‘Yes! Totally right! But the way it works is…’

As Justin explained the whole expendable-fat-guy thing to Mum, I was surprised to see Mike and Charmaine had arrived. They claimed they were coming to see how Emily was getting on with her desmudged house, but if I didn’t know better I’d think they’d just come in out of nosiness.

Dad was very pleased that Mike worked in health insurance – which I hadn’t known. I’d always thought he’d have some airy-fairy, touchy-feely form of employment. Then Emily brought Mike over to meet Mum.

‘This,’ Emily said dramatically, ‘is Mammy Walsh. And this –’ She turned to Mike, but Mum interrupted and with her most charming smile said to him, ‘Oh, I know who you are.’

‘You do?’

‘You’ve so many famous friends,’ Mum complimented Emily, then turned back to Mike. ‘You write those travel books, don’t you? And didn’t you have your own TV series for a while? What’s that your name is?’

‘Mike Harte,’ Mike said politely.

‘No, no, it isn’t. It begins with a “W”. Oh, it’s on the tip of my tongue – what is it?’

‘Mike Harte,’ Mike repeated, just as politely.

‘No! I have it – it’s Bryson, Bill Bryson, isn’t it?’

‘No, Mammy Walsh, it’s not.’

‘Are you… are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure.’

An uncertain silence followed, and Mum became a strange purplish colour. I could only assume she was blushing beneath the tan. ‘Sorry, you look very like him.’

‘Hey, that’s OK,’ Mike said, extremely nicely.

‘I have news!’ Emily attempted a very clumsy diversion. ‘Lara phoned!’ Automatically I winced, certain that the mere mention of Lara’s name would bestow Mum with psychic knowledge that I’d slept with her. ‘Doves, the movie Lara’s been working on, is having its first screening tomorrow night and you’re all invited!’

Naturally enough, this caused considerable excitement and semi-papered over the Bill Bryson faux pas.

‘Will there be famous people there?’ Helen wanted to know.

‘Maybe, but do you know who will be there?’ Emily screeched, still on her hostess-with-the-mostest kick. ‘Shay Delaney! You remember Shay Delaney, Mammy Walsh, don’t you?’

‘Indeed I do.’ Mum was quickly recovering her aplomb. ‘And a lovely boy he was, too. I’ll be delighted to see him again.’

I swallowed it away, pushed it down. I wasn’t going to feel it, whatever it was that wanted to be felt. I’d enough to cope with.

In no time, Mum was back on top, and even though it was Emily’s house, she was the one who was filling people’s glasses, checking they were OK, acting in every sense the Irish matriarch. The Mickriarch. But when she tried to refill Charmaine’s wine glass, Charmaine protested, ‘I’ve already had one.’

‘Have another,’ Mum pressed her, the way Irish mammies do. ‘A bird never flew on one wing.’

Charmaine tilted her head to one side and repeated slowly, ‘A bird never flew on one wing. But that’s beautiful. Such wisdom.’

Was she being sarcastic? I wondered. But there wasn’t one bit of badness in her.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I gotta tell Mike that.’

‘That one’s all sweetness and light,’ Mum said mistrustfully, watching Charmaine’s slender back and swinging braids.

‘She’s a very spiritual person,’ I said.

Oh, she’s a Catholic?’ Mum perked up.

‘No, she said she was a spiritual person,’ corrected Helen, who’d been following the entire exchange.

After that, Mum had clearly become of great interest to Mike and Charmaine, because they kept watching her. When Anna began to droop with jet lag and Mum chivvied her, ‘Snap out of it, you’re like a tree over a blessed well, there,’ Mike elbowed Charmaine and, with a look of wonder, they mouthed at each other, ‘A tree over a blessed well!’

A short, intense conversation ensued, then Charmaine gave Mike a little push and said, ‘You ask her.’

‘No, you ask her,’ Mike said back.

Their heads were together again and they had another little mutter, then Mike was touching Mum on the shoulder. ‘We gotta go, tonight’s our meditation night.’ He sounded disappointed. ‘But it was a great pleasure to meet you, Mammy Walsh, and we were wondering if, while you’re here in LA, you’d like to join us for one of our fable-telling evenings.’

Of course, she was thrilled. Just delighted. But she had to pretend that she wasn’t – that’s the way it’s done in her world. ‘I’ll be very busy while I’m here, I’m going to a film premeer tomorrow night and my husband wants me to accompany him on Thursday.’ She was doing a good job of sounding important and gracious until she added, ‘To Disneyland.’

‘We can work around your schedule.’

‘How about Thursday night, when you get back from Disney-land?’ Charmaine suggested.

‘I can’t promise,’ Mum said solemnly, ‘but I’ll do my best.’

‘We’ll look forward to it.’

37

‘So what does today hold?’ Emily was in her pyjamas, drinking Jolt and smoking the first of that day’s sixty cigarettes.

‘Chauffeuring them round Beverly Hills with the “map” of the stars’ houses, then on to the Chinese Theatre to see the stars’ handprints set in concrete.’

Emily cringed at the naffness. ‘For the first time, the idea of Chip the Dog doesn’t seem so bad. It just goes to show, there’s always some poor bastard worse off than yourself.’ She gave a feeble smile, but she was so exhausted the skin beneath her eyes looked bruised.

‘I wish I could help you,’ I said fervently.

She shook her head. ‘It reminds me of cramming for exams – no one can really do it except me. And I can’t complain, I’m getting well paid for it.’ But she looked so woebegone, my heart went out to her. ‘It’s the shame that I can’t take. I’m cringing with every word of the schmaltzy crap I’m having to write. That’s what’s really depressing me. And the conference calls don’t help.’ She gave the phone a vicious glare – Larry Savage kept ringing, looking for progress reports and making her have conference calls with him and Chandler while they forcibly suggested cuts and additions. ‘If they’d just let me get on with it, it mightn’t be so bad. But every time I finally manage to sew up a scene, they make me change it, so I feel like I’m getting nowhere.’