Lyrebird

A solitary creature, the lyrebird is a creature of the wild. It cannot, or will not, subsist in cleared and settled areas. While they’re a tame and shy bird, many lyrebirds have been snared alive and are subjected to examination by experienced naturalists. The outcome is that the lyrebird mopes in captivity and quickly perishes.

Ambrose Pratt, The Lore of the Lyrebird

24

After sharing her story with Curtis and Jack, StarrGaze Entertainment book Laura for an interview on Ireland’s biggest radio chat show, an in-depth interview which reveals exclusive never-talked-about details of her life in the Toolin cottage alone for ten years, and a discussion of her inability to get a passport. There follows a debate on air about how Laura or anybody in Laura’s very unusual situation can receive a passport. Members of the public, officials, ring in with tips and advice and tell their own stories. Her local TD’s constituency office vows to help her.

After an exhausting day, feeling utterly drained from sharing herself, her personal story, with strangers who dig at her soul, Laura returns to the apartment. She leans against the door, her eyes closed, her migraine reaching an all-time high.

‘You just shared our exclusive with the entire fucking nation!’

Laura opens her eyes.

Bo is standing before her, hands on her hips. Laura has never seen her so angry.

‘Is that a problem?’ Laura looks nervously to Solomon, who has just stepped out of the bedroom to see what all the fuss is about.

This angers Bo even more, that Laura continuously turns to Solomon for support. She’s using him as her get-out clause. Poor little mountain girl who can’t make decisions for herself, when she’s turned out to be far more savvy than any of them could have imagined.

‘Of course it’s a problem,’ Bo snaps. ‘You told me you were going on air to talk about a passport. Not to reveal everything.’

Laura looks at her in surprise.

‘You’re doing the documentary with me, remember? You’re supposed to be telling me your story, and instead you’re planning to travel to the other side of the world, and telling all to the rag-mags. Oh yes, I heard about that one too.’

Laura swallows nervously. She makes a sound.

‘No, don’t start that, Laura, seriously. Sometimes I think you start that shit to avoid the subject. We’re adults. Start acting like one.’

‘Bo,’ Solomon cuts in. ‘Stop it.’

Bo ignores him and continues: ‘I found you, I brought you here, I got you the place on StarrQuest, you’re staying with me, I’m feeding you, you’re sleeping here-’

‘Bo, stop-’

‘No, don’t interrupt me,’ she raises her voice. ‘The deal was that you share your story with us, not use us to get to bigger and better things.’ She looks Laura up and down, at her clothes and the stack of magazines in her hand. ‘I see you reading through these all day, I see you have a new wardrobe, designer sunglasses. You want to be famous Laura, is that what this is all about?’

‘Bo! Shut up!’ Solomon yells at the top of his voice, which frightens Laura but Bo doesn’t even blink.

‘Stay out of this, Sol – Laura should be no concern of yours,’ she hisses. Which means so many things.

‘No, that’s right, she’s yours and Jack’s baby, isn’t she? The two of you get to play God over somebody else’s life. You accuse Laura of wanting glory? The two of you couldn’t be worse.’

While they shout abuse at each other, Laura looks from one to the other in alarm. Her eyes fill with tears, her hands go to her ears at the awful sound, the venom, the anger and hatred emanating from two people who are supposed to love each other.

‘Stop it!’ she shrieks.

They both look at her. She’s trembling. She looks directly at Bo.

‘The show bought me these clothes. I have to return them when it’s over. Bianca gave me these magazines. Every single one of them has asked me to do an interview or a photoshoot. They wanted me to look through them to see. I said no to all of them but the one I said yes to are paying me. In case you haven’t noticed, I have no money.’ She says this, anger rising in her voice. ‘I can’t pay for my food because I have no money. I can’t pay for my clothes because I have no money. I can’t buy you anything or give you anything in return for what you’ve done for me because I have no money.

‘Aside from not having any money, I couldn’t get a passport. I had no birth certificate. I had no baptism records, no school records, not even a letter from somebody who could attest to me being born in Ireland. I had to go on national radio to tell my personal story to get a passport,’ she says, tears of frustration welling in her eyes. ‘Do you know how humiliating that was? Do you think I wanted to do that? Apparently, the contract that you assisted me in signing states that I’m obligated to carry out all promotional duties that StarrQuest request of me. Australia is included in that, but you don’t need to worry because it doesn’t look as though I’ll be able to get my hands on a passport because there is nobody in the world who is a witness to my birth or existence.

‘Our agreement, Bo, was that you follow me while I try to move on with my life. And I took you up on that because I had no choice. You told me Joe didn’t want me at the cottage any more, and as I had nowhere else to go, all I could do was follow you. You encouraged me to take part in this talent show because you said it would give me options. This is me, trying to make a choice, to make something for myself in the only way that I know how. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I trusted you.’ This she says to Solomon and her voice breaks. Then returning to Bo, she says, ‘You were supposed to follow me, but what I was really doing was following you. You were the only people I had to help me and you have no idea how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I try to cook as much as possible to show you my thanks, I try to stay in my room, or on the balcony as much as possible to give you both your privacy. Bo, I really do try to stay out of your way. I’m doing what I can.’

Laura seems to make a decision because the tears dry and a determination appears on her face. ‘Unfortunately, instead of trying to build something up, I am clearly breaking things down. I’m going to honour the documentary because I’m an honourable person and I am thankful to you, but I think the best thing for me to do is to get out of here. To leave you in peace. I don’t want to cause you both any more trouble.’ She looks at Solomon, her eyes filled. ‘And I certainly don’t want to come between you two.’ She turns away and moves towards the door.

‘Laura, you don’t have to leave,’ Solomon says, feeling the pain rising in his chest.

‘Yes, I do,’ she says quietly, closing the bedroom door behind her.

Solomon turns to Bo, thunder on his face.

‘Go on, Solomon,’ she says, teeth bared. ‘You have a go at me one more time over something I’ve said or done and I’ll scream bloody murder. She can’t go anywhere anyway.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Where’s she going to go?’

Solomon thinks about it. Bo is right. There is nowhere for Laura to go, which makes him feel hugely relieved, and sad for her at the same time. But he needs to get away from Bo quickly before he says or does something he’ll regret. ‘I’m out of here,’ he says, grabbing his jacket. ‘Because, right now, I cannot stand to look at you or be anywhere near you.’

‘Good. The feeling’s mutual.’

‘I’m out of the documentary. I don’t want anything to do with it,’ he adds angrily, without thinking it through.

She pauses, then replies less confidently, ‘Good.’

‘It started as something beautiful, but you made it ugly.’

‘Great, thanks.’

‘You hear me, Bo?’

‘Loud and clear, the verbal bullying again. I’m a terrible person, Solomon, you’re a saint. Got it. Why don’t you run away and leave everybody else to clean up the mess? Then you can get on your high horse as usual and blame everybody but yourself.’

‘Go fuck yourself,’ he says, grabbing his keys and banging the door behind him.

Left in silence, Bo sits on the couch, the adrenaline pumping. She bites the skin around her nails, her foot bouncing up and down, pretending she doesn’t care about either of them. But she feels the sting around her nail and tastes blood and of course she cares. She’s got everything riding on this documentary. Financing, promises to investors, her reputation. Her relationship. Everything.

Laura isn’t even moving around in her bedroom, there’s no sound of her packing her bags. Bo doubts she’ll leave. What she said to Solomon was the truth: Laura has nowhere to go. As the minutes tick by in silence she calms down; perhaps she went at Laura too hard about the radio show. After all, how could Laura discuss not being able to get a passport if she didn’t tell her entire story. It’s not entirely Laura’s fault, the situation has gotten out of control. It was badly managed but who could plan for this level of insanity?

There’s a knock at the door. Bo gets up to answer, assuming it’s Solomon, but as she reaches for the latch, she remembers him grabbing his keys.

She pauses. ‘Who is it?’

‘Bianca from StarrQuest. Somebody downstairs let me in.’

Bo pulls the door open. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Hello to you too,’ Bianca says. ‘I’m here to collect Lyrebird. I’ve booked her a hotel.’

Bo stares at her, open-mouthed. ‘But you can’t take her away.’

Bianca frowns. ‘I’m not taking her away, she called me. Hi,’ she says looking past Bo.

Bo’s mind races. She should call Sol, he would stop this from happening, but by the time she processes it, makes a decision to search for her phone, Laura is leaving with Bianca, her hands full of her bags of belongings.

Laura turns to Bo. ‘I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Thank you for letting me stay in your home, but you’re right, Bo, I’m an adult and I don’t need minding.’

Bo stares at her open-mouthed as Lyrebird flies away from her life.

In a city centre hotel, pacing the floor of the box bedroom, Laura’s heart pounds with panic.

What has she done, what has she done? She’s cut herself off from the people she truly needs. Yet despite the fear of what she’s done, she knows it’s the right thing. The atmosphere in the apartment is toxic. She had to get away from them, and wasn’t it Solomon who was slowly cutting himself off from her? At first it was off and on, and then he disappeared and he cut the ties completely. She may have lived alone for most of her life but she can still read people.

The phone rings, giving her a fright.

‘Hello.’

‘It’s Jane calling from reception, Ms Button, we have a man here named Solomon who wishes to see you. Should I send him up?’

Her heart pounds.

‘Yes, thank you.’ She can barely breathe.

She rushes to the bathroom and splashes water on her face. Her mind races as she thinks of what to say. How she will refuse to go back to the apartment. Or perhaps she won’t refuse at all, maybe this is exactly what she wants. He’s saved her again, he’s going to take her from this hotel where she doesn’t want to be anyway.

There’s a knock at her door.

She doesn’t trust herself being in the same room as him. What she’s feeling for him is wrong. She puts the chain on the door before opening it.

Solomon’s dark eyes sear into hers. She swallows. He looks at the chain, hurt.

‘I understand if you don’t want to see me, I wouldn’t blame you after what we’ve done. I want to apologise for everything. I’m sorry for what Bo said today, I’m sorry I asked you to enter StarrQuest, I’m sorry I left you this week, I’m sorry I took you from your home. I’m sorry about it all.’

Laura’s heart pounds. She can barely think straight with all she’s hearing.

‘I don’t blame you for leaving the apartment. You’re right and I don’t blame you if you never want to see either of us again.’ He looks down. ‘I just came here to say that I’m sorry. You’re right that you’ll be better off without us. The show will take care of you. There is so much out there for you.’

She feels his hand on hers, and she looks down and sees that he has reached through the gap in the door. His touch is soft and her body tingles. She feels a rush of adrenaline, and sweet sadness. She feels the ache of his goodbye. He’s slipping away, she’s watching it happen, and her heart pounds and pounds like a warning drum. She wanted him to take her from here. She wanted him to say that they wanted her back. Instead, he’s letting her go.

‘If you ever need me,’ he says, embarrassed to suggest it after all that he feels he’s done, ‘I’m here. I’ll always be here.’

Then before he’s had time to finish his final word, his hand is gone and so is he, leaving Laura breathless and staring at an empty gap.

The pain in her head seems to shift to her heart, her entire chest aches. She slides down the wall, pushes the door closed and sits on the floor until the room gets dark, feeling yet another great loss in her life.

What has she done?

25

Laura was wrong about Bo’s luck. It goes from bad to worse for her documentary as the public gets behind Lyrebird. Before she knows what’s happening, Laura has been granted an emergency passport to fly to Australia. Mouth to Mouth productions are absolutely not allowed to accompany her on the trip. After the revelation of Lyrebird’s sad and solitary life, she is firmly in the nation’s hearts. They want to help her get along as much as possible.

By Sunday evening, carrying a new small carry-on case, Laura boards a flight to Australia. She will arrive on Tuesday morning at 06.25. She will do interviews and a photoshoot on Tuesday, the big TV appearance on Wednesday, then will leave Australia on Thursday at 22.25, returning to Dublin on Saturday night at 11.20. Two days in Australia. She will be back in time for her semi-final performance on Monday.

Despite her early arrival, Laura has to begin work at twelve. The assumption is that she’ll have had plenty of rest in first-class during her twenty-three-hour journey. In reality, she barely blinked, there was so much to take in, to process. She’d never been at an airport before, nor on a plane, and once on the plane she kept mimicking the sounds – much to the air steward’s frustration as she mimicked the ping of the call button. He stopped coming to her after the first four times, but then when she really needed him to help her with her tray, he wasn’t there.

She’s wide-eyed and alert on the way to her hotel. There is so much to see, she has been greeted at the airport by more photographers and reporters, then bundled into a black jeep. She’s taken to the Langham Hotel, to a beautiful hotel suite. She soaks in a bath and is starting to nod off when Bianca phones to tell her the car is ready to take her to the photoshoot in the Dandenong Ranges.

Laura sits in the back seat of the car, quietly, no conversation between her and Bianca, but she’s happy with that. There is so much of this new world to take in. The new accents, sounds, smells, the new look. Despite wanting to immerse herself in what feels like a new world, she can’t help but feel detached. It’s as though there is a piece of her missing, a piece that she has left at home. She’s homesick. She’s felt like this twice in her life: when she moved from her family home to the Toolin cottage and when she moved from that home to Dublin. She feels disconnected, like the same person but in the wrong place. It is a surreal feeling, while everybody carries on as normal around her.

Photo with Lyrebird, is all the schedule says, but what Laura discovers on arrival is that the destination for the photoshoot is an enchanting boutique wedding venue called Lyrebird Falls, set within the evergreen forest of the Dandenong Ranges on the edge of Melbourne.

A crew waits for her. She shakes so many hands and hears so many names that go out of her head immediately, she barely has a chance to look around before she is seated in a chair for hair and make-up. Everyone is friendly and chatty, everyone is dressed in black, but she can’t help feeling disconnected, like she’s there but on the outside, watching everybody. She can’t get inside the moment.

They have all seen her audition on StarrQuest. They all ask her polite questions about her talent, where did she learn to do it, how did she learn to do it? She has no answers for them and they fall into a polite silence. Bianca tells her she should prepare some of these answers in her head, for future interviews. Laura mulls over all of these questions, never having had to analyse herself and her actions so much in her life. Why does she do the things that she does, why is she the person she is? Laura wonders why these things are in any way important to other people.

Despite the hair and make-up team being familiar with her audition piece, they are concerned with her spontaneous bursts. The stylist unzips a bag, Laura mimics it.

‘Are you okay?’

She unfolds a fantastic rail that magically appears from a small bag, and begins to hang the clothes.

Laura mimics the sound of the hairspray.

‘Do you need some water?’

‘Are you rehearsing?’

What hasn’t been explained in the multitude of print and social media that’s been dedicated to Laura Lyrebird Button is that this ‘gift’ she has is completely and utterly natural. It is not contrived, concocted, conceived as part of an act. It is within her, part of her. It is her make-up, her function, her way to communicate, as others have their own ways. There is no talk of her spontaneity, her quirk, if you will. It’s almost as though it isn’t seen, it doesn’t want to be seen, as though the only gifts these days that are taken seriously are those that come in packages, carefully wrapped, and well-presented to the world. She cannot turn it on and off like a tap, yet it’s left to Laura to rein it in, when they knew what they were getting in the first place.

Not once did Solomon ask her to stop or ask her why she made one single sound. Not once. Laura’s head spins and she aches for him.

She absorbs the new sounds, new accents, the increase in tone at the end of their sentences.

This evening is an appearance on the Cory Cooke Show. Jack will do an interview on the couch, also on is Will Smith, who’s promoting his new movie. And then on the show is Lyrebird.

‘What am I doing on the show?’ Laura asks Bianca.

‘Schedule says TBC,’ she explains, looking up from the rail of clothes. She’s holding dresses against her body, posing in the mirror.

‘What does TBC mean?’

Bianca assesses her for a moment to see if she’s serious. ‘To be confirmed. We’ll find out later what they want you to do.’

