Sublime

It was the summer of 1929 when Tom first discussed with Perkins his relationship with a married woman, the celebrated scenic designer for the Neighborhood Playhouse, Aline Bernstein.

It was a risk to mention the Royal Shakespeare Company, and RADA, but the Discreet Mourners woman failed to link Astrid Miller, Audrey Hepburn’s Friend One, with the Astrid Fellowes who had been at the centre of a scandal in the 1970s and had gone mad on stage at the National, midway through a matinee of Macbeth.

By summer Scott and Ernest were seeing more and more of each other, occasionally at the home of Gertrude Stein.

briary