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.