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huge spectacle, as if Hollywood in its death throes were trying to say, ‘Look at us! We do it better than the television can!’
    ‘We’ll come by and meet with you properly,’ Mr Featherstone told Joe and his brother. ‘I’d like for you to get to know Eve. I think she’s very special.’
    ‘We should … arrange that.’ Joe Baxter was looking me up and down once more. ‘Miss Noel, I agree with Louis, for once. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’ He took my hand. His was large, soft like a baby’s, and slightly clammy. He breathed through his mouth, I noticed. I wondered if it was adenoids. ‘Yes,’ he said to Mr Featherstone. ‘Bring Miss Noel over, we’ll have that meeting. Maybe we’ll – ah, run into you again tonight.’
    ‘Bye, fellas.’ Don stubbed out his cigarette, and winked at me. ‘Miss Noel, my pleasure. Remember to enjoy the sunshine while you’re here. And the butter.’
    He touched my arm lightly, then turned around and walked out of the door.
    ‘Who was that?’ I asked Mrs Featherstone, who was ushering me towards another group of short, suited, bespectacled men.
    ‘Joe and Lenny Baxter? They’re the heads of Monumental Films, have you really not heard of Monumental Films?’
    ‘Of course, yes,’ I said. ‘I didn’t realise. That’s – gosh.’ I cleared my throat, trying not to watch Don’s disappearing form. ‘And the writer – Don?’
    ‘Oh, Don Matthews,’ she said dismissively. ‘Well, he’s a writer. Like they say. I don’t know what he’s doing here, except Don always was good at gatecrashing a party. He drinks.’
    ‘He wrote
Too Many Stars
,’ Mr Featherstone said absently, watching the Baxter brothers as they walked slowly away, to be fallen upon by other guests. ‘He’s damn good, when he’s not intoxicated.’
    I gasped. ‘
Too Many Stars
? Oh, I saw that, it must have been four, five times? It’s wonderful! He – he
wrote
it?’
    ‘She’s got enough people to memorise without clogging her brain up with nonentities like Don Matthews,’ said Mrs Featherstone, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘Who’s next?’
    ‘Well.’ Mr Featherstone scanned the crowd. ‘I wanted to get the Baxters, that’s the prize. If I could put her in front of them they’d see—’ He nodded at me, his expression slightly softening. ‘Honey, you did very well. Make nice with the Baxters if you run into them again, OK? I want them to help us with the picture.’
    It was hot, and the smell of lilies and heavy perfume was overwhelming, suddenly. ‘May I be excused for a moment?’ I heard myself say. ‘I’d like to use the – er –’
    ‘What? Oh, yes, of course.’ Mr and Mrs Featherstone parted in alarm; any reference to reality or, heaven forbid, bodily functions, was abhorrent to them. I’d discovered this the evening I arrived in Los Angeles, tired, bewildered and starving after a flight from London that was exhilarating at first, then terrifying, then just terribly tiring. When we got to the hotel I’d said I felt I might be sick, and both of them had reared back as if I was carrying the bubonic plague.
    I slipped through the crowd, past the ladies in their thick silk cocktail dresses, heavy diamonds and rubies and emeralds and sapphires on their honey skin, in their ears, on their fingers – and the gentlemen, all smoking, gathered in knots, talking in low voices. I recognised one ageing matinee idol, his once-black hair greying at the temples and his face puffy with drink, and a vivacious singer, whom I’d read about in a magazine only two weeks ago, nuzzling the neck of an old man who I knew wasn’t her husband, a film actor. But they all had something in common, the guests: they looked as though they were Someone, from the piano player to the lady at the door with the ravaged, over-made-up face. The party was for a producer, thrown by another producer, to celebrate something. I never did find out what, but it was like so many parties I was to go to. It was