‘Just as well I’m not playing a carrot,’ said Frances. Milton Werner looked bemused.

‘I once played a carrot on a pop video. You could hardly take a carrot for lunch in the City.’

Milton smiled. ‘I’m sure I could,’ he said.

Over lunch they talked again about her work, a little about her life, a little about his. He talked about Switzerland. He has kind eyes, thought Frances.

‘I have to see rushes tonight,’ he said in his pleasantly accented English, ‘but as I’ve got to stay in London over the weekend I wonder if you’d like to recommend something I could take you to at the theatre on Saturday night? If you are free of course. I am probably being presumptuous.’

It was absurd, she knew it was absurd, how Frances’s heart leapt up, how she smiled, how she – totally despite herself and her good sense – had a flash of wondering what it would be like to live in Switzerland. Somehow still, as a leftover from adolescence even though she knew it was ridiculous, a date on a Saturday night meant more than any other.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘I’d like that, no, no more wine thanks, it’ll fall out of the bottom of my head if I have to spend hours and hours staring upwards this afternoon. Have you seen Three Tall Women, do you think you’d get tickets? Well I suppose if you could take a carrot for lunch in the City, you can probably get tickets for a sold-out show.’

‘Yes I expect I can,’ he said smiling again as he paid the bill. ‘I noted your telephone number from the cast list and I will telephone you.’

All that afternoon until the light began to fade Frances and Davinia craned upwards, looked up proudly, heads together, at the phallic and towering Wise Insurance Company. The purple shirt of the director was not seen for a while; he later appeared where the women were standing.

‘I need to watch from here,’ he said, ‘it’s very tricky and you don’t seem able to get it right.’ He was very pale but had not discarded his mobile phone which still bulged dangerously near to his private parts.

Frances said, ‘You’ve got some vomit on your collar.’

Davinia added cheerily, ‘In Australia, especially if it’s on a purple shirt, we call that a technicolour yawn.’

*

As they’d planned at the garden party, Pauline Bonham had lunch with Joseph Wain.