An hour later, hair and make-up on, clothes to be decided next, a total of six outfits for six shots, but have eight just in case. The show have been in touch with Bianca and the arrangement is to have Lyrebird sitting in the front row in the studio. Jack will do his interview ‘on the couch’ and the camera will throw to her as Jack discusses Lyrebird and her impact on the show. She is lucky, it seems, to be sitting in the front row in this studio, on the Cory Cooke Show.

An hour later, when photos emerge of her at the airport and social media hype grows that Lyrebird is in Australia, the TV show call Bianca as Laura is finished make-up. Laura’s front-row position in the audience is to be increased to two questions from the host, Cory Cooke. Questions are TBC after the staff meeting. By the time her hair is complete, Lyrebird has been moved from the front row in the audience to now walking down the illustrious steps that only celebrities are allowed to walk down. This, Bianca tells her, is a great honour. Bianca seems to see Laura in a new light. What Lyrebird will do when she gets to the end of the steps is TBC.

Laura begins to relax when she is given a minute to step outside for fresh air before she puts on her first outfit. She hadn’t felt uptight but the forest lets her fall into an even deeper relaxation. She’d almost forgotten how it felt to be in that state of relaxation, almost hypnotic, as she went about her days and chores with a feeling of harmony. Even in her most relaxed moments in Dublin, on the couch with a cup of tea, talking with Solomon, she was nowhere near that old feeling.

Laura closes her eyes and breathes in, loving the fresh air and the sound of new accents and birdcalls. When she turns around, she sees the hair and make-up team, the journalist and press photographer gathered at the door staring at her.

‘What?’ she asks, self-consciously. ‘Did I ruin my hair?’

Wanda, the sweet make-up artist, looks at her with amusement, ‘You sounded like a kookaburra.’

‘Really?’ Laura smiles.

‘And a whipbird,’ the hair stylist says.

‘I don’t even know what a whipbird is,’ Laura smiles.

They join her on the verandah, while Bianca nervously watches the time. She was chosen to come on this trip with Lyrebird because of their closeness in age. Bianca is a year younger than Laura and this trip is a big promotion for her, but Laura can tell her handler is just as nervous as she is, despite trying to hide it with her cool and confident demeanour.

‘There,’ Wanda says, ‘that’s the kookaburra. Jane, what does a whipbird sound like?’

They all listen in silence.

‘There,’ Jane whispers. She looks at Laura. ‘There.’

Laura closes her eyes and listens. She doesn’t even notice herself attempting it but they all start laughing with utter joy.

‘You are bloody amazing!’ they cry, and they point out as many other birds as they can, though their knowledge of birds isn’t broad. Magpies and cockatoos – that’s as far as they get in identifying sounds, but Laura doesn’t need to know what they are, she enjoys hearing strange sounds anyway. Despite Bianca pointing out that they’re now behind time, Laura appreciates everybody pausing in this moment with her.

‘This is nice,’ Jane lifts her face to the sky and closes her eyes. ‘Sometimes it’s nice to just… stop.’

The others nod in silent agreement, breathing in the fresh air, lapping up their moment of time out before it all kicks off again, more appointments, home to their families, or their salons, always on the go, always planning the next thing. At least now they can be in the now.

‘You’ve come at the right time,’ Grace explains. ‘Lyrebirds mate in the depths of winter, the adult males start singing a half-hour before sunrise, singing for their lives,’ she laughs.

‘You know what the weird thing is,’ Bianca says. ‘You might not even be mimicking a real kookaburra.’

They all turn to Bianca.

‘You could be mimicking a lyrebird mimicking a kookaburra.’

Which is quite an interesting thing to come from Bianca. Bianca seems to be surprised by herself. Laura and Bianca laugh as if sharing a private joke.

Dress number one on, Laura and the team go outside for the first shot. She feels everybody’s curious eyes on her; the stylist’s team, the press photographer, the magazine photographer and his assistant, Grace the journalist. She feels self-conscious under their gaze.

Despite June being midwinter in Australia, the lushness of the greenery is beautiful. The air is fresh, she’s glad of that. After air-conditioned airplanes and the hotel room, she can fill her lungs now. She longs to take a walk, but the stylist doesn’t want the shoes to get dirty. The shoes don’t fit, they’ve been stuffed in the front with tissue. The dress is too loose and has been clamped down the back, making it difficult for her to bend. She can turn to look at the lyrebird, but not so much that the camera catches the clamps, she’s warned.

While they’re doing more touch-ups to her face and the photographer busies himself checking the light, she hears Bianca tell somebody over the phone that Lyrebird is going to be walking down the steps on the Cory Cooke Show. Great news. Everybody at the shoot is impressed. Lyrebird won’t be sitting on the couch, she won’t be in the front row. Whether she sits at all is TBC. Laura laughs to herself. They look at her as though she is peculiar, which makes her laugh again. They think she is being peculiar now?

The photographer has a quiet word with Laura. He takes her aside, makes a big deal of it, all intense and brooding. He’s handsome, his T-shirt is tight around his biceps, his black jeans fall low on his hips revealing an impressive V-line and Laura wonders if he’s wearing any underwear. Laura feels that he’s flirting with her, even though he’s just discussing the shots. It’s in his face. In his lips and eyes. The thought of this, and no underpants, piques her interest until she realises he looks at everything that way, all around him, a squint, a purse of his lips, a hand through his hair. He flirts with everything he sees. She’s feeling tired now. She had a bowl of seasonal fruits at the hotel, but perhaps it wasn’t enough. She feels slightly faint, light-headed. All these people, so many quirks, so much to analyse and understand in order to work with them; it’s draining. Bianca must be feeling the same because she sits quietly away from everybody, sipping a bottle of water.

Laura looks around the forest. ‘Are we going to wait for a lyrebird to fly into shot…?’

‘We’re bringing the lyrebird to us,’ Grace says with a smile.

And they do. Just as they flew Laura to them, the actual lyrebird arrives in a cage, carried by a ranger who places the distressed bird down on the woodland floor. It looks like a guinea fowl with a long neck and impressive plumage. The photographer tells her where to stand, the soles of her shoes have been taped over so they won’t get dirty, she’s been warned not to ‘scuff’ them, they must be returned to the store by the evening. Everyone watches her expectantly.

Laura doesn’t know what they’re expecting will happen. Do they think she will suddenly start a conversation with the bird in a secret lyrebird language? It’s a bird. A distressed bird that has been scooped from freedom to captivity, driven across the reserve and plonked beside a jet-lagged woman, and Laura knows that, despite her nickname, she’s human, a human that does not possess superpowers to communicate with or understand feathered creatures. Nor does the actual lyrebird possess that quality, both of them are mere mimics. But everyone watches, excited, moved by the pairing of these two species.

The photographer won’t allow the lyrebird out of the cage until he gets his light reading. The lyrebird is in distress. Laura mimics his sound, watching him. As soon as it is let out of its cage it hops behind a tree, instantly, for safety.

‘I don’t blame you,’ Laura says aloud. She follows it, ignoring the calls that they can see the clamps lining the back of the dress that’s two sizes too big for her. She kicks off her shoes and the stylist rushes to pick them up. She gets closer to the bird, and she stands still and watches it, getting a good look at it.

The bird mimics the whirr of the camera shutter. Laura smiles and hunches down. The photographer wants her to get closer, but she knows the bird will run away, it’s what she would do. It’s what she should do.

The photographer is down, hunkered down, trying to get a good angle. He’s talking to her, telling her to turn her face this way and that, her chin this way and that. Open her fingers, close her fingers, rest her arm, relax her arm. Look at the lyrebird, look over the lyrebird. Pretend you’re looking at the lyrebird but over its head, into the distance. You’re squinting, close your eyes and open them on three. No sausage fingers, give a posh mouth, bend her knee, tilt her chin, no, not that way, the other way. Bond with the lyrebird.

If the photographer takes one step closer to her she’ll run, she’ll hide. She’ll do what this funny little creature is doing.

She remembers at her house she went out playing. She was supposed to be home by lunch but she misjudged the time. She arrived at the house and a customer was there, a car in the driveway. Children were playing in the garden, waiting outside for their mother. Laura hadn’t been so close to other children before. She’d read about them in books, seen them on the TV, watched them from car windows on trips out of Cork. She hid from them in the forest, so close she felt she was one of them but so far they never knew she existed. They’d played Pooh sticks in the stream and she’d even dared to throw her own stick in, pretending to be a part of the gang. The kids thought the stick had fallen from a tree. She planned her hiding adventures after that. Hikers and walkers, hunters and ramblers.

When Laura looks up she sees tears in the eyes of the make-up artist. The photographers are snapping happily. Laura’s not sure what sound she made recalling her childhood, but her sounds had made them sad. It is only when the lyrebird imitates her sounds that she realises exactly what she sounded like; he relays the sound of children’s joyous laughter. She looks at the lyrebird in surprise. He looks back at her.

They are both silent. She gazes deep into his little eyes, wondering if perhaps they do have a connection, perhaps everyone is right, perhaps they can understand each other.

The photographer takes a step closer and the lyrebird scarpers. He lowers the camera, disappointed. Laura watches the bird, happy that he has escaped. She hopes he finds his mate. She longs for hers.

That evening at 9.42 p.m., after Jack’s interview with Cory Cooke where he has discussed his past success, his dabble with drugs, his stint in rehab, his failed marriage and his climb to the top and unexpected success with StarrQuest, Cory Cooke announces his next guest: Lyrebird.

‘Not since Police Academy’s Man of Ten Thousand Noises, Michael Winslow, have we seen anyone like this. Dubbed Lyrebird, our next guest auditioned on talent show StarrQuest in Ireland and in one week has received two hundred million hits on YouTube. That’s staggering.’

‘It’s two hundred and twenty now, actually,’ Jack interrupts and the audience laughs.

‘That’s even better,’ Cory joins in the laughter. ‘Here she is – Lyrebird!’

The audience goes wild. Almost as much as they did for Will Smith.

She’s wearing a striking red dress and it’s so tight the stylist called it a bandage. Her lips are bright red and she’s afraid to move them in case she smudges them, while her strappy shoes are so high she feels her ankles shake as she descends the famous steps. She pauses at the top, as she’s been told, a small wave to the audience, to the people at home. Then she descends the steps that are usually only for the clobber of celebrities. She stops at the area she has been told to stand on, a piece of tape marking the ground, and she greets the host. She doesn’t sit on the couch, or the front-row seat. Everything was confirmed to her thirty minutes before this moment.

‘Welcome, Lyrebird, to the home of real lyrebirds.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiles.

‘How was your flight?’ he asks. ‘I believe it was your first time on a plane?’

She makes the sound of the announcement bell, the call button for the air steward, the sound of the seatbelt clip.

The audience laughs.

‘I believe you had a photoshoot with a lyrebird today. How was it, meeting the family?’

The audience laugh.

She makes the sound of the photographer’s camera shutter, the kookaburra, the magpie, whipbirds and cockatoos.

The audience love it.

Then she makes the sound of a train. She didn’t plan it, she just remembered it.

‘Right!’ Cory says with surprise and a laugh, ‘Puffing Billy, the steam train! So we’ve spoken to Jack about the incredible reaction to your audition, what it’s done for him and the show. I can’t imagine what it’s done for you. Are you glad that you entered the show, after the reaction you’ve received?’

‘I am,’ she says. ‘It’s been overwhelming, but everybody has been so kind and coming here’ – she makes the sound of the seatbelt clip, the call button, the camera shutter – ‘has been a fantastic experience. My life has utterly changed.’

‘What are you hoping for from this experience? Your own show? TV work, stage work? What kind of career comes from this ability?’

She thinks about it. Too long for air time, because he follows it up: ‘Why did you enter? Did you know of Jack? Were you a fan?’

‘No.’ She shakes her head and the audience laughs. Jack holds his head in faux comedy embarrassment.

‘You wanted your life to change,’ he says, trying to wrap it up, hoping for a good and swift end.

‘My life had already changed,’ she replies. ‘My dad died. My uncle didn’t want me to live on their land any more, my mother and grandmother passed away many years ago. I had no choice. I had to move with the change. I had to start my life.’

This seems to touch the host, and he fixes her with a more rooted look, a look that shows he’s not only listening to the voices in his ear.

‘Well, Lyrebird, on behalf of Australia, we wish you the best of luck and hope that your life soars.’

‘That was flawless,’ Jack says, hugging her backstage. ‘You see how smooth that ran? By the time you’re in the studio for the semi-finals, you’ll be an old pro.’

Jack, Curtis, and the team all go for dinner. Jack wants Laura to meet some more people at the dinner, but she insists on going to her hotel. She needs sleep, she needs isolation, she needs to retreat. She doesn’t know how Jack can stand to be around so many people all the time, always on. It exhausts her, giving all that energy away. She’s so jet-lagged the ground is moving beneath her, as though she’s on a boat.

She rushes to catch the elevator and is surprised when she sees Bianca inside.

‘Are you not going out with the others?’ Laura asks.

She closes her eyes and groans. ‘I escaped. Do you ever feel if somebody asks one more thing of you, that you’ll scream in their faces?’

Laura looks at her in surprise.

Bianca laughs. ‘I don’t mean you.’

‘Oh good,’ Laura says relieved, she was thinking her and Bianca were getting somewhere with their relationship today.

‘I’m tired. And I don’t like being around lots of people.’

Laura looks at her, confused. ‘But you’re so great at being around people.’ Despite Bianca’s aloofness, she has spent the day organising, greeting, arranging everything for Laura.

‘For a time,’ she says, ‘then when they’ve sucked the energy from me, I have to recharge my batteries.’

Laura looks at her in shock. ‘So I’m not the only one who feels that way.’

‘No you’re most definitely not,’ Bianca says with a yawn. ‘My mom says it’s because I have empathy. I feel other people’s energies and it drains me. But I think she’s just being nice.’ The elevator stops and the doors open. ‘I think it’s because I’m a bitch.’

The way she says it makes Laura laugh. Bianca giggles too as she steps out to her level. ‘Night.’

Laura sits naked on the enormous hotel bed, stripped of the clothes she’s been told to wear for her new life. The new clothes feel like a uniform, and the clothes she wore in her old life no longer feel appropriate.

She reaches into her bag for her schedule and the extra page Bianca had given her hours previously falls loose.

Interview with Cory Cooke.

Q1. Lyrebird, how was your trip to Australia?First time on a plane?

Lyrebird: airplane sounds. Seatbelt, call button.

Q2. How was it meeting a real lyrebird?

Lyrebird: kookaburra, camera shutter, magpie, cockatoo, whipbird.

Q3. Are you glad you entered the show?

Lyrebird: It’s been overwhelming but everybody has been so kind and coming here has been a fantastic experience. My life has utterly changed.

She crumples up the page, feeling disgusted with herself. Like a performing monkey. Jack had pitched it to her as honing her skill, but it makes her think of the honing rod Gaga used to sharpen the carving knife for Sunday roasts. It always frightened her as a child, the sound, the image and the look on Gaga’s face as she ran the blade over the steel rod – especially as she knew what everybody thought about Gaga.

The phone on the bedside rings and the intense pain returns to her head, behind her eyes. These migraines are getting worse. She ignores the phone, thinking it’s StarrGaze with something else for her to do. She doesn’t know or sense that it’s Solomon, as his morning begins, desperate to know if she’s okay. She climbs under the covers and buries her head with a pillow to block out the ringing. No more sounds.

She falls asleep, naked in her bed, to the sound of Gaga honing the knife, realigning the edge of the knife blade over and over again, and that intense look on her face.

26

The floor swirls beneath Laura’s feet. She feels as though she’s sitting on a boat. This time yesterday she was in Australia. Was it yesterday or the day before? How much time did she lose in the air? She’s not sure. She knows it’s Monday night, the day of the semi-final. Yesterday was spent in rehearsals. Days ago she was in winter, today it’s summer. She can’t remember. The storm is building, the waves getting choppier. She reaches out to the wall to steady herself. Somebody catches her hand.

