it, and I’ve never forgotten that performance I saw you give in the West End. We’ll ring your agent if you agree.’

Emmy Lou smiled back: ‘I’d love to do it I think it’s a great play,’ she said, smiling also at Eurydice. Eurydice smiled glumly, and Colin shook Emmy Lou’s hand.

‘See you this afternoon for the read-through,’ he said. ‘Thank God we found you.’