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What a night! Welcome, everybody, to Grauman's Chinese Theater and the movie event of 1927: the premiere of Monumental Pictures' The Royal Rascal. Starring those darlings of the silver screen, Hollywood's most romantic couple, Don Lockwood and Louisa Lamont.

The crowd roars as the limousine pulls up, surging forward as they disembark. Flashbulbs pop. Don's arm is around her as they make the long walk down the red carpet. Posing, twisting, turning, this way and that. Being called to.

"Are the rumours true?" one of the assembled journalists shouts. "Will we be hearing wedding bells?"

Don switches on the charm. "Louisa and I are very happy. If she decides to make an honest man out of me you'll be the second to know. After my mother." The laugh.

Héloïse wants to run. Instead, she stands demurely by while Don reminisces about his career from music hall to accidental stuntman, how they met on one of Héloïse's early films and Don smooth talked his way into a real starring role. How the legend of Lockwood and Lamont was born.

Now they sit in the theatre watching the picture. The audience is swept up in the glamour of it. The sets, the costumes. The set was cardboard. The dress was full of pins and left her raw. Now the night is ours, the intertitle reads. Héloïse on screen miming the words - miming something. It didn't much matter what. In Don's arms. All very romantic. An interlude for him to fight off some villains. The kiss. The audience sighs and swoons. Héloïse remembers the vacant, empty mouth.

Finally ‘The End’ appears, the lights come up, there is applause, applause, more applause. Don lets go of Cosmo's hand, seizes Héloïse’s, and pulls her up on the stage.

"Thank you!" Don calls out. "We're thrilled to be here tonight to share The Royal Rascal with you."

Héloïse steps forward but Don catches up with her. Takes hold of her. "We had a swell time making it and we’re glad you enjoyed it too." His glance is heavy. Draws her off the stage.

The applause thunders behind them as they reach the safety of the curtained wings. Where they are greeted by RF. Head of the studio, the ultimate authority here. He's busy pushing Roscoe, the film's director, onto the stage. "Don! Louisa! You were spectacular!"

Backstage they are surrounded by props and now it is filling up with studio executives too.

Héloïse shakes Don off. "You have to let me talk some time. People are going to think I can't."

RF has heard this all before. "See, Louisa, the public have this idea of you two. You're selling the dream."

"And what a dream!" Cosmo is backstage already. "The European beauty and the All American Boy."

"Is this about my accent?"

"No!" RF says too quickly. Placating his star. "The accent tests well. Exotic. It's more..."

"It's what you use the exotic accent for," Don breaks in. "Complaints about the patriarchy don't sell movies."

"Don does the talking," RF says. Reiterates. As though he is doing her a favour.

"And we all know you can talk enough for two," Cosmo points out.

Don reels back in mock distress. Always putting on a show for the invisible audience he carries with him at all times. "Why I've not been so insulted in at least the last two hours. Come on, let's get to RF's party."

"Yes!" RF claps his hands together.

Héloïse absolutely does not want yet more performance. "I'm tired."

"Come on," Don wheedles.

RF joins the chorus. "You must. It's to celebrate the picture and I have a very special surprise."

"An hour," she attempts to compromise.

"Capital! Louisa, you come with me," RF says. "We'll split the mob. Don and Cosmo will go separately."

Because nothing is ever simple where Don and Cosmo are involved it's an hour before even Cosmo shows up. During which Héloïse smiles at praise for the film until it feels nailed to her face. Thankfully Sophie is here and a waiter she is making eyes at keeps a supply of Sidecars coming. Which Héloïse is more than happy to profit from.

Cosmo explains his car broke down - it spends more time broken down than in motion - Don got mobbed - but of course he did - and escaped over the roof of a streetcar - which even for him is excessive. His Lordship arrives eventually and RF promenades the pair of them around for another hour.

Finally, though, something interesting. RF calls for quiet and cues up a picture. It's simple: a man in an office talking to the camera. But actually talking. Synchronised sound.

An intriguing possibility, Héloïse thinks, but the reaction in the room is muted. It's a gimmick, is the general opinion. No one wants this.

When RF reveals rival Warner Brothers have already filmed a ‘talking picture’ people laugh. RF has dodged a bullet, they say. Héloïse knows the history of cinema well, born in her own country. Once a fad, now the business of everyone in this room. She is not so sure.

“The authenticity, the immediacy that could be achieved…” she tries to say, though no one is listening.

It’s soon forgotten as the party wears on. Sophie and her waiter have disappeared somewhere. Don has made an enemy among the chorus girls by insulting her acting and takes a pie to the face. Get in line, Héloïse thinks.

Outside the night is balmy. The party sounds more fun from here, as snatches of laughter and music. Once upon a time Héloïse would have walked home on such a night. Before all this. Now a car is provided for her, whisking her back to a dark and quiet mansion.

All the glamour of the Friday is forgotten by the Monday. Back to work. The next movie: The Duelling Cavalier. Héloïse has costume fittings but many of the dresses are being reused from The Royal Rascal. Looking at the script it would appear it also is being reused from The Royal Rascal. Another French Revolution picture. With an authentic French star. Albeit one not allowed to use her real French name or real French voice.

Even though Héloïse has done this a dozen times already she can't be entirely cynical. There's always that energy, that frisson, that potential, at the beginning of a new movie. This time it might actually be good. Different. Interesting. Worthwhile. Mean something. The distant dream.

The energy is visible all around the lot. People busying about with props. Dressing the set. The smell of fresh paint. The new backdrops of French countryside. Fairytale castles nestled on hills in the forest. Héloïse pauses behind one now.

"It's not real," Héloïse can’t help saying.

"It's Hollywood." The painter leans back, considers their handiwork. "Nothing is real." A woman's voice. When she turns it's with a thoughtful, contemplative tip of the head. "Even your name."

Which is true but not exactly the sort of thing one says on first acquaintance to the star of the studio. "And what is your name?"

"Marianne." She puts out a paint-stained hand. Sleeves rolled up to the elbows. "Unless I can get fired for talking to you. In which case it's Frank."

Héloïse takes it. "Héloïse," she says. Even though Marianne apparently already knows and is not shy about it. It feels strange to use her real name. She is out of the habit. "Really I started talking to you."

"I'm glad you did. Did you have any more specific constructive criticism? Are you an architecture buff as well as an art critic?”

As tempting as the offer is, Héloïse is not in fact head of the art department and has places to be. Someone calls “Louisa!” to illustrate the point.

“Maybe later.”

Neither ladies nor movie stars ‘skulk’ yet that is exactly what Héloïse is doing. Surreptitious around the back of the lot where all the scenery waits in the wings. Looking for someone. She is not very discreet in her hoops and skirts and several confused members of the crew attempt to assist her, until she finds the one she wants.

Who is putting the finishing touches to “Your castle, mademoiselle.”

Héloïse inspects it. “Better.”

“I'm glad you think so because it's definitely not what the director ordered and I'm liable to be fired.”

“I'll tell them I saw Frank paint it.”

“It does sound like something Frank would do.”

On the other side of the sound stage the piano starts up. "What now?" Héloïse looks over.

Marianne stands and they watch Cosmo running up walls and trashing the set.

"I just painted that," Marianne says sadly.

"He thinks he's funny but this is going to put him out for days. He needs to cut down his smoking," Héloïse tuts.

Cosmo sings about comedy. Make 'em laugh. He fights with a stuffed mannequin and falls over a lot.

Marianne tips her head. "Is this career advice?"

"He thinks Don ought to embrace being a ham."

It makes Marianne laugh. "He is a ham. Sorry. Oh no, I'm so sorry." The smile becomes a look of horror.

"I said it first," Héloïse simply replies. "And Cosmo before me. So you can get in line, Frank." A little smile accompanying it, so Marianne doesn't feel too bad.

The next time she finds Marianne she is painting grass. “It's just grass,” Marianne says against Héloïse’s compliments.

“It is the best grass I have ever seen,” Héloïse insists. Marianne thinks she is being teased. But she is not. The grass could be moving.

The first week is done. Most of the cast and crew are at the Coconut Lounge. Sophie floats in the pool and is brought cocktails by waiters in tiny trunks and bowties. She is very much in her element. Don and Cosmo are congenitally incapable of keeping a low profile and are doing an act by the piano. Someone is being wafted with feathers.

Some of the crew - “Traitors!” Don brands them, only partly in jest - have gone to see a rival studio's new production. The very first talking picture. Héloïse would have, had she been asked. Professional curiosity. She is glad she didn’t, though, because the art department is here. Including Marianne.

They notice each other immediately. But Marianne does not come over. Does not stake her claim, does not flaunt the association.

Instead, Marianne talks with her friends then goes to the bar, alone, to sit tucked off to the side. Héloïse - watching the entire time - disengages from the conversation that did not involve her to go to the powder room and does not return to her table. Goes to the bar instead.

Héloïse takes the stool beside Marianne and a glass of champagne slides along the counter. “Thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.”

“So what did you paint today?”

“Vines.”

“There are always ever so many vines.”

“No fairytale castle is complete without them. I might sneak a tiny dragon in. Frank might, if I ever want to work again.”

"Do you want to be an actress?"

Marianne shakes her head with vehemence. "Absolutely not."

"Most people working here do. Waiting for their big break."

"Even Joe?"

"Perhaps not Joe. All the pretty girls, certainly."

Marianne's eyebrows jump. She recovers and doesn't mention it, so Héloïse decides she need not expire from the embarrassment. After clearing her throat Marianne says, "I'm a painter."

"Yes, I know."

Purses her lips, gives A Look. "An artist."