Gloria, the choreographer on StarrQuest. She throws her an angry look. ‘That’s the set,’ she hisses.

Of course. If Laura was to lean against it, the entire thing would have toppled. Or would it? Surely sets are made of stronger stuff than that? It’s wallpapered, floral, to look like someone’s living room – an old woman’s living room, by the looks of it, as the act before her settles down into their routine. She’s not sure what the old woman’s living room has got to do with the act, but then she’s not really focusing on what’s going on. Of course it’s not real, she has been surrounded by unreal things since she got here. Fake rooms are only the start of it. Exposed wires, fake walls, exposed ceilings, the underbelly, the back doors, the behind-the-scenes of the glamorous television world. She’s left hotels through kitchens, restaurants through fire exits, she’s entered buildings through back doors surrounded by trash more often than front doors. She crawls along the in between, the edges, the behinds, to suddenly be placed up front and in the middle. The expectation of her is that she must move through the darkness to emerge shining. The floor moves beneath her again as the jet lag takes hold of her. She squeezes her eyes closed and takes a deep breath.

‘Okay?’ Bianca asks. Despite Bianca being given a few days off to recuperate after their Australian trip she chose to return after one day for this evening’s performance, a gesture Laura hugely appreciates.

They are moments away from her live semi-final performance and they have left Laura until last so that she could rest. Apparently, it was Bianca’s idea. It’s allowed her a lie-down, while her head spun and her mind refused to shut down, going over and over everything that has happened to her over the past week. It would have been easier to keep moving. There’s little rest she could get in a small dressing room on a TV set. The building is throbbing with nervous energy, from the contestants to the producers. The show is under the microscope, receiving worldwide attention since Laura’s audition, and the pressure is on them to entertain the growing audience.

Nervous people have been telling Laura not to be nervous, panicked producers have been telling her not to panic. An exhausted host has been telling her she couldn’t possibly be tired when at her age he was travelling the world, a different country every day, a new set every night. Laura thought about reminding him how that schedule worked out for him. Drink, drugs, divorce, destruction, despair before rehab, a quiet life and then a reality show reboot. Young people don’t suffer jet lag, apparently, as if young people are impervious to the pain of those doling it out.

The ground shifts seismically beneath her again.

She breathes in slowly, out through her mouth. As soon as Laura boarded the plane to fly home, Bianca had handed her a ‘script’ for her next StarrQuest performance. It was considered that her rehearsed appearance on the Cory Cooke Show was such a success, and again a viral one, that they would help steer Laura’s next performance in a different direction, a direction they could predict, expect, manage, control, plan for.

‘You’ll be grand. Everyone’s tuning in to see you,’ Tommy the floor manager says, patting her arm.

Laura smiles lightly, no energy to summon up anything more. ‘I’m sure they’re not. It’s not that. It’s the jet lag…’

‘Ah sure you’re too young to be jet-lagged,’ he laughs.

Laura wonders if this is a line they’ve all been fed to keep her going, or if it’s something they truly believe.

She hears the sound of water lapping, oars hitting the side of the boat, and realises it’s coming from her. A memory of a boat trip with Mam and Gaga. On Tahila Lake, County Kerry on a rare summer holiday, off-season so no one saw them. Always off-season. Gaga hated the water, she couldn’t swim and sat on a nearby rock instead, knitting, but she helped with the gutting and cooking of the fish.

Tommy is watching her, a sad smile on his face.

‘Are you okay?’ Laura asks.

‘Yes. Yes,’ he shakes his head. ‘My dad was a fisherman. I used to go out on the boat with him sometimes.’ He goes to say more but stops. ‘Anyway, you don’t need to hear that… I’m sure people are always putting their stories on you. You took me back, that’s all.’

The crowd applauds as the act finishes. Laura’s heart pounds, her mouth is dry, her legs are trembling. She needs water. The crowd roar as they go to a commercial break, it feels like her chest rattles with the crowd’s rumble. The adrenaline from the five-hundred-strong studio audience feeds her like electrical blue lines firing towards her heart and gut.

The dancers line up around her, stretching their legs up and back behind their earlobes. They pat each other on the backs, on the arses, good luck. The choreographer, Gloria, oversees the routine; she’s dressed in black, heavy black eyeliner and the usual scowl on her face as she throws her eyes over everything and judges, calculates, appraises and adjudicates everything everyone says and does, not just how they dance. She catches Laura looking at her and starts to give her last-minute orders. Her face is all screwed up, twisted, and Laura tries to pay attention but all she hears is the sound of a corkscrew being twisted open, until it pops.

Gloria frowns. Laura’s not sure how to explain herself.

Tommy motions her forward. Laura’s stomach lurches. Everyone looks at her in surprise as she realises the vomiting sound has come from her. That time when she was new to foraging and chose the wrong mushrooms. Tommy looks at her, eyes wide and alarmed, unsure if she’s serious or not, but treating her as if she has actually physically vomited, so convincing was the retching sound. The last time she felt this nervous Solomon had helped her. She recalls the feel of his breath in her ear, his scent so close to her. He’d told her she was beautiful. His presence always calmed her and she longs for him to be here, but knows it was she who walked away from him. It’s her fault he’s not here.

‘Are you okay? Water?’

His pupils are dilated. The panic, the fear, a live fucking show and the star has lost it.

‘I’m fine,’ Laura says shakily.

She follows him to the stage, and as soon as she takes the few steps upward the crowd erupts in applause and cheers. Laura smiles shyly at the reaction, feeling less alone. She waves and takes her place on the stage, standing on the white mark that’s her opening spot. A woman in the front row grins, showing all her teeth, and gives her the thumbs up. Laura smiles. They’re just people. Lots of people. More people in one room than she’s met in her entire life, but it’s never the people she’s worried about – it’s herself.

Tommy counts down to the return of the show. One minute. Dancers take their places, form their dramatic opening positions. Laura’s heart thumps in her chest, so loudly she’s sure the whole room can hear her. Suddenly the crowd explode with laughter and she realises that it was her making the heartbeat sound.

She looks at Jack and he’s grinning. He winks. He looks exhausted as Harriet from make-up powders his face. He looks how Laura feels.

Laura stands in the centre of the enormous stage, the dancers getting in place, the cameras in position while Laura’s VT plays.

‘The last week has changed my life completely. I went from a very quiet life in Cork to suddenly everyone knowing my name.’ Footage of her walking down Grafton Street, then a crowd chasing her. It’s all sped up, as though it’s an old Laurel and Hardy film. Posed, of course. Filmed yesterday – or was it this morning? And then they air the words she was unsure of saying. She had wished to phrase them differently and they had kindly allowed her to, but then they wanted one take to be said and done their way, for them to have. Naturally, that’s the take they use, each sentence sharply edited, her face zoomed in on closer for each one and made more dramatic by a booming drum to emphasise the stakes.

‘I don’t want to go back to being who I was.’ Boom.

‘This is my one chance to shine.’ Boom.

‘The whole world is watching me.’ Boom.

‘I’ll fight for my place in the final.’ Boom.

‘Watch out world.’ Boom.

‘The Lyrebird is coming.’ Boom.

Laura cringes at the sound of her own voice. It sounds as empty as she had felt while saying it. She doesn’t even like that girl. She doesn’t like the girl they’re trying to portray. Doesn’t like the girls like her that are sitting at home, thinking about the one time in their lives that they will have to prove themselves. No such thing exists. Nothing so great ever hinges on one such moment.

Suddenly the music starts, she feels the beat in her chest, the lights go up, the crowd cheer. It’s showtime.

She starts walking. She’s on a treadmill, behind her on the large screen is footage of the woods. It’s animated. And it moves so that she appears to be walking through the forest. Her long blonde hair is tied into two braids that sit on each shoulder tied with two girlish red ribbons. She’s wearing a puffy-shouldered mini dress, a blue-and-white gingham apron and she holds a straw basket. She’s not sure if she’s supposed to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz or little Red Riding Hood. She didn’t care much when they’d shown her the costume after she’d gotten off her flight from Australia.

She wears white pop socks and red Mary-Jane heels.

The music playing is ‘If You Go Down to the Woods Today’, but a kind of remixed dance version. She makes the sound of her high heels on the ground and the audience laughs. Realistically, she’d told Gloria and anyone who’d listen that her heels would not make such a sound on the earth floor, but they’d explained it was a heightened reality. Laura comes across a house in the woods, it’s made from sweets. She eats some, licks some, making appropriate sounds and the crowd laugh. She makes a knocking sound on the door, the door opens and three sexy female pigs run out, chased by a male wolf. Laura peeks inside, she sees a handsome bear man – a topless male dancer. She tries out the three different men until she finds the one that’s just right. She moves across the stage, making appropriate sound effects that she was told to make, slapstick comedy, ducking and diving in Laurel and Hardy mime, making sounds in all the right places. It is quite the production; wardrobe must have hired out every panto costume going.

After a dance routine where Laura awkwardly tries to keep up with the three sexy pigs, the three hunky bears and the others who are dressed as sexy woodland creatures, Laura ends up with the hunkiest bear of them all. He’s just right. A red heart-shaped spotlight frames them.

StarrQuest special guest judge, drafted in for the semi-finals, star of stage and screen with her own stage school, Lisa Logan is on her feet clapping, hoping she’ll make it to the viral clip which will boost her flagging career. Laura steps on the thumb mark in the centre of the stage and waits for the judges’ feedback.

‘Lyrebird, hi,’ Lisa says excitedly. ‘Out of all the contestants tonight, I, like the rest of the world, was most excited to see what you’d deliver. I must admit, despite your obvious talent, I was confused as to how that would transfer into showbusiness – how can you make sounds viable? Relevant? How can sounds be commercial? But you’ve shown us tonight that it can be done. This is exactly the kind of cabaret/Vegas-style route that you should go down. You’re young, you’re sexy, you’re talented. You have ended this show on a high. Whooo!’ she screams, punching the air. The audience join in.

Lisa Logan gives Lyrebird a gold thumbs up.

Laura is surprised by her excitable reaction. They really see her doing this as a career? Does she even want to do this?

Silence for Jack’s response.

‘Lyrebird,’ he rubs his stubble awkwardly, as if struggling with how to say it. ‘That was awful.’

Boos from the crowd.

‘No, seriously it was.’ Over their booing and hissing he continues: ‘It was awkward. It was… to be honest, it was embarrassing, I was cringing for you. You looked uncomfortable. You’re not a dancer…’

‘No, she can’t dance,’ Lisa interrupts, agreeing. ‘But that was part of the comedy. It was funny.’

‘I don’t think she intended to be funny, did you, Lyrebird?’

They both look at her. Silence.

‘I wanted it to be entertaining and hope the people in here and at home were entertained,’ she says with a smile.

The crowd cheer.

‘No, Lyrebird. I think your strength is in what we saw you doing in your audition. Organic, earthy performances. Moving performances, where you transport the audience somewhere else. This was all wrong. This was a circus.’

Boos.

‘As you know, only one act can go through to the final. Every night this week until the final. Have you been good enough tonight? My advice, if you go through, is to stick to the heartfelt pieces. Lyrebird, you’re in trouble. I hope the public give you another chance because I fear for your place in the final.’

27

Laura sits before Jack’s desk after the show. She got through to the final. She did it. But she didn’t feel the joy that she should be feeling. Jack looks exhausted, even worse without the make-up that he’s removing with a baby wipe.

‘How am I still awake?’ he says into his hands, rubbing furiously. He smudges his mascara. Laura can’t bring herself to tell him.

‘How are you holding up?’ Jack asks her. ‘Probably doing a lot better than me, you’re twenty years younger.’

‘I’m exhausted,’ she says.

He must hear the change of tone in her voice because he looks at her, drops the tissue.

‘This is tough, isn’t it?’

She nods, feeling drained.

‘Yeah, believe me, I’ve been there. In your shoes. I was probably the same age as you when my album went to number one in fifty countries. Crazy.’ He shakes his head. ‘I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t know-’

Curtis enters the room, and Jack sits up straighter. Curtis places a coffee down on the desk before Jack, then goes to his usual position at the side, like a shadow.

‘Thanks, man.’ Jack takes a sip and gets into business mode, giving her feedback as he has done for all the contestants seeking reassurance. Before and after the show, they gather around Jack at every opportunity eager for his attention and praise, and over the past two days out of sheer exhaustion Laura has stood back and watched, feeling as if they’re all birds loitering at an outdoor restaurant feeding on scraps of food and leftovers. They watch and wait, ready to be thrown anything by Jack their way; a compliment, a word of advice, a tip or a thinly veiled warning or critique. They catch it and they peck, peck, peck, analysing it, clinging to it, wanting to be filled by him, but they never are. They can never be fed enough praise, analysis, or dissection of themselves and their talent from the master.

‘Look, Lyrebird, don’t worry about tonight, it’s part of the show. Everyone has their ups and downs. It’s good for you to have a journey, to show that you, like them, have a struggle. But the audience chose to save you. Look at poor Rose and Tony, their act was a disaster. She fell on her face, dressed as a hotdog.’ He starts laughing, a smoker’s chesty laugh. ‘Did you see the ketchup…?’ He stops laughing when she doesn’t join in.

‘Tonight’s performance was written for me by your show while I was in Australia,’ Laura says to him, confused. ‘I was told to learn it on the flight. I had one day to learn the dance.’

He sighs. ‘Rehearsal time was short, I understand, but believe me, the Australian trip was the chance of a lifetime. We debated it, but felt it was the best thing to do, and we needed you on the first semi-final show on the back of the Cory Cooke Show and before public interest waned. That trip was the trip of a lifetime, and any of the others would have chosen going there over a longer rehearsal.’

‘The others won’t even look at me.’

‘They’re jealous. Lyrebird, you’re going to win this show and everyone knows it.’

Her mouth drops open. ‘Jack, you said I was awkward. You said it was awful. You said I can’t dance. You were embarrassed for me – cringing, in fact…’

‘That was true,’ he laughs. ‘It was fucking awful.’ He laughs alone. ‘Oh, come on. Lighten up.’

‘I didn’t want to do that routine. I told you I wasn’t a dancer. I told you it wasn’t me. We sat right here, I told you I didn’t like the script. You told me to do it.’

‘Lyrebird.’

‘My name is Laura!’ She bangs her hand down on the table.

‘Don’t forget yourself, young lady,’ Curtis warns. ‘Don’t get too big for your boots.’

‘It’s okay,’ Jack says tiredly. ‘It’s just a show, that’s what we do. I was the big bad judge who talked bad about the nation’s sweetheart. You heard how the audience reacted, tomorrow they’ll all be talking about it and they’ll love you even more. Trust me, that’s the way it goes. Do you know how many votes our winner received last year? Sixty-five thousand. Do you know how many votes you received tonight to get through to the final?’

She shakes her head and hates herself for wanting to know.

‘Three hundred and thirty thousand.’

She looks at them both in surprise, but not for the reason they expect. She’s honoured, flattered, flabbergasted by the figures, but there’s something else that stuns her.

‘This is all a game to you,’ she says, her voice soft.

Perhaps it’s the softness that gets Jack the most. It gives him nothing to feel righteous or indignant over. She’s not angry, she barely had time to register the fact before she said it. Her bubble burst. He saw it happen. He just looks at her, frozen.

‘Okay, let’s wrap this up,’ Curtis says, standing up from propping against a table, as usual on the edges of the room. ‘You can leave now,’ he dismisses her, turning his back on her.

‘There’s one more thing,’ Laura says, feeling hollow. ‘It’s about Bo. She’s feeling cut out. I know I signed a contract with you, but I also had an agreement with her. Before you. She brought me to you and I have an obligation with her to fulfil. I’m not comfortable not doing as I promised.’

