Heart pounding, Bridget searches through her box of memorabilia: old programmes, her scrapbook of reviews and photographs from her TV work, from theatre work, from some of her early gigs. She should be packing some clothes to take to the hospital, making sandwiches, filling a flask; she should be…

Where is that programme? A Midsummer Night’s Dream… Where the hell is it?

‘I’m your only niece,’ Rosie says, loud in Bridget’s mind, as if she were right here in this room, as if she hadn’t just been driven away, unconscious, in an ambulance.

‘You’re my favourite niece,’ Bridget will have replied. Yes, she can remember saying it; it’s their script, as old and worn as her leather jacket. ‘You’re going to nail it tonight,’ she remembers telling her. ‘It’s in the genes, yeah?’

Rosie. Squirt, Bridget calls her when she’s teasing. Her goofy wide smile, her eyes almost shut. Rosie, for the love of God. That cheeky face alongside Bridget in the cab of the van, the gangly teenage legs shrink-wrapped in ripped black skinny jeans, blue Doc Martens crossed on the dashboard. That was the first night of Little Red and the Wolf. April – not quite three months ago. That’s right. Bridget was running her up to the theatre while Toni got herself together after work. Funny, the things you remember.

‘You’re so mad.’ Rosie, giggling.

Bridget pushing her on her skinny shoulder. ‘I think you’ll find madness is the only reasonable response to the world.’ Pulling onto the roundabout.

Rosie moves her feet down from the dash, wriggles in her seat. She’s pale suddenly, and her smile has gone. ‘I feel sick,’ she says. ‘What if people think I’m crap?’

‘Come on, Squirt. Don’t panic. One, feeling sick won’t kill you. The more you think about it, the more sick you’ll feel, so try and forget about it. Two, you won’t mess up, and three, as far as other people and what they think goes, I’ve told you – you have no control over that shit.’

‘You said shit.’ The smile is back, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

‘Stuff, then, smart-arse…’ Bridget grins at her niece, changes back into fourth gear. ‘I tell you what – if I thought about that stuff, I’d never do anything. No acting, no band, no nothing. You can’t worry about what other people think, yeah? Do you get what I’m saying? You’ve just got to do what you do, in the way that you do it, and whatever anyone else thinks is up to them. You have zero control over it. None whatsoever, yeah? I’m not saying go round beating people up or anything, but if people want to laugh or take the mick or criticise, let them. Honestly, it says more about them than it can ever say about you, all right? So do yourself a favour and let that shi— stuff go right now.’

‘Thought you told me to put it in a box and shut the lid.’

‘Don’t be pedantic.’ Bridget glances at Rosie; the two of them exchange a smirk. ‘You’ll be great. Do your exercises and your breathing, you’ll be fine.’

Rosie pulls a silly face and salutes – this Bridget catches out of the corner of her eye. ‘Do re mi fa so la ti do,’ she sings, then makes an exaggerated show of a deep, yoga-style breath. ‘Yes, boss.’

She was fifteen by then. She’s still fifteen, not sixteen until August. Bridget’s jaw clenches at the thought. She empties the box onto her bed. The paper trail of her life scatters, slides onto the bedroom floor.

Where is that bloody programme?

The opening night of Little Red and the Wolf – that was the night Emily introduced herself. Came bowling into their lives pink-cheeked and waddling like a jolly character from a Christmas card. Except it was Easter, not Christmas, and she wasn’t waddling – she was limping, on account of her hip, but they only found that out later. Bridget can see herself and Toni in the theatre bar. Rosie has just that minute come up from the dressing rooms to join them, flushed with adrenalin and beaming from ear to ear.

‘Bloody brilliant, kid.’ Bridget recalls her niece’s bony little body in her arms. ‘You beat the nerves and you nailed it. Told you you would. Got your auntie’s designer genes, innit.’

Rosie is laughing. Blushing crimson with delight. People come over and congratulate her on her performance – wow; amazing; you were awesome; well done, Rosie! – friends from the cast, parents of those friends. Everyone’s so nice, so generous, and it’s so bloody brilliant to see Rosie get the fuss she deserves, see her squirm with pleasure. She’s worked so hard, rehearsing like a demon since January. Toni’s a basket case by this point, of course: can’t speak for tears, bless her, which is understandable after all she’s been through. She just looks so happy. She looks like the old Toni, when Stan was alive. Bridget’s struggling to keep it together herself, but it’s all over when Toni take Rosie’s hands in hers and whispers:

‘Your daddy would have been so proud of you.’

Too much. Bridget has to grab one of the little black paper napkins they put under the drinks and use it to blow her nose.

‘Hay fever,’ she says, to no one in particular. ‘Must be the lilies on the bar.’

And that’s when she notices the middle-aged woman limping towards them, smiling away and sticking out her podgy little hand. As Bridget watches her, a smile forms, even though she has no idea that things are about to go from brilliant to full-on amazing.

All of this she remembers as if it were yesterday. That feeling, that life was finally getting better for all of them, that this was the break they needed to put tragedy behind them once and for all.

But like theatre itself, there was already so much going on behind the scenes. And neither she nor Toni would realise until it was too late.