‘No,’ she said quite slowly. ‘No not for Terence. For me.’ And Harry caught the wistful, unguarded expression that flitted across her face, just for a moment. Then she leant across the table again. ‘Listen, Harry – if I give you my word I’ll eventually tell you everything will you tell me now? About what happened to Terence and Nicky?’

And Harry smiled. Pauline thought it was one of the saddest smiles she’d ever seen.

‘You don’t have to give me your word Pauly,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve wished all my life that I didn’t know so much about people’s lives as I do.’

The waiter brought a clean fork, changed the ashtray (Pauline had been smoking which Harry never remembered her doing), poured more wine into their glasses. Harry didn’t pick up the new fork. He pushed his plate aside, held his glass in his hand and looked across the table at Pauline.

‘The reason I’ve never talked about this is because I’m so ashamed of my part in it,’ he said. ‘You’ve heard of bitchy queens, and that’s what I was. I think I was jealous of...’ and he paused for a long time, ‘happiness.’

Pauline stared back at him and she looked puzzled, and impatient. ‘Harry darling don’t be ridiculous you’re quite one of the nicest people I know.’

‘No I’m not,’ he said, ‘but thank you.’ He stared round the small restaurant as if he wasn’t quite sure where he was: at the aubergine starters on the counter, at the tiramisu and the trifle on a trolley. ‘I kept on looking for that kind of happiness but I never found it.’ Finally, with the small, sad smile still there, he said, ‘I seem to always be telling you stories about the past Pauly.’

And then he began: once upon a time...

*

Later that week the trial of Nicola Abbott was set down in the court lists. As the victim had declined to lay a charge in such a serious matter, the Crown Prosecution Service was bringing to trial Nicola Abbott (54), unemployed, for the attempted murder of Terence Blue, film star.

29

Juliet Lyall, the much-respected and much-loved English actress, recovered (said the newspapers joyfully) from her nervous exhaustion, was flying the British flag, filming in Los Angeles.

She might just as well have been on Mars.

Prozac and Mogodon, combined, kept her upright. Which was mild, after all, for Hollywood where she could have had lines of coke by the swimming pool every day before breakfast if she’d felt so inclined. She lived in chauffeured cars and frenzied studios and behind closed doors of carpeted silent hotel suites that seemed cut off from the rest of the world.

The director, Bud Martin, looked at the early rushes in disbelief.