It could be just the jet lag, but she doesn’t think so, she’s almost certain she’s thinking clearly. Things in her life are certainly tilted at the moment, something, lots of things, feel off and it’s spreading. The Australian trip made her look at things differently, the show tonight reminded of what she had tried to push out of her mind but this meeting has cemented her view. Something is wrong here. Whatever happened between her and Bo, and Solomon, before her trip to Australia, she knows that one step towards straightening everything out would be to resume filming the documentary.

‘The issue with Mouth to Mouth productions is not for you to discuss,’ Curtis says. ‘It’s a contractual issue that’s currently with our lawyers.’

‘Lawyers?’ Laura looks at Jack. ‘But this could be all so much simpler than that. Just talk to Bo.’ She feels the panic welling up inside her. She thought she was walking toward freedom but instead she stranded herself on an island.

‘I need a moment alone with Jack now. You can leave,’ Curtis says, moving so that he’s beside Jack’s desk, leaning over, almost like he’s having a word in Jack’s ear, as though he owns that ear.

Laura watches him, in shock, her heart pounding, wanting to interrupt, to make one more attempt with Jack.

He speaks as if she’s not in the room. ‘Alan Murphy wants to talk to you about not being able to do gigs while the show is on the air. He says he can’t earn any money. It’s in the contract, he signed it, I told him that, he can’t have his cake and eat it, I need you to know what’s going on in case he brings it up with you.’

‘Jesus, this is the biggest platform in the world right now and he’s complaining?’ Jack asks, irritated, throwing the scrunched up baby wipe down on the desk.

Laura slowly stands and makes her way to the door, but before she leaves, she directs her words at Jack. ‘It’s Alan’s niece’s Holy Communion. His brother asked him to perform, the show won’t let him do it. He’s not being paid.’

Jack looks at Curtis. ‘That true?’

‘Well, I don’t know the specifics. A gig’s a gig.’

Jack looks at Laura, he considers her. ‘Find out what it is exactly. If it’s his niece’s Holy Communion party then for fuck sake let him do it, Curtis.’

Laura nods her thanks, recognition of his humanity, and opens the door, feeling Curtis’ eyes searing into her back.

Jack’s not finished with her. ‘Don’t worry Lyrebird, I’ll have a word with Bo. We’ll sort this out. It’s gone on long enough and you’re right: if it stays with the lawyers, it will never be resolved.’

The relief she feels practically lifts her off her feet and carries her down the corridor, past greedy eyes, past raised camera phones, then past the powerful flashes that dare to invade the blacked-out windows of the SUV and threaten to penetrate to her soul.

She shudders, hoping it’s their own reflections they capture.

28

After not being able to keep her eyes open all day, now Laura is wide awake. As Michael drives her to the hotel, she’s dreading another night alone in a hotel room, wide awake, suffering from jet lag, feeling a loneliness that aches. When Solomon had visited her here the final time they’d seen each other, he’d held her hand and told her to contact him if she needed him. She needs him now, she has always needed him, but she couldn’t bring herself to pick up the phone and throw his life out of balance again. She can’t deny that in trying to right a wrong between her and Bo, she has also knowingly taken steps to seeing him again. She parted with them on the promise that she wouldn’t get between them, as she was so obviously destroying them. She can’t deny her selfishness in longing to see him, and her weakness in sending Jack into the ring to do her dirty work for her. The more time she is spending around people, the more she discovers of her own character failures. In the cottage she was generous, she was kind, she was positive. In this world new sides of her are emerging and she doesn’t like it. She thought she was a better person than this.

She makes her way through the photographers who snap her as she returns to the hotel, and she stops to sign photographs of herself for the fans who are there night and day, and praise her shambolic performance. She collects her key from the desk.

‘There’s a man waiting for you at the bar,’ the receptionist informs her. ‘Mr Fallon.’

Her heart lifts. Solomon. She grins. ‘Thank you.’

She practically runs through the lobby to the bar, and slowly circles the bar searching for the black-haired Solomon, seeking out the high knot on his head that stands above everybody else. But he’s nowhere to be found. Confused, she heads back the way she came.

She feels hands on her waist. ‘Hey!’ a man says. ‘Remember me?’

Rory.

Laura makes the sound of a gunshot. A fallen hare. A whimpering dying animal.

‘Yeah.’ Rory looks down, scratches his head awkwardly. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that. I came here to apologise.’ He looks genuinely sorry, embarrassed even. ‘Can we talk? I know a good place.’

Rory and Laura sit opposite one another in Mulligans, a dark pub, as shut away from others as possible. They’re in the quietest corner they can find because as soon as Laura entered everybody stared. Everybody knew who she was, from young to old, and if they didn’t recognise her, they certainly knew her name and of her abilities. The first drink is on the house, as a welcome to Lyrebird. Rory orders a Guinness and Laura has a water. He doesn’t comment on her choice, he’s messed up so much with her that he’s keen not to make any more mistakes. He’d called Solomon to apologise for what had happened at the shooting range, which had taken him a lot to do, especially to Solomon. He asked to speak to Laura but Solomon was adamant that he couldn’t, too busy keeping her to himself, which angered Rory even more. His brother had a girlfriend already, yet was protecting this woman like he owned her. His brother was always like that. Private about things, he kept things to himself, never let Rory in. Things between them had always been stilted, awkward, there was no easy banter like there was with the others. Rory understood the others, who laughed at his humour and even if they didn’t laugh, they understood it. Solomon never did. He took offence easily, he always passed judgement on Rory.

Rory was embarrassed about the entire shooting range debacle. With hindsight, he could see it was an asshole stupid thing to do, but at the time he’d felt so compelled to get Laura to notice him that he hadn’t thought about the repercussions; about the danger, about the sheer psychotic way it would make him look. It was one thing messing up on his own, it was another to do it in front of his brothers and dad, not to mention in front of Laura.

Of course Solomon wouldn’t accept his apology, kicking him when he already felt down, and he knew that he wouldn’t pass his messages along to Laura. After he’d watched her audition on TV and the whole world was talking about her, he knew he had to come and see her himself. She wasn’t hard to find, any newspaper could tell you her whereabouts, and as soon as he saw she was staying in a Dublin hotel he knew getting to her there without Solomon around was his best chance.

He studies Laura now. She’s unusual, but the most beautiful kind of unusual. Exotic, in a Cork mountains way. He wonders what happened at the apartment, and what made her leave Solomon and Bo. But his brother’s loss was his gain, that’s the way it has always been.

First, an apology – not that he doesn’t really mean it; he intends to show how much he means it in the most genuine way possible. Big eyes, he knows the trick. Girls love that shit.

Laura’s head feels light as she sits in the pub with Rory. She’s had two glasses of white wine and she’s not used to its effects on her. She likes it, she could have more. She doesn’t feel so confused any more, that pounding headache that arrived in Galway after Rory’s gunshot, the one that throbbed right behind her eyes, is now gone. She doesn’t think it ever left her, just intensified in moments of stress. It’s fitting that her headache is gone, as Rory was the first to put it there and now he is the one to take it away. Or the wine is, but either way, he’s responsible. He’s funny, she hasn’t stopped laughing since he started talking. She genuinely believes that he’s sorry for what he did, even if he is heightening his apology more than she believes is true. He’s doing the flirty thing with his face that the photographer was doing, softening his eyes. It’s not real but they seem to believe it works, whatever it is. Not that he should be sorry at all for what he did. She’s not judge and jury, it was an incident that affected her deeply, but she doesn’t think she has a higher authority over anyone and tells him so.

He’s like his father. He tells long stories about mischievous nights out, stories of him and his brothers as teenagers. He seems to have spent more time stitching his brothers up than anything else, but he’s gleeful about it. She likes to hear these stories, particularly the ones about Solomon, about what he was like when he was younger. She tries to limit her questions after she senses him tensing when she asks too many, so she chooses to sit back and listen, waiting for the next mention with hope. When Rory says something about Solomon’s ex-girlfriends she tries not to sit up too much, or make her interest too obvious. What she learns is that the girls he dated were always edgy, weird; one girl he dated seriously for a few years went to art college and the family had attended her exhibition on feet. Hairy, yellow-nailed feet; then he laughs, and Laura isn’t sure whether it is true or not.

‘Why do you think he dated these girls?’ Laura asks, trying to sound disinterested.

‘Because Solomon is so uninteresting himself,’ he says, and there’s a hardness in his voice.

Being with Rory, bizarrely, makes her feel connected to Solomon. They’re alike, for a start. Rory’s hair is short and tight, and he’s shorter in height, his features are less defined, but he’s like a miniature version of Solomon. He’s mousier, more baby-faced, while Solomon is stronger, harder, has sharper edges, everything is more intense – his movement, his stance, especially his eyes. Rory’s posture is casual, his eyes rarely rest on hers, they’re always looking around. They sparkle, they have a glimmer, a playful shine that reveals his inner spark and his mischievous nature, but they don’t settle on anything for too long, nor does his concentration. That makes him an interesting person to be around. He talks while looking at something else, usually the thing he’s talking about, because most of what he says is about somebody who’s near them. He does funny voices, pretends to do the voices of the couple sitting nearby. He makes up their conversation until Laura’s stomach hurts so much from the laughter that she has to tell him to stop.

He’s a carpenter, and while she pictures him in a romantic setting carving furniture, just as his dad had for Marie on her birthday, he says it’s nothing like that.

‘Mostly it’s moving around building sites or businesses, doing exactly what they tell you to do, fulfilling a brief,’ he says, bored. ‘To be honest,’ he gives her big eyes and leans in as if sharing a secret, ‘I hate my job. The others don’t know. I couldn’t tell Dad, it would break his heart, I’m the only one who went into the same trade. All the others flew the coop. I’m the one that got left behind,’ he admits, with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

Laura feels he’s being honest, perhaps for the first time since they sat down. She feels she can identify with him in a way. Despite his confidence and his overflowing personality, he’s lost in there.

He finishes his fourth bottle of beer and she can tell he’s restless. She’s so comfortable here, particularly after the two glasses of wine, and she’d gladly stay but he’s fidgeting in his chair, which makes it hard for her to relax.

‘Rory I’m sorry I can’t buy you a drink, I haven’t got a cent to my name.’

He looks surprised.

‘I can’t even get on a bus, even if I did have somewhere to go. I have nothing,’ she says and realises as she says it how much this terrifies her. ‘At least at the cottage I could live off the land, I could forage, I grew my own fruit and vegetables, I had a cupboard filled with preserved foods, pickled foods, dried fruits, enough to get me through the winter when the options were small. I could survive without Tom’s supplies if I had to, but here, in the city, I can do nothing for myself.’ The irony of being surrounded by everything you could ever dream of and wish for and none of it attainable.

Rory’s eyes suddenly light up.

‘That’s where you’re wrong, my dear Lyrebird. You are the most famous person in the world right now.’ And though she tries to laugh this off as ridiculous, he is adamant. ‘I’m going to show you how to forage city-style.’

Foraging in the city includes going into an exclusive club with a twenty-euro entrance fee and not having to pay anything at all because Rory presented Lyrebird to the security guards as if she was a ticket herself. Foraging in the club was finding the right people to talk to who would buy them drinks, and welcome them to their table.

At midnight, when Laura feels herself stumble when talking to a man who reaches out and grabs her arm and continues talking as if nothing happened, with his arm still on her, she snaps out of her bubble of contentment. Excusing herself and freeing herself from his grip, the ground swirls as she makes her way to the toilet. As she goes, everything seems to get louder, the thumping music is in her head, in her chest, bodies bump her, seem closer together than they were. She’s aware of the lack of space when before she felt fine. Once inside the toilets, the music fades and becomes a mere thud in her chest. Her ears are blocked, like they felt on the plane, and need to pop. There is a long queue ahead of her. Things feel very far away, yet she is here. She feels like she is behind herself. Everything moves quickly, her eyes registering everything they fall upon. Girl’s shoe, cut ankle, smudged tan, wet floor, sink, soggy tissues. The hand-drier fires up beside her and she jumps, startled, she holds her hands to her ears and looks down. At her own boots. Drink stains on her boots, splashes of beer and wine and who knows what. She closes her eyes. The hand-drier stops and she removes her hands and looks up. The girl in front of her is looking at her, she recognises her. Laura wonders if she should say something. The girl says something but the hand-drier fires up and Laura blocks her ears again.

‘Rude stupid bitch,’ she reads the girl’s lips.

There’s a constant stream of toilet doors unlocking and opening, clickety-clack of high heels wobbling on tiles, doors banging. Everyone’s looking at her now. All eyes, wide eyes. The ground is swirling, Laura needs to reach out to hold something or she’ll fall. She decides against the girl in front of her with the mahogany skin and the big boobs in the belly-exposing top. Turquoise belly-button piercing. Lip liner but no lipstick. She looks out for something to lean on, the sinks, but there’s a line of girls fixing their make-up, with their phones in their hands, pointing at her. Flashes blind her. No one will help her, she’s not sure if she’s calling for help. Perhaps she should. They’re viewing her through their screens as though she’s not real, as though she’s not flesh and blood right there in front of them. They’re looking at her as if she’s on the television.

At the cottage, at home with her mam and Gaga, Laura used to look at people on television, or in books, newspapers and magazines. Sometimes she wanted to really see people, really touch them. In this world, people have that luxury and all they want is to see each other through screens.

She hears the clicking of the doors locking, the bangs, toilets flushing, the clickety-clack of high heels. The girls around her start laughing, throwing their heads back, loud, dirty laughs. Perhaps those sounds were from Laura’s mouth. She’s not sure, she’s so dizzy. She’s here but she doesn’t feel like she’s here. She holds a hand to her foggy head. She needs help, she reaches out to the mahogany girl, sees a snake tattoo on her wrist, black and spiralling up the girl’s arm. Laura hisses in acknowledgement of it, and falls into her, but she pushes her away. Some girls jump in and shout ‘Fight!’

Laura’s confused, she doesn’t want to fight, she just doesn’t want to fall.

Then all of a sudden, she’s in someone’s arms, the person is pulling her away roughly. She doesn’t want to fight, all the girls are laughing, phones up in the air, taking photos or filming. She’s taken from the bathroom and down a corridor, she realises it’s a man she doesn’t know who’s dragging her and she panics. Starts to fight him. Why would the girls laugh at this, why wouldn’t they protect her? Defend her?

There’s a glass in her face, she doesn’t recognise the man. He’s trying to make her drink it. She doesn’t want it. There’s no one else around, the music is so loud, she can barely hear what he’s saying. She’s heard about people drugging drinks. He’s pushing it in her face and his arms are wrapped tightly around her. She doesn’t want it. She knocks it out of his hand and it smashes on the floor. The anger on his face. Laura is confused. She’s led along the corridor by the man, looking around but it’s all a blur, she can barely focus on any one thing. She can’t see, she can’t hear, she can’t think. She wants Solomon, she needs him, she can’t think of anyone else.

Suddenly she’s outside the club and the angry man leaves her there alone. He comes back to give her her coat and she realises he wasn’t trying to abduct her or drug her. He’s security. She’s freezing and she puts her coat on. ‘Sorry,’ she says quietly, but he’s not interested. His suit is wet, he disappears inside, telling her to wait there.

He returns with Rory, who’s putting his jacket on, confused at first, but then when he sees her he grins. ‘What did you get up to? They couldn’t get me out of there fast enough.’

Laura’s head spins, she needs to get away. She turns to leave and sees a crowd of people who are trying to get into the club. She tries to step aside to let them pass but they don’t, they form a wall in front of her. She realises they have cameras, they’re taking photos of her. She can’t see the ground in front of her, she can barely see with all the flashes. She stumbles and falls to the ground. She doesn’t feel any pain but it takes her a moment to gather herself. Rory is there, hands under her arms. She hears him laughing, and he pulls her up.

She doesn’t think this is funny. He can’t stop laughing.

She tries to walk straight but feels herself go the other way. Rory chuckles and grabs her tightly. She feels sick.

This is all wrong. They’re in an alleyway, she can’t see through to the other side, which makes her feel claustrophobic. There is no space in this city. There are too many people. She retches.