"Aren't we all?" Héloïse waves her champagne, affects an air.

"And you, I didn't know you were a comedienne."

Héloïse smiles. "Tell me about your art."

For a moment it seems Marianne isn't convinced. Then, "I paint portraits. Of interesting people."

Fascinating. "It is possible to make a living from this?"

"Not at all. Which is why I paint historically inaccurate castles on plywood sometimes. A few weeks painting scenery, a few weeks painting people." She balances her hands off against each other. She does have lovely hands. Painter's hands. Long. Colourful.

"I did wonder I hadn't seen you before."

"I've been around." Ducking her head.

"Have you seen me?"

"You are a movie star."

"Have you seen the movies?"

"I have seen you. On the lot. And on the screen."

Héloïse cannot begin to think about the first part of that so concentrates on the latter. This she can deal with. "It's all a big show." Easily dismissed.

"You make people happy."

Dismisses that too. "It's not real. Like your castle."

"Do the movies have to be real? All the time?"

"It's selling a lie."

"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe love can conquer all. Maybe there can be happy endings."

“Have you ever been in love?”

“No.”

“But you think love can conquer all?”

“I hope so. I've been in relationships.”

“So you’ve kissed someone?”

“Yes.”

A series of actions meant to convey something. Kisses along an arm. Furtive glances. The woman coy, the man with a salacious grin. The mock horror. The ‘No, no, yes.’ Grabbing and holding the woman in place. The press of mouths, writhing. The big gestures. A semaphore of romance so it can be seen from the back of the theatre. Hollow and insincere. Héloïse has done it more times than she can count. Every day for years. Won awards. And never known the meaning behind it.

"Don't start me on this," Héloïse mutters into her drink. "I'll be the one getting fired." Off Marianne's quizzical look she explains the embargo on her speaking to the press. "They think my talking about these things detracts from the 'movie magic' or something like that."

Marianne has a sympathetic slant of the head. "How on earth do they manage to keep you quiet?"

"I'm a movie star. I earn a living pretending to be something I'm not. Everything I'm not," Héloïse shrugs.

“In your defence, movies are not the only place for acting and artifice,” Marianne points out.

“No, indeed.” She nods over at a couple in a booth. “Look.” Marianne does. Héloïse turns back, watches her watching. “What do you see? What would you paint?”

“The way she had her arm when she reached out to him... The light from the glass... I'd change the shade of his suit.” Marianne’s eyes are soft. She's losing herself in the vision already. Making it beautiful. “What do you see?”

“The script. The audience. Whether they know it or not.”

“What is the script?”

“It's all for show. He's promenading her, boosting his cache. But she's looking for a better offer. They are both using each other. A performance.” Not beautiful. “At best they are trapped on the runaway minecart. Marriage, white picket fence, babies, resentment.”

Marianne gazes at her. Héloïse sloughs it off. Remembers her own script, the audience.

The rest of the Coconut Lounge is busy. Some canoodling in corners, dancing, laughing at the bar. Being here with Marianne had made Héloïse feel separate. But she is not. She is part of the same big show.

"That is..." Marianne's gaze climbs Héloïse's wig, "such a lot of hair."

They are back on set. One day off and now Héloïse is in full costume for the court scenes. She has to start shooting but she lingers among the columns Marianne paints. Marianne’s hands today are white and blue. Héloïse fancies she can feel a cool breeze through the marble.

“Miss Lamont!” comes the call.

She sighs and tears herself away, making her way to the stage.

“Louisa,” Don smiles. “Enchanting as always.” He makes a deep bow holding out his cloak, enjoying himself immensely.

“Do you get deja vu?” she asks him. Gesturing around. The crew preps lights. Héloïse's leaning wig is readjusted, Don's makeup is touched up.

“We have to give the people what they want.”

“What the studio wants.”

“Discontent! Sedition!” He draws his rapier. “La Guillotine for you if you are not careful.”

“At least that would get me out of the next picture. Put that thing away, you don't know what you are doing with it. I thought you wanted to be a serious actor?”

“Shakespeare? Ibsen? No, it's movie magic for me.” He does put the rapier away, only because the camera starts rolling. The director walks them through the scene. Poor Roscoe, Héloïse thinks he might be as bored as she is. He talks them through the flirtation as though Héloïse hasn't heard it a hundred times already. She barely even needs to read the script these days.

Don gets sympathetic for a moment. “What do you want?”

She looks at him as he prowls about. In action. Powerful. While she sits prettily at a table. “Maybe I want a rapier. To swing into the chateau on a chandelier.” To save the girl.

Don grins. “Louisa, my dear, you have my full support. There is nothing I would rather see.”

“Cut!” Roscoe calls. “We'll do one more. Don, if you can try being a little more enigmatic. Thank you.” Maybe she ought to ask him about a change. Maybe this time she can undo her own ropes, find her own way to freedom.

Just as they are about to start filming again there is an interruption at the back of the sound stage.

“It's RF,” a producer says. With a certain level of concern.

RF barely even acknowledges Héloïse and Don. Ordinarily he is very diligent about massaging their egos. He drags Roscoe off into a corner.

Everyone watches while trying their hardest to look as though they are not. Don doesn't even have a joke to make. Cosmo pops up and Sophie joins them, her hair threatening Héloïse’s view. They can't hear anything but the actions are certainly speaking volumes. Roscoe is pleading some case. RF stands firm. The slump in the director's shoulders gets more and more pronounced. He's almost bent double by the time RF turns to the cast and crew.

“We're shutting the set down.”

There is a crowd-wide inhalation.

“And next week The Duelling Cavalier starts filming as a talkie.”

“Marianne,” Héloïse says.

Roscoe stares blankly back at her. “Who?”

She's in her dressing room on set but there is no filming today. They are back in rehearsal now that The Duelling Cavalier has been reimagined as a talking picture and part of that rehearsing involves, as Roscoe is here to break to her, elocution lessons.

“From the art department. I would like Marianne to accompany me.” Sophie is having her own session and if Héloïse needs accompanying she can think of no one better than Marianne and her complete lack of judgement.

“Sure,” he says, still nonplussed but happy enough it is resolved. “Your car is in thirty minutes.”

The elocution lessons are a good deal stranger than Héloïse had anticipated. “She sells seashells by the seashore.”

“Teeth, Miss Lamont. Tongue.” The unyielding vocal coach Miss Dinsmore cracks the whip.

“Who is doing this? Why?”

“Hoo.” Miss Dinsmore emphasises a lot of H. “Hwy.” Far more H than is necessary. Héloïse has got a long way on minimal amounts of H.

“That is not how anyone sounds.”

“Huh-ow. It is the ideal accent, Miss Lamont. Mid-Atlantic. It suggests the transcendent. It is cultivated, it is consistent.”

“The middle of the Atlantic ocean? Maybe I will move there.”

“It's not a real place, Miss Lamont.”

“Even better,” Héloïse says, trying to be aware of her tongue and her teeth as the good lady had asked. There's a chuckle from behind that makes her smile.

Miss Dinsmore sighs. “The studio do not want the accent to be a distraction.”

“I think your accent is lovely,” Marianne pipes up from the back of the room. “Sorry to interrupt.”

That is an acceptable interruption, Héloïse feels.

“And you,” Miss Dinsmore rounds on Marianne. “Come here. Read this.”

Marianne looks to Héloïse. Worried perhaps. Héloïse nods.

“The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.”

Before Héloïse can ask hwat rain and hwy on earth this is relevant, if it is even true, Miss Dinsmore says, “Very good. Lovely vowels. I'm detecting a hint of an accent here too. Italian.”

Héloïse looks at Marianne. This is news.

“My father is,” Marianne says. She's surprised. “No one has noticed that since I was a kid.”

Miss Dinsmore is nonchalant about her gift. “Your posture is good. You work on your feet?”

Héloïse says, “She's an artist.”

But Miss Dinsmore is displeased by this. “Oh. Well. Should you ever want to act...”

“No, thank you.”

“Shame. Quite striking, aren't you?”

This woman, this complete stranger, seems to be able to say it easily. Marianne dips her head and shakes it off. “This is Héloïse's lesson, not mine,” she protests.

Héloïse is not very concerned by this and apparently nor is Miss Dinsmore. Marianne is instructed to share Héloïse's book and it helps, helps Héloïse feel less self conscious. To hear Marianne also getting her tongue twisted. To have a moment of frustrated laughter.

“Arrround the rrrocks the rrragged rrrascal rrran.” Finally something Héloïse can do with the best of them. Marianne even gives her a rrround of applause.

Drifting in from next door is the sound of song. Héloïse is sure this is not part of the curriculum. Don's lesson but Cosmo is in there too and that means nothing useful is getting done. Then the clattering beat of tap dancing. Héloïse rolls her eyes and they go to have a look.

"Moses supposes..." Don and Cosmo sing the tongue twister, decorating their bemused tutor with props.

"I'm glad they are working hard," Héloïse says. At only half the usual level of sarcasm. It does make her smile a little. And why not. A bit of fun for everyone.

The general consensus is that the afternoon has been a lot of hard work even if it had involved breaking into spontaneous song and dance numbers. The solution is a champagne dinner at a fancy restaurant. The studio is paying. Will pay, when they get the bill tomorrow.

It's not Marianne's natural habitat. Nor would it be Héloïse's, ideally. “Are you sure I should be here?” Marianne whispers.

“You don't have to be famous to come here.”

“You definitely have to be rich.” Marianne looks furtively around.

“There are few places I am not the most famous person in the room. It can be exhausting. Places like this, I can relax.”

