Those who knew Pauline Bonham, all that cool confidence and expensive style, would have been surprised to know what her husband Anthony knew: how little belief she had any longer in her acting. It had been too long since she’d known how good she was. She still did the odd job, a good television role if she was offered it. Her confidence had been particularly damaged several years before when a well-known actor, five years older than her, preferred not to have her as his wife in a new series when the director had wanted her. She’s too old and she hasn’t been around much lately, the actor had said, I want somebody who’s more flavour of the month, not a has-been. He had enough power over the casting for her not to get the part. Pauline remembered him playing a small part in another West End play when she was a star. A well-meaning casting director, drinking too much champagne in the sun in France had passed on the remark about the has-been. Pauline, of course, had only shrugged, smiling slightly in the sunshine. These were the vagaries of her profession, especially for women, she knew that, and had seen Anthony more than once veto the casting of an actress in something he was doing, almost always because of her age, or because of her looks.

But having been so successful when she was young somehow made it harder.

It was soon after that, after she heard the remark about the has-been, that Pauline had quietly gone, when Anthony was away making a film, to Harley Street. She had arranged not a major facelift, but a clever subtle pulling back of the skin around her eyes: not because she thought any longer that it would help her career but as a kind of defiance. You know Pauly you’ve aged very well, Anthony had said casually sometime after his return.

And now, but of course she hadn’t told Joseph Wain this, she didn’t know if she could do it any more. She needed Anthony to help her.

Despite herself, knowing perfectly well he was not disinterested, she had begun after a while to rely on Anthony’s advice, his opinion of scripts. This year he had persuaded her to turn down a new play in Leeds that she had surprisingly been offered.

‘It’s not good enough for you darling,’ he had said, ‘and to go away for months to Leeds for God’s sake, what’s the point, and the money’s terrible.’

The play had been a great success, much talked about, finally came into the West End and not for the first time Pauline brooded on her lack of acting confidence, knew perfectly well Anthony preferred her to be at home smoothly running the family to which and from which he came and went.

But this time, with Joseph Wain on her side, surely Anthony would be glad for her?