The grey-haired old woman was unused to crowds, felt deeply disoriented to be in the old building again, slipped out of the Music Room. It had been such an effort to get this far; she must stay calm now. She walked along the dark corridor towards the staircase so that the noise drifted away behind her, so that the beating of her heart slowed a little. She came face to face unexpectedly with the Honours Board and looked quickly away, moved away even, then very slowly turned back again. Her eyes reluctantly found the date. And there it was, under the stage name she’d assumed at the Academy, not her real name:

The Henry Irving Award for Excellence

Awarded to the Best Student 1961: Nicola Abbott

She started slightly as two students came out of a classroom carrying a clutch of painted masks, some weeping, some smiling, some blank-faced, all the faces huddled together in the students’ arms.

‘And he said – you know – we will find it much – you know – harder, that we’ll have to use our bodies much more when we wear masks, that we are too used – you know – to sort of relying on our faces, on our facial expressions, that wearing masks will teach us control...’ The voices passed her, enthusiastic, young; on the stairs a mask dropped, smiled upwards, was retrieved, disappeared with the students round the big bend in the staircase.

‘You chose Abbott as a surname so that you’d always be at the top if a cast list was in alphabetical order.’

Nicky didn’t turn, recognised Juliet Lyall’s voice again; Juliet had followed her down the dark corridor. She answered carefully. ‘I liked Budd Abbott and Lou Costello, you remember.’

‘But you didn’t choose Costello,’ said Juliet.

‘No.’ Still Nicky didn’t turn. ‘And Nicola, Nicky. Nicky seems to be the name of such a young person, doesn’t it? Not someone who looks like me. When I chose it instead of Mary I never considered I would be old one day.’

Juliet said nothing, could not bear to answer, and after a minute Nicky added in the smoky, broken voice, and Juliet could not tell whether she was joking or serious, ‘Weren’t we lucky – in what other profession can people change their names with such extraordinary impunity?’

Still Juliet remained silent, simply unable to speak. And something else: some other, unexpected feeling lurked there, around her, beside her.

She was afraid.

There was silence except for the voices and the laughter at the other end of the long corridor. Finally Juliet said, ‘Nicky – I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to say, how to make proper conversation, it is so extraordinary to – to see you here.’