‘Oh by the way,’ he said, ‘I went to see The Seagull the other night, wonderful show, and I went to see dear Juliet afterwards – you know of course she’s off to make a film in Hollywood when the play finishes next month, anyway she asked me to be sure to remind you to telephone her, she asked me most specifically.’

‘Ah,’ said Harry.

He was dragged along for a further costume fitting. It was as if the day would never end.

But when it finally did, he didn’t want to go home; on some strange impulse he went along to the theatre on the off-chance and got a returned seat for The Seagull.

There was something – odd – about Juliet’s performance. Nothing he could quite put his finger on. He could feel the audience entranced in the play, laughing in the right places, weeping too. But there was something there on the stage that unnerved him, that he recognised: the feeling that something would break. And he felt afraid, in the theatre, as all actors do when they instinctively know that something is wrong, up there where magic comes from.

He walked reluctantly around to the stage door, was sent down to the Number One dressing room. There were several people there, hovering, nobody Harry knew; the dresser gave out glasses of champagne. Juliet appeared from the bathroom in a striking, voluminous, yellow silk dressing gown. She had taken her wig off and fluffed out her hair, she still wore her stage makeup: she looked every inch a confident, successful actress. As she entered the big room she took in Harry’s presence at once and he saw that she almost fell.

Thank God, he heard her say and in a few practised moments she had cleared the dressing room, dismissed her dresser, smiling and smiling. When they had all gone she turned at once to the mirror. It seemed to Harry she almost ripped off her make-up, she made wild, heavy movements, smearing cream on her cheeks and her forehead. She stared at herself in the mirror and then out at Harry, who still stood there, leaning slightly against the wall. She stopped wiping at the make-up, half of it still there. She turned round.

I’m frightened of doing this film Harry, she said. It was never my fault what happened to Nicky, it was Terence, he ruined my life.

And then in front of his eyes she collapsed, fell to the floor of the Number One dressing room before he could catch her. The yellow silk dressing gown billowed out suddenly and then gently settled about her, part of it slightly masking the pale, smeared face.

21

When Nicola Abbott, whose real name was Mary Shand, was sixteen years old she became an orphan.