He tucked into his oysters with enthusiasm. ‘This is my baby,’ he said, ‘that’s why I’ve got almost absolute power over the casting, that’s why I’m determined to have you. There’s plenty of time, it’s not till next year, we have to wait for Anthony. But I must be honest: I have to have both of you, in order to have you. I’ve always thought you were a better actor than Anthony but that’s beside the point.’ He shrugged. ‘Anthony’s the star.’

‘Believe me, I understand perfectly,’ said Pauline, smiling slightly.

‘Good. Right. Well then, I’ll tell you the story.’ And he sat back in his seat again. ‘This is a story about political intrigue all over the world. Just you watch the government trying to stop us showing it. The rot starts at the top...’

*

‘No no no no No.’ Molly McKenzie was almost jumping up and down in exasperation.

She stood in her bra and pants in one of the private fitting rooms at Harrods. The costume designer sat on a chintz-covered sofa; the wardrobe mistress and the Harrods dresser looked slightly flustered, both knew Molly’s face from her many television appearances, didn’t want any scenes with somebody well-known.

Coffee and Perrier water and infinitesimal triangular chocolate biscuits stood on a small table.

‘He said sexy, the director said sexy,’ said the thin but ageing designer, ‘we talked particularly about this part. Surely she can be sexy, even if she is middle-aged and somebody’s aunt. Have you met Waylon Jones?’

Molly tried to control not only her anger but her growing sense of bewilderment at the clothes she was being asked to try on. She stood with her hands on her hips perfectly well aware that they were considering her figure, thinking to themselves that she looked good for a woman of her age.

‘I’ve also read the script,’ she said, ‘have you?’

The designer looked affronted at her question. ‘Of course I have.’

‘Well the Aunt may be sexy but she’s not vulgar – gold belts, cherry red jackets, short skirts – it’s ridiculous, I know they’ve changed the names but this is a real person who’s a primary school teacher from Aberdeen married to a social worker, not someone out of Dallas with wide shoulders!’

‘Ah.’ The designer relaxed. ‘Of course this explains it, you haven’t seen the new scripts.’

‘What new scripts?’

‘You haven’t seen the latest scripts have you? They’ve suddenly made a whole lot of changes, apparently they finally decided that rather than contact the family and get permission and all that stuff they’d make some big changes so that the story gets completely unrecognisable.’

‘Changes like what?’ Molly’s tone was ominous and she remembered how Wardrobe and Make-up always knew about all sorts of changes: script changes, cast changes, writer firings, before they filtered through to anybody else.