As soon as she sees the street, she knows she is in the right place.

‘I would like to walk from here,’ she tells the driver quickly. ‘Stop, please.’

He glances at her reflection in surprise, but obediently pulls the car over and dashes round to open his passenger’s door. The street is so empty. He sees she has no luggage with her. She seems to have nothing at all. The snow is whipping up more ferociously now, and he feels a faint ripple of concern as the woman eases herself gracefully out of his cab into the blizzard. He smiles nervously at her, though; he cannot help it. And the smile she gives him in response suddenly dissolves his worries. He feels like the luckiest man in the world, just to be standing on this street with her. He watches as the woman pulls off one of her grey leather gloves, and then, with a little cry of shock, drops it in the snow. Her hand flies to her mouth and he automatically bends down to retrieve the glove.

‘Please,’ she is saying, her lovely voice a croak. ‘It’s just, I don’t seem to have any money. I don’t seem to have anything…’

The taxi driver smiles again and hands her back the glove.

The leather, he will remember afterwards, is unthinkably soft, just as he imagines her hands must be. ‘Then it is my pleasure, madam.’ He gives gallant little bow, believing this to be the right gesture in such an unlikely circumstance. ‘My honour and pleasure. But are you sure you will be all right here? You haven’t far to go?

The air is freezing and the snow blankets the street around them. He feels another twinge of worry about leaving this woman alone in the storm. Surely she does not belong out here. Can he not, perhaps, put her back in his cab and take her somewhere else?

But she is shaking her head.

‘I haven’t far to go,’ she assures him.

She watches the driver get back into his cab and listens to the splutter of the engine as it starts up in the cold. Her heart starts to beat faster, and she feels her throat constrict, and now she almost calls out to him to wait, wait!, she has made a mistake, such a terrible mistake! She is not supposed to be here at all, here, in this blank, empty theatre! But as the car chugs slowly down the street, her mouth remains closed. She does not move. Standing perfectly still, on her white, white stage, with the snowflakes now whirling ever more frantically around her, the woman is suffused with calm. She knows why she is here. She knows what she has to do. I haven’t far to go. Not far.

Just to the other side of the stars.