Pauline said nothing for a while, brushed at a wasp impatiently with her hand, watched the boat. When it had quite disappeared from view she gave herself an imperceptible shake then, still staring at the river through her dark glasses, said to Molly, ‘I don’t like what you did to me.’

In spite of herself, in spite of the fact that she had begun this conversation, Molly blushed.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I don’t like it myself.’ After a moment she added, ‘I thought I loved him. I suppose I did love him sort of.’

‘You didn’t have any right to love him when I was stuck home with Portia only eight months old and I couldn’t work and he was out working and fucking other actresses. At least it didn’t need to be my best friend.’ Pauline’s voice was crisp but Molly heard the pain.

‘I know. It’s not the sort of thing I’d do now. He didn’t love me of course, I was just fooling myself. I regret it terribly.’

Neither of them thought it was in the least odd that they were discussing something that had happened so long ago, almost thirty years ago.

Pauline looked at Molly, and at last took off her sunglasses. ‘Do you regret it for yourself or for me?’ she said coldly.

How smooth her face is, thought Molly, it doesn’t give anything away. Once I would have been able to tell what she was thinking just by looking at her. Only her voice betrays her now.

‘I didn’t even think of you,’ she answered truthfully, finally. And she looked down at her ringless hands. ‘I did think I loved him. I believed he loved me, I thought we’d...’ she stumbled ‘...just go on, working together, living like that...’

‘Oh did you? And what did you think would happen to me and Portia?’

‘I didn’t think about it Pauly, I was very immature, I lived for the day, I know it sounds weird but I don’t think I had any conception of “the future”. I was stupid. And, like I say, I’m ashamed, I’ve had cause to regret it often.’ And then Molly was suddenly silent. She thought of the nights, and the train station, and the tears. And the joy. The joy of playing opposite Anthony on stage in play after play in two-weekly rep: Private Lives, Peer Gynt, Macbeth, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the hard, hard work, the long hours, the intensity, the false but strong passion of their lives. And on Sundays Anthony went home to his family.

Finally Molly shrugged. ‘That’s how we lived: affairs and romance and work and immaturity.’

‘That’s not how I lived.’

‘I know.’

‘We were friends. You were my best friend.’