‘Harry, don’t you think there’ll be an even bigger court case now if Terence doesn’t die, or even if he does die? And the press, and everybody going into everything, I – I can’t bear the fact that I might be brought into it, all those days raked over, do you know where the stabbing was? It was in that house.’

‘In Brighton?’

‘That house in Brighton. I don’t want to have to think about all that all over again, it interferes with my work, I’m very tired, I have to go to Hollywood...’ Her voice broke.

‘Juliet, Juliet, listen,’ said Harry carefully, ‘all that was over thirty years ago, who cares? Nobody’ll care. At the very most, if they knew, they might feel sorry for Nicky, maybe even think you behaved badly, which you did. But who’s going to tell them Juliet? We were the only ones there.’

Juliet was crying. ‘But the – pregnancy,’ she said.

Harry wanted to say, Whose pregnancy Juliet? but did not.

She went on. ‘Even the thought of the rape case made me nervous, that’s why I’ve been ringing you, you know what the press are like, they’ll say anything for news absolutely anything and Terry is the hottest news there is at the moment and anybody connected to him, you don’t know what it feels like, opening a newspaper, not knowing what it’s going to say about you. Do you know the press have been at the theatre and waiting at my house?’ and he heard her shaky breathing coming to Morocco all the way from London. ‘They know Terry and I were engaged once, my photograph has been in the paper next to his, it’s intolerable, absolutely intolerable – I even heard my agent talking to someone in America about how they could nose around and find a lot of dirt and make a film of his life story.’

‘Terence’s?’ Even Harry did not like the idea of this. ‘Surely you’re exaggerating.’

‘You’re not a star,’ said Juliet, ‘you don’t understand the pressures, you don’t understand. I can’t cope with all this, photographers at my door and reporters shouting questions at me as I go into the theatre. I’ve – I’ve been offered a damehood in the Christmas honours, imagine some smutty little story about me and Terence and Nicky coming out at the same time.’

Harry was not a cruel man, although he had been cruel beyond forgiveness to Juliet many years ago. But he couldn’t help himself, perhaps it was the dope, or the young waiter hovering in the corner: he began to laugh.