It does not hurt that drinks appear immediately, and keep appearing. There are plenty of people so Héloïse can fade into the background. Not entirely, not tonight, not with Marianne.

They talk with their heads close against the music and the clattering and everyone's conversation. About their childhoods, school, how Marianne started drawing, how Héloïse began acting. Héloïse slips her hand across the back of Marianne’s chair in order to be closer. She is aware of how this might look. What it might convey. Possessive. Marking territory. But it is practicality. It is interest. Not wanting to miss a word.

Hours pass, they must, because now Don is talking about going on somewhere else, his entourage along with him. “Louisa, come with us?”

It's a wonder he keeps asking. “No, thank you.”

Héloïse is aware of other sorts of parties. Almost certainly Marianne is too, being an artistic type. Probably Marianne would like to go. “Did you want to go?”

“No, no,” Marianne says.

This pleases Don. Now he doesn't have to stay out of some chivalric duty not to leave Héloïse alone. “Grand. You can keep each other company.” As though they had not been entirely and intensely tied up in each other all evening.

Now he looks around. Calculating. Héloïse had forgotten. He's going to kiss her goodbye because they are dating-if-not-secretly-engaged, according to almost every person in the room. Normally she does not object. Less and less, anyway. It's all just a show. The same as for work, is work, there's very little difference.

His arm goes around her waist and he pulls her in. Presses his mouth to hers. She puts a hand to his shoulder. A sweet moment. Or leverage from which to tip him back and break it off. She applies a little pressure and he stops. “You are having fun tonight,” he says, close. Sweet nothings, like lovers. “I'm glad.” He gives a little squeeze and wheels away, back to his audience, his fans, his life.

The Don and Cosmo Show rolls out of the restaurant with their friends, both old and newly made tonight. On to more adventures.

Héloïse sits, exhausted, and sips at her cocktail. Merriment continues all around. The fun they had been having. Don was right. Even he noticed. Except now Marianne, next to her, is quiet. Something has changed and Héloïse does not like it. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing.” The smile is bright. She really could be an actress.

“Come outside with me? For some fresh air.”

Marianne follows her out onto the terrace. The glittering lights of the city spread before them. The whole world. It is much quieter, cooler. They sit beneath fake palm trees. Music drifts from inside and patrons mill about but it is calm and cool. It makes Héloïse feel calm and cool.

Evidently it has the same effect on Marianne. “Does it upset you he's not here with you?”

“No.” The necessary explanation is much larger. "Don and I... Our relationship is as much a fiction as our films. He must be free to gallivant around with Cosmo."

Marianne hardly needs a moment to digest this. "What about you?"

"I get to be safe. I'm lucky. He's not some American ‘boy next door’. I have money and a career." Repeating, so effortlessly, her mother's words.

"What about love?"

"Your fairytale castle?" She leans back in her chair. "I’ve never been in love. I'm not sure I believe in it. So I did not think it a loss to give up." A small, quiet, "I've never even -" but this is foolish, she can't.

"Tell me."

"I've never kissed anyone. I've kissed a dozen men a hundred times but it's never been real. I've never really kissed anyone."

Marianne only looks. At least she does not pity. Héloïse wonders that she can say these things so freely to Marianne. Except that she knows she will be understood.

New equipment begins arriving on the sound stage. Héloïse and Sophie do some tests with it. Practice their elocution lessons. Teeth and tongues and round vowels.

Héloïse negotiates ladders, drapery spread out on the floor, buckets of paint. Easier in off-duty slacks than full eighteenth century regalia. The stage crew are making the most of the extended prep time. Amongst all the activity she finds Marianne painting flags against a turbulent sky. Her hands are deep red today and Héloïse watches for a while.

Until someone greets her, “Miss Lamont. Did you need something?”

It alerts Marianne to her presence. She turns.

“No, thank you,” Héloïse says. “I was just looking for Marianne.”

Who is still a little distracted, eyes unfocussed for a moment. But gives a smile. “Hello. Sorry.”

“You were engrossed.” You were entrancing. “Now I am sorry to disturb you.”

“Did you need something?”

“To see if you had time for some fresh air.”

“Sure. Frank can cover for me.”

They slip from the sound stage. A nice reminder of the rest of the world. Real weather, the wind in her hair.

“How is rehearsal?” Marianne asks.

“It’s mostly Sophie complaining. Always the maid.”

“Yes, I imagine that is frustrating.”

“It is all frustrating.” Not much better to be the… whatever Héloïse could be classed as. Love interest? Heroine seems a little much.

There's a patch of lawn Héloïse heads towards, sits. It's actual grass, as real as anything can be in Hollywood though it needs a lot of work and sprinklers to stay that way. “I know what you must think. All these complaints from someone with so little to complain about.”

“I don't think that.”

“I have thought about leaving,” Héloïse confesses. “I would need to buy myself out of my contract. Then give half as much again to my lawyer for arranging it. Mother relies on me. Plus, there is my sister to think of.”

“I didn't know you had a sister.”

No one does. “She's still in France. I miss her very much. She married a local boy against Mother's wishes so now we are not allowed to speak of her. I write to her.” She had always felt her sister’s romance was a reaction against their mother. Maybe it was. But maybe it wasn't.

“And send her money,” Marianne correctly deduces.

Héloïse does a defiant little shrug. Marianne smiles in a way that approves of Héloïse's daring and it makes her feel wonderfully transgressive. “Also, I like to make movies. Well, I don't, most of the making is very unpleasant. I want to tell stories.” That had never been particularly true until saying it in this very moment. Maybe love can conquer all. Maybe there can be happy endings.

She breathes deeply. Under the endless blue sky, feels the sun on her skin. She watches everyone hurry back and forth, wrapped up in their own terribly important business. There's that air of enthusiasm, optimism again. “Perhaps after this picture I can try something new. Different kinds of stories.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

The first week is done, again. Which brings a new problem.

“My last day,” Marianne says. As though Héloïse is not very well aware. The art department's work mostly complete it downsized drastically.

“Do you want to stay on? I can talk to the art department. They still need some people. For when Cosmo tries to run up the backdrop.”

“And other such artistic emergencies. That's very kind. But I'm looking forward to a few weeks doing my own painting. I'll be back in a month for… what is it… Tears of Love?”

But that is too long, and not a film Héloïse is in. No consolation whatsoever. “I would like to see your own painting.”

“Would you? Of course you can. You should come to visit.” She looks around. “I don't have a pen. Or paper.”

Héloïse, in an eighteenth century ballgown - or, at least, a Hollywood impression of one - has absolutely nothing useful about her person.

She ends up with a plaster cast rock, on the underside of which Marianne has painted her address and telephone number. A little piece of art of her own.

When filming begins it is all different. The microphones weigh Héloïse down and the wires trip everyone up. Marianne is not here. Héloïse struggles with the warring needs of the director and the sound recordist. Who is wildly condescending about how sound recording actually works and he is lucky to avoid being tied up in his precious wires. She does manage to persuade him to put the microphone in the plastic foliage, rather than on her. Trying to remain unflappable in the face of it all. Sophie is overwhelmed, Don gets frustrated constantly, Roscoe looks to be on the verge of tears. Mostly Héloïse is very aware of how Marianne is not here.

Mercifully they are released a little early, to soothe the bad tempers and give the crew a bit of space to make the necessary adjustments. Héloïse gives her driver Marianne's address and is on the edge of her seat all the way there.

The garden crowds the path to the front door. Lush and green. Marianne opens the door in paint splattered dungarees, ushering her inside. The walls are terracotta, the arched doorway leads into a simple, whitewashed interior. Héloïse feels as though she has space to breathe, even though it is so much smaller than her own home.

Colourful tapestries and ceramics are dotted everywhere. In the entryway are several photographs of what must be Marianne’s family with their dark hair. Héloïse feels strangely embarrassed looking at them, seeing them without their knowledge but they may well have seen her. Before she knew Marianne or any of this existed.

What ought to be a reception room is a studio bedecked with an easel, canvases leaning against the walls, a table covered in what Héloïse assumes is essential artistic paraphernalia, a piano - this is new information, huge windows, and one corner a tableau with a couch arranged. Marianne gets them drinks and Héloïse browses the portraits. Each one so wonderfully unique. But also recognisably Marianne’s. Some boldness, some fearlessness about them. “Your work is beautiful,” she says when Marianne returns. “Exhilarating.” Héloïse touches a key on the piano. "And this. Is there anything you can't do?"

Marianne smiles. "Plenty, thanks for the reminder."

They take their drinks to sit outside in the tiny courtyard. Full of greenery and glazed tiles. Héloïse tips her head back, basking in the sun. Feeling the peace.

"I could paint you," Marianne says. “Just like that.” From the sound of her voice she is already imagining being in the studio

"Am I interesting enough for you?"

"You're the most interesting person I've ever met." Still gazing at Héloïse. There's none of the artistic detachment of the cinematographers, directors, photographers. None of the grasping of the PR men, journalists, studio execs. All people do is look at her. This is different. It's different because Héloïse looks back. If only she could paint, that she could paint Marianne.

"I would like that."

“Cut! We need to run that again. From the top, everyone!”

There's an audible groan from the crew. Some tutting.

“Yes, of course, Roscoe. Thank you, everyone.” Héloïse says, loud and clear. She feels she has to manage this somehow. Be the upbeat person. She is not normally the upbeat person.

Equipment is rewound, reorganised, reset. Lights, microphones, cameras. Reels and records. Wires everywhere. This will be take fourteen. Everyone is frustrated, tired.