‘No, not here,’ Rory says, not laughing now. ‘Laura,’ his tone is darker, warning, as they’re completely surrounded by paparazzi. Laura is slipping from his grasp, her body and legs are practically like jelly. She’s taller than him, he struggles to keep her up.

‘Move back,’ Rory shouts at the photographers.

They reach the main street and there’s a crowd of people standing by, wondering what all the scuffle is about, waiting to see which celebrity is leaving the nightclub.

‘Lyrebird, Lyrebird,’ she hears from lips, all whispering around her like the wind blowing through the leaves on her mountain. But she’s not on the mountain, she’s here, camera phones pointed in her face. Autograph books and pens extended.

A group of boys start making cuckoo sounds. The sounds chase her down the road. Rory gets them to the first taxi they see in the nearby queue. Laura falls inside and leans her head back, eyes closed. Cameras bump against the glass of the car, continuing to take photographs of her. She closes her eyes, takes deep breaths, trying not to vomit as her head swirls.

‘Where to?’ the taxi driver asks, bewildered as his car is surrounded by photographers.

‘Solomon,’ Laura says, her eyes closed, head on the headrest.

The cameras bang against the window.

‘Hey, where to?’ the taxi man asks, agitated. ‘Watch my bumper!’ he yells to the photographers, lowering his window. They continue to bang against the side of his car, the taxi driver clambers out and confronts them. Cameras continue to flash as Lyrebird’s taxi driver is involved in an altercation, Lyrebird passed out in the back seat.

‘Fuck,’ Rory says, as they sit in the back seat with no driver, completely surrounded. ‘Fuck.’

‘Solomon,’ she says again, sleepily.

‘Uh, no, not Solomon. Okay, Laura, new plan.’ He shakes her, trying to wake her. He opens his door and goes around to her side. He pulls her out, tries to stand her up but now she’s both exhausted and intoxicated. The cameras ignore the taxi driver’s altercation and follow Laura and Rory.

‘Hey! Where are you going?’ the taxi driver yells.

‘I’m not sitting there while you argue,’ Rory yells back.

‘This is because of you, who do you think you are?’ The taxi driver yells a load of abuse at him as he half-carries, half-pulls Laura away. The taxis have all left the queue. ‘I’ve missed a load of fares because of you!’

A taxi stops for them in the middle of the road. The light is out. There are people inside. A door opens. ‘Get in.’

Rory looks in and recognises two guys from the club. He puts Laura in the front seat, trying to pull down her dress that’s rising up her long lean legs; that’s a tartan shirt, with black Doc Martens, and walking socks beneath. He gets in the back, squishing in beside the two men.

‘Where are you going?’ one asks. Rory thinks his name is Niall, a property guy, or was that someone else? As he looks at him, he wonders if he met him in the club at all.

‘Anywhere,’ Rory says, blocking his face from the cameras pushed up against the glass.

The men laugh. The taxi drives off.

29

Laura wakes up in darkness. Her head, her throat, her eyes, everything aches. There’s a buzzing sound, the familiar vibrating of a phone and she thinks of Solomon. She looks around and sees light coming from a shoe. The phone is vibrating inside a trainer. It buzzes one more time, then makes the sound of a flat battery before dying, the light gone. It’s like witnessing another death. The dull headache that arrived in Galway and worsened in Dublin, but disappeared after her first two glasses of wine, has now returned and is worse than ever. It hurts for her to lift her head, gravity appears to have intensified and pulls her down. She’s afraid, she doesn’t know where she is and so she sits up. She’s on a couch, next to a double bed. There’s a figure over the covers and a shape beneath it.

She smells vomit, realises it’s in her hair, and on her clothes and the smell brings her back instantly, like a flashback to her head over a toilet bowl, a dirty toilet bowl with shit still stuck on the side. Somebody is holding her hair out of the way. There’s lots of laughter, girls beside her and around her. A voice close to her ear is telling her she will be okay. A kind voice. A female voice. She remembers Rory, the nightclub, the man who attacked her. Being brought outside. The camera flashes, the taxi, another taxi, feeling sick.

She doesn’t remember this place that she’s in. She doesn’t remember getting here, how she got to this room or who she’s with. She looks at the pair of Converse with the dead phone and she recognises it as Rory’s. So he’s here, quite possibly the person lying on the bed. He brought her here. She can’t blame him for what happened, she can only blame herself. She’s twenty-six years old and she should have known better. She’s so ashamed of herself for losing control, for such irresponsibility, for allowing others to see her like that, she can’t bring herself to wake Rory. She’s still wearing her boots, she doesn’t care about finding her jacket, she just wants to get out of there.

She stands up and steadies herself as her head swirls. She takes a moment for the dizziness to pass, takes long deep breaths as silently as possible so as not to stir the sleeping others. The room is hot and stuffy. It smells of alcohol and hot bodies, which turns her stomach. She steps over the shoes and bottles, falling over and catching herself on the wall. She bangs against the wall and hears somebody stir behind her, waking as if in fright. She doesn’t look back, she keeps walking, she knows she needs to get out of there before they wake.

Out of the bedroom she finds herself in a corridor. She sees the main door. The next door is the bathroom, then the front door. She passes an open-plan living and kitchen area, more bodies on floors and couches, a couple slowly kissing on the couch, his hand moving around inside her top as she makes soft breathy sounds.

She thinks of Solomon and Bo in the hotel when they were making love and she must have made a sound, given herself away, because suddenly the couple stop kissing and look up. A head pops out from the kitchen.

‘What the fuck was that noise?’ the girl asks.

‘The bird,’ the guy on the couch says.

‘Lyrebird,’ she says, giggling.

‘Whatever. Hi,’ he says and she thinks she recognises him. She remembers him from the nightclub. He was friendly, offering to buy her drinks, giving out to somebody for accidentally shoving her as he passed. Getting the barman’s attention faster than the others. Whispering in her ear. Did he kiss her ear? Her neck? He’s the one who held her arm tightly when she stumbled.

‘I’m Gary, I’m an actor. Our premiere was tonight at the festival,’ he says. She remembers being impressed, she’d never met an actor before. Not a professional one anyway, as it turned out.

‘Gary, you little shit,’ the girl says, hitting him, jumping up from the couch so quickly she knees him by mistake. He groans. ‘You told her you were a fucking actor? Who are you, Leonardo DiCaprio?’

‘I was only messing, babe, chill out.’

‘Don’t babe me,’ she wallops him again, which stirs the others, who are sleeping.

Her voice is familiar. Laura studies her, trying to pinpoint how she knows her. Then she remembers. In the toilet, her head literally in the toilet, trying to ignore the dried shit, hearing laughter, that girl’s voice, looking up between retches to see a camera phone in their hands.

‘Stop,’ Laura had said, trying to block her face.

‘Get out of here, Lisa,’ another voice had said.

‘It’s going on Facebook,’ she says, leaving the bathroom. ‘Lyrebird, dirtbird,’ she says, giggling.

Laura must have said this all out loud.

‘Cara, you put photos of her puking on Facebook?’ Gary asks. ‘And you’re giving out to me?’

‘Are you okay?’ a voice says from the kitchen. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’

Laura doesn’t recognise her face, but she knows her voice instantly. It was the one that was in her ear. ‘Ssh. Ssh. It’s going to be okay.’

Laura knows she has repeated this because the girl is smiling. She has a friendly face, it’s nice to see one. She holds a cup of tea out to her.

Laura shakes her head and keeps walking to the door. She should go into the bathroom to clean herself up, but she knows she must leave, she doesn’t want Rory to wake up, she doesn’t want to have to deal with talking about what happened.

She has no idea where she is, or where her bags are. She’s in an apartment block somewhere. She heads for the fire escape and runs down five flights of stairs, thinking someone is chasing her, not hearing any footsteps but afraid to stop or look behind her in case they catch her. It’s like a bad dream being played out and she’s the one playing it out with an overactive imagination. She races downstairs, clinging to the rail, hand brushing the metal and feeling splinters from the chipped paint. She thinks she’ll be stuck on that staircase forever, that it will never end, until finally she reaches the ground floor. She passes a wall of grey postboxes, all numbers no address, not that it would mean anything to her anyway. She bursts out on to the street, hoping to see somewhere familiar, one of the places she’s been to with Solomon, Bo, or Rachel, but she doesn’t recognise it. Across from her is an identical building, beside and all around her is the same.

A loud horn frightens her and she looks up in time to see the city tram headed straight for her. She jumps onto the path, her heart pounding as the driver shouts as he passes.

When she has calmed herself somewhat, she looks left and right, decides to go left in the direction of the tram, it must be bringing people somewhere. Somewhere is better than the unknown, that same thought pattern she’s had since Bo and Solomon came into her life. Follow them, they’re going somewhere, somewhere is better than nowhere. While she walks she thinks of the sound of the tram that almost stopped her heart. She doesn’t hear herself mimicking it, though she hears its sound, like a song she can’t get out of her head. But people are startled, jumping away, some laughing when she nears.

Perhaps she’s not making a sound at all, perhaps it’s the sight of her that is so shocking to them and the smell of her. The vomit in her hair, the dried vomit on her boots that she sees now for the first time. She looks a disgrace, she smells even worse. She attempts to tie back her hair, make her appearance neater, especially when a camera phone comes out of a bag. It’s like a tidal effect, once one is out it gives others the permission, the confidence to do the same.

She feels the beat in her chest of last night’s music, the people shouting, the broken glass, the muffled sounds that blend together into one noisy, disturbing cacophony. She holds her hands to her ears, to block it all out. The people staring at her, the phones are held up, the flashbulbs of the photographers, now she remembers. The photographers. Oh God, people will see her in the newspaper. Would they print such awful pictures? She thinks of Solomon, opening his morning paper. If he sees her, she will never look him in the eye again, such is her embarrassment.

She hears the rustle of his morning paper while Bo clicks away on her phone, everything for her on a screen, everything for him to be touched. Rustle, click, tram warning, smash of a glass. An angry taxi man, shouting at her. A rough hand on her arm. She remembers now. She’d thrown up in the taxi, he’d thrown them out. She’d kneeled on the roadside and vomited some more. The lads laughing. Blue Converses standing beside her, splashing the white tip with vomit. More laughter. A hand on her head now and then, an arm around her waist. Not being able to stand, being taken away, a girl, the nice girl asking the owner of the arm around her waist what he thinks he’s doing. Rory telling the man with the hand around her waist to back off. What was he going to do to her? Her cheeks flame with the shame that she allowed herself to end up in that position.

Then the bathroom. The toilet bowl. The shit stain on the side. A warm blanket. A glass of water. Distant laughter and music.

She holds her hands over her ears, she sinks to the ground, trying to hide from the cameras. Her mum and Gaga were right to hide her, she’s not able for all of this, she can’t run anywhere. She wishes they’d hide her now.

As she thinks of them, the noises in her head start to calm. She can think more clearly, as the thoughts quieten she hears herself whimpering, crying, breathless, hiccups. She’s sitting on the ground. A crowd gathers around her. Some people too polite to look directly at her but still they hover nearby. She looks up at the person standing beside her. A garda. A female one. Mam and Gaga said not to trust them. But this garda seems kind. She looks worried. She bends down, gets to her level and smiles, concern in her eyes. ‘Want to come with me?’

She holds out her hand and Laura takes it. She has nowhere else to go. Somewhere is better than nowhere.

30

Laura sits in a corner of the room in the garda station, wrapped in a blanket. Between her hands she holds a mug of hot tea, which has helped to calm her. She waits for somebody to pick her up, she wouldn’t give Solomon or Bo’s name, she doesn’t want them to see her like this, or know anything about what has happened. Her pride has been bruised. She wanted to prove that she could be okay without them and she failed.

The gardai work around her; opening and closing the hatch to stamp passport forms, and driving licences and whatever else people need. Lots of paperwork; the behind-the-scenes of keeping the law. She feels like she is in a safe area, no nasty robbers being dragged into the cells. If her mum and Gaga knew about this they would be terrified, their worst fears realised, but there’s no sense of terror here, it’s calm. Laura thinks of Gaga and hears the sound of the carving knife being sharpened. Not an appropriate sound to make in a police station; heads turn. Maybe that’s why she does it, because she’s not supposed to. The nerves have gotten to her, or she wants to rebel, she wants to be different, to be seen? These are all the questions Bo asked her when they were alone. Laura thinks about it now, in a way that she never has before, she’s never had to analyse herself so much. She’s not sure why she makes the sounds she makes, not always anyway, sometimes it makes perfect sense. But now, making knife-sharpening sounds in a police station, that’s not smart. When she’s relaxed on the mountain that makes sense, reading a book and a robin is building a nest above her. She can’t help but join in with their sounds then.

‘A robin,’ the male garda says suddenly. ‘I recognise that one.’

‘Didn’t know you knew anything about birds, Derek.’

‘We have a family of them in our back garden.’ He spins around in his chair to talk to his colleague. ‘The daddy bird is vicious enough.’

‘They’re very territorial,’ Laura says, remembering.

‘That’s it,’ he says, dropping the pen to the table. ‘Those robins would win in a fight against our dog any day. Daisy is terrified of them.’

‘I’d say Daisy wouldn’t win in a fight against anyone,’ his colleague says, still rifling through papers. ‘With a name like Daisy.’

The others laugh.

As everybody relaxes, the sound of their laughter triggers something. She feels the beat of the music from the nightclub, in her heart.

Rude stupid bitch. The girl had thought Laura was blocking her ears to avoid a conversation with her, when it was because the sound of the hand-drier had given her a fright. It was all a misunderstanding.

Misophonia, Bo had explained to her one day. People with misophonia hate certain noises, termed trigger sounds, and respond with stress, anger, irritation and in extreme cases, violent rage. Laura hadn’t felt that it applied to her, but perhaps Bo was right? She thinks of the moment again.

The girls laughing in the toilet, camera phones held up. The man with his hand around her waist, bringing her somewhere, saying ssh in her ear. The kind girl whispering ssh in her ear, holding her hair, rubbing her back.

No, Laura stops. She hadn’t reacted violently, she had merely blocked her ears.

Hypersensitive to sounds, Bo had said to her another time.

The garda with the family of robins in his garden rolls over to her on his chair on wheels, he looks at her with a concerned fatherly face. ‘If there’s anything you need to share about last night, you can tell us.’

She swallows. She shudders, then shakes her head.

A garda she hasn’t seen before arrives to start his shift and drops a tabloid newspaper down on the desk. Laura sees a photograph of herself on the front page. The headline reads DRUNK BIRD. She starts to panic. He’s startled, had no idea the Lyrebird is in his station. The kind guard who found her covers up the newspaper and tries to calm her again.

Laura can barely hear her words through her own panicked sounds; the airplane, Mossie’s snarl, the bats at night, city sirens, camera shutter, the sound of the lyrebird’s cage, the airplane seatbelt clicking, toilets flushing, high heels on tiles, the noisy hand-driers. Everything meshes in her head.

Despite the kindness from the gardai she should have known it wouldn’t stay so peaceful for long. Somehow the press discover she’s at the station. They’re outside and waiting for her to appear. Bianca and Michael arrive. Michael stays outside, clearing a route for Laura to the blacked-out SUV. Laura didn’t want to contact Solomon and Bo, Bianca had been the only person she could think of.

‘Are you okay?’ Bianca asks with concern as Laura is brought out to reception.

Laura whimpers, Mossie’s dying sounds, the fallen hare.

‘She’s had a rough night,’ the kind garda says. ‘She needs a rest.’

‘Is the girl pressing charges, is she in trouble?’ Bianca asks.

‘We haven’t had anybody here pressing charges,’ the garda says.

Bianca turns to Laura. ‘There was a girl in the toilets of the nightclub, she says you pushed her, assaulted her. Curtis needs to know. They have to release a statement to the press.’

