Dear boy, said the older man gently, I’m sure you’re not. But let me give you some advice. Find out about yourself, but not on pieces of waste ground like this. There will be others like you in the Company, there always are, look carefully and you’ll find them. But don’t come here again. Not until you’re surer of what you’re doing. It’s too dangerous in this country. And he got up. Harry saw him dust the dirt off his big winter coat and then finish doing his trousers. And in that second Harry understood: the man had been here to try to meet someone too. The lights from the railway station shone there, not so far away.

I must hurry to catch my train, the older man had said, get home quickly now, and he waved and turned away. But Harry called out after him.

What is your name? he had cried out in a kind of despair.

And the man, good-looking, in his late forties perhaps, had turned back for a moment. Some people call me Popka, he had said.

*

It began to get dark in Kentish Town but still Harry Donaldson sat staring at nothing as the light faded.

10

Frances Kitson, too, had noticed the change in the light. It was less than a week since the reunion, yet the heavy feeling in the air had changed. Summer would soon be over at last. She smiled to herself and hummed, enjoyed the small morning breeze drifting in through her open window. She had work.

The coming autumn was always a better time for her profession: the work suddenly appeared, new TV series seemed to be cast, repertory companies planned their next year’s season. But best of all Frances had got the part of the plump lady in the television commercial for the Wise Insurance Company which meant she would earn some money; she and her agent worked out that she’d make at least £8,000 and a great deal more if the advert was very successful. It was a big campaign that the insurance company was planning. She patted her padded bra fondly as she washed it by hand in the bathroom basin.

But Emmy Lou hadn’t got the thin part and Frances sighed for her friend. Emmy Lou was such a good actress – much better than Frances, better at her job than most of them. But over the years most of them had realised: often it wasn’t just about talent, it was about energy, and it was about fierce ambition and it was about who you knew. And even after all that, so much of the time it was just about luck.

‘I just feel so – hopeless. I feel I can’t go on any longer like this.’ Emmy Lou’s voice on the phone was bleak. ‘All I want in the whole world is to work.’

‘Em, this is our life, it’s like this.’