Don goes back to his start position. “I know it's a talking picture but I didn't know there would be so much talking.” He makes it sound like a joke. There is something underneath, though. He's struggling and he is not a man used to struggling.

“It will all be worth it in the end.”

He looks at her. “You’re taking it well.”

“The talking? I like it. It’s more natural, no? Real emotion. There will be discomfort in transition, this is inevitable.”

“Huh. Maybe I'm getting old. Washed up.”

“No, you're not. You're Don Lockwood.”

“Thanks, pal.”

Héloïse has never had much problem memorising a script - they are not complicated. However, as Don said, there’s a lot of talking now. Real lines. However ridiculous those lines might be she intends to do them justice. She paces about at home but this would be easier, and so much more pleasant, to do with company. With Marianne.

Hidden away from it all in Marianne's home in the evenings. Getting to see Marianne's hands covered in paint.

"So I just read all the bits that aren't you? Never really saw myself as a Pierre. More of a Frank."

Héloïse smiles. “Yes. Check my lines. Give me a prompt if I get lost.”

“Sure.” She scans the pages. As a test reads out something overwrought and sentimental. "Imperious princess of the night." Such things could be found easily, just at random. "Honestly, who writes this stuff?"

“Usually at least two people, with considerable… ‘input’ shall we say, from producers and executives. That is much of the problem. Are you ready?”

Despite the new sound department's best attempts at trying everyone's nerves - and everyone's nerves in general - the picture gets in the can. Héloïse wants to say ‘eventually’ but in fact it has only been a few weeks. It just feels like a long time. Production wraps and there's a big party planned at the Coconut Grove.

“You'll be at the wrap party?” Héloïse checks with Marianne.

“It seems very temporary art department people don't get an invite to the big party.”

“But what would the movie be without your castle, your grass?”

“Much the same, I imagine,” Marianne smiles.

Not for Héloïse. She would like to say it. She absolutely cannot say it.

She's not sure what to say. Don always brings a crowd - she herself could invite Marianne. But that's lots of people - famous people - not one person. It looks different, to bring one person. Héloïse would not be able to walk in with Marianne - she must be with Don for the cameras. She would not be able to spend all evening in a quiet corner with Marianne. She would not be able to dance with Marianne. It's work, she has work to do. Even if that work mostly involves standing around silently. If not in the movies themselves so much any more, still in all the rest.

Filming may be finished but the end offers no reprieve for Héloïse. There is still plenty of work to do. Entering the promotion phase.

“Louisa, you have your Vogue photoshoot. Now - I know what you are going to say -”

Héloïse is doodling on her schedule. “What time?”

Cut off in the middle of an elaborate defence Rod the PR man hurries to cover his surprise. “Two.”

It is not her favourite part of the job, admittedly. She may have put up something of a fight previously, also admittedly. But she is feeling generous today, clearly.

After the meeting she calls Marianne. “Are you free at two o'clock for a couple of hours?”

“Sure.”

“We'll pick you up.” Héloïse is about to ring off.

But Marianne says, “How is your day?” and she hasn't spoken to Marianne today or indeed the day previous so they end up having a chat until the driver comes to collect Héloïse and they will be seeing each other in ten minutes.

Already in the car is Sophie, flicking through a magazine in dark glasses. She makes a noise that could be construed as a greeting if one were feeling generous.

Luckily, Héloïse is. “Good afternoon to you too, Sophie! How are you this fine day?”

“You're cheerful. I thought you hated photoshoots.”

“Am I? Do I?” She leans forwards to give the driver Marianne's address. “It might be fun.”

“Uh huh. Why is Marianne coming?”

“She’s an artist. She knows about fashion.”

“You know about fashion.”

“No, I'm French, we just naturally dress better than you.”

Sophie considers it for a moment, then shrugs. “Granted.” She retreats behind her magazine though Héloïse is pretty certain she is not reading, and is probably napping.

Until they arrive at Marianne’s house, Héloïse already opening the door before the chauffeur can get around. Marianne hops into the limousine. “Thank you very much, mademoiselle. Hi Sophie!”

Sophie looks over the top of both her glasses and the magazine. “I need about fifty percent less vim and vigour, if you don't mind.”

Héloïse shoots Marianne an apologetic look but she just smiles. “Gotcha. And a Bloody Mary as soon as you get where you are going. Where are you going?”

“Vogue. For a fashion shoot.”

“Fancy. I don’t know anything about clothes. I’d live in the same outfit for two weeks at a time if I could.”

Sophie gives Héloïse a pointed look, which she ignores. Marianne doesn't need to know anything about fashion, she's one of those people who’d look good in a paper bag.

When they arrive at the offices Sophie is whisked off for her own fitting, and hopefully that Bloody Mary, if anyone knows what's good for them. Héloïse is primped and preened. She watches Marianne being courted, offered coffee, champagne. People eager to please a friend of Héloïse's, or potential new starlet.

Was it silly, to bring Marianne here? Expose her to this frivolity? Does it look like showing off? It's moral support, more than anything. Something calming and centering about being under her gaze. When all the eyes on Héloïse rub her raw, Marianne's soothe.

Héloïse is put through her paces of outfits. For tennis, for sailing, for the opera, for cocktail parties.

“Beautiful!” the photographer cries out. “Sensational! Just stunning!” Héloïse doesn't really hear it, is immune to it.

Her hair and makeup is touched up. Marianne brings her a glass of water.

“This must be very boring for you.” Héloïse tries to give it some sense of an apology.

“Not at all. It's nice to see you work. It's interesting to see all this. Very different from a portrait sitting.”

“You mean you don't go a million miles an hour, yelling compliments at your models?”

“Not so much, no.”

“It's all part of the show. The fragile ego of the star.”

“Except they are also true. I just mean - I'd say them too. But slower. Less yelling.”

Héloïse is unable to contemplate Marianne slowly, deliberately, telling her she is beautiful.

The shoot director brings out a wedding dress. Offers it hopefully.

“No,” Héloïse says. “Absolutely not.”

Héloïse poses for the photographers outside the party. Hanging on Don's arm, decorative and emerald green. She slips off as soon as possible while he regales the journalists with tales of his exploits, inviting Cosmo alongside him. She has to relate this to several people inside the party whose first question to her is always regarding Don's whereabouts. Outside, showing off.

Sophie sips a cocktail. “No Marianne?” Finally a useful question.

“Apparently the craft departments aren't invited.”

Sophie looks very deliberately around the room. “You are just now noticing this?”

True, it is very much in plain sight. Had Héloïse ever really cared to look before. Rather than stewing in her own malaise. Had she ever really looked at the art of the backdrops she stood in front of every day? The costumes… they are full of pins, yes, but they were marvels, really, in the timescales available. The scripts… well, even in a generous mood she still has issues with the scripts. The poor writers were probably trying their best though. Dictated to by the studio, as free to improvise as Héloïse is.

“Who did you come with?” she asks Sophie.

“Oh, you know. Someone or other the third, heir to a steel fortune. Or corn? It may have been corn.”

“Do you like him?”

“I really think I do. Shame about the fortune.”

“If it is meant to be none of that will matter.”

“’Meant to be’. Listen to you. So romantic.” Sophie gives her a little smile. “I like it. And thank you.”

The steel and/or corn magnate the third returns and gallantly declines to take Sophie off dancing if it means leaving Héloïse alone. She insists they do. They look happy as they twirl around the dance floor amongst all the other couples.

Don finally makes it inside. Héloïse allows one further photograph with him. Then slips through the kitchen away from everyone, everything.

This is not a sensible course of action. Marianne is likely out - it is a Saturday night, after all. Or, she is in and entertaining, also, Héloïse feels, extremely likely if not inevitable - it is Marianne, after all.

In the event, it is neither. Marianne answers the door. Alone. Unconcerned. “Why hello!” Pleased?

“I'm sorry I did not call.”

“Don't be silly. Come in. Is anything the matter?”

“No. I was just at the party and wanted…” To be here. To see you. “To not be.”

“I can certainly understand that.”

They are in the lounge-studio. The easel holds a rather abstract canvas. Marianne has paint on her hands.

“I am disturbing your work.”

“You're not. I haven't been able to settle to anything for a while. Lacking… something.”

“You said you would paint me.”

“I did.” But Marianne will go no further, make no demand.

It is too presumptuous, to think she could be settled to. That she could be anything Marianne might lack.

She gathers her courage. “Now? Or perhaps you are tired -” and loses it one second later.

But Marianne stands there so hopefully, so expectantly. There is no disguising it.

“Now, then.” Decisiveness, finally. Perhaps not too presumptuous to ask for what she wants. “In this?” She plucks at her dress.

“However you feel comfortable.”

“I think not. Do you have anything I can change into?”

She is shown into Marianne's bedroom. “Pick whatever you want. The choice is not exactly extensive.”

A bewildering opportunity. Not the clothes necessarily. They are not dissimilar from Héloïse's own, or at least what she would choose for herself if not acting at being a movie star. A simple woollen top, slacks. Artistic, perhaps. Inhabiting Marianne.

Seeing this much of Marianne. Her clothes all gathered together, Héloïse running her hands over them. Her room. Small, filled with books and postcards and hidden treasures.

Héloïse returns. A fresh canvas, a clean palette. Marianne only looks. “Will this do?” she prompts.

Prompts Marianne into action. “Perfect, yes.” Bashing at cushions on the couch. Then making way for Héloïse to sit.

“How should I..?” She waits to be posed, positioned, directed.

“Whatever feels natural.”

This is nothing - at all - like a photoshoot. Or anything Héloïse has ever done before.

