‘Hangover,’ I said, flinching at his shirt.

‘My fault,’ Emily apologized.

Justin laced his fingers together and flexed his hands back and forth, like he meant business.

‘OK, where does it hurt?’

‘Everywhere.’

‘Everywhere. OK, let’s fix everywhere.’

I was afraid I might have to take some clothes off, but it turned out it was only my feet he was interested in: reflexology. I’m not proud of my feet. Whenever I’d had reflexology before, shame of my hard skin and my second toe being longer than my big toe had interfered with my enjoyment. But the great thing about feeling like I wanted to die was that the state of my feet didn’t seem to matter.

And Troy was right. Truly, Justin was the master.

As he pushed and kneaded with pleasurable firmness, my pain gradually receded further and further until, to my great surprise, I was restored to myself.

I sat up. The birds were singing, the world was shiny and bright and bearable. The sun was no longer a malign yellow goblin, but once again a dearly loved friend. I could even look at Justin s shirt.

‘You,’ I said in awe, ‘are a miracle worker. You could do that for a living. Is that what you did before you became an actor?’

‘Nah, it’s just a hobby. I learnt how to do it to try to get a girlfriend.’

‘Did it work?’

‘No.’

‘Not yet, you mean.’

‘Nah, I’ve given up. I’m not just the expendable fat guy at work, I’m the expendable fat guy, period. Now I live just for Desiree. Although,’ he added cheerfully, ‘I only got her so as I could meet women. I thought I could hang around the dog parks and look for a girlfriend, but that didn’t work either.’

‘It’s IMPOSSIBLE to find love in this town,’ Emily interjected. ‘Everyone is so into their work. And there’s no place to meet anyone.’

‘What about bars? Or clubs?’ I was sure I’d heard my sisters and friends in Ireland telling millions of stories about going out to a club and waking up the next morning with a strange man in the bed. It seemed to be worthy of comment on the rare occasions that it didn’t happen and used to make me wistful for the single life.

‘Friends of friends is how you usually meet people in LA.’ Emily gave Troy a meaningful look. But if she was hoping he’d spill the beans about how he’d got on the night before with Kirsty, she was disappointed.

He loped over to me. ‘OK, feeling better now?’

Flat on my back again, I nodded up at him. ‘Great. Ready for my ten-mile run.’

‘I wouldn’t joke about that kind of thing round here,’ Emily’s disembodied voice said. ‘Come on, are we going to work, or what?’

They gathered around the kitchen table like a council of war. Even Desiree was sitting on a chair, paying rapt attention. I later discovered she’d been in a couple of movies.

The doors and windows were all open, bringing the smiley day into the house. At midday Emily rang for brunch from a nearby restaurant and half an hour later enough food to feed an army arrived.

‘D’you want any?’ she called to me. ‘Or would you boke?’

‘I suppose I could manage a couple of mouthfuls.’ My head pains were gone but I still had the vestiges of hangover nausea.

Troy brought me a plate and when I tried to sit up, he said, ‘No need to,’ and carefully tried to balance it on my chest. But on account of having breasts and on account of them being, by their nature, wobbly, the plate wouldn’t come to rest.

‘Maybe you’d better hold it,’ he decided, with an embarrassed half-smile. ‘Got it?’ Then he flashed a direct hit with those greeny eyes and, all at once, he didn’t seem a bit embarrassed –and suddenly I was.

When he’d gone, I tried a few cautious mouthfuls and marvelled as they stayed down.

Some time later, Troy reappeared.

‘You done?’

I don’t know why, but I waited a beat, looking into his face, before saying, ‘Yeah.’

Then he lifted the plate from my chest, somehow managing to glance the edge of it off one of my nipples. Instantly both of them contracted and hardened, leaping 3-D-like under my T-shirt towards him.

He looked at them, then looked at me. I knew I should laugh but couldn’t. Then I was watching his retreating back, as he returned to the others.

I stayed on the couch, half-flicking through what I thought must be Daily Variety but actually turned out to be the LA Times. All the news seemed to be about the movie world. Nothing about wars or massacres or natural disasters – only innocuous articles about opening weekends and weekly grosses… My eyes closed.

Emily was improvising her pitch, and now and again a remark floated over to me.

‘…Emily,’ went Troy’s gentle sing-song, ‘you’re not convincing me…’

‘…Don’t compare it to Drop Dead Gorgeous

At some stage the phone rang, and then Emily was looming over me.

‘Are you awake?’ she asked. ‘Phone call from home.’

Something in the way she said it immediately alerted me and, too quickly, I sat up. It was Garv, right?

Except it wasn’t, it was my dad. I’d been about to attempt getting to my feet and walking to another room for privacy, then decided to spare myself the trouble. It was only Dad. But I should have realized something was wrong. Dad hated the phone, he normally behaved as if it gave off noxious gases, so why was he ringing me?

He had something to tell me, he said, halting and mortified. ‘Though it mightn’t be news to you at all.’

‘Go on.’ My heart was still pounding from the expectation of talking to Garv.

‘Tonight we were coming home in the car…’

‘Tonight?’ Oh yes, Ireland was eight hours ahead. ‘Go on.’

‘… and I saw Paul… er… Garv. He was with a young woman and the pair of them, they looked…’ Dad stopped. I was holding my breath and I wished I’d taken the phone into the bedroom. Too late now – dread had paralysed me.

‘They looked, um, fond of each other,’ Dad went on. ‘Your mother said it wouldn’t achieve anything by telling you, but I thought you’d prefer to know.’

He was right. In a way. The idea of being made a fool of isn’t one that appeals to me. And I’d known anyway, hadn’t I? But suspecting very strongly wasn’t the same as knowing for sure.