Sometimes, mindful of her reputation, she spoke at celebrity lunches, opened new buildings, appealed for money for Bosnia. Her agent turned down most of the work offers she received daily; she occasionally agreed to read a book on BBC radio for Woman’s Hour or Book at Bedtime. The contract for the American film had been agreed in principle; she and her agent went over the small print; it was very, very lucrative indeed. And every night, the admired performance. It was a very busy life.

And underneath all this, underneath all the glittering prizes, Juliet Lyall felt panic rising within like some sort of inexorable tide that she could not control, that she feared would overwhelm her.

She must not think about the past. The past is over.

But too many of the reuniting students had glimpsed, or said they’d glimpsed, Nicola Abbott at the reunion; remembered her from thirty years ago; willingly talked to the press about her. So that it seemed to Juliet that Nicky became a star all over again. Bitter thoughts twisted away inside her: why should they remember Nicky Abbott who only lasted a year? Who never opened a fête or spoke at a lunch or even endorsed a tin of Heinz Baked Beans? She had played Nora in A Doll’s House in the West End, that was all. And the film, the one film Heartbreak that stayed in people’s minds so long.

And then, a few days after she’d phoned Harry Donaldson in Morocco, Juliet Lyall, nominated for Best Actress in the West End that year, was pipped at the post by somebody else, somebody younger. She had been at the awards, confidently expecting to win, had a short, graceful speech prepared. The TV cameras lingered on her face as she applauded the winner and smiled and smiled. But disappointment and rage ate at her (although she immediately arranged for flowers to be sent to her rival). She wept in Cheyne Walk. Her husband was, of course, in Switzerland.

The secrets she hugged to her heart rollercoastered around each other, leapfrogged over each other, in her mind, in the night, in the empty house in Cheyne Walk: the coming film, the letter from Buckingham Palace, muddled with the daily bulletins about Terence Blue in the newspapers and the old, old photographs of the absurdly young Nicola Abbott and her conversation with Harry Donaldson in Morocco.

Her psychoanalyst said, you are not talking freely to me. She sat before him, numbly.