‘What were you thinking of doing? But yes, I can’t imagine Terry raping anybody, I mean who at the reunion? He’d had them all years ago!’

‘God knows.’ Molly thought for a moment. ‘Well – I left early but when I left he had that – what was her name now? – Simone – Simone Taylor, dressed in purple, hanging on to his every word. My God, do you remember her, poor old Simone Taylor who couldn’t act?’

Pauline thought for a moment. ‘American, draped across the piano singing old Judy Garland songs, “Over The Rainbow” or something? Yes, terrible actress.’

‘Birds fly over the rainbow why then oh why can’t I,’ Molly intoned, ‘yeah that’s her, yes, terrible actress, she was there on Saturday.’

‘She used to be crazy about Terence didn’t she, talked like a little girl. What happened to her? I’ve never heard of her since we left the Academy, she can’t be an actress surely?’

‘Someone told me she became a Cosmetics Executive.’

‘A what?’

‘She’s a Cosmetics Executive in New York,’ repeated Molly. ‘Max Factor or Poison or something, she apparently kept telling anybody at the reunion who would listen that she had two cadillacs, maybe to make up for having dropped out of the profession.’

‘Two cadillacs is worth our profession any day,’ said Pauline dryly.

‘Oh come on Pauly, you know how it is, anyone who gives up feels a failure. There’s something wrong with the whole lot of us, the wanting to do it in the first place, wanting attention, wanting applause, compensating for our childhoods, forcing the audience to become our parents and give us praise—’

‘Oh come off it—’

‘It’s true, they fuck you up your mum and dad and then we become actors. I didn’t even have a dad and that fucked me up just the same. And I remember you and your real father and how you were going to run away to the circus and find him, escape from your stepfather.’

Pauline looked away at once, down to the river, said nothing.

‘Well I believe that’s how it goes anyway,’ said Molly, ‘to me Cosmetic Cadillacs can only be a booby prize, someone should write a book about actors’ childhoods it would make interesting reading. I’ve decided most of us are damaged in some way and that’s why we become actors, but anyway, listen, about Terence, there’s something odd about all this and Terence will so hate me for – for betraying a confidence, but – well – oh God I’ll have to discuss it with someone now and...’ She paused for a moment. ‘Oh Pauly, you know Terence, how he kissed us all, how I lost my virginity and ran and told you, and how you – how you said sex must be forever?’

‘I remember,’ said Pauline shortly. She stared at the river.