‘Did he ever try to rape you?’

‘No.’

They looked disappointed and would have continued the conversation but were called on stage as nineteenth-century prostitutes.

Izzy Fields stared at the newspaper headline miserably after they had gone.

*

Nicola Abbot, who long ago named herself after Bud Abbott not Lou Costello, sitting in the one tall chair, looked at the big headline on the front page of the newspaper, stared at the photograph of Terence Blue for a long time. Her face was completely expressionless, still. She read the article twice. She knew it couldn’t be true: Terence wasn’t like that. Then she carefully took the front page from the rest of the paper and tore it: in half; in half again; in half again; in half again. Then she sat, quite still with the pieces of newsprint on her lap, in the one tall chair.

He had seen her.

He would come.

She had to see him.

When she saw a small article about the London Academy of Drama reunion in a newspaper, she had decided to go. She had to see him, that was all she knew. She had to catch the train and a taxi, events that filled her with trepidation, but she did them; she knew perfectly well how to do them after all.

This was living in the community. They said she was well enough to live in the community. They were pleased she had her own house, that they would not have to find her alternative accommodation. They brought her on a minibus.

When she arrived at the house, when she saw it again, she had stood quite still while they unpacked her belongings. And then she dutifully walked in through the door with the community psychiatric nurse. Someone had arranged for the house to be cleaned.

‘How nice,’ they said.

She did not tell them the house made all the memories come back.

A telephone rang and rang in the empty hall.

*

Molly McKenzie parked her car, admired the roses in front of the Bonhams’ house, envied again the way the back of the property ran down to the river. On her mantelpiece at home was her invitation to the garden party that Pauline and Anthony Bonham used to hold every summer to which Molly – not, of course, as Anthony’s ex-mistress but as one of the class of ’59 – had always been politely invited. They hadn’t had one for years and years but in the early eighties in that beautiful river-bordered garden, loud voices had called to each other across the lawn in the sunshine: Darling, how lovely to see you again darling... this was indeed exactly the sort of conversation Molly and Pauline usually had with each other, exuding bonhomie, excluding, any longer, intimacy.