‘But why?’

‘Dunno. He might have meant it at the time.’

‘Could have been he was just being cruel. Leading you on, like,’ Helen posited, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

‘That’s no way to behave,’ Mum scolded. ‘And letting your poor mother buy that navy spangledy dress under false pretences. And it was a shocking price. Even though it was at –’

‘– forty per cent off,’ we all finished for her.

An attempt to explain that Mort Russell had had nothing to do with Mrs O’Keeffe’s navy spangledy dress, that that was the fault of an entirely different and unrelated executive, was fruitless. All Mum cared about was that Mrs O’Keeffe had been swizzed into buying an expensive dress to wear to a film and that, as yet, no film had materialized.

‘She’s had to wear it to the Christmas party and the Lions’ fundraising barbecue to try to get the wear out of it. And her manning the sausages.’ Tight-lipped, Mum shook her head at the injustice, the downright indignity of it all. ‘Getting it splashed with some honey marinade stuff. I’ve a good mind to go over there and tell that pup what’s what.’

‘Haven’t we all?’

The five of us were looking at Mort Russell so hard I was surprised that he hadn’t intuited it. Perhaps he was used to it. Maybe he thought our stares were admiring ones.

‘Do you know what? I will go over to him!’

We tried to talk her out of it. ‘No, Mum, don’t. It’ll only make things worse for Emily.’

‘How could it make things worse for Emily?’ she asked with irrefutable logic. ‘Didn’t he waste her time, lead her up the garden path with false promises, then turn her down? And hasn’t she a contract with someone else now?’

She had a point.

‘Listen to me,’ Emily said quietly. ‘Just don’t humble him in front of anyone else.’

My head snapped back to Emily. She was giving the OK!

‘They can live with humiliation so long as none of the people they want to impress know about it,’ she explained to Mum. ‘Try and find out why he passed on my script. And Mrs Walsh, if you can make him cry, I’ll make it worth your while.’

‘You’re on!’

And without further ado, she was up and off! Appalled and thrilled, we watched her go.

‘It’s the Martinis,’ Anna muttered. ‘It was too much for her delicate, two-spritzers-a-month constitution.’

My mother isn’t a small woman, and I almost felt sorry for Mort Russell as this Irish battle-axe descended upon him, bristling with righteousness.

‘Mr Russell?’ we saw her mouth.

Mort assented, his face withholding friendliness. Then Mum must have explained who she was, because Mort twisted his head to have a look at us, and when he registered Emily his tan retreated by a couple of shades. Emily wiggled her fingers at him in a travesty of sociability and then the berating began: a wagging finger, a voice high with indignation.

‘Oh God,’ I whispered faintly.

We followed the action closely and our anxiety was tempered with glee. Mort’s face was sullen and hostile. I’m sure they never have to deal with the consequences of their wild promises, these Hollywood types.

We could hear most of what Mum was saying. ‘There’s a name for people like you,’ she scolded – then abruptly faltered. ‘Except it’s usually for girls… But never mind!’ Back on track, the dressing-down resumed. ‘A tease, that’s what you are. You should be ashamed of yourself, getting the poor girl’s hopes up like that.’ Then she told him about Mrs O’Keeffe’s navy spangledy dress, with no mention that it had been at forty per cent off.

Mort Russell mumbled something and Mum said, ‘So you should be,’ then she was back.

‘What did he say?’ we clamoured. ‘Why did he make all those promises and not follow up?’

‘That’s just his way, he said. But he said he was very sorry and he won’t do it again.’

‘Did he cry?’

‘His eyes were wet.’

I didn’t really believe her, but so what?

‘I think this merits another round of Complicated Martinis,’ Emily said gaily.

43

I was already awake when the doorbell rang at eight-thirty on Sunday morning. I went to answer it but Emily was ahead of me, pulling up her pyjama bottoms and complaining about the earliness of the hour.

‘Why are we both awake?’

‘Worry?’ I suggested.

‘Guilty conscience?’

I didn’t answer.

Mum and Dad were at the door. ‘We’re going to Mass,’ they chorused cheerfully. ‘We wondered if you’d like to come.’

I waited for Emily to hastily assemble an excuse, but instead she hitched her pyjamas even higher – so that she looked like a fifty-four-year-old psycho man who lives with his mother and wears his waistband up around his chest – and said, ‘Mass? Why not? Maggie, how about it?’

And then I thought, why not?

I hadn’t been to Mass for so long I couldn’t remember the last time – perhaps when Claire had got married? I was a foul-weather Christian, and only prayed when I was afraid or when I desperately wanted something. Same with Emily. Seemed like we were both afraid – or desperately wanted something. So we pulled on some clothes, stepped out into the butter-yellow day and walked the four short blocks to the church.

Mass, LA style wasn’t how I remembered it from home. The young, handsome priest was standing outside making people shake hands with him on the way in, and the pleasantly cool church was packed with good-looking – and here’s the weird bit – young parishioners. As we squeezed into a polished pew, someone was intoning, ‘Testing, testing,’ into the altar microphone, then a manic woman shrieked, ‘Gooood Mor-naane! Welcome to our celebration.’

A bell jingled and a girl with swishy hair and Miu Miu shoes walked slowly up the aisle, holding a huge Bible above her head like someone about to do an exorcism. Following her dramatic lead came the priest and a coterie of the handsomest altar boys I’d ever seen. They climbed the marble steps and suddenly it was SHOWTIME!

Were there any visitors to Santa Monica, the padre asked, or anyone who’d been away? The away was said meaningfully, so I took it not to mean ‘away’ in the geographical sense. Someone stood up, then everyone started to clap, so several more stood up. ‘Out-of-work actors,’ Emily murmured. ‘Their only chance of applause.’