Solomon looks at her in surprise and doesn’t attempt to hide his grin from Michael.

Laura’s honour doesn’t impress Michael, who has seen enough fame-hungry blonde beauties pass through these doors.

‘It’s okay, Laura, I’ll call Jack,’ Bo says quickly, moving away from them with the phone to her ear, which bothers Solomon because he wants to know what she’s saying to her ex-boyfriend about him. Within five minutes, they’re whisked inside by Bianca, a handler equipped with a clipboard and headset, who is now leading them through a network of corridors.

‘Hey,’ Rachel says to Laura, ‘I didn’t greet you properly out there.’ She throws her hand up for a high-five, which Laura smiles at and meets.

‘How’s your baby?’ Laura asks.

‘Big and healthy,’ Rachel says with a grin.

‘Have a good morning?’ Solomon asks, trying to be casual but studying Bo and Laura’s faces for hints.

‘Yes, great,’ Bo replies, a little too clipped. ‘We went to the supermarket, then for coffee and tea, then a walk around Stephen’s Green. I showed her some great clothes stores in case she wants to, you know, know where to go.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Rachel nods, looking from one to the other.

‘I called you,’ Bo says to Rachel. ‘To see if you’d like to join us.’

‘Oh, really? I didn’t see that,’ Rachel fakes it. ‘I was at the scan.’

‘Of course!’ Bo realises. ‘I forgot. How did it go?’

‘Great. Like I said, the nurse reckons it’s a baby in there, so I’m happy,’ Rachel replies.

Laura laughs.

‘How did it go?’ Solomon asks Laura, as Bo and Rachel walk ahead of them.

Laura looks amused, then opens her mouth and Bo’s voice comes out. ‘Perhaps we should just go back to the apartment.’

It’s the way Laura says it – the tone, the clipped, agitated vibe she captures – that causes Solomon to throw his head back and laugh. He recognises the sound of Bo trying to be polite but at the same time extract herself quickly from a situation.

Bo turns self-consciously to study them both, then carries on walking.

‘Oh no,’ says Solomon. ‘It wasn’t that bad, was it?’

Laura opens her mouth and Bo speaks again. ‘Can you maybe not do that here?’

Solomon’s smile disappears.

‘It’s okay,’ Laura says quickly, hand going to his arm. He’s wearing a T-shirt, her skin touches his and something happens. A tingle rushes through both of them. She looks at his arm so that he knows she felt the same thing. ‘I was doing it more than usual,’ she explains. ‘She makes me nervous.’

‘I think perhaps the feeling is mutual,’ Solomon says.

‘I make her nervous?’

‘You’re different,’ he says, really wanting to say that Bo probably feels threatened, particularly after hearing the way Laura mimicked his laugh, the way she always wants to be with him and clearly and honestly doesn’t trust anybody else. ‘Sometimes people are nervous around different.’

She nods, understanding. ‘Me too.’

‘Are you nervous now?’

She nods again.

‘You’ll be okay,’ he says.

‘You’ll stay?’

‘I’ll stay.’ He taps his audio bag with his hand. ‘I’m always listening.’

Bianca finally leads them into a dressing room with LYREBIRD on the door.

‘So, Lyrebird, you’re here,’ Bianca says. ‘In around fifteen minutes we’ll take you to wardrobe, hair and make-up, then a sound check at around four.’ She looks down at her clipboard. ‘You’re the last act of the show, so you’ll be on stage at eight-fifty for your two-minute audition. You are…’ she consults her notes. ‘An impressionist. Is that right?’

Everyone looks at Laura. Laura looks at Solomon.

‘She’s not exactly an impressionist,’ Solomon explains. ‘She mimics though.’

‘Mimic,’ she writes down. ‘Cool. Are you her agent?’

‘Yes,’ he replies solemnly. ‘Yes, I am.’

Laura giggles. Bo rolls her eyes. ‘No, he’s not. He’s part of the documentary crew.’

Bianca looks at Solomon, clearly not liking him, heavily eyelined eyes narrowing. ‘Cool.’ But it sounds like it’s anything but cool to Bianca. ‘So the producers would like to know how many impressions, or whatever, you’re going to do?’

She looks at Laura. Again, Laura looks at Solomon.

‘We’ll discuss that now,’ he replies.

‘Now?’ her eyes widen, alarmed. ‘Cool.’ Then, ‘I’ll come back to you in fifteen minutes, okay?’

There’s radio interference on her walkie-talkie.

Laura mimics the sound and then sits down. ‘Cool,’ she says, with Bianca’s voice.

Bianca’s eyes widen. Nobody has laughed, everybody in the room is used to it now. She leaves the weird people and goes next door to the twelve-year-old gymnast.

‘I thought you were going to work with her on her audition this morning?’ Solomon says to Bo in a low voice as they set up for an interview with Laura in her dressing room.