Laura swallows nervously trying to think. ‘I didn’t push anyone. I felt dizzy, I was trying to lean on her. I needed help, I was… am I in trouble?’

‘No,’ the garda says, annoyed. ‘Nobody has pressed any charges. You should believe us over the newspapers. You’re going to take her somewhere safe, I hope?’

Laura makes sounds. She’s nervous, flustered, trying to relive everything that happened so she can understand it.

Bianca eyes her cautiously. She’s heard Laura’s sounds before but nothing as distressed as this. They spill from her like the shaky breath and hiccups after a long cry. ‘Are you okay, Laura?’ she asks gently.

‘It’s our understanding that these sounds are normal for her?’

‘Yes, but…’ Bianca looks really concerned.

‘I’m fine,’ Laura says. ‘I just want to go…’ she almost said home. Home. She doesn’t know where that is any more. Exhaustion sweeps over her.

‘Okay, we’ll get you somewhere comfortable and safe, don’t worry. There are loads of photographers outside,’ she adds, looking at Laura’s appearance nervously. ‘Here, you can wear these -’ She hands her her large sunglasses. Laura puts them on and immediately feels shielded from the world. ‘And wear this -’ She takes off her fur gilet and hands it to Laura. Laura hesitates. This is a new Bianca.

‘It’s not real fur,’ she says, as if that’s the problem.

Laura finally puts it on, agreeing that, while it may not be the best look over a tartan shirt that was an oversized man’s shirt that Tom gave to her, and which she accessorised with a belt, it does cover the stains. She thanks the guards and faces the barrage of more photographers and a TV camera. At first she thinks it’s Rachel behind the camera, and naturally expects to see Solomon standing by her side, feeling hopeful to see the intense look of concentration on his face as he listens to the sounds around him, but he’s nowhere to be found and she realises it’s a news station, the correspondent barking questions at her with an oversized mic thrust in her face. Bianca and Mickey walk her so fast it’s all a blur around her. In the photos afterwards she looks like a different person. Her hair has been tied in a high topknot to hide the dried vomit, the fur gilet over the tartan shirt, the oversized sunglasses, the scuffed Doc Martens she’s had since she was sixteen and the walking socks pulled up. She hits the fashion magazines as a new style icon. Fur and tartan, Doc Martens and woollen socks. Everybody loves the quirky Lyrebird look. She doesn’t recognise herself when she sees the magazines. As the jeep drives off, Bianca throws a newspaper on to the seat beside Laura.

‘This is the only one that made it to print on time. There’ll be more stories tomorrow apparently.’

‘She doesn’t need to see that,’ Michael says, protectively.

‘Curtis told me to show her,’ she says. Michael sets his mouth to a firm straight line. Laura looks down at the paper on the seat beside her.

DRUNK BIRD

LYREBIRD GOES CUCKOO

NIGHT OWL IS BIRD BRAINED AFTER NIGHT OF HEAVY DRINKING

Her heart pounds, she feels sick. She lowers the window for air, wondering why they are so angry with her. She feels the waves emanating from the pages of the paper and it terrifies her.

Bianca twists around in the front seat, Mickey studies Laura in the rear-view mirror. Bianca reaches back and grabs the newspapers, stuffs them on the floor in front of her. But even though Bianca took the papers away, Laura has seen enough to remember for ever. Horrendous images of herself, being propped up by Rory, who’s laughing while her hair flies across her face. Her face, her legs, her feet are at all angles, out of joint, some photos of her with her eyes half-closed make her look drugged. Her eyes are dead, her pupils so dilated they almost take over the green. In some she’s sprawled in a dirty alley, lying on ground that’s wet from spilled alcohol or who knows what. Her face is bright white from the force of the flash. She doesn’t look drunk and scared, she sees what they’re talking about, she’s a liar because she’s not an innocent girl who doesn’t drink and is connected to the earth in ways that nobody else is, as they were saying before. She looks out of control, she looks like she’s on drugs, she looks like someone she wouldn’t want to know. The papers are angry, they feel duped.

Maybe she is. Maybe they’re right.

She takes the papers from Bianca. The worst tabloid of all procured photos from the girl at the party where Lyrebird crashed out. It doesn’t read as if she’s being sick, as if she’s scared, and wanted to go home. It looks as though she has injected herself with heroin. She can’t close the pages, she can’t stop looking at herself. She can’t find herself in them. She can’t reconcile the pictures with how she recalls feeling: afraid, confused, scared. But the look on this girl’s face is smug, high, cocky.

‘We’re bringing you to the contestants’ house for the final. We’ve checked you out of the hotel, there’s too many press there. StarrGaze will put the semi-finalists up until after the show. So far it’s just you. It will protect you from the press and it should protect you from them talking to the press, which some of them have done already.’ She turns around. ‘Watch out for Alice. She’s a weapon. Her semi-final is tomorrow night, but their votes have been high and they’re expected to go through.’

Instead of feeling concern over having to face Curtis, and live with Alice who has never been a fan of Laura’s, she feels relief rush through her body that they’re taking her somewhere. Another bridge, she’s not stranded on her lonely island yet. Another home, another place for her to hide, another bridge for her to walk across while she heads into the absolute unknown. There’s no going back now, none at all. Physically, she couldn’t even get there.

The contestants’ house is outside of Dublin in the Wicklow Mountains and she’s happy to be surrounded by nature, by trees and mountains and space. She can barely enjoy the view, though, as she keeps looking at the photographs in the newspapers, at the stranger wearing her clothes. But at least looking at the trees helps her to breathe again.

When they reach the gates, photographers are outside and she faces more cameras banging against the window, which brings her back to last night. She hears herself making the sounds. Michael studies her in the mirror as they wait for the gates to open.

‘We’re nearly there,’ he says gently.

The house is visible from the gates, which don’t provide much privacy. All the curtains are open and Laura sees someone standing at the window, watching, before quickly moving away. She makes a note not to stand at a window.

She can’t look at Simon, the production staff member that greets her. He’ll be living with the contestants to tend to their every need. She wants to apologise to Michael, Bianca and Simon for bringing all this attention to the show, but she’s too embarrassed to meet their eyes. She keeps Bianca’s glasses on, she likes how much they shield her. She keeps her eyes down as they watch her walking up the stairs, Mickey helping her with her bags. Bianca tries to help her to settle in, and tells her that Curtis will visit tomorrow. Despite her lightness of tone, it sounds like a warning.

Laura turns the lights off, she closes the curtains, thankful her windows are looking out the back, to a view of the trees. A swing and a slide in the garden. She has a shower, feels clean at last, then climbs into bed, still sick from the alcohol, and mortified. She’s hungry but doesn’t want to go downstairs to see anybody. She lies in her new bed, curled in a ball, under the duvet, hiding. She sleeps.

31

‘From anonymous mountain girl to internet superstar, it seems the pressure of her newfound fame is finally getting to StarrQuest favourite Lyrebird, as Laura Button’s spokesperson confirms reports that she was involved in an incident in the toilet of a Dublin nightclub last night. Photographs in today’s papers show her being carried out by nightclub security, who intervened in the incident, and who she then attacked by throwing a glass of water at him.’

The report jumps to video footage of Laura.

‘Her audition made her famous around the world in a matter of weeks, but according to reports she was found wandering the streets of Dublin extremely distressed, and was taken to a police station for her own safety. She is now back in the custody of the show’s producers and is staying at a StarrQuest private home for the finalist contestants.

‘StarrQuest producers jumped to Lyrebird’s defence today, releasing a lengthy statement calling for the nastiness to stop. Jack Starr has described Lyrebird as a gentle, kind, young woman who’s had a challenging life. Laura was abandoned at a cottage by her grandmother at the age of sixteen after her mother died and she lived there for ten years, unknown to anyone apart from her father, who kept her existence a secret. Starr says Laura is finding it difficult to cope, and has been overwhelmed since her first audition. He says becoming the biggest star on the planet so fast is scary and unsettling, as Laura has discovered.

‘Lyrebird has had more than fifteen minutes of fame and stands to make millions from book deals, endorsements and appearances. But fame comes at a price and it seems Laura Button’s beginning to pay for it.’

Solomon stands up and throws the remote control against the wall over the fireplace. It crashes against the brickwork. The back falls off and the batteries scatter to the floor. Bo ducks and huddles even tighter in the corner of the couch. He looks at her, but neither of them say anything, he doesn’t need to; Bo looks as guilty as he feels.

‘We have to do something,’ Solomon says, feeling and hearing the emotion in his voice. He can barely take this, sitting back and watching Laura being picked apart.

‘I’m trying, Solomon,’ Bo says, tears in her eyes.

‘I’ve had enough of trying to talk to her through StarrQuest,’ he paces the lounge, angrily. ‘We have to get to her ourselves. Where is the contestants’ house the news mentioned?’

‘I have no idea,’ Bo says, lost in thought, then she sits up with an idea. ‘But the fansites will know.’

‘I’m a friend of Laura Button’s, I’m here to see her,’ Solomon says to the security guard on the gates outside the contestants’ house.

The guard laughs and approaches him with a clipboard. ‘You and all the others.’

Solomon looks around. A dozen photographers and a camera crew watch him, at first with interest and then with amusement when his wish to pass is denied. Behind a rail are a handful of hardcore fans, sleeping bags lining the grass, a home-made banner that says We

Lyrebird.

‘Leave her alone,’ one girl shouts across to him.

Anger rises in Solomon.

‘If you could tell her that I’m here, then she’ll tell you to let me in.’

Security looks him up and down. ‘Why don’t you go ahead and give her a call first? Tell her to call me and ask me to let you in.’

Solomon grinds his teeth. ‘I can’t call her. That’s why I’m here.’

‘Yeah. Well, I can’t let you in. Your name needs to be on the list and you’re not on the list, so I can’t let you in.’

Solomon turns off the engine and gets out of the car.

‘Sir, I’d advise you to stay in the car. There’s no need to get out of your car.’

He’s standing so close to the car door, Solomon can’t open it. He pushes it a little harder. It hits the guard and he takes a backward step.

‘Hey, what are you doing? I said get back in the car!’

‘Then don’t block my door! Don’t block my door!’ Solomon gets in his face as they both shout at each other.

A bored photographer takes a few photographs.

A second security guard appears from the hut. ‘Barry?’ he says, concerned.

‘Great, hopefully you can help,’ Solomon says, pushing his hair off his face and trying to compose himself in front of the crowd. ‘I need to contact my friend Laura Button. I appreciate that I’m not on the list but if you call her, which will take one second of your time, then she will immediately let me in. Okay?’

‘Who?’ he asks, looking from his colleague to Solomon and back.

‘The Lyrebird,’ Barry says.

‘It’s actually Laura. Laura Button is her name,’ Solomon gets het up again.

‘Leave Lyrebird alone,’ the fan shouts at him again. ‘People like you aren’t helping her!’

Solomon ignores her.

‘So you know her real name, you read the news,’ Barry says, unimpressed.

‘Okay okay, let’s keep it calm,’ the second security guy says. ‘There’s no need to get upset.’

Solomon calms down, he likes this guy, he may see reason. ‘Step this way with me.’ He follows him, out of eyeshot of the crowd, into the security hut. Solomon feels he’s been taken seriously. ‘Now let me tell you how it works here,’ he says calmly.

‘I told him,’ Barry interrupts, behind him.

‘Barry,’ he warns, and Barry leaves the hut swearing.

‘We are given a list of people who are allowed to visit. It’s a very strict list. If you want to visit somebody in the house you’re supposed to contact the production office, who then alert us. We’re not allowed to let any Tom, Dick or Harry just waltz in. And you’re not even family. And it’s ten o’clock at night. Too late for visitors.’

‘I understand that, I appreciate that. And that’s the way it should be, but I know that Laura wants to see me. I’m not on the list because she didn’t know that I was able to visit, but I can and now if you let her know that I’m here, I promise you this won’t be a waste of time.’

He looks at Solomon like he’s trying to figure him out.

He picks up the phone and the relief floods through Solomon.

‘Simon, it’s Richie. I’ve got a visitor for Lyrebird. Yeah. He’s here right now. Not on the list but he wants to see her.’

‘Solomon Fallon,’ Solomon says, realising he hasn’t even asked him his name.

‘Solomon Fallon,’ he says down the phone. He listens. They wait. ‘They’re checking,’ he says. He looks around as he waits a little longer.

Something’s up. Solomon senses something amiss. He looks at the phone and realises that Richie isn’t even on the phone. He hasn’t made a real phone call, this is all a farce. When Solomon listens carefully he can hear the dial tone on the other end of the phone.

‘This is bullshit. Fucking bullshit.’ He swipes all the paperwork off the table and storms out and gets into his car. Barry outside salutes him, while Richie shrugs as if it was worth a try.

‘Contact the production office,’ Richie repeats firmly, tapping the hood of the car with his hand.

Solomon puts his foot down and drives away at top speed, his blood rushing, his heart racing with anger.

A knock on the door wakes Laura the following morning and Simon from StarrGaze Entertainment tells her that Curtis is here. She slips on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and an oversized cardigan that she hugs around her body for protection. It’s one that Solomon chose for her in Cork. She leaves her freshly washed hair down so she can hide her face and pads barefoot downstairs to the meeting room.

Curtis sits at the head of a dining table. The dining room faces the front of the house, Laura pauses at the door and looks at the window.

‘Sit down,’ he says.

‘Can they see us?’

He looks out the window. ‘You’re worried about being seen now?’ He stands up and closes the curtains anyway.

‘Thanks,’ she says quietly, nervously.

‘StarrGaze has done a lot for you. We welcomed you, treated you well, gave you an international platform, flew you to Australia, paid for your clothes, hair, hotels. We haven’t held back on anything.’

‘I know and I truly-’

He continues as if she hasn’t spoken. ‘We are a family show. Our demographic from sixteen to thirty-four is over seventy per cent.’ He maintains his hostile stare, as if to emphasise that she really needs to grasp this. ‘We expect you to adhere to the contract you signed, which stipulates that you will not do anything to harm the good image and brand of StarrQuest and StarrGaze Entertainment.’

He doesn’t let her get a word in edgeways.

‘We’ve talked and we reached the decision that you can proceed with the remainder of the show. We will allow you to perform in the final.’

He leaves a long pause and Laura looks at him, eyes wide. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might be removed from the show.

He looks as if he’s waiting for something.

‘Thank you,’ she whispers, her throat catching, feeling like she’s been given an extra life that she never even knew she needed.

‘You’re welcome,’ he says sombrely. ‘But you have an uphill struggle. You have a lot of people to convince, a lot of minds to change.’

Laura nods, her head racing.

He stands up and speaks as though his words have been learned, rehearsed, written for him. ‘I recognise that your life has changed immensely. It’s a lot to take on board. StarrQuest has a qualified therapist available to you, if you so wish. I advise you to speak with him. Would you like me to arrange an appointment?’

Laura thinks of sitting down with somebody else from StarrQuest and having to explain herself. It wouldn’t make anything better. It would make her relive it all over again and all she wants to do is forget it happened.

She shakes her head.

‘If you change your mind, you should tell your handler. I suggest you don’t talk to anyone before your performance. No media. And that’s not a suggestion, it’s a direct request on behalf of StarrQuest.’

‘Okay.’ She clears her throat. ‘What about the documentary? Jack was going to speak with-’

‘With Mouth to Mouth productions – yes, your relationship with them has ended.’ He says this with an air of finality.

She feels tears rush to her eyes. It’s confirmed. It’s real. She is truly disconnected from Solomon and that breaks her heart, and she feels her face flush and her eyes become hot with tears. She’s afraid to ask if it’s because Bo and Solomon don’t want her now as a result of Monday night’s behaviour or if it’s Curtis simply getting his way. Despite her loss she’s relieved she can hide from Solomon, she’s too embarrassed to face him now. She had tried to convince herself that he may not have seen the papers but she needs to be realistic, his brother is in the photographs, his family will all see them, his friends, his kind neighbours that she met at his mother’s party. All those people who were so good to her will see what a mess she made of herself.

