The commentary continued through our unbelievably speedy meal: no starter, and certainly no dessert. Since I’d arrived in LA, I hadn’t ever once been offered anything other than coffee after my meal. I suspected that if I got a longing for a slice of banoffi, they’d have to ring the dessert chef and get him out of bed.

Over the lunch, David and Emily had discussed pitch tactics a little, but as we left the restaurant the real work began: David stopped at several tables and introduced Emily to meaty-handed moguls.

‘Emily O’Keeffe. Hugely talented writer. Pitching her new movie, Plastic Money, to Hothouse on Wednesday. You wanna piece you gotta get in there fast!’

I hovered in the background, smiling nervously. The response to Emily varied. Some of the men were patently disgruntled at having their cobb salads and Evian water disturbed, but others seemed genuinely interested. But even with the ruder ones, David – and indeed Emily – smilingly stood their ground, as if they were the hottest stars in town. There was something very exciting about the buzz that David was whipping up before our very eyes. When we finally neared the door, David said quietly, ‘That last guy, Larry Savage, has already passed on the script, but betcha he calls.’

‘They hate the feeling they’re missing out.’ I tried to sound knowledgeable.

‘They also hate their asses getting fired when Hothouse makes the movie into a big hit and their studio finds out they passed on it.’

Then I heard myself exclaim, ‘Oh, holy Christ!’

‘What?’ Emily asked.

‘It’s Shay Delaney.’

‘Where?’

‘There.’ I indicated the man with the dark-blond hair, at a table with three other men.

‘That’s not Shay Delaney.’

‘Yes it is! Oh no, you’re right, it isn’t.’ The man had just turned to the room and for the first time I saw his profile. ‘But it looked really like him,’ I said defensively. ‘The back of his head was identical to Shay’s.’

14

That afternoon there were two further phone calls from the sweet, squeaky girl at Mort Russell’s office. First to know if Emily had any special requests for Wednesday’s pitch.

‘Like what?’ I asked curiously.

‘Audio-visual equipment. Herbal tea. A special chair.’

‘Well, I’m afraid Emily is in a meeting right now.’ She’d gone to her gyrotonic – whatever that was – trainer. Everyone in LA seemed to have a constant parade of appointments with accountants, nutritionists, hairdressers, trainers of strange disciplines and, top of the list, therapists. ‘I’ll have her call you back.’

Then the girl rang again to give very complicated instructions for parking on Wednesday afternoon. Among other things, she needed the reg. number and make of Emily’s car.

‘She made a right song and dance about it,’ I told Emily on her return.

‘That’s because in movie studios, parking places are like sincerity,’ she remarked.

‘Huh?’

‘Very, very rare. Anyone else call?’

‘Just my parents. They say they’re worried about me.’

‘They’re not the only ones.’

‘I’m OK,’ I sighed. At least my middle-of-the-night panic had abated. ‘And I rang Donna and Sinead.’ Once I’d known for sure that neither of them were Garv’s girl, I’d felt OK about talking to them. Both of them sounded delighted to hear from me finally, and neither knew a thing about Garv’s affair. That was a relief – so at least all of Dublin wasn’t discussing it.

‘What are you going to wear tonight to Dan Gonzalez’s party?’ Emily asked.

‘Dunno.’ I was glad we were going out. Constant activity was what I wanted, to keep ahead of myself and my thoughts. But there was something I had to ask. ‘Will Shay Delaney be there?’

A pause. ‘He might be. If he’s in town.’ Another pause. ‘Would you mind if he was?’

‘Ah, no.’

‘OK.’

‘Have you ever met his wife?’

‘No, she doesn’t come with him, I don’t think. I suppose with the three children she wouldn’t be able.’

‘Does he… you know… play around? Or is he faithful to her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Emily said earnestly. ‘I don’t see him that often or know him that well. Which would you prefer? That he’s faithful or unfaithful?’

‘Don’t know. Neither.’

Emily nodded thoughtfully at this piece of illogical nonsense. ‘Look,’ she said slowly, ‘you’ve let him live rent-free in your head for a long time.’ Then she stopped. ‘I’m sorry, forget I opened my mouth. I don’t know… I suppose I can’t know what you went through. Sorry,’ she repeated.

‘It’s OK.’

Then she went to get ready and that was the end of that. Half an hour later she reappeared in pink and black leopard-skin jeans, dominatrix stilettos and some sort of jerkin top. But it wasn’t just the clothes: there were bracelets and hair slides and shiny make-up…

‘How do you do it?’ My brow furrowed as I studied her. ‘You’re like Wonderwoman, the way you transform yourself.’

‘You look great too.’

I’d done my best, but I hadn’t brought many glitzy clothes to LA (mostly because I didn’t have them), and in my black ‘party’ dress I felt like a mourner next to Emily’s exotic plumage.

‘Oh why,’ I berated myself, ‘do I have brick-shithouse tendencies, else I could borrow your clothes. Curl my eyelashes, would you, with your magic eyelash curler?’

Emily could do better than that: she did my make-up so that I was nearly as shiny as her, then gave me some spare hair slides and bracelets.

And then off we went.

The party, in a Spanish-style mansion in Bel Air, was one of those highly organized glamorous ones. Electronic gates with burly types checking your identity, ten Mexican men to park your car and fairy lights winking and twinkling through the trees. In the house, good-looking, talkative people circulated in the high-ceilinged, airy rooms, and enormous vases overflowed with abundant arrangements of lilies. The light glinted off trays of champagne and – rather disappointingly, I thought – trays of mineral water. As it was a Hollywood party I’d come expecting drugs, hookers and general high-jinks, and I wasn’t prepared to relinquish that vision. Surely that ebony princess looking for the ladies’ room was really off to snort a gram of cocaine? That alarmingly young-looking Hispanic girl had to be a prostitute.