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to Melissa. ‘Didn’t mean that to happen.’ He made a pantomime of closing the door quietly behind him.
    Melissa caught my eye and gave me the tiniest possible shake of the head. I slipped the letter out of sight. Melissa and I were occupying the only two chairs. Kevin crossed to the dressing-table and leaned on it. I wondered what it was that Melissa had been going to say about the letter – and why she hadn’t told Kevin about it.
    If Melissa was the chameleon type of actor, Kevin was definitely the personality type. He seemed to stretch the little room at the seams by simply stepping into it. I found myself wanting to push my chair back. When he spoke it was recognizably in an actor’s voice, deep, flexible, and slightly ironic as though he was never a hundred per cent committed to what he was saying.
    â€˜Feeling better, sweetie?’ He looked fondly into Melissa’s face.
    She nodded. ‘Much.’
    He leaned over and stroked the hair back from her forehead.
    â€˜All the same, I don’t feel happy about leaving you tonight. I don’t have to stay in London. I can get a late train back.’
    She smiled up at him. ‘I’ll be fine, honestly, darling. You stay over at the flat. I don’t mind, really I don’t. I shall just go home and get as much sleep as Agnes will let me.’
    â€˜I’m only just across the fields if she wants me,’ I said. ‘Just give me a ring if you need anything, Melissa.’
    â€˜Well, if you’re sure…’ Kevin said.
    â€˜Quite sure,’ Melissa said.
    Kevin turned to me. ‘Cass, while you’re here, can I have a word about the opening scene – the one we rehearsed this morning? Can we make it a bit more, oh … a bit more…’ He gestured vaguely.
    â€˜A bit more what?’
    â€˜A bit more sexy?’
    â€˜Sexy?’
    â€˜Archibald might embrace Lady Isabel, put an arm round her waist, that sort of thing?’
    â€˜But they’re not even engaged,’ I said, realizing that I sounded like a Victorian chaperon. ‘And anyway, there’s also the class thing. He only feels he can dare to approach her when he finds out she’s been left without a penny.’
    Kevin leaned back, bracing himself by grasping the dressing-table. He nodded thoughtfully.
    â€˜Look, we’ve agreed that the play absolutely seethes with repressed sexuality, haven’t we?’
    â€˜Well, yes, but that’s the whole point, it is repressed, so it’s that much more shocking when it finally erupts and Isabel runs off with Levison.’
    â€˜But we don’t want to underplay it too much, do we? I know East Lynne’s a classic of its kind, but we don’t want to be too reverential. I’m thinking of some of the telly adaptations.…’
    â€˜ Pride and Prejudice  … Colin Firth … a wet shirt … a glimpse of manly chest?’
    He grinned. ‘Well, maybe we don’t want to go as far as that. But if you could spice the dialogue up a bit…’
    â€˜Well…’
    There was a crackling of static from the Tannoy. A gravelly disembodied voice said, ‘Dr James. Dr James. Your fairy godmother is waiting for you at the stage door.’
    â€˜Oh Lord, I’ve got to go!’
    â€˜But, Cass, you will think about it?’
    â€˜Yes, yes!’

Chapter Four
    T HE shoes were slingbacks made of a very soft, supple black leather. They had a cut-away toe and a slender heel much higher than I was used to wearing. Putting them on changed everything. The shoes seemed to alter my centre of gravity and realign my whole body. The black skirt and the jacket with its mother-of-pearl buttons had looked dowdy a moment ago. Now they looked stunning. The cut of the jacket accentuated my waist and showed off the cleavage that I’d acquired since the birth of Grace. The bulge of my stomach had disappeared. I didn’t look