Just then Joseph smiled across the table at Pauline.

‘You did it then,’ was all he said.

‘And it was worth it,’ repeated Terence, waving his Coke can in his right hand, ‘Nicky will get better now, it was worth it.’ Not realising that the laughter died a little then, that everybody was watching him carefully. Nobody knew how he really felt about having the shameful word impotent conjoined to his famous name. Not once had he talked to anybody about what he’d been through since that Saturday in late August when the sun had shimmered on the hot pavements outside the London Academy of Drama and he had walked so unsuspectingly through the doors.

‘It’s probably a bad time to make an announcement about the new series,’ murmured Terence’s English agent across the table to Joseph Wain.

‘Because of the trial?’

‘No, because of Christmas.’

‘Oh heavens, Terence will upstage Christmas,’ said Elvira.

‘I think it will be a fitting finale to the trial,’ said Joseph. ‘We’ll announce it boldly on Monday, and then leave it till January, let them speculate all they like. You know my phone didn’t stop ringing in the car while we were losing the press tonight – Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Sydney, Tokyo, you’d think I was in the stock market rather than television, every country involved in the series has been waiting with bated breath for the result of the trial. Even Tonga rang! The King wanted to know, because of course we’re hoping to film sequences about nuclear tests there, the French won’t allow us anywhere near Mururoa of course. Apparently Diversions is a huge hit in Tonga!

‘Anyway I’ve arranged the press call for Monday,’ he said to Terence and Pauline, ‘and then you’re free till the end of January, plenty of time for your shoulder to heal properly Terry, you need some sunshine.’

‘I want to see Nicky,’ said Terence stubbornly, ‘I want her to know she didn’t do it, she’ll get better then, they must let me see her now.’ There was again a sudden chill around the table, as if Terence didn’t quite understand that he was free but that Nicky’s nightmare would never be over. Elvira, his third wife who was still so fond of him, looked at him discreetly, anxiously. What is he thinking of, still thinking of Nicky Abbott after all these years, it is a tragedy he must leave behind him. He needs a young wife a couple of kids a life in the sun, he can’t be saddled with a mad old woman now, it is totally unrealistic it is ridiculous. He has done for her what he had to do, now he must leave it.

‘I hear you and your mother have got a new house young man,’ said Stu rather over-heartily to his wife’s godson, slicing more salmon.