She remembers when Marianne first said it. That she could paint Héloïse. There was something in her voice. Héloïse in the garden, turned to the sun. So she settles back on the couch, reclining a little. Relaxed. Imagining the sun on her face. And with Marianne right there, watching so carefully, feeling something of the same warmth.

At the breakneck speed these things work ordinarily the next picture is already being talked about, if not scripts and rehearsals being threatened. There is silence though. Héloïse is not about to go reminding people. She has better ways to spend the little extra time this period affords her. Namely, with Marianne. There is still work to do, obligations to the studio, but there is also a picnic, a trip to the beach, long drives, sunny late afternoons in Marianne's garden, more painting sessions. They even go to the movies: Héloïse in a scarf and dark glasses, Marianne trying not to laugh.

The editing is apparently nearing completion. A preview is arranged for the production, the studio execs, and some members of the public. To gauge reactions. RF, Roscoe, the editor, and the sound recordist seem, when Héloïse glimpses them at lunch one day, like haunted men. This ought to be disturbing. She is barely concerned.

Héloïse is at Marianne's house, posing, and filling Marianne in on her week. She always wonders that Marianne cares. So unconcerned with the movie business. She seems to care.

“Would you like to come to the test screening?”

“Sure would. When is it?”

“Friday, six o'clock.”

“Drat, that's the show.”

“You have a show? An art show?”

“Yes, but no, not me. I helped out. It's a local thing. I have to go.”

“Of course. Of course you must be there.” Héloïse is shaken. She had been under some sort of illusion, clearly. Marianne is becoming so embedded in Héloïse's life yet hadn't even mentioned - let alone extended an invitation - when it was something important in her own.

Héloïse knows vanishingly little about Marianne's life other than her house. Not her work, not the real work. Has met none of her friends, when Marianne has met almost everyone Héloïse knows. Not her family, though in fairness Héloïse has kept Marianne as far away from her own mother as possible. It all spins round and round in the silence.

“Have I upset you?”

“No.” It's not a lie. Marianne has done nothing, not really. Héloïse is not owed an invite.

“I fear I might have. Is it about the show?”

“I would have come. If you had wanted me to.” More that she wanted Marianne to want her there.

“And I would have loved that. I wanted to ask you so many times. But now you have the screening.”

“I don't have to go. It's not as though they need me. Why didn't you ask me?” Does Marianne think Héloïse would look down on her? On her life? Has Héloïse ever given that impression? She is aware she can be haughty, on occasion. That defensiveness, though, barely raises its head around Marianne.

Marianne puts the brush down. Taking this seriously. “It's tricky, isn't it. When I go places with you I'm just a nobody, another hanger-on. But you're a big movie star. I know that can make you uncomfortable, understandably. Also, I wouldn't want you to think I wanted a big movie star there.”

Héloïse has never felt Marianne treats her as ‘a big movie star.’ “You're not a nobody.”

“That was really a very minor point in the overall argument.”

“I understand. It is very considerate of you. Still, I would much rather go to an art show with you. I don't care about any of the rest. I won't be Louisa Lamont. Just Héloïse.”

Marianne smiles, shakes her head. “’Just’ Héloïse, sure. So, ‘just Héloïse’, would you like to go see some paintings?”

It seems probable that in the course of time Héloïse would have found out about this show. Marianne has a few days of being busy setting up the gallery, mounting and framing pictures, organising things.

Héloïse has spent a not inconsiderable amount of time imagining it. It starts at four o'clock which is a little early in the day for bohemian debauchery, though perhaps they are optimising their time. It seems more likely, not to demean Marianne’s friends, to be a lot of very tired, stressed out artists drinking cheap wine and sniping at each other's work with only their politely bemused families in attendance. Also, it is being held at a community centre. But it will be a glimpse into Marianne's world and for this she is in high anticipation.

Marianne meets her outside the venue. “You look lovely, as always.”

The outfit had been a vexation. Marianne is in her painting dungarees and also looks amazing but Héloïse cannot say this or she would be saying it every time they met. She had gone casual - more tennis than cocktail party - and been worrying the whole trip over. She feels better now.

Holding open the door, Marianne says, “I would warn you, my artists are a very exacting bunch. They take this extremely seriously.”

“Naturally.”

They pass through a corridor into the main room. There is art, yes. This is expected. What Héloïse had not expected was the sheer quantity of children.

“Would you like a juice?” Marianne asks. “There's also milk, if you prefer.”

Héloïse looks around. This is a lot of children. Adults also, mostly couples. Predominantly: children. “Marianne.”

“Yes?”

“Your artists. They are children?”

“They are. Did I not mention that?”

“Not so much. You are their art teacher.”

“One of their art teachers. Mostly I am their crafts department. I picked up some useful carpentry skills on the lot.”

Marianne is instantly besieged by requests to rehang or relocate work and the need for reassurances. Héloïse is eyed warily.

“I'll come round again and make sure everyone is happy. Don't worry. You've all done so well.” They do not leave. Marianne looks quickly, perhaps worriedly, at Héloïse.

“I'm Marianne’s friend, Héloïse. We work together,” Héloïse tells them.

One of them hisses, “I told you it wasn't her,” at a friend. Curiosity assuaged they turn back to the real business of the evening.

The adults notice. But they are here to fuss over the children, not a movie star. A few fathers try a few jokes. Héloïse compliments all the work. Movie star or not, she is a receptive presence so the little artists line up to tell her about their pictures and all the travails of creating great art: the unhelpful contributions of siblings, intrusions on their time by parents demanding chores and homework, artistic rivalries in the playground, how one child monopolised all the yellow leading to creative compromise amongst the others.

Towards the end of the night - in this case, about six o'clock - Marianne goes around with a red pen and marks the name tags next to the paintings. They will hang for the weekend, she says, then her Monday will be spent in disassembly.

“A fine show,” Héloïse pronounces as Marianne locks up.

“It was, wasn't it. But now I'm beat. Also dusty. Did you want to catch the end of the screening? I imagine there's probably a party too. I can run you back to the studio.”

“What I would most like,” Héloïse says as she takes Marianne’s tool box off her, lightening the load, “is for you to go home and have a nice bath while I cook you dinner.”

Héloïse almost skips into work the next morning but finds RF's office in a turbulent mood. “What's wrong?”

“The screening was bad,” Don says. And for a moment Héloïse had worried it was something serious.

“Real bad.”

“Horribly bad.”

“Catastrophically bad.”

Don and Cosmo hand it back and forth between them. Able to make any situation an act.

Héloïse intervenes. “What happened?”

“Why weren’t you there?” Don raises a suspicious eyebrow.

“I was busy. With something else.”

“I hope it paid well because we're all going to be out of a job soon.”

“So?” she nudges them on.

RF says, “It seems we have some technical issues to work through.”

Don says, “The script was… clunky.”

Cosmo says, “As were Don's attempts to improve it.”

Sophie says, “Not that you could hear it over the clunking of the costumes.”

Roscoe says, “Don’s acting was perhaps a little old-fashioned.”

Héloïse nods along. This all seems fair.

Don and Cosmo seem surprisingly - suspiciously - chipper, despite this. Héloïse watches them.

“Look on the bright side,” Cosmo says. “You got a lot of laughs.”

“Great,” says RF. “Except it's not a comedy.”

“But!” Don announces, dramatically, “Cos and I had an idea.” This is rarely a statement that ends well, in Héloïse's experience. “We can make the picture into a musical.”

This is confirmed.

“No,” Héloïse says flatly.

“It'll be a sensation! Not just a talkie. Really making the most of the sound. Music! Singing! Dancing!”

RF looks intrigued. Roscoe looks as though he might pass out. Sophie pours him something alcoholic, tells him to put his head between his knees.

“No. Singing? We're barely getting by with sound at all,” Héloïse reminds everyone. Importantly, Héloïse herself cannot sing. Or dance.

“It could work…” RF muses.

“We'd need an almost complete reshoot.” Héloïse appeals to his commercial side. This troubles him, thankfully.

Roscoe cannot contribute: he is wheezing into a paper bag. Héloïse thinks his position is clear.

Don starts to argue his point, Sophie starts to argue some other point, Roscoe gasps some inaudible point, it all gets a little out of hand.

RF claps his hands. “Listen, fellas. One thing is clear. We need to generate some positivity for this movie. For our stars. I think it's time for the announcement.”

Don is happy with that. “Sure.”

Now it might be Héloïse's turn to get a bit lightheaded.

“This has always been the plan. Use it when we really needed the bump. The fans will go wild. They'll flock to the picture once the engagement is announced.”

Héloïse knew the plan. It hadn't mattered before. It matters now.

RF sees her complete lack of enthusiasm. “Now come on, Louisa. It's the stuff of dreams.”

“Not my dreams.” Not even dreams. Fleeting moments.

“You forget, RF,” Don cuts in. “Louisa doesn't believe in love. In fact, Louisa doesn't have a romantic bone in her body.”

Héloïse ignores him. Even as her bones ache with it.

“Nor a musical bone. In fact, it's a wonder she's still standing.”

She ignores Cosmo too.

They think she can't do this, they think she won't do this. They think she will just go along with whatever they decide.

“The rub is, Louisa, this picture needs something. If it's not the engagement, it's a musical. If you don't want the musical… Don, we’ll make it the next one, starting from scratch. In the meantime, we’ve got an announcement to plan.”

Don and RF noisily debate which magazine should get the exclusive scoop of the engagement, how the publicity department will celebrate, and so on.

“I'll do the musical.”

Everyone swivels to Héloïse.

