And heard Juliet telling her father on the telephone in a high, wild, excited voice at three o’clock in the morning, ‘but Daddy I had to wake you, she’s unconscious and she’s pregnant. She’s been badly hurt, yes isn’t it terrible, just terrible. But she won’t be able to do The Red Dress, tell them, tell them quickly, I’ll be able to do the part after all Daddy, this will make me a star.’

And, within weeks, Harry Donaldson saw the glittering career of Juliet Lyall, Actress, take off like a rocket.

37

Anthony’s first fear, when he got home that weekend after Terence Blue’s trial was over, was that he would have a heart attack.

After a week of public indignity and his wife’s photograph splattered all over the cheap newspapers and only the answering machine answering the phone in his house, he came home late on Saturday night and found the house in darkness, no lamp on the stairs. The central heating wasn’t on and Pauline’s short, cold letter was on the kitchen table under an empty whisky bottle. For one terrible moment he thought there was even no whisky in the house which increased his chest pains but eventually he found half a bottle in a cupboard in the kitchen.

Pauline’s letter stated that she had left him. She and Benedict would be living near Kew so as not to upset Benedict’s schooling, they would be away from England for Christmas. Nothing else. What’s more, the fridge was empty. He drank the half bottle of whisky, passed out in the sitting room.

He had an unbelievably terrible hangover the next morning; he actually went outside and began shovelling snow from the pavement and the drive in the hope that he would feel better.

He didn’t.

He jumped into his car and went to the nearest supermarket. He was making himself bacon and eggs and gratefully drinking from the fresh bottle of whisky when the phone rang. It was Portia.

‘Hello Daddy.’

‘Porshe, do you know about all this?’

‘I had a note from Mother.’

‘She didn’t leave any food.’

‘Are you working today?’

‘No I’m off till Tuesday. My first long weekend for months. I was going to – take her Christmas shopping.’ His voice whined slightly.

‘Come over to Ealing Daddy, I’ll make us Sunday dinner about four.’

‘Do you understand any of this Porshe? How could she possibly, possibly humiliate me like this, it simply can’t be possible that she’s left me for Terence Blue, it can’t be, I know her, I simply don’t believe it.’ But that weekend she had been away nudged there at the corner of his hungover mind. I’ll never forgive her for making a fool of me in public, never. ‘Where’s your mother going for Christmas?’

‘Hawaii.’

‘Hawaii? Rubbish.’

‘Hawaii Daddy.’

‘With Terence Blue?’

‘With Benedict.’