Then came the delicate matter of payment and she was surprisingly expensive. Perhaps it was extra for hair as terrible as mine.

‘OK,’ I sighed, proffering my Visa card – which she energetically spurned. ‘Bullsheet credit cards,’ she muttered. ‘Only cash.’

Then came more muttering about ‘Bullsheet IRS,’ and I passed her some notes and left.

I made my way home pressing my fringe against my forehead, and had the bad luck to be spotted by Ethan, who opened a window and yelled, ‘Hey, Maggie! Your bangs look kinda weird.’

Within seconds all three of the boys were on the street, examining me.

‘You look like Joan Crawford,’ Curtis concluded.

‘And your goatee looks like candy floss, only I’m too polite to say it,’ I replied. Before I even had time to be appalled at my crassness, they all ROARED laughing, and already Luis had a plan to help me.

‘You gotta flatten the hair and keep it flat. Come inside.’

One of the features of this strange post-Garv time was that I seemed to have no power to resist doing things I didn’t want to do. I found myself accompanying them into their dim, smelly house and letting Luis ease a pair of tights on to my head, the waistband snug around my fringe. The only saving grace was that they were new tights, straight out of the packet. Ethan told me they kept such stuff on the premises in case any of them got lucky with a girl.

‘Keep them on until you have to go out tonight,’ Luis advised.

I thanked the three of them – I mean, what else could I do? – and carried on home, the legs of the tights dangling down my back. When I let myself in, Emily looked up from her laptop and remarked, ‘Jesus, Reza has lost it altogether.’

And still no word from Mort Russell. Emily abandoned her writing and, humming calmly to herself, pottered around the house, polishing the mirrors, doing her nails. Now and then she rounded on the phone and shrieked, ‘Ring, you fucker! Ring, RING, RING!!!!!’ Then it was back to the humming. –

Meanwhile, I was fretting about what to wear to the party and wondering if I should race down to Santa Monica to try and find something, but I was all too aware of the first law of shopping and knew I hadn’t a hope.

‘How about that new embroidered denim skirt?’ Emily suggested.

‘I can’t, it makes my knees look funny’

‘No, it doesn’t.’

‘Yes, it does.’

‘Try it on and show me.’

‘Come into my room.’

Twenty-nine seconds later, a perplexed Emily was forced to admit, ‘Christ, it does. I don’t know how. Normally your knees look fine.’

She began rootling through the suitcase on the floor, looking at my clothes and commenting, ‘That’s a lovely skirt… I’ve that T-shirt in pink.’ Then she paused and groaned, ‘God, these are gorgeous.’ I looked. She’d found my turquoise sandals and was pulling them out from under a pile of socks. ‘Gorgeous. And they’re new. Look, the price-sticker is still on them. How come you’ve never worn them?’

‘Just waiting for the right occasion.’

‘Which I believe might be this evening.’

‘Ah, no,’ I swallowed. ‘Not tonight.’ At her sharp look, I explained, ‘They’re high and uncomfortable. I want to be relaxed this evening.’

I wasn’t sure she really believed me, but she let it go.

In a mutation of the laws of physics, the day was interminable, but it also went far too fast. Each individual second endured for quite some time, yet all of a sudden it was five-thirty – too late to get news. Emily spoke to David, who said that Hothouse were obviously taking the script seriously, that the time-lag indicated that Mort was discussing it with his bosses. But Emily wasn’t reassured.

‘He didn’t get enough of a buzz going,’ she said sadly. ‘I’ve seen what happens when the hype works. The agent rings the executive in the morning and fires him up so much that he’s shelled out two million dollars by lunch-time. Often without having even seen the script.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Honest to God. I can give you four separate instances where a studio paid shedloads without having read a single word. The agent offered them a one-hour window to make a pre-emptive bid. They all came through – too terrified of someone else getting the chance.’

‘But what if it’s a bad script?’

‘It often is, but by the time the studio discover they’ve paid two million dollars for a dog, it’s too late. The writer’s sunning himself in the Caribbean and is already on his next project.’

‘That’s insane.’

‘It’s an insane kind of town. Anyway, might as well try and enjoy my weekend,’ she said sensibly. Then she put her face in her hands and screeched, ‘I can’t fucking BEAR this.’ She emerged with a shaky smile. ‘Just taking a moment. Right, where’s my make-up bag? C’m’ere till I do your face.’

‘But you’ve to get ready for your date.’

‘Ah, it’s as easy to do two people as it is to do one. And it’s not every night you go to a movie star’s birthday party in the penthouse of LA’s most fabulous hotel’

When she put it like that… ‘Look, are you sure you don’t want to go?’

‘Quite. There’s a good chance I’ll get laid tonight. A bird in the hand and all that. Are you sure you want to go? You don’t seem very thrilled.’

She was right. Going to Cameron Myers’ birthday party was dream-come-true stuff and I wasn’t as fizzy as I should be. As I once would have been. I felt ashamed of myself. The only time I’d come close to feeling any real excitement lately had been at Emily’s pitch – and I was starting to wonder if I’d been mistaken about it.

‘I just don’t seem to be great at enjoying myself at the moment. Everything, even the brilliant stuff, is a bit flat.’

‘You’re depressed. This whole thing has really taken its toll on you. Naturally enough.’

‘The part I’m most looking forward to is going out with Troy,’ I admitted.

‘It’s great you’re his date,’ she agreed. ‘He might have asked Kirsty otherwise.’

‘That bitch!’ I exclaimed. ‘I never told you what she said to me at the party…’