When Héloïse calls Marianne later and tells her about the abrupt change to a musical this is all she tells her. An abrupt change to a musical. Nothing about the engagement.

Having a glass of wine in Marianne's garden later that evening she is recovering a little from the shock of it all. Reality sinking in.

“What have I got myself into?” she groans.

“Do you want to back out, really? You could find a way.”

“No. Clearly we cannot release the film as it is. Not without - I mean not unless…” She sighs. “RF's idea was to announce the engagement. I chose the musical. Over that.”

“You did?” The slightest hesitation in Marianne's voice and Héloïse had needed to hear it, wanted to hear it, longed to hear it.

“Not much of a choice. But the better one. And mine.” Then, because she needs to check, to test, needs to know, she asks, “Do you think I was right?”

Marianne turns to her. “This is not, in any way, shape or form, about what I think. This is your future, your life. Whatever you choose, you have my support.”

This also is precisely what Héloïse wanted to hear. She smiles. “I'm going to need singing lessons. A lot of singing lessons.”

Marianne laughs. “For what it's worth, I really think you can do this. And I do think it sounds awfully good fun.”

Héloïse is currently having very much the opposite of good fun. Her singing teacher - as opposed to her diction coach, or her dance instructor - is trying her level best. “Now, for the last time Miss Lamont, try to get that resonance out of the nose just a little. We are not a dentist’s drill and nor do we want to be.”

Weakly indicating the problem - ie, the entire set filled with noise and people - not to mention the fact she's not convinced she even has resonance, never mind where it should or should not be - Héloïse tosses the sheet music down. “I'm taking a break.”

She ‘goes for a walk’ which might suggest something aimless but she has a very specific aim. The Tears of Love sound stage. And a very specific person within.

Obviously Marianne is not expecting her so Héloïse gets a nice long moment to appreciate her at work on an ocean backdrop. The total concentration. Then, when she does look up, and realises it is Héloïse, a flutter of something on her face. Héloïse hopes it is happiness. The sort of happiness that surges in her whenever Marianne is around.

“Can I steal you quickly?”

“Always.”

Héloïse just sits down next to her, on the floor. Now she is here she doesn't know what to say. None of it seems to matter. She feels better already.

“How is rehearsal?” Marianne prompts gently.

Héloïse grimaces.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's the singing. I cannot. It's all too ridiculous.” Héloïse dismisses it all with a contemptuous wave of her hand. “Breaking out into song. It's not real.”

“That's how love feels though, isn't it? That you feel you could burst into song.”

Which means... “At the Coconut Grove, a few days after we met, you said you'd never been in love.”

The way Marianne looks at her, lips parting, Héloïse swears she can hear the swelling of violins. “Well, it was only a few days after we met.”

For a moment it is only Marianne in the entire world. Then there is a crash, the rapping of a hammer, the producer yelling, the orchestra tuning up. All the noise and people she is trying to escape.

“I've got an idea. Come.” Marianne holds out her hand and Héloïse takes it, is guided from the lot. It is safe, reassuring. Holding her not to possess but hold her up, supporting her. Because she needs it.

Outside they dodge a posse of cowboys going in one direction and a Roman chariot going in the other. People hurrying back and forth.

Over the way Marianne rolls the huge door of another sound stage back just a crack. They slip through. For a moment it is too dark for Héloïse to move. She can feel Marianne next to her. Feel her breath. A little short. As Héloïse's is, exhilarated. Still holding onto one another. Until Marianne moves.

The light from the door illuminates the place a little. An empty sound stage. In waiting. For what? For this, apparently. Marianne flips on one of the enormous lights. Its pink filter floods the place. A huge painted backdrop, of the sea. Héloïse pushes the door closed.

Marianne drags crates into the centre. “Let's make you a very dramatic cliff.”

Héloïse provides a ladder and gives their construction a testing push. Sturdy enough. She holds out her hand to Marianne. She has missed it in these minutes.

Marianne balances her as she ascends. “Do you feel safe? Comfortable?” No one has ever asked this before.

“Yes.”

Marianne moves again. “Sunset, do you think?” she muses.

“Yes.”

An orange light comes on with a thunk.

“Oh, and a gentle breeze?”

There's a pause. “Yes,” Héloïse agrees. She would keep saying yes and Marianne would keep asking. The wind machine cranks into action.

“Stunning,” Marianne says. “You look powerful. Commanding. Beautiful.” Héloïse is atop a crate, holding onto a ladder, or she might have something to say about this. The way it rushes from Marianne as though she can't help herself. It makes Héloïse laugh, incredulous.

Marianne clears her throat. “How do you feel? Romantic enough? Swollen with passion?” Teasing now.

“Terribly romantic,” Héloïse replies. “Teetering on packing crates on a dusty sound stage.” But the light. The softness of it on the marbled waters of the backdrop. Marianne moving through the shadows behind.

“You're all set. Do you want me to leave you to it?”

“No.” It's too quick, almost panicked. “No, come forward a little.”

Marianne emerges, gently glowing aura from the lights. Héloïse looks at her because she can't look anywhere else.

The song she knows best is slow and low and full of heartbreak and longing and defiance. An old song her mother used to sing late at night. The only evidence she had been affected at all by her husband's departure. This is not a song to sing in front of Marianne. To Marianne.

For several moments she is blank. There is no pressure, though. Just Marianne. In their own little cocoon, that Marianne created, just for her. Safe and comfortable. Light and joyous. Feeling she could burst into song. So she does.

French, because it's more comfortable, easier to slide into. Because she can't say the things she wants to in English. Can't promise Marianne her heart when it could be understood. Can't promise to take care of Marianne's heart. And that is the only thing she can think to sing about, that is worth singing about. Here. Like this.

The final note dies off self consciously. Coming back to the real world.

“Héloïse…” Marianne breathes. “That was… You were…”

“Passable?”

“Incredible.”

The singing comes easier after that. Not easily, but some blockage has been released. Héloïse proved she is capable - if only to Marianne and herself. The dancing… Well, the dancing is still a work in progress.

This applies to the script also. Which Héloïse is currently rehearsing in her dressing room while on lunch break. Using Marianne as a scene partner. Except very little rehearsing is going on. Mostly Héloïse is engaged in grumbling. “Oh and the big musical number is finally ready.”

“And?”

Héloïse passes the sheet music to Marianne. With some level of hostility. “I do not like this song. If this were sung to me I would not feel loved. I would feel conquered.”

Marianne reads it over, nodding. “Possessed.”

“Precisely.” Héloïse sighs in frustration.

“You could write your own,” Marianne says, quiet.

“I'm not a songwriter.”

Héloïse walks Marianne back to the set. Past tropical islands and bank robberies. Has a look at Marianne’s lush jungle scene.

Back on her own set a number is being filmed. Héloïse lingers a moment.

“I could jump over the moon up above. Haven't a worry, I haven't a care. Feel like a feather that's floating on air,” as the performers sing and kick their legs and Héloïse finds herself smiling. Not worrying about the total incongruence of the piece and how it could possibly fit into the movie. The narrative is getting a little… flexible, might be putting it charitably.

All it had taken was one person. From the moment she noticed Marianne. She noticed the world. How every day words and actions could be imbued with care and love. Felt her heart beating, as though for the first time. Heard love songs in everything, everything was a love song.

She allows her feet to take her back to Marianne. The lightness. Floating. Dancing.

“Are you doing anything this evening? I feel a song coming on.”

The stage is deserted. Only Marianne and Héloïse remain. Not that Héloïse would notice.

Héloïse writes, crosses it out, writes more. Several pieces of paper. Spread across a lavish baroque dinner table, the floor, the top of the piano. Pieced together. Hums out some sort of tune. Reads a line to Marianne. Who smiles, dreamily, and taps it out on the keys.

Scratching away at trying to express how differently she sees the world now. How she feels her heart beat. How the whole world really does look brighter. The sky bluer, the grass greener. Though everything pales in comparison to the intricate amber depths of Marianne's eyes.

Mere months ago she would have called this foolishness. Decried it as fantasy. Giddy infatuation. Not real, only to sell movies. The songs, sonnets, soliloquies. Now they appear to be reading her mind.

She sings a line under her breath. The tune is a little of the one she sang a few days ago. Something to use for now. Marianne's puttering encompasses the tune and the few snatches Héloïse shares, evolving. The whole thing evolves, getting closer and closer to what Héloïse is trying to say. Marianne brings her a drink, a snack. Héloïse has no idea where from. Conjured.

It is getting late. She sits on the floor, then lies on the floor, paces the sound stage, stands outside. Chews her pencil, plays a brief and poor round of darts, practices with Don's rapier.

Finally she has something. Assembling all the pieces together. She holds it all in her hands. She doesn't entirely understand where it all came from, how it got here.

She must look lost, dazed, because Marianne says, “You don't have to finish it now. It's late.”

“I do,” she says quickly. Now or never. “Are you ready?”

Marianne, seated and poised at the piano, is very ready.

How exactly Héloïse manages this she isn't sure. Made a little wild with exhaustion. Making her vulnerable and raw. Buoyed by adrenaline. Maybe she forgot to be nervous or embarrassed with Marianne. Knew she did not need to be.

Somehow all coming out in the words, in Héloïse's voice. Unrefined and unpracticed but they make something beautiful.

“Héloïse, it's brilliant. It feels real.”

Not bad for someone who has never been in love. Not true. No longer true.

Marianne drives her home. The streets are not empty but quiet. They pass a movie theatre, shuttered and dark now.

