‘It’s like this for some of us. It’s like this for me.’

‘Shall we go to the movies again?’

‘Thanks Fran, not today. Glad about your advert.’ And Emmy Lou hung up, picked up her keys, went out into the corridor. There was a lift in her block but she ran down the stairs, picked up her mail from her pigeon-hole on the ground floor. Brown envelopes and charity brochures. She stuffed everything back into her pigeon hole, went out into the Finsbury Park morning, not noticing the sunshine. She walked quickly along the street. Outside the newsagent she saw that Terence Blue was still on the front page, but smaller because there were developments in Bosnia. Interviews with all three of his ex-wives were promised on Sunday.

She made for the park, walked quickly, hoping that somehow exercise would push some of those endorphins into her blood, somehow make her feel less angry at the thought of the unfairness of her life. She knew she was a good actress, she had held on to that knowledge fiercely for years. But she hadn’t made it and now it was too late because, and it terrified her to think of this thought, now even success couldn’t make up for the waste of the years. Over and over again in her mind the words of an actress who had committed suicide echoed: If you make acting all your world, it will let you down. Faster and faster she walked, past the children’s playground, past the full-blown roses, past mothers with prams, past the dry leaves lying on the paths.

Walking out her life, on a Thursday morning.

*

‘Darling they want you to play Harriet Richards. They’re sending you a script.’

‘Who am I to play?’

‘Harriet Richards. The aunt.’

‘Oh she’s got a name now, good!’

‘Quite good money if you like it. They say the role has developed since Monday, and may develop further.’

Molly laughed. ‘Who knows what it’ll be then in a week’s time,’ she said. ‘I might turn out to be the murderer after all.’ She had taken her agent’s phone call still in bed, still wrapped around Banjo who often slept till noon whether he’d had a gig the night before or not. She put down the phone, curled herself again round his back.

‘Good?’ he mumbled.

‘A job,’ she said. ‘A bloody job at last. ‘

He turned at once, put his hand between her legs, kissed her hair.

‘Good,’ he said, as he fell asleep again.

*