As Curtis leaves, he stalls, almost as if he’s having second thoughts, a change of heart, if he had one. Laura’s heart hammers as she waits for him to say that it’s okay, she can see Solomon. Or she’s out of the show.

‘This story will run in a few days. I was given a copy in advance that you should see, to give you a chance to respond to it.’

He places a large brown envelope down on the table and he leaves.

She stares at the brown envelope, her heart pounding.

There’s a knock on the door and she turns around. It opens but there’s no one there. Then a face appears at the doorframe, but not a human face. It’s Alan’s ventriloquist doll, Mabel. Alan is nowhere in sight.

Mabel clears her throat.

‘Hi, Mabel.’ Laura smiles.

‘Mabel wants to know if Lyrebird wants a cup of tea. Lyrebird hasn’t eaten since she arrived yesterday I hear. Alan is making one.’

‘Thank you, Mabel,’ Laura smiles. ‘You’re very kind. You can call me Laura though.’

‘Okay, Laura,’ she says shyly, and Laura laughs. Even though Mabel doesn’t blush, she’s so lifelike and Alan is so good at moving her entire face that she seems real.

Alan then sticks his head around the doorframe. Laura likes Alan. He auditioned the same night as her. He’s a nice man. A peculiar man. Forty years old and lives with his parents, he puts all his money into Mabel and his act. He has a kind heart and is hugely talented.

‘Congratulations, Alan. I didn’t know you’d gotten through, I missed the show last night.’ She feels embarrassed for shutting out a night so important to her fellow contestants, her selfishness breaking through again.

‘Thank you. Feeling pretty rough today, Mabel made me stay up and drink a bottle of Jameson to celebrate.’

Laura laughs.

‘Mabel told me she can call you Laura, does that mean I can too?’

‘Of course.’

He steps inside, almost tiptoes, as if he shouldn’t be here. He’s like that everywhere, acts as though he shouldn’t be there, as if he’s in people’s way, but as soon as Mabel is on his arm, he becomes another man, witty, charming, naughty even. He says things as Mabel that Laura doesn’t imagine Alan even thinks. He brings nothing but joy to people.

‘Just wanted to see if you’re okay,’ he says.

Her eyes fill and she looks away.

‘Oh no, you’ve made her cry, you idiot,’ Mabel says.

Laura laughs.

‘And you made her laugh,’ Alan says to Mabel.

‘What would you do without me?’ Mabel says.

Laura wipes her eyes.

Alan sits down beside her.

‘I’m so embarrassed, Alan. I can barely bring myself to look anyone in the eye.’

‘There’s no need to be embarrassed. We’ve all had nights like that.’

Laura looks at him.

‘Well, I haven’t. But Mabel has.’

Mabel gives him a slow look.

Laura laughs again.

‘Look, we’re all in this together. Some of the others…’

‘Alice,’ coughs Mabel.

‘… see this as a competition. Us versus each other. But I don’t. I’m in competition with myself. Always have been. It’s up to me to be as good as I can be.’

‘And me,’ Mabel interrupts.

‘And you, Mabel. It’s life-changing stuff. I was recognised at the pharmacy yesterday. Buying a Ped Egg. Do you know what that is?’

She shakes her head.

‘A file for calluses and dry skin on your feet.’

‘Sexy,’ Mabel says.

‘Indeed,’ Alan agrees. ‘I signed my first autograph over a discussion about a Ped Egg.’

Laura laughs.

‘I’m not getting it anywhere near as much as you and I’m struggling. You’re a target for them. Two hundred million people want to know what you’re going to do next.’ He shrugs. ‘So blow them away.’

‘Thanks. The show’s going to give me another chance.’

Alan looks at her in surprise. ‘That’s what Curtis-’

‘Asshole,’ Mabel interrupts.

‘-was here to talk about?’

She nods.

He leans forward. He drops Mabel on the table and she actually says, ‘Ow.’

‘You do know that they’d be nothing without you. Just a crap Irish entertainment show that no one’s ever heard of, if it wasn’t for you?’

Laura is shocked to hear this.

‘You’ve put them on the map. Because of you they’ve sold the format to twelve more territories and counting. If you dropped out now, they’d be nothing.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Mabel says from the table, lying on her back staring at the ceiling.

Laura processes this.

‘What’s that?’ He looks at the brown envelope.

‘An article that’s going to be in the paper tomorrow. Curtis gave it to me to read.’

‘Don’t read it,’ Alan says.

‘I should.’

‘No, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t read any of them ever again,’ he says, not a hint of humour in him now. ‘Don’t poison yourself with that, Laura. You’re the purest, most natural person I’ve ever met. I want you to win.’

She smiles. ‘And I want you to win.’

They hold each other’s look, and Laura appreciates the support so much. When it gets awkward, Mabel pipes up.

‘And what the fuck about me?’

They both start laughing.

‘Right, I’ll get you a cup of tea. We might as well enjoy the silence before the next act arrives tonight. And I’ll make some lunch. I can’t cook, but ham and cheese sandwich okay?’

‘Perfect, thank you.’

‘I wouldn’t eat it, if I were you,’ Mabel whispers in her ear before they both leave. ‘I think he’s trying to poison me.’

Laura laughs as he leaves her alone in the dining room.

Feeling more confident, she stares at the envelope on the table. He’s right, she needs to rise above it and she’s feeling marginally stronger after their chat, but she still needs to know what people are thinking of her.

She slides the papers out of the envelope.

The opening page is a solicitor’s letter, from the newspaper, stating that they are going to run with this story tomorrow. If there is anything that Laura Button would like to respond to, please do so by end of business.

She removes the letter and starts reading.

LIARBIRD? is the headline and the story is about how a garda in Gougane Barra believed that Laura’s grandmother Hattie Button killed her husband. It was thought by the garda at the time that her fourteen-year-old daughter Isabel, who became Button after her father’s death, was also involved. Garda Liam O’Grady died years ago, but his daughter has done an interview with the newspaper. She tells them how her poor father dedicated his life to trying to bring to justice those he believed responsible for the death of his friend, Sean Murphy. The deceased’s wife was Hattie Button, an Englishwoman, who Sean met while she was minding children for a local family. Sean fell for her and they quickly married and had a daughter, but Hattie was unusual, she didn’t venture to the town much or get involved, was always considered a social outcast. Yes, Sean liked a drink, but he was a hard-working farm labourer and a good man. When asked whether Sean was violent, as bruises and cuts, old and new, were found on his wife after his death, the garda’s daughter says she doesn’t know, and anyway it doesn’t alter the fact that Hattie Button and her daughter killed Laura Button’s grandfather Sean Murphy.

Laura feels sick.

Sean was found face down in a creek on their grounds. He had drowned in shallow water. There was alcohol in his system and a blunt-force trauma to the back of his head. Sheila says her father always believed Hattie was responsible for Sean’s death, but he’d never been able to find proof that Hattie killed him. She took her daughter out of school and they became hermits, their only contact with the community was through the family business of dressmaking and alterations, which they needed to keep going. Garda O’Grady always stayed in Hattie’s life, hoping he would catch her out eventually, but it was not to be. He went to his grave feeling he had failed his friend. Laura’s mother was a simple woman, ‘something not quite right with her’, whatever she thinks about her role in Sean Murphy’s death, the garda’s daughter says it’s shameful what ‘Tom Toolin did to her, taking advantage of a sick woman. No wonder they hid the child.’ Sheila is not surprised to learn of Lyrebird’s violent behaviour in the nightclub. ‘She’s not as sweet as she makes herself out to be. She’s a liarbird, not a lyrebird. A liar like her grandmother and mother.’

Laura can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. She can’t make a sound. She reads it all over again, her precious Gaga and Mam being torn apart when they’re dead and buried. Their secrets spilling out, dirty horrible lies that they tried so hard to contain; none of their spirit captured or known, the joy and the fun, the happiness that embraced that cottage, just these cold, ugly, dark, horrible lies.

It’s Laura’s fault. She brought this on them. She should have stayed hidden in the woods.

32

‘I think she’s in shock,’ Selena, the opera singer, says. There’s a smell of cigarette smoke off her, as she’s just returned from the garden after having her hourly menthol cigarette that she thinks nobody notices her having.

The StarrQuest semi-finals are complete, everybody that has got through to the final is now in the house, the newest arrivals came late last night; Sparks, a nineteen-year-old magician, and Kevin, a young and hunky country and western singer. Despite the fact that only one of them could go through to the final, the votes had been split as the nation had fallen for both young men. Jack, in a moment of weakness, couldn’t bring himself to choose one of them and instead sent them both through. It was a results show of tension and tears. As a consequence of his heartfelt decision there will be six acts in the final next weekend and all have a week living together and to prepare their final performances. Now the five other acts stand around Laura’s bed, watching as she’s curled into a foetal position, staring into space, completely unresponsive.

‘She’s definitely in shock,’ Master Brendan of the Alice and Brendan circus act says. ‘If I’m finding this entire thing weird, imagine how she feels.’

‘I’m loving it!’ Kevin, the country and western singer, pipes up. After famously singing a song to a secret crush, admitting his love for her, he received five hundred thousand hits on YouTube. Heartfelt decisions aside, he was simply too popular an act for Jack to lose from the final. And he had moved the focus of his affections from his one true love to Alice, of Alice and Brendan the circus duo.

‘Can she hear us?’ Alice says loudly. ‘Maybe she’s had a stroke or a nervous breakdown and she can’t hear us.’

‘Of course she can hear us,’ Alan says. ‘She’s choosing not to answer.’

‘You fucking idiot,’ Mabel says.

‘Hey, you need to stop that,’ Kevin defends his crush.

‘And you need to get a sense of humour,’ Ringmaster Brendan snaps at the country and western singer who fancies his contortionist partner who he’s secretly had a crush on for years. They met when she was fourteen and he was twenty-four, and it always seemed wrong for him to tell her how he felt, as he knew her from when she was so young. But now she’s twenty-two and he’s thirty-two and it would be okay, if not for this country and western dimwit who is getting in his way.

‘Have you noticed that she hasn’t said anything?’ Selena asks.

‘I’m not fucking deaf,’ Mabel says.

‘I don’t mean talking,’ the singer says, addressing Mabel. They all see her as the extra member of the team, such is the presence she has in the house, and Alan seems entirely unable to control her. ‘She’s not making any of her sounds. She always makes her noises.’

They watch Laura, huddled in her bed, staring at the wall like she doesn’t have the contestants of a TV show gathered around her. No sounds come from her at all. It is unusual, for her.

Alice is clearly delighted by this. Less competition for her.

‘It’s like a murder mystery,’ Alice giggles. ‘Which one of us stole the Lyrebird’s lore? Well, it wasn’t me.’

‘It was them,’ Alan says, looking at the newspapers surrounding her bed. He picks up the open tabloid with the article about Laura’s mother and grandmother allegedly being responsible for Laura’s grandfather’s death. It had been published yesterday, on the final day of the StarrQuest semi-final, front page of a tabloid, LIARBIRD’S LAIR, and while Laura had been relatively silent since Alan’s arrival four days ago, she had disappeared into this state after reading it. He’s worried. He folds the paper up and tucks it under his arm, the anger building inside of him, intending to destroy it so she can’t set eyes on it again. Another tabloid article reveals the inside story of how the infamous Laura-meets-a-lyrebird photoshoot took place in Melbourne, the superb lyrebird having been shockingly captured for the purpose of promotion. This is accompanied by a large photograph of Laura beside the caged bird which has animal and bird protectors shouting out in outrage.

‘We should tell the producers,’ says Sparks nervously.

‘No,’ Alan says quickly. ‘We don’t tell the producers. They’re the ones who got her in this position. They’ll put her on the show like this if they have to.’

‘What about Bianca? She called by a few days ago to tell Laura to call some guy. She left a number but Laura barely even looked at it.’

‘We only need her to speak to people who will help her,’ Alan says, dismissing that. ‘What about the therapist we’ve been told about?’

‘Larry,’ says Sparks. He got through on his amazing card tricks, but along the way he’s developed a tremble in his fingers that he can’t control. He had a three-hour therapy session with Larry this morning.

‘Is he any good?’ Selena asks.

‘Show us your hands,’ Mabel pipes up and Alan looks scornfully at her for the inappropriate remark.

‘Sorry,’ Alan says to Sparks on Mabel’s behalf.

‘It’s okay,’ Sparks says, forgetting momentarily that Mabel is Alan.

‘You’ll call the therapist for her?’ Alan asks.

‘Yeah.’

‘Good man.’

‘You can count on Sparks,’ Mabel says as soon as Sparks has left the room. ‘Steady as anything, is our Sparks.’

The others smile and shake their heads, not wanting to laugh.

Alan admonishes Mabel again.

Laura hears them. Of course she hears them. She’s grateful that they care, but even more grateful when they finally leave her bedroom. She sits up when they’re gone, feeling panicked. She hadn’t noticed it, but they’re right: she hasn’t felt herself mimicking, or heard herself do it – not that she would always be aware of it, but she’s certain they’re correct. She hasn’t made a sound. She hasn’t been thinking about her past; no happy, sad or any kind of memories. She feels too numb to revisit a single moment of her life aside from the here and now, and now is nothing. Anything else is too painful. Her mind is completely devoid of memories, thoughts and feelings. Just here, now, this, nothing. Then the panic fades and a calm sweeps over her.

If she’s silent, then perhaps the world will be silent with her. And she finds a great freedom in that.

33

Solomon’s frustration is immense. They can’t film the documentary on Lyrebird because of StarrQuest/StarrGaze Entertainment restrictions, which Bo’s high-powered barrister father is working on. All contact is with StarrGaze Entertainment’s team of lawyers, they can’t reach Laura at all. Bo’s father had asked them, do Mouth to Mouth productions wish to issue proceedings against Lyrebird?

Solomon had been delighted and relieved to hear Bo respond with a firm ‘no’.

The entire situation is a mess and in reality he doesn’t give a damn about the documentary, all he cares about is seeing Laura. He feels like an addict, he needs her, and the more he can’t see her, the more people that say no, and slam doors, and hang up phones, the more he wants her. With filming halted on this season’s Grotesque Bodies he has nothing else to do. He doesn’t want to be at the apartment with Bo, sitting around as though they’re waiting for something to happen. Their lives are on hold, which shows him how much of their lives hinges on this project. When it’s gone, they have nothing. They talk only about Laura. First about how fascinating she is, now about how to get her back. She is like the child that was taken away from them. And it was Bo’s greed and both their naivety that caused that to happen. When Laura was with them, she tore them apart, now that she’s gone, they’re linked by her, but without her or talk of her they’ve got nothing, things have grown stale.

His priority this week has been to stay in Dublin and try to make contact with Laura, both through visiting the house and trying to contact her through Bianca, though Bianca’s requests to Laura to call Solomon have failed. He’s not sure whether to believe Bianca is passing on those messages at all. With the last of his attempts failed, he can no longer sit around the apartment with Bo feeling in limbo. Their work life in limbo, their relationship in limbo. His immediate plan is to drive to Galway to beat the shit out of Rory. He has been planning this for some time, since Tuesday morning when news of Laura’s night out hit the newspapers alongside his baby brother’s mischievous mug on almost every page. He has savoured the thoughts of what he will do to his brother and now he is ready.

The three-hour car journey does nothing to calm his anger, if anything it intensifies. He has time to dwell on all the photos in the press that keep floating to the murky surface each time Laura’s name is mentioned. Laura falling all over the place. Rory laughing. Laughing.

It’s Saturday. He calls Marie to casually ask if Rory’s home. Rory works with his dad, they both still go home to Marie for their lunch. He’s calm, he’s just enquiring, he’s sure she doesn’t notice, he doesn’t say anything about visiting, about being on the road on the way. But she knows him well. When he arrives at the house, his parents, plus brothers Cormac and Donal, are there, along with his sister Cara. The entire welcoming committee sitting at the kitchen table.