“That'll be you soon,” Marianne remarks. The marquee, the letters on the board. "Héloïse Lamont dazzles in The Dancing Cavalier!" She even puts on a bit of an announcer voice. "Lamont's latest triumph!" Her hand rises and traces the words. “Siren of the silver screen!” Then drops the hyperbole, becomes serious, her gentle gaze settling on Héloïse. “You're making something special. You are something special.”

Neither of them breathe for a moment.

Héloïse might not breathe until they pull up at her house. “Thank you for the ride. I'll see you tomorrow.” She consults her watch. “In fact, later on today.”

“I won't wish you good night then,” Marianne says. “Good morning.”

"Bonne matinée."

Provoking delight in Marianne. "Buongiorno."

"Buenos días." Héloïse could stay here until the evening rolls round again.

She cannot. She waves Marianne off and finds herself sneaking into her own house in the small hours.

“Where have you been?” An icy voice.

“You're awake late.” Héloïse tries not to be alarmed, or show it at any rate. “I've been working. Writing a song for the new picture.”

Her mother watches.

“Now I shall try to get a couple of hours sleep before I have to be back at the studio. Good night, Mother.” She smiles to herself. “Or, rather, good morning.”

She kisses her mother's cheek and is walking past, towards her room when her mother says, “Don telephoned. He was looking for you. No one knew where you were.” Héloïse stops. “You think I haven't noticed the change in you? A dangerous game, this one you are playing.”

Héloïse turns to face her. Standing there in her nightgown, judging. “Except it's not a game. It's real. And it's the safest I have ever felt.”

The production races on at breakneck speed. There have been almost three movies in the time normally allotted to one. It's a long day as they try to make up the lost time, as well as the interruptions and delays caused by all the new technology.

Despite this, once the day's filming is complete, Héloïse wants to show Roscoe the song. The set has emptied a little, not entirely. Héloïse retrieves Marianne and sits her at the piano. Her hands on Marianne's shoulders less to guide Marianne, more for her own benefit. Drawing strength from her.

Roscoe looks at the sheets and pulls off his cap. “You wrote this?”

“Yes.” She does her very best not to be indignant about the question.

“The audience will go wild. This is great. Let's get Don. Hey, Don!”

For a moment she wonders why. Wonders what Don has to do with any of this. She is here, Marianne is here. Until her brain catches up. It's Don's song. He will sing it to Héloïse.

Don trots over. Roscoe has Marianne play the melody. “Me?” Marianne asks. As if she too had forgotten anyone else would become involved. That she would become just a supporting part. Not the whole.

Héloïse must admit this is very much Don's strength. He will, and does, pick the song up immediately.

“Ready to give it a go?” Roscoe checks.

Marianne plays their song. Don sings. Héloïse just stands there. Nothing to do.

All she can do is look at Marianne. Heart aching. While Don sings at her. Marianne plays, of course she does, she is professional, but Héloïse knows it's not the same. It's not the way she played it last night - this morning. When they made it together. All the joy of it bleeds from Héloïse. The pain is a very physical sensation right in her chest. She is afraid she will come to tears. Looking at Marianne while Don looks at her. Willing Marianne to know this is not what she wanted. That she is now so filled with hopes and dreams. How they burn.

The song finishes. Everyone remaining in the vicinity had stopped to watch. They whoop and applaud. Don receives his congratulations, hand shakes, slaps on the back, amidst the crowd. Héloïse cannot, she just can't. She turns and rushes away, the commotion continuing behind her. No one even notices.

Someone notices, of course she notices. A hand in Héloïse's own as they slip away from the set.

Outside in the fresh air Héloïse disentangles. She can't say anything. What would she say? I wrote that for you. It was supposed to be yours.

“I understand,” Marianne says. Héloïse had said nothing. She hadn't needed to.

It calms her. Being with Marianne always does. This constant anger and frustration fading into the background, if not forgotten.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

“I don't want to go back there.” The last place Héloïse wants to be right now.

“My place, then.” Not a question this time.

Marianne drives in silence. The wind is getting up, shaking the palms. The sky is darkening and it's not even particularly late. Héloïse still has work to do but for this brief interlude needs quiet. And Marianne.

It feels second nature now, to be at Marianne’s house. So comfortable and comforting. They make dinner together - well, they make sandwiches, with a glass of milk. Still, it could be any other life: just home from work, preparing their meal, ready for their evening together, talking about their day, how perhaps they will go to the beach at the weekend. A real life.

Except Héloïse has pages to rehearse for tomorrow, reading lines with Marianne. A slightly less than real life. Here in Marianne's living room with the audience painted on a canvas backdrop.

Marianne clears her throat and begins the reading. Pacing about and even adding a few little flourishes of the script as though it is her rapier. Héloïse doesn't have a copy, is doing her best with the occasional gentle prompt or correction from Marianne as the lovers have their inevitable tiff.

Then Marianne has to play the villain for a while, expounding on his plot to Héloïse’s weak protests. Before she is Pierre again, racing to his beloved's rescue.

"Pierre, you shouldn’t have come." Héloïse is long gone from it being a bad script, or even a script at all. It feels different, like this.

"Nothing could keep me from your side." Even Marianne is more fluid now. Not just reading from a script. Something heartfelt.

The embrace, the inevitable progression where the hero takes Héloïse in his arms. Except this time Héloïse is in anticipation.

Checking the script, Marianne breaks for a moment. "May I?" Lifts her arms a little.

"Yes," Héloïse breathes. Arms around her, Marianne pressed close to her back, breath tickling at Héloïse's neck sending tremors all the way down.

"And then we kiss. You - you and Don, you kiss."

Héloïse turning in Marianne's arms. Arms that are still around her, even though they have no need to be. There is a need. There is such need.

Rests her hand on Marianne's chest. Feels thunder. "I want to kiss you. You want to, don't you?"

"So much."

"Just, not now. When it's us."

"When it's real?"

Héloïse nods. Or now, perhaps now. They are unbearably close and she is not sure she can pull back.

"I understand," Marianne says and Héloïse knows she does. Has never felt so understood. Marianne's hand cups her cheek. Marianne's lips on her forehead. It's tender and soft and loving and Héloïse has never seen it. A new way of loving, just for them.

Somehow Marianne manages to turn back to the awful script and the scene ends shortly after, with the hero dashing off for more melodrama, Héloïse and Marianne laughing at how ridiculous it all is. With just an edge of giddiness about how wonderful it all is.

The smallest moment of care and attention. On the surface. Beneath, though. Deep and unreachable and profound.

Marianne makes them a cocoa and they sit at the kitchen table in unrestrained gazing. The sound of rain on the roof.

“I should go home. Busy day, tomorrow.”

“Do you want me to drive you?”

“No. I'll walk. It will be nice.”

They linger at the door, watching the rain.

"I could call you a cab?"

"I'd rather you called me Héloïse." It earns a frustrated - but fond? hopefully fond - shake of the head. "Too much time with Cosmo," she says helplessly.

"Take an umbrella at least." Marianne passes one over. Héloïse receives it reverently. "Call me when you get home." A little smile. "Or Marianne. Your choice."

"I will." Frozen in the doorway. Helpless, breathless. Marianne is the same. They can both hear the same mood music. Swelling crescendos. Marianne patterned into her very heartbeat. Singing in her veins.

Héloïse leans forwards. Marianne’s eyebrows tug down. Héloïse closes her eyes and trusts. Her lips touch Marianne's. Slow and soft and gentle. Press a little firmer. Inhaling against her. Then breaking, shaking. A quivering smile now on Marianne's lips.

"Good night," Héloïse whispers.

"Good night." Marianne holds onto the doorframe. Héloïse enjoys this.

Fairly floating down the path to the gate, aware Marianne is still leaning and watching her, Héloïse gives a wave as she goes round the corner.

The night is perfect, the world is beautiful. Héloïse loves this crazy town. The ferns she trails her hand across, the lamppost she swings on: they are the most miraculous objects. Put there just for her, just for this moment.

A contented, delighted little hum that becomes more vocal. Not words, a "doo doo doo doo" sort of hum. There weren't words yet. Just feelings that were too much to be kept inside. A little skip in her step. So this is what it has come to, Héloïse thinks. Singing in the rain.

The rain is warm, the smell rising from the earth. April showers. It's September. Petrichor. More the baking pavements and Héloïse has a sudden urge to get out of the city. To take Marianne to the mountains.

It swells inside somewhere and there's music. "What a glorious feeling and I'm happy again." Finding a lamppost to swing around.

Marianne had thought it mattered that it was raining but all Héloïse feels is the radiance of her. No clouds, no darkness, can touch her.

"The sun's in my heart -" and it is bursting and it is burning, "and I'm ready for love." Not a convenient rhyme, not an empty gesture. Every thought, every thing, every song I ever sing.

No one knows. None of these philistines out here, turning up their collars, chased by clouds, hurrying away from the soft embrace of mother nature heaping down her blessings.

Héloïse dismisses them with a flick of the wrist that turns into a full, sweeping turn. She faces the rain with a smile.

And with the absence of people and an excess of all that joy she hops into the gutter, splashes like a child. Her shoes are full of water, everything is soaked through but this is far more important. Skipping down the road into every puddle she can find. Because that's how it feels. Just singing in the rain.

Héloïse leaves a trail of water across the hall as she goes straight to the telephone, giving Marianne’s number. Gripping the handset because she is about to do something very, very foolish but also very, very necessary.

"Well hello," Marianne says, not waiting for Héloïse to introduce herself. Knowing.

"I'm home," Héloïse says. "Would you like to come over?"

That laugh. Even crackling down the telephone line it is music. "I'm on my way."

