The blade of the knife had ruptured one of his lungs. His agent, his personal assistant, his driver, his secretary, his accountant, hovered outside his hospital room. Sometimes there was a policeman.

Just once, just for a moment, he opened his eyes and immediately remembered what had happened. He thought he perhaps caught a glimpse of his second wife (that is, his third wife) Elvira.

But he did not see, there was no sign at all of, his first wife, the radiant shining actress Nicola Abbott.

His eyes closed again.

17

As she drove to Stratford-upon-Avon Molly played the music loud, blocking out thoughts.

She didn’t know why she had come so early. Perhaps I wanted to see Stratford again, she said to herself, scene of many of my youthful triumphs. She walked just as the light was fading through the Stratford estate, the land the theatre still owned; past the Avon river where white swans sailed. The theatre had built flats for actors, bought small houses near the theatre for actors; although she’d heard they’d had to sell some land to pay for the new Swan Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company still dominated the town. Molly had worked here when she was much younger, played Lady Ann in a production of Richard III, and Celia in As You Like It; had an affair with the assistant director who’d wanted to marry her. Molly had been horrified: she had only recently finally extricated herself from Anthony for good; she wanted happiness and fun, not marriage. The assistant director moved into television; years later he turned down Molly for a lead in a new TV series, and so our actions follow us, she thought. She shrugged by the river, that’s our profession, remembering, watching the swans.