Homecoming

‘Or do lots of theatre,’ Megan added.

‘Katharine Hartnell has done a lot of theatre,’ Carole went on. ‘I’ve seen her in Hedda Gabler. She was mesmerising, and very beautiful.’

‘Yes, she is beautiful,’ said Megan.

‘She’s so creamily pale with those Spanish infanta eyes,’ Zara observed. ‘She must have had some work done.’

They all considered this.

‘But not much, just mild tweaks. Not the full facelift, eyebrows-on-your-hairline job,’ Zara finished.

‘Less is more,’ Carole said.

‘Should I get botox?’ asked Megan, examining her face in the mirrored surface of the table in front of her.

‘It’s too soon for you,’ Carole advised. ‘Later, maybe. The problem is doing too much of it, mind you. You’ve no idea how many people get hooked on it. Let’s be honest, decent directors want some movement in the face. That porcelain doll look is on the way out. You can’t act if you can’t actually move any of the muscles in your face.’

‘As long as you can move your lips to ask “What’s my motivation in this scene?” when you have to snog Rob Hartnell!’ teased Zara.

‘Stop!’ said Megan. ‘I’m bloody terrified. He’s an icon.’

‘A very hot icon, and you have a huge love scene with him,’ Carole said.

‘That’s making it worse, not better,’ Megan laughed, although she was excited at the thought. This wasn’t happening to anyone else, it was happening to her. She’d somehow got this magical part where she would be acting opposite a man she’d watched, rapt, like everyone else, on the Odeon screen when she’d been younger. She’d be up there on the screen with Rob. It was heady stuff.

‘Don’t worry.’ Zara patted her hand. ‘Carole or I will stand in for you on the day. You only have to ask. I can bear to snog Rob Hartnell if it’s for a greater purpose.’

In Titania’s Palace, Megan Flynn sat with her empty cup and looked at all the people around her. Once, she wouldn’t have envied them anything. They had dull lives, she’d have told herself: the women with the grocery bags pooled around their feet, the young mothers with small children wriggling redfaced in high chairs, the men poring over crosswords or chatting just as avidly as the groups of women.

As she’d danced the night away in clubs and at wrap parties, posing for photographs and plotting with her agent about what she’d do next, Megan had thought these people were buried alive.

How could they not want to do what she did? How could they be happy in their humdrum lives?

But now she looked at them and she could see the lure of the simple life. They might have no excitement, but they were secure and happy in this cosy world of Golden Square.

None of them would be filled with anxiety at the prospect of the rest of their lives. None of them were waiting for someone to find them hiding out in Dublin. None of them had had their hearts broken. Or so she thought, in her self-centred way.

Was a boring life a good trade-off for that?

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