At the bottom of the stairs of the old house by the river, where the front door and the wide hall met, where Anthony had tripped and fallen drunk at his wife’s feet after the reunion, there was a lamp on a windowsill. The small, warm glow could be seen from the front gate and from the top of the stairs. Portia and Viola and Benedict and Anthony always automatically looked for the light if they arrived home late at night: ah we’re home, she’s home.

In the soft light of the lamp Pauline picked up the phone in the hall and dialled a number.

Elvira answered at once.

‘It’s me,’ said Pauline.

‘Thank God, we thought you were out.’

‘No, no, I was waiting to hear.’

‘Where were you? You knew I’d be phoning.’

Pauline paused for a fraction of a second. ‘Pretending for the last time I hope,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ said Elvira, understanding at once. ‘Yes.’

‘What do the papers say?’ Pauline’s voice was tense.

‘It’s very very bad. What we expected really. I don’t know why we bother to have juries. Who needs juries?

We’ve got the great British Press who are only supposed to publish unbiased court reporting. Well – underneath what passes for unbiased court reporting they’re guessing about how many years he’ll get, what it will be like for a film star in jail – there just happens to be an article in the Express about Mike Tyson’s rape trial and his sentence and what it was like for him in jail and him becoming a Muslim, that sort of stuff.’

‘How’s Terence?’

‘Bad. Terrible. Do you know Pauly, it’s the first time he’s really understood – that he’s likely to go to jail. He’s stopped saying “But I didn’t do it” as if he suddenly realises at last that that’s not the point.’ And then suddenly Elvira’s voice became very brisk. ‘Can you get here about seven tomorrow night? Terry’s barrister will be here. Oh – and Joseph Wain. We’ll have to work out the sequence of events exactly before the court reconvenes on Monday morning.’

‘So we’re going ahead?’

‘Yes. ‘

‘Terence agrees at last?’

‘He agrees. Oh Jesus, poor Terence, it will be so awful for him but there seems no other way. She was raped Pauly, you can tell listening to her, it happened. But what happened? God what an almighty mess.’ Pauline wasn’t actually certain that Elvira wasn’t crying but she could not consider that now.

‘He agrees –’ Pauline repeated urgently, ‘– to –’ and even now she hesitated in a kind of disbelief ‘– everything? Everything else, I mean?’

Elvira heard the naked urgency in Pauline’s voice.