‘Hi, Bill,’ I said.

‘Mike,’ he corrected, with a gentle smile.

Cripes! ‘Oh, sorry, Mike. Emily sent me.’

‘She’d like to be smudged?’ It sounded like he’d been expecting this. ‘I’ll get my stick.’

The effect of the house – the smells, the sounds, even the men with the big mickeys – was immensely consoling, and as we left I said as much.

‘It’s a safe place,’ Mike agreed, slamming the front door behind him with such force that it sent the porch wind-chime swinging away with a wild jangle. Just as quickly it was pendu-luming its way back – and heading directly for my face. Before I knew what was happening, it had delivered a smart belt to my right eye: pain shot through my socket, red exploded behind my eyelids and all I could hear was a riot of discordant notes –like a broken piano.

‘Whoops. Shouldn’ta slammed the door,’ Mike laughed softly. ‘Y’OK?’

‘Great!’ I exclaimed, wondering if I’d been blinded, acting the way you have to act when you get injured in front of someone you don’t know very well. Even if your head falls off you have to say things like, ‘Just a scratch! Besides, I never use it much anyway!’

As it happened, I was fine. My eye watered a bit, then stopped. But I felt very close to tears and maybe Mike was aware of it, because he held my arm as we walked the short distance between the two houses.

Emily let us in and, clearly torn between embarrassment and vulnerability, she explained her situation.

‘Sure,’ Mike said cheerfully. ‘Is now a good time?’

‘How long will it take?’

He sucked his teeth and shook his head regretfully, just like a swizz-merchant builder would. All that was missing was a cigarette tucked behind his ear.

‘Let me guess, you haven’t got the parts,’ I heard Emily mutter.

‘Sure I have!’ He waggled his stick and Emily had the good grace to pinken. ‘But the energy in here is so bad one session won’t clear it. But, hey! Twenty minutes now and we’re ahead of the game, right?’

Intrigued, we watched him carry out his juju. Smudging appeared to involve lighting tapers, waving the stick into corners of rooms, muttering incantations and doing a type of hopping Red-Indian-on-the-Warpath dance.

‘You know, you don’t need me, you could do this yourself,’ Mike panted at Emily, his belly rising and falling with each hop.

‘Ah, I’d never get the dancing right.’

‘But the dancing is optional!’

After Mike finished, he assured Emily with great kindness, ‘This’ll give you a fighting chance, but if they don’t buy your movie, it’s not the end of the world.’

‘It IS the end of the world.’ Emily was very firm on this.

Mike laughed gently, much the same way he had after I’d been savaged by his wind-chime. ‘Be careful what you wish for – you might get it,’ he said, then left, promising to drop in later with Charmaine.

Not long after, Lara arrived and Emily went out with her to buy the drink.

‘Can’t I come?’ I asked, discovering how very reluctant I was to be left on my own.

‘But you don’t have a connoisseur’s interest in alcohol, the way Lara and I do,’ Emily said. ‘And we need someone here to let people in.’

‘Woman sits alone in room,’ I said, resentfully. ‘Unhappy. Clearly abandoned by friends.’

Lara laughed but Emily replied, ‘Camera tracks her as she gets up, opens a couple of bags of peanuts and fires them into bowls in order to be helpful.’

I was sure that no one would arrive while they were out, but they’d only been gone five minutes when Troy walked in.

‘Hey, Irish!’

‘Young man, casually dressed,’ I said.

Troy stood by the door, his poker face confused.

‘Stands by door, looking confused,’ I said.

‘Crosses room,’ Troy replied, quick as a flash. ‘Notices girl has had her hair done. “Cute,” he says.’

I laughed, delighted at how fast he’d got it.

His straight-line mouth quirked in acknowledgement. ‘Coming right back atcha!’ He threw himself into a chair, and flung his leg over the arm with loose-limbed ease. ‘So how’d it go today?’

I sat on the day bed, my legs stretched out in front of me, and related everything that had happened in Mort Russell’s office. All the time, Troy watched me, nodding intently when I mentioned anything good.

‘Were they all lying when they said they’d read her script?’ I asked.

‘No. If they’ve seen a twelve-line résumé, they honestly think they’ve read it. For real.’

‘So what do you think?’ I finished with, keen to hear something other than Emily’s negativity.

‘Could be good.’ But he sounded more thoughtful than hopeful. ‘Could be good.’

He lapsed into faraway silence, and into the quiet I asked, ‘Where do you live?’

‘Hollywood.’ He pronounced it ‘Hoh-hollywoooood,’ and spread his fingers to demonstrate sarcastically the name in lights. ‘Only the name is glamorous. Sketchy neighbourhood, which means rents are low.’

‘And is that far from here? I’ve no idea where anywhere is in relation to anywhere else in LA.’

‘I’ll show you.’ He unfolded himself from his chair and came to balance on the bottom of the day bed.

‘OK, this is the ocean.’ He pointed to a cushion. ‘This is Third Street Promenade, and you live here.’ He jabbed at a spot on the day bed. ‘Make a left on to Lincoln and drive for, oh, ‘bout a mile.’ He dragged his finger in a line along the fabric. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, as his finger bumped up on to my bare shin. ‘Until you get to the freeway entrance. Take the 10, going east.’ His finger did an abrupt left turn and was no longer crossing my shin, but was whizzing up to my knee. I was a little surprised, but he didn’t seem to think it was a big deal, so I took my cue from him.

He paused, with his finger on my knee. ‘Then when you get to downtown, you change on to the 101, going north.’ Now his finger was speeding up the bare skin of my thigh. ‘To Cahuenga Pass, which is about here.’ He paused, his finger resting unnerv-ingly near the top of my thigh. ‘Actually, no, more like here.’ He moved his finger marginally higher. ‘Then,’ he took a breath, his expression determinedly innocent, ‘you make a right.’ His finger curved on to the soft, hidden skin of my inner thigh. We both looked down at his hand, then quickly looked up at each other again. ‘Just for a coupla blocks.’ His matter-of-fact tone was confusing. He was giving me directions, right? But his hand was between my legs.