‘What’s going on?’ he asks angrily.

Marie looks down at her hands, and then away, with guilt. Then she can’t take his stare any more and crosses the kitchen to fill the kettle. Tea. Distraction.

‘It’s a Solomon anger-intervention,’ Donal jokes, but Solomon isn’t in the mood to laugh. He came here to kick the shit out of somebody, not use words. He’s been waiting for this for days, far too long actually, and he’s been sitting for hours, he has a lot of energy to dispel. He doesn’t want it to go to waste.

‘Where is he?’ Solomon asks, not even bothering to disguise what he’s come here to do.

‘Let’s talk first,’ his dad says.

‘Where is the little fucker?’ he growls. ‘Look at you all, you’re like his bodyguards, always have been. That scared little shit has never had to face up to one of his messes, ever, in his whole life. And look at all the good your protection has done for him. Still at home with Mammy and Daddy, still getting a packed lunch every day. No disrespect, Mam, but he’s a spoiled little shit. Always has been.’

Mam looks pained. ‘He’s so sorry about what happened, love. If you saw him-’

‘Sorry?’ Solomon laughs angrily. ‘Good. Tell me where he is so I can see for myself how sorry the little fucker is.’

Marie winces.

‘Enough,’ his dad says sternly.

‘He’s an idiot, Solomon,’ Donal says diplomatically. ‘We all know that. He messed up, but he didn’t mean it. He’d no idea what he was doing.’

‘Lads,’ he calms himself and looks at them all, tries to make them understand. ‘He ruined her life. On a global level, destroyed her reputation. She had nothing, lived on a mountain, knew no one, no one knew she existed and then suddenly everyone knew she existed. She had a chance…’ The anger rises again and he fights hard to beat it. ‘She’d never even had a drink before. Not one.’

Marie looks upset.

‘He takes her out – to a pub. Then to a club. Some celebrity club, just so he could get in, using her as his ticket. Nothing to do with her, what she wanted – it was all for him. A free trip to Dublin for him, what can he get out of it? At no time did he call me. I would have helped. After being surrounded by photographers, she can barely stand up, and what does he do? He takes her to a party. He lets people take photos of her, throwing up, falling over, passing out. Where the fuck was he? He should have been watching her. She was his responsibility.’

This he says almost to himself. Laura was his responsibility and he knew that. He let her slip away, he let this happen. He will beat the shit out of Rory for his own irresponsibility.

‘I can’t listen to this,’ Rory says suddenly, and Solomon spins around to come face to face with him. ‘What era are you living in? She’s a grown woman, Sol, she doesn’t need minding.’

Solomon closes his fists. Picks a place on Rory’s pretty face to hammer. Takes his time, enjoys the moment. He hears the chairs scrape as they’re pushed against the kitchen tiles. His brothers and Cara standing, readying themselves. He senses them behind him.

‘Rory,’ his dad says. ‘You were wrong and you know it. Admit it, apologise to Solomon and let’s put this behind us. Be men now.’

‘Why should I apologise to Solomon? What’s he to Laura? It’s Laura I should be talking to.’

‘You’re not going near her ever again,’ Solomon growls.

‘Neither are you, I’d say,’ Rory says with a smile.

They stare each other out of it.

Rory looks at Solomon’s fist. ‘What are you going to do, hit me?’ He smiles, a teasing smile. Solomon recalls him as a young boy, mocking his speech impediment. His stutter and his ‘w’s. He feels an uncontrollable anger, a hatred so strong he’s worried about what he could do right now. He wants to hurt him but he thinks about the ways he can without ending him.

‘Say sorry to Solomon now, Rory,’ Marie says sharply and Solomon feels like he’s a child again.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rory says finally. ‘I really am. I had no idea she would get messy like that. The reason I didn’t call you is because she said she didn’t want me to.’

Solomon’s heart pounds even faster. Everything Rory says is designed to drive Solomon’s fist through Rory’s face. Then Solomon would be wrong and everybody would run to Rory’s aid.

‘She has a name.’

‘Lyrebird,’ Rory rolls his eyes. ‘Lyrebird said she didn’t want me to call you.’

‘Her name is Laura,’ Solomon says through gritted teeth. ‘You don’t even know her fucking name.’

‘I didn’t know where to take her,’ he continues his fake apology. ‘She didn’t want to go to the hotel, she couldn’t go to your place, seeing as you’d had a falling out and she had to leave, so I thought I’d take up a few people on their kind offer to help. The girls at the party were looking after her, I thought she’d be in safe hands with them. I really didn’t know.’

Rory’s demeanour doesn’t match his tone. Solomon feels his brothers near him, just behind him.

‘Of course I’m sure we all know that this wouldn’t be such an issue if Solomon wasn’t jealous because I took Laura out for a drink.’

‘Stop it,’ Marie says.

‘Shake hands,’ Dad says.

Rory reaches out his hand, Solomon takes it. He wants to pull him in, head butt him. Break that fucking nose. Rory’s grip is tight and strong for a little fella, but then Rory always had to resort to other tactics to survive in the family, to get attention, to be seen and heard. Being ganged up against like this is a big deal for him. Even if he’s not showing it right now, even though he’s cool as a cucumber, his ‘I don’t care’ attitude doesn’t wash with Solomon. Solomon realises that this is the worst possible situation for Rory, the entire family forcing him to apologise to Solomon for something he knows he did wrong. Suddenly Solomon enjoys this knowledge, allowing Rory to think he’s getting the better of him, when the reality is that Rory’s weakness is showing. Solomon feels the tension release ever so slightly from his shoulders.

Perhaps Rory realises he’s losing Solomon’s anger, that Solomon is no longer the underdog, because he then scrapes the barrel.

‘She’s a great little ride though,’ he says, to his mother’s dismay and a yell from his dad.

Rory lets go of Solomon’s hand. Solomon’s throat is sticky and dry, his heart pounding manically, a tribal drum calling for war.

Then Solomon sees a fist arc through the air before making contact with Rory’s face. Rory staggers. Surprisingly, it’s not Solomon’s fist, it’s Cormac’s. Big brother Cormac, the responsible one. They all look at him in shock at first and no one makes a move to help Rory, who’s fallen to the floor, but then Cormac’s high-pitched cries move them to action.

‘I think I broke my fingers,’ he squeals.

Rory sits up, holding his head, in agony. ‘Who punches a forehead?’

Cara starts laughing at them all. She holds her camera up and takes photos.

Later that night, the brothers and Cara sit outside in the garden on the round garden furniture table, drinking bottles of beer. Marie is ignoring them all, giving them the silent treatment for their behaviour and their dad is supporting her by doing the same, though they all know he’s dying to join them.

Cormac’s hand is in a sling. Two fingers are broken and the mix of painkillers and alcohol has made him the entertainment of the night.

Rory sits away from Solomon, a lump the size of a quail’s egg protruding from his forehead. The storm clouds have delivered rain but nothing has dried, the landscape is utterly drenched and so they perch on the dry spots for now. One thing is preying on Solomon’s mind: did Rory sleep with Laura? He’s almost sure that Rory made it up to get at him, which he succeeded in doing, but he can’t get it out of his head. Thankfully, Cara comes to his aid.

‘You know Rory, if you did sleep with Laura, you might have to answer some questions from the guards.’

‘What?’ Rory yelps. ‘What are you on about?’

‘There’s such a thing as consent, probably not a word you’re familiar with…’

Cara explains. ‘It requires the woman saying yes. It’s a real thing. Other men actually have sex with women who aren’t locked out of their heads. Women who can see the faces of their lovers. Now I know it’s not usually how you operate, but-’

‘Shut the fuck up, Cara.’

She winks at Solomon. ‘Seriously, we all saw the photographs. The whole world saw them. She couldn’t put one foot in front of the other. If you took her to that party and did what you said you did, then you could be in serious trouble.’

Rory looks at them all, ignoring Solomon. ‘Oh, whatever. Of course I didn’t sleep with her – she could barely remember her own name. She spent the entire night vomiting.’

The relief in Solomon is overwhelming, but his heart breaks for Laura, for what she went through alone.

‘Rory was right about one thing though,’ Cormac slurs.

‘Here we go,’ Donal smirks.

‘Ah now, hear me out.’

They settle.

‘It’s clear to see that you are enamoured with this young woman, Solomon.’ It takes him a few attempts to say enamoured, but he’s intent on using it. ‘And while Rory was wrong to do what he did, you wouldn’t feel this angry if it wasn’t for your feelings for her.’

‘Cormac Fallon, Spiddal’s Dr Phil,’ Solomon laughs it off.

‘He has a point,’ Donal says.

‘Pity she likes the wrong brother,’ Rory pipes up, and receives a knock on the head from Cormac.

‘Get off me, my head is pounding.’

‘Then shut up,’ Cormac says.

They chuckle, including Rory. This behaviour is so unlike their eldest brother.

‘Bo,’ Cormac continues, scrunching up his face. ‘I’m not convinced on you and Bo.’

‘I’m not convinced on you and Madeleine,’ Solomon says quickly, taking offence, then a slug of beer.

The others oooh and watch with interest.

‘You’re right,’ Cormac says solemnly, which receives a chuckle of surprise. ‘Sometimes I’m not convinced on me and Madeleine either.’

Rory picks up his phone and starts filming.

‘Stop being a dick,’ Cara says, slapping the back of his head. He drops the phone.

Cormac continues. ‘Madeleine is… sometimes I don’t even like Madeleine.’

They all laugh while Cormac attempts to stop them so he can finish.

‘But… but… listen. She is often the most annoying person in the world. And I want to strangle her. Or leave her. But even in the worst of times – and we’ve had a lot, especially lately… this fucking menopause thing. If I could leave her until it’s over, I would. I really would.’

They piss themselves laughing, but Cara shakes her head. ‘Unbelievable.’

‘But I couldn’t. Because even when I don’t like Madeleine, I fucking love Madeleine.’

Which is possibly the most twisted but romantic thing any of them has ever said about any of their partners.

‘Anyway, where was I?’ He tries to focus on Solomon, one eye closed to help. ‘You and Bo. I don’t think you’re right together. You’re not a good match.’

‘With all due respect, Cormac – and I appreciate that you care for me,’ Solomon says softly, ‘Bo and I aren’t for anybody else to think if we’re right.’

‘Of course!’ Cormac throws his hands up and splashes his bottle contents. He reaches out and pokes his beer-drenched finger in Solomon’s chest. ‘But do you think you’re right together? Solomon, this is life brother, there’s no harm, or shame in admitting something’s not working. Get out now while you can,’ he waves his hand dismissively. ‘I don’t know what you’re hanging on for.’

The next day, struggling with a mighty hangover, Solomon drives to Dublin thinking about everything Cormac and his siblings had said to him.

It had all made so much sense last night, he would break up with Bo. Cara had coached him on the right words, they’d spoken until the sun rose, but in the cold sober light of day, it terrifies him.

He turns on the radio to distract himself.

‘And in entertainment news it is unclear whether Lyrebird will take to the stage in StarrQuest’s live final. The contestant, whose real name is Laura Button, received two hundred and fifty million views on social media following her first audition, but last weekend she hit the headlines after a night out clubbing, leading to a media backlash. Jack Starr had this to say at a press conference with the finalists today.’

‘We’re very much hoping that Lyrebird will take part. It is of course up to her, and all of us at StarrQuest will give her the encouragement and support she needs.’

‘And Lyrebird’s fellow contestant Alan, from the popular act Alan and Mabel, had this to say…’

‘Laura is doing great. She’s fine. She’s just emotionally, physically and mentally drained. It has been the most extraordinary roller coaster, for all of us, so I can’t imagine how it’s been for her. I think all she needed was a bit of R&R, being somewhere private, so she could get over what’s happened to her, because what’s happened to her has been unprecedented.’

‘On Lyrebird’s sensational night out that grabbed every front page across the world, Alan had this to say…’

‘Laura got off a flight from Australia where she’d been for only two days, working an intense schedule, she then had to go straight into rehearsals for the semi-final, which she won, and she had a few drinks for the first time in her life. She was entitled to celebrate her success. She did nothing wrong in that nightclub, it was a misunderstanding, she needed support and help, and instead people took advantage. She learned some harsh lessons, but she has learned.’

‘Will Lyrebird perform at the final?’

‘I hope she does,’ Alan says.

‘Really? But she’s your greatest competition. You two are the favourites.’

‘She’s the most genuinely lovely and naturally talented person I’ve ever met. I hope she goes up on that stage and proves to people why she got their attention in the first place, and I hope she wins.’

‘Which just makes us all love the amazing Alan and Mabel even more. So has the Lyrebird lost her lore? Tune in to the StarrQuest final to see!’

Solomon drives the car across three lanes to pull into the hard shoulder to angry drivers’ beeps. He puts on his hazards, lowers the window and breathes deeply. He has never wanted or needed somebody so much in his life.

34

When Laura chose to close her mouth, she closed all the doors around her. To her fellow contestants who she lived with, to Curtis, who she refused to see, and Bianca, who she refused to speak with, even to Solomon, who she couldn’t bear seeing after her embarrassment, and to Bo, because under StarrGaze Entertainment’s orders she’s forbidden from speaking with any media for the foreseeable future.

Despite Bo’s protestations, despite her attempts to change Jack’s mind, sweetly and then through threats of solicitor’s letters, nothing is working. Bo can barely get to Jack, Curtis is blocking everything and it seems the whole of StarrQuest is in a panic, faced with the worldwide spotlight – attention they had enjoyed when Lyrebird was attracting hundreds of millions of online views, but not now. The backlash has moved on from Lyrebird to focus on StarrQuest and StarrGaze Entertainment. They’ve been getting it from all sides: opinion pieces in the press and talk-show panels have debated whether the show failed its star. After all, wasn’t Lyrebird their responsibility? Didn’t they effectively allow this meltdown to happen? Shouldn’t they do more to screen their contestants: insist that they undergo psychiatric tests, provide therapy before, during and after the audition process and live show? Shouldn’t talent shows have a greater responsibility for their contestants’ welfare?

Jack Starr is doing interviews with CNN, Sky News and all around the world, explaining the close relationship he has with his contestants, that their welfare comes first at all times. ‘Nobody could have anticipated the effects of Lyrebird’s first audition, nobody could prepare for it. Nobody could ever know how that level of attention could affect a person. It was new to everyone and everyone was and is responsible: the show, the media, society, the public, even Lyrebird herself. It was unprecedented. Her talent is immense and I want to nurture it and her. Rest assured, that’s what we’re doing. This is entertainment. If there is no joy, what’s the point? Lyrebird has been asked many times if she wants to proceed. Whether she chooses to continue with StarrQuest or not is purely her decision, there is no pressure on her from our side.’

‘Jack, bearing in mind your own personal journey in the music business, should you not have been more prepared for the effects fame can have on an artist? Isn’t that the whole point of having a mentor like you, someone with inside knowledge of the positive and negative effects of the industry?’

Jack stares at the journalist, almost like he’s frozen, shocked. He doesn’t know how to respond. Surprise, realisation, guilt, all pass over his face at once.

‘Will Lyrebird take part in the final?’

Jack manages to compose himself. ‘Lyrebird has a lot of supporters but she has a lot of critics. She will and should prove them wrong.’

Laura turns off the television in her bedroom and there’s silence. She likes it in this room. It feels like a cocoon. Safe. Her curtains are drawn all day and night, it has a pale nude palette, nothing at all like her Cork retreat. Like the rest of the house, it’s sparse, there’s no feeling that anybody has lived here, that anybody owns it. The place has no identity, apart from the swing set and slide that stand abandoned in the garden. She likes its lack of identity. Cream and beige, a pale furry rug. She snuggles under her duvet and closes her eyes. She listens out for her sounds, but nothing comes.

Nothing at all.