She found Emmy Lou’s make-up box at the bottom of her wardrobe, a square wooden hinged box with little compartments like the one Frances’ father had had, like the one Pauline’s mother had given her daughter; it seemed old-fashioned now a make-up box nobody used them any more. She’d seen so many young actresses in the theatre just pull out their street make-up to apply before they went on stage, and most people were used to television where they just sat in a chair and someone else did it. A make-up box. And suddenly she saw them all, all the class of ’59 graduating from the London Academy of Drama with such hope in their hearts, carrying their make-up sticks of Leichner number five and number nine and their red rouges and their black eyeliners and their big tins of powder and their lipsticks; all these things carefully and proudly placed in their makeup boxes because they had trained to be actors, they were in the theatre, they had dreams and the world was waiting.

The news on the radio said that the Terence Blue trial would go into a second week; the home affairs correspondent discussing the case said he thought things looked very bleak for Mr Blue.

Frances had parcelled up almost everything. She pulled open the drawers beside Emmy’s bed: aspirin, tissues, and a toilet bag. She opened the toilet bag and saw some batteries and some Body Shop oil. And a small plastic vibrator in the shape of a man’s penis, more or less.

33

Anthony Bonham’s agent had become extremely suspicious. A big, powerful man just getting old, just getting tired, George Washington – yes it’s my real name, he would say wearily, my mother was a card – was sixty-nine and knew the business better than almost any agent in London. He was experienced and powerful: he had represented stars since the early days of good British films, nobody crossed him with impunity.

‘I think The Immoralists has run into trouble Tony, I don’t know what it is exactly but something’s going on. I can’t get sense out of the fuckers, I can’t get hold of Joseph Wain, I told them the RSC is desperate to know your other commitments and that the BBC wants you for that new series, but suddenly the scripts aren’t ready. I suppose it could be finance, we’re talking millions here, much much more than any ordinary TV series.’

‘Jesus Christ I thought that part was mine,’ said Anthony, thrown. ‘I want that job badly, I want that exposure.’