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Shauna sat typing it up for a couple of hours, but despite the fact everyone else had gone home by the time she finished, she didn’t feel tired, just restless.

She decided to take a walk down to the lot where they’d been filming, just to clear her head after staring at spreadsheets all day. It felt as though her brain was beginning to turn to mush.

If only I could do something else instead, something I really love, she thought.

It wasn’t that she hated what she was doing – she was lucky and she knew it. The world of Hollywood movie-making was frightening, exciting, intoxicating, exhausting and fun all at the same time, but she knew deep down that what would make her truly happy was acting.

The lot was in semi-darkness and appeared to be empty. It had been set up for an office scene; a showdown between a corrupt chief of police and the hero.

Shauna sat down in one of the chairs. It was strange to be on the other side of the camera for once. She tried to imagine what it must feel like to be an actor on set, with the director and camera crew on one side, make-up artists running in to apply finishing touches while you went over your lines, the hustle and bustle of runners dashing here and there, then a hush falling as the director called for quiet on set, the clapperboard sounding as they rolled.

Suddenly, Grace Kelly’s lines came into her head. Grace had won an Academy Award for her performance in A Country Girl, in which she played the long-suffering wife of an alcoholic actor. Grace had delivered a memorable monologue which had probably clinched her the famous statuette.

Shauna had first seen the film in her teens and remembered crying as Grace Kelly’s character, at the end of her tether after years of supporting her drunken husband, stands before William Holden and describes the pain she has endured, the sacrifices she’s made, and the terrible cost to her soul. Without thinking, Shauna stood and delivered the monologue, the words rasping in her throat as slipped into the role of Georgie Elgin.

‘Can you stand him up on his feet again? Because that’s where all my prayers have gone … and I might forgive even you, Mr Dodd, if you can keep him up long enough for me to get out from under—’

Shauna was suddenly shocked out of her rapture by the set lights being slammed on. She heard the sound of someone clapping.

‘Bravo, Shauna! Bravo!’

Shauna blinked against the lights, squinting at the voice coming out of the darkness. It was a moment before Dan Jackson came into view, still clapping and smiling broadly at her.

‘Isn’t it at this point that William Holden kisses Grace Kelly?’

Shauna was speechless. ‘Dan, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that anyone was here.’

‘Never mind about that, finish the scene.’ He stepped forward and held her arms tightly, just as William Holden had done to Grace Kelly. ‘He kisses her and then she says …?’

Momentarily Shauna felt like a rabbit in the headlights, but she could see that Dan was serious and there was something so direct and reassuring about him that the words came to her without thinking:

‘How could you be so angry at someone that you didn’t even really know …?’

‘Maybe I really wasn’t …’

Together they finished the scene and Shauna was astonished that Dan knew all the words too. When the scene was done and Georgie agreed to stay with her husband so that the show could go on, they regarded each other in silence for a moment before Shauna started to laugh, and Dan joined her. Soon they were giggling like teenagers, ‘That was so … exhilarating.’

‘George Seaton was a brilliant director and A Country Girl was one of his best. I’ve watched it a hundred times.’ His eyes twinkled with interest. ‘It seems maybe I wasn’t aware enough of you, Shauna – that’s quite the emotional punch you packed there. Why don’t I know you’re an actress?’

‘I’m not.

‘Not at all?’

‘Well, maybe an aspiring one.’

‘We aren’t short of those in Tinseltown.’

She looked at the ground ruefully. ‘I’m aware of that.’

Dan smiled kindly. ‘There are very few actors who could do what you just did, Shauna.’

Shauna didn’t know what to say, but once again she heard her father’s voice in her head: When opportunity comes knocking, Shauna, open the door …

‘I’ve been taking acting classes.’

‘What you’ve got can’t be learned in an acting class.’

He looked at her, studying her face. ‘It’s late, and we both need to get some sleep before tomorrow, but I don’t feel tired. Do you fancy a drink?’