Saying the lines as she always did, she suddenly heard them differently. A shiver ran up her spine, pulled suddenly and sharply at her neck. She forced herself to breathe again, in and out in and out in and out, she must not think of Nicky Abbott now, in and out, she had seized her chance with both hands – that was all, in and out in and out. She automatically smiled very widely at herself in the mirror, combining the smile with a mouth exercise that stretched the lips. She breathed deeply again in and out in and out in and out. As for Terence Blue, she never thought of him, never never never.

And finally, in the Number One dressing room, as the Deputy Stage Manager at last called, ‘Five minutes to the matinée performance, ladies and gentlemen, five minutes please,’ as the sound of the audience chattering, excited, came over the tannoy; then finally, getting ready for a performance, all the anxieties and the outside fears dropped away. She loved her work more than anything else in the world. This was her place; this was her work: nothing else mattered.

She was an Actress.

*

By 3.30 pm, even though the invitation had said 12.30–2.30, the Music Room at the London Academy of Drama was still crowded, but the drink was just beginning to run out. Terence Blue still had a little group around him, seemed very drunk, seemed slightly manic even, as he retold stories about himself with Robert Shaw and Richard Burton and Albert Finney and Anthony Hopkins in Hollywood, us Brits taking the piss as he described it.

Anthony Bonham swayed away in disgust, at the same time managing to appropriate one of the last, half-empty, bottles of wine. He’d looked everywhere for Molly, he wanted to talk to her again, but she was nowhere to be seen. He sat down, rather more abruptly than he’d meant to, beside Harry Donaldson and Izzy Fields, who had parked themselves on the floor by a tall, open French window.

‘Jesus it’s just so fucking hot,’ sighed Anthony, stretching out his long legs, ‘give us your glass you little pervert, how are you? Haven’t seen you since that TV series, what’re you doing? Oh hi Izzy,’ almost as an afterthought.

‘Hello Anthony,’ said Izzy, smiling warmly at him. She knelt up for a moment, craning her head around a corner to check that her bicycle was still chained to the railings, then settled back again on to the floor.

‘Well luvvie,’ said Harry, ‘I’ve come out of Les Mis at last, hallelujah, never never again, not for all the money in the world, you can’t hear that music every night for a year without going bonkers. And, strange as it may seem, I’ve got a lead in a new – ah – literary TV adaptation,’ and Anthony and Izzy both laughed because it wasn’t strange at all.