While Pauline O’Brien told everybody about her father the trapeze artist, and even the dedicated Emmy Lou Brown went to parties and kissed boys sometimes, Mary Shand did voice exercises and read plays, ferociously as if they were food. While Terence Blue cut a swathe through the girls at the Academy, Mary Shand hardly noticed him: she learnt to use a fan, and walk gracefully in long skirts and corsets. With Miss Grace and Mrs Grace she talked about Shaw and Shakespeare and the new Pinter plays and the influence of John Osborne on the development of British drama. The two older women could see that Mary loved passionately what she was doing, shone at what she was doing. Miss Grace knew nothing of Mary’s thoughts or secrets, may have erred in thinking that Mary was only interested in the same things that she, a fifty-two-year-old unmarried English teacher, was interested in but she had no daughter of her own. She and her mother watched over the young girl as carefully as they could. Miss Grace urged her to get as much sleep as possible, believing sleep to be a cure for many things.

Then, without reference to anyone, Mary Shand changed her name to Nicola Abbott. She said she wanted to call herself after her favourite comedian; she pointed out in great seriousness to Miss Grace that it was useful to have a surname that began with ABB when cast lists these days were often listed in alphabetical order and Miss Grace had to concur rather bemusedly that in that case Abbott was more useful than Shand although she herself would at least have chosen Chaplin. She gave the girl books about Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, wondering whether perhaps she should also give her books about sex or love though it was clear that the only love Mary knew about or understood was the love of her profession.