The rain stopped at some point in the night. Now blue skies shine through the window.

“We're going to be late for work,” Marianne warns.

“We could just stay here, like this.” ‘Like this’ being naked, entwined, Marianne cradled on Héloïse's chest. Perfection.

She feels Marianne’s smile. “How long for?”

“Forever?” Joyous. To want her. To want her to know that. Héloïse had not known there could be so much joy in it.

“So tempting.” Marianne sits up. “However only one of us is a Monumental Pictures star. The other can still get fired.” She leans back down for several kisses.

“And I don't want to be fired,” Héloïse agrees. “So come along.”

Marianne has to wear yesterday's clothes - “I do recall you saying you could go two weeks.” - and Héloïse puts her head out of the bedroom door. The coast appears clear.

Looking around, Marianne says, “I was a little preoccupied last night,” - they had tumbled from the front door across the hall and up the stairs - “But your house is extremely nice.”

It's not. It's not as cosy as Marianne’s home. Nowhere near as large as Don and Cosmo's mansion but still too big for just Héloïse and her mother.

Marianne’s car is parked on the street outside. At some distance from the sidewalk and rather an angle.

“Preoccupied - and in a hurry?”

“You bet I was.” Marianne smiles, shy. She winds the top down because it's a glorious blue now. Only last night it rained, Héloïse reminds herself. Not, in fact, a lifetime ago.

Holding hands makes the driving a little complicated. It is worthwhile.

Hands separate when they get to the lot, sadly. “Come and find me later,” Héloïse whispers. “Not much later. As soon as possible, in fact.”

Marianne laughs. “I will. Have a good day.”

“I will.”

Walking on air, that is one of the clichés. It turns out they are right. Never mind skipping, not even cartwheeling, Héloïse barely feels the ground. She floats through an hour of hair and makeup and her costume, onto the set. Wishing everyone a good morning - a great morning, a wonderful morning.

“Roscoe, Don, so wonderful to see you.”

They exchange a concerned glance. Roscoe continues. “So, this morning we are shooting the rescue scene.”

“I'm sorry, I don't have my script.” Is it at Marianne's still? Héloïse loses herself for a moment in the memories of last night.

Don offers his out to her.

She looks at the lines. “Yes, no, I'm not saying that.”

She's not. It's all wrong. So she doesn't. They roll and she skips the line and nothing happens. Roscoe doesn't ask for another take.

Everything is reset for the next scene. An hour of admiration, watching all these people, these skilled professionals, play their invaluable part. “Look,” she tells Don, and he does too.

This time she adds a line. Something assertive. It just comes to her, it feels right. Roscoe does ask for another take, asks her to do it again, just the same, so he can change some of the other actors’ reactions.

During the next break Héloïse takes Don's script back. “None of this.” She crosses sections out. Neither he nor Roscoe make any protest.

They are ready to film.

“Will you come with me?” she asks Don.

“Yes.”

“Will you keep filming?” she then asks Roscoe.

“Yes.”

She can see Marianne watching. It lights her on fire.

Everyone must be able to see. Surely. Surely everyone can see their glow. Trip over this wire that runs between them. The burning looks. Hear the violins. The static that crackles and fizzes.

“Gentlemen. Let's make this movie.”

Eventually Roscoe has to let everyone go for lunch. They have filmed a lot.

Marianne follows Héloïse back to her dressing room. “You look like you've been having fun.”

“I've been wildly productive.”

“So I see. I, however, have been extremely distracted.” She toys with Héloïse's hands.

It is delightful. “Have you been thinking of me?”

"All I do is dream of you." A little confession, a little shy. Then her face lights up.

Somehow, from somewhere in the dressing room, a top hat appears.

Marianne begins a tune. "All I do is dream of you the whole night through. With the dawn, I still go on and dream of you.”

"Stop that," Héloïse smiles. But that's how it feels.

"You're every thought, you're every thing, you're every song I ever sing."

It is threatening to turn into a full number. Héloïse moves to her, takes hold of her lapels, avoids attempts to begin a waltz, kisses her instead.

It's only a dressing room but there's a chaise longue and a lock on the door and this is all Héloïse needs.

Héloïse has just endured a particularly gruelling dance number. She bandages a bleeding foot, puts ice on her knee, and is about to hobble out of her dressing room when she finds Marianne at the door.

“They said you had a hard time. Do you need to sit down?”

“No,” she says through gritted teeth. “I'm going to see RF. Before he announces the next picture.”

Marianne evidently and correctly realises there is no talking her out of it. She takes Héloïse's arm, so she can lean. “To tell him no more dancing?”

That is simply a happy byproduct of what Héloïse is going to tell him. “No more of any of this.” She's talked about it so many times with Marianne. Now, today, she is ready. There is no going back.

They go through the lot. Past half a train, papier-mâché cacti, a pirate ship. To the main studio building.

In the corridor around the corner from RF's office Héloïse stops. And kisses Marianne. “For good luck.”

“You don't need it.” Marianne strokes her hair.

Héloïse is shown straight into RF's office. A poster for the Dancing Cavalier stands against the wall. Héloïse looks at it while he finishes his telephone call. She hardly recognises herself.

“Louisa! I've just seen footage of the new song. It's sensational. Outstanding. What can I do for you, my dear?”

It is helpful he is in a good mood. Less helpful this good mood is very much attached to the Lockwood-Lamont juggernaut.

“It's about the next film.”

“Yes! We've got all sorts of exciting new ideas.” He jumps up, enthused, and joins her by the posters. She could really do with sitting down, actually. But this is promising. She listens.

“Really capitalise on what you and Don have going here. We're thinking… French Revolution, all the drama, all the thrills, all the romance, all new songs -”

Not again.

“You can write one, if you like. Roscoe says you've been doing some great work on the script too.”

“RF, I want to do something different.”

“This could be a smash.”

It could. It could also sink. Neither outcome is the point.

“We tried something new with Cavalier and I'm glad we did,” she allows. “We were ready for change. I think it can go further though. I'd like to try.”

“What do you have in mind?”

She tries to spin the vagueness into a positive. “Something small, intimate. Cheap. Something real. I need to do something different, RF.” Now she knows how different things can be.

He is thoughtful. “And Don?”

She shakes her head. “He loves the musical stuff. Let him out of the costumes and he'll be in his element. Give Sophie her big picture, she is ready.”

“You know, this picture, changing to a musical, it's changed you.”

“Yes.” She cannot suppress her smile. She doesn't want to. “I'm excited about the future.”

“All right then, Louisa. We'll talk again, once the Dancing Cavalier is done. Bring me more ideas. I'll get you your - cheap - picture. And we'll see what the future brings.” He shakes her hand.

“Héloïse.”

“Hm?”

“My name.”

It makes him smile. “Sure, Héloïse.”

The film wraps. Again. There’s another wrap party at the Coconut Grove. Everyone dresses up. There are photographers. Again. 

Sophie sips a cocktail. “This plan had better work or we'll bankrupt the studio just with all the wrap parties.”

“It will work.” Héloïse finds she actually believes this. Not because it has to work. But it might genuinely have a chance to be a good movie.

The steel and/or corn magnate the third returns and asks Sophie to dance. “You mind?” she checks.

“Please do. Not only will I not be dancing tonight, I will never be dancing again.”

“You had two dance scenes.”

“Which were enough for a lifetime. Go.”

They twirl around the dance floor with the other couples.

A glass of champagne appears. “Thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.” Marianne smiles. “So this is fun.”

“I can think of a hundred places I would rather be right now.” An accompanying look so Marianne can be in no doubt what she means. A corresponding stutter in Marianne’s breath. She relents. “It is fun. I’m glad you are here.” There’s always the chance to slip away, later.

Héloïse visits the editing suite and before long is editing the film with Roscoe and the editor. It's fascinating. The technique of it. Both working with the physical film and how the movie can be so shaped. When she had always imagined that most of the work had been done. Here is a chance to find one movie out of at least thirty possibilities.

There's no time for a test screening. The premiere will be the test. Roscoe, RF, the editor, they all seem bewildered but pleased. Héloïse isn't sure it's not all the adrenaline and fear making them delusional. Some days, some hours, some moments, she agrees with them. The next day, hour, or moment she cannot understand any of it.

On these long days stretching into late nights Marianne brings sandwiches and coffee from the canteen, drives Héloïse back to one house or the other, listens to the excitement. Kisses her. Unwinds her. She sleeps in Marianne's arms. Rests her head on Marianne's chest. Hears violins.

“This is the last time,” Héloïse tells Don as the limousine pulls up at the theatre. It’s the night of the premiere. For a moment more they are still insulated from the flashbulbs and the roaring of the crowd.

He doesn't look surprised.

"I’m going to try something new. I'll be free."

"Free? It's only a nickel as it is." He smiles. "Can't wait to see it, kid."

"You're a good man, Don Lockwood. Not as good as Cosmo, it has to be said. But a good man."

"You're pretty swell yourself, Héloïse." He starts to open the door. "Ready?"

Héloïse takes her seat in the theatre, next to Marianne. Takes her hand as the titles roll.

The opening shot of the movie and there's Marianne’s fairytale castle in the distance. Watching the film and remembering every moment that lies behind what is shown on screen. The sets Marianne painted. The colours of her hands. Elocution lessons. A portrait. Singing. The song, the scenes, the lines, the edits. How it feels. At some points she sheds a tear. Mostly she smiles.

Finally, as the music crescendoes and ‘The End’ appears, the lights come up, the roar of applause, so much applause, all around, she looks at Marianne. Just the beginning.