And then he looked hard again at Molly. ‘And I wonder how you would know about it Ms McKenzie.’ He moved his hand from under Molly’s arm and brushed it now, as if accidently in the crowd, across her breast under the thin green silk dress. For a split second through the thin material they were aware of each other like electricity: he could feel the warmth of her breast, she could feel the warmth of his hand and quite suddenly her nipple hardened. She breathed in quickly, sharply, and then moved away at once. He swallowed suddenly. Molly saw it, knew it: memory and desire

‘That dress is disgusting,’ he said and tried to smile. And then he said very quietly, and his voice shook slightly, ‘Could we go somewhere?’

Molly’s eyes were unreadable. ‘I have an appointment,’ she said and she turned away. But then, somehow unable to stop herself, she added, even as, turning back, she saw again the lines under his eyes and his thinning hair, ‘Call me some time, all the same. It’s still the number you used to have engraved on your heart.’

*

Izzy Fields, the cyclist, of course saw Terence Blue’s entrance too. Remembered the shining boy with the amazing eyes that all the girls fell in love with, including Izzy Fields who had never to this day forgotten that Terence had kissed her several times on these very Academy stairs one night when she was looking woebegone when the cast lists went up on the noticeboard and she was playing old ladies, as usual. Cheer up Izzy you’ll come into your own later in life, you’ll see he had said and he had kissed her and then, to her immense surprise, kissed her again, harder, meaning it. And because, in the hot, stuffy smoky Music Room that afternoon Izzy was watching him so closely, she saw two things that Molly McKenzie did not. She saw Terence Blue and Harry Donaldson greet each other: they simply put their arms around each other, stood there quite still for a moment in the crowded room, and then parted without saying a single word.

How odd thought Izzy and she felt tears prickling at the back of her eyes without quite knowing why.

And then a few minutes later she saw Terence coming face to face with the famous actress Juliet Lyall who was the talk of London for her performance in The Seagull.

She saw Terence and Juliet stop abruptly. And then they both gave an odd, cold, inclination of the head (as if to say: I see you) and passed on again, into the crowd.

What a shame, thought Izzy, she was his girlfriend once, they were engaged even, it seems a shame they can’t speak to each other, after all these years, at a nice reunion like this.

*