Free Beautiful People by Wendy Holden

picked out in gilt. Here the bather could lie back and contemplate under a pink Murano glass chandelier, although, these days, without the glass of champagne that Anna had always enjoyed whilst abluting and to which she unhesitatingly attributed her longevity. Darcy felt her own life was quite indulgent enough, and Niall, who scorned self-indulgence and any form of pretension, would have been dead against it too.
        Darcy felt the whole place remained so redolent of her grandmother that it was almost as if the old lady, with her impish smile, twinkling eyes, and immaculate blue hair, might come tripping daintily in at any moment. But she was aware that Niall, who had never known Anna, felt rather differently about it. "Camper than a Boy Scout Jamboree" was how he had put it in his no-nonsense Scottish way.
        When he had moved in some months ago, Niall had not only suggested giving the entire place a coat of white paint but had offered to do it. He had, he pointed out, trained as a builder, still had a part-time job on a construction site, and, therefore, possessed all the requisite skills. But Darcy had been appalled at the idea. She had been yet more horrified at Niall's next suggestion, that they sell it and move to more fashionably edgy Shoreditch. Accepting defeat, Niall had laughed good-naturedly, shrugged his broad shoulders, and never mentioned it again.
        As she passed the hall mirror now, Darcy paused. Her wide face was pale with exhaustion. Two large dark eyes with purple shadows, their full-lashed lids dipping downwards, squinted tiredly back from beneath thick, straight brows.
        The full, raspberry mouth was drawn downwards with tiredness, and her head lolled unsteadily on her slender neck. A few tendrils of long, dark hair had escaped from the bunch into which she had hastily shoved it before leaving the theatre. It needed a wash, Darcy realised. But not now. The only thing now was bed.
        Darcy tiptoed through the sitting room. The lamps cast soft pink shadows on the lilac walls; Niall had left them on. The slither of newspapers on the lilac, cushion-scattered sofa, and the various remotes for the television scattered over the thick carpet, also lilac, gave the impression that her boyfriend had only just gone to bed. Rather regretting the fact he hadn't waited up for her, Darcy bent forward to inspect the papers on the sofa. As she had suspected, one was a book; a small, paperback copy of Hamlet left upside down with "To be or not to be" pressing against the petit-point cushions.
        Preparing for a crucial audition, Niall had been studying the part for weeks, as well as videos (Anna's old TV lacked a DVD setting) of classic performances of the role. Video boxes, their contents spilt, were piled before the television. Niall admired Sir Alec Guinness's most, Darcy knew, and had not spared her with his opinion that he thought Sacheverell Prince's the worst. Darcy had not minded however. Niall's unflinching honesty was one of the things she loved about him most. He was authentic. Down to earth. Real.
        She found it both admirable and intimidating that Niall had grown up on an estate in Glasgow, that his father was a butcher and his mother a cleaner. That he worked as a builder for several years before putting himself through drama school and, therefore, despite being the same age as her, had had a real—not to say a hard—life before entering the rarified world of acting.
        And he was a wonderful actor too, as serious about the profession as she was. More so, if anything.
        They had especially bonded over the importance of Shakespeare. He venerated her parents—if not her grandparents—as great actors, and they, in turn, had been excited and enchanted by his councilestate provenance.
        "A butcher!" Angharad had breathed in delight when he had told her about his father's business. "A cleaner!" she had murmured ecstatically, when the subject of his