I sat back, disappointed.

‘Funny that,’ she mused. ‘I’d never have put you down as an expensive-handbag kind of a girl.’

I tried to protest; I am an expensive-handbag kind of a girl, I’m almost sure of it. But I wasn’t getting into another row with Helen, where I tried to convince her I was irresponsible with money.

Besides, as it happens, it had been Garv who had given me the lovely handbag in question.

‘In your granny!’ Helen had chuckled. ‘You expect me to believe Mr Peel-an-orange-in-his-pocket would shell out over a ton for a sac à main. That’s French, you know. Anyway, you know the way your life is over? You won’t be needing your handbag any more, will you?’

But I wouldn’t surrender it, which led her to remark suspiciously, ‘Your life can’t be that over then, can it?’

‘Shut up, you’re getting my car,’ I said.

‘But it’s only for the month. And I have to share it with her!’ She jerked her head at Anna.

Then I heard something which catapulted me right back to the present. ‘Ice-cream sandwich!’

I sat up on my towel. A young man was passing by, staggering under the weight of ice-cream that he hadn’t a hope of selling; not to this crowd of anorexics.

‘Popsicles?’ he called desolately. ‘Blue Gelatos, Cherry keys?’

I felt sorry for him. And hungry. ‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Give me an ice-cream sandwich.’

We conducted our business briskly, then he was once more on his profitless way. I wondered if anyone ever shouted abuse or threw stones at him as he plied his high-fat, high-sugar goods along the beach. ‘Garn! Clear orf.’ The way people do to drug-pushers in other communities.

And then I was alone again. Suddenly I was very glad I was in California, because I could blame the horrible feeling of being out of step with the rest of the human race on my jet lag. It made it not my responsibility, and I could always try fooling myself that I’d feel perfectly normal in a few days.

Watched hungrily by the two Scandinavian-looking girls, I ate my ice-cream. Their expressions were so avid I felt quite uncomfortable. In fact I nearly offered them a bite. I couldn’t help feeling that if this was a book, someone would have invited me to join in a game of volleyball or at least struck up a conversation with me – the lifeguard or another sunbather. But the only person who spoke to me all day was the ice-cream seller. And I suspected I was the only person who spoke to him.

8

Late afternoon, Emily picked me up from the beach. When we got home there was still no phone call from David Crowe. Her desperation filled the house. ‘No news is good news,’ I tried.

‘Wrong,’ Emily said.

‘No news is bad news. They keep the bad news from you and cover themselves in glory with any good news.’

‘Well, you ring him then.’

A bitter laugh from Emily. ‘It’s easier to get an on-set pass to a Tom Cruise movie than to talk to an agent who doesn’t want to talk to you.’

But she rang him anyway. And he was ‘not at his desk right now’.

‘I bet he wouldn’t be “not at his desk right now” if it was Ron Bass on the line,’ she said gloomily.

I took it that Ron Bass was some hot-shot screenwriter.

‘I feel a strange but compelling urge to get bollocksed-drunk,’ she said. ‘Could your jet lag handle going out this evening?’

‘What have you in mind?’ Would I be forced to go out with a gang of girls and dance to ‘I Will Survive’, as always seemed to happen to women who’d just split from their men?

‘How about dinner somewhere nice?’

‘Lovely!’ Relief that there would be no Gloria Gaynor made me sound more enthusiastic than I felt.

‘That’s the spirit. You know what?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘What you need to do is let your hair down a little.’ Even though Emily was very fond of Garv, she’d always thought that I’d missed out on the necessary rites-of-passage high-jinks by getting married so young. ‘Go a bit mad for yourself while you’re here.’

‘I’ll see,’ I said noncommittally. Jesus, little did I know…

‘We’ll call Lara. Lara likes a drink. And Connie. And Troy. And Justin.’

A quick round of phone calls, and then she just went and got that really pulled-together look. Just bang-bang-bang, like it’s easy or something. The dress, the heels, the bag, the hair, all smooth and shiny, shiny, shiny.

Then she opened her wondrous make-up bag and shared with me some of her knowledge. Lotion was smeared on my lips, ‘to get that bee-stung look’. My eyelashes were curled with a little machine (I believe it may have been called an eyelash curler). Then she produced a little tube and said, ‘This’ll get rid of your jet-lag bags.’

‘No need,’ I countered smugly. ‘I have my Radiant-whatchamacallit.’

‘Radiant, schmadiant. Wait till you try this.’ She dotted some cream under my eyes and – dramatically – I actually felt my skin contract.

‘What is it?! Who is it by?’ I was all set to run out to a cosmetic counter and hand over the small fortune this magic gear would undoubtedly cost.

‘It’s Anusol.’

‘Huh?’

‘Piles ointment. Five dollars a tube, works a dream, all the models use it.’

Do you see what I mean about her always being ahead of the game?

Then a few seconds on my hair with the straightening tongs, and some aloe vera on my ring finger – I’d burnt the tender skin where my wedding ring used to be (which sounded like the title of a particularly maudlin country and western song).

Emily marched to the door, all snappy little sounds. The tap-tap of her heels, the crack of her handbag clasp, the click of her lighter, the clack-clack of her nails. I loved it.

We were going to some place on Sunset, she said. The Troy person couldn’t come, nor could Connie, who was up to her tonsils in wedding arrangements, but apparently Lara the jar-head and Justin could.

‘Are either of them married?’ I asked casually.

Emily laughed, ‘God, no. Both single.’

‘Single single?’

‘Is there any other kind?’

‘Divorced single.’

With a sympathetic look she said, ‘No. They’re single single.’