Bo gives him a thunderous look. ‘Sol, at the butcher counter in the supermarket she made the sound of every single fucking dead animal that lay on the slab. Then she beeped every single food item on the conveyer belt as if she was a scanner. She confused the poor check-out woman so much, she wasn’t sure what she scanned.’

Solomon snorts and laughs, attracting the attention of Laura and Rachel.

‘It’s not funny!’ Bo says, her voice shrill. ‘How is that funny?’

He continues laughing until she has no choice but to give in and smile.

‘How are you feeling?’ Bo asks Laura.

They’re filming. Bo and Laura’s relationship flows so much better when there’s a camera between them.

‘I feel fine,’ Laura says. ‘A little bit anxious.’ Laura mimics last year’s winner. A seventy-year-old folk singer and harmonica player. Rachel smirks.

‘It looks exciting,’ Laura says, as if she hasn’t sounded like a mouth organ. ‘I feel excited. Like it’s the start of something new. I mean, this whole week has been new.’

‘Do you know what you’re going to do for your audition? Should you rehearse something? Plan a routine?’

Laura looks down at her fingers. ‘I don’t really plan it. It just… happens.’

‘Do you remember the first time you discovered you had this incredible ability to mimic?’

Laura is silent for a moment. Solomon is almost waiting for her to say, what ability? It has seemed so much a part of her, something she’s not conscious of. She thinks hard, eyes flicking left and right as they search. Then they stop and Solomon is sure she has remembered, as is Bo.

‘No,’ Laura says finally, avoiding all eye contact. She’s a bad liar.

The disappointment is clear in Bo’s voice. ‘Right, so it’s something you’ve always done?’

Another pause. ‘Yes. For a long time.’

‘From birth, perhaps?’

‘I don’t remember back that far.’ She smiles.

‘I don’t expect you to,’ says Bo, her tone neutral. ‘What I mean is, do you think this… ability…’

Solomon would have said talent, gift. He’s sure Bo still isn’t seeing it that way. To her it’s an affliction. Interesting only for the purpose of a documentary. Still, it’s a positive that she didn’t say disability.

There’s a knock on the door, a loud quick rap and Bianca enters.

‘I’ll take you to wardrobe now, Lyrebird.’

Solomon wants to tell Bianca that her name is Laura, not Lyrebird, which is clearly the ‘act’s’ name but he stops himself. Detach, Solomon, detach.

Keeping their sound packs on, Laura and the crew follow Bianca to wardrobe where she will try on clothes before her hair and make-up.

As she makes her way down the corridor, she turns and looks at Solomon with uncertainty written all over her face. He winks at her in support and she smiles excitedly and continues.

‘It’s a bit tight in here, ladies,’ the head stylist snaps as Rachel and her camera, then Bo, try to squeeze in after Laura. She’s not lying, the room is filled with dozens of rails of clothes from one wall to the next, there is barely room to turn around.

‘I’ll wait outside. Rachel?’ Bo says.

‘Got it,’ Rachel replies, understanding the tone of voice to mean ‘capture everything’.

‘Wow,’ Laura says. She walks down the rails, her hand running along the fabric.

‘I’m Caroline. I’ll be styling you,’ she says looking Laura up and down, scrutinising her body. ‘This is Claire.’

Claire doesn’t smile and doesn’t speak. Claire is an assistant who has probably learned not to open her mouth unless asked to.

Laura grins. ‘Mum and Gaga would love this. They were dressmakers.’

Caroline doesn’t seem overly impressed. She has ten people to style, in a room with no windows, and very little time to do it in, and a frustrating production team who keep changing their mind and expecting her to be able to pick up the pieces. But Laura moves at a different pace to everybody that’s come through the door and into Caroline’s world. She closes her eyes and suddenly the room is filled with the sound of a sewing machine. It is rhythmic and soothing, like the constant chugging of a train, a sound you want to sway with.

Caroline’s eyes fill. ‘My goodness!’ She places a hand across her stomach and another over her heart. ‘You’ve just taken me right back. That’s a Singer.’

Laura opens her eyes and smiles. ‘Yes.’

‘My mother used one of them,’ Caroline says, her hard voice suddenly emotional, her face softening. ‘I used to sit underneath the sewing table and listen to the sound all day, watching the lace float to the floor beside me.’

‘I did too,’ Laura says. ‘I used to make clothes for my dolls from the scraps.’

‘So did I!’ Caroline says, the stress completely eliminated from her face.

Laura’s not finished yet. There are new sounds, the sound of scissors clipping at fabric, the snip snip, and the tearing and ripping sound of fabric pulling apart, then back to the sewing machine, which rises and falls, quickens and slows as it turns corners, manoeuvres the fabric.