The sound of gla.s.s breaking; my mother throwing a plate.

'He has has him. Oh no...oh no. Please Huey, please Huey. him. Oh no...oh no. Please Huey, please Huey. Stop! Stop!'

The sound of...what? Something being hit against a fridge? A body, an arm. A coil of snake flesh.

'Jesus Christ...you knocked him out...you actually knocked him right out.'

's.h.i.t, I didn't mean to...is it dead?'

'I...yes. Yes, I think so.'

I stand at the kitchen door. The scene is bleak. Huey laid out on the table, blood dripping off Michael's fist. Tess's party outfit is ripped up and torn, and a dead boa constrictor is laid out on the floor, it's long body lifeless and limp; it's head bowed and half strangled off. Tess is heaving in between sobs. I think she will throw up soon. Michael looks like he's in shock. I don't know what to say, who to comfort. I don't know who it is I'm meant to hug. I feel like anything could happen. The violence might erupt again, it's there in the room; atoms of it racing to four corners of the wall that might snap back together at any second. I'm crying. I'm crying out. Tess is picking up a knife and holding it to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I shout at her to stop but she doesn't hear me.

'Hey. Hey Hey. Claire, it's all right...you're having a bad dream...come on, wake up.'

I sit bolt upright on the mattress; my limbs are sticky with perspiration. I try hard to focus in the dark.

'Is it OK? Is everyone...are you all right?'

'I'm fine. I'm fine...try and relax now. I'll tell you all about it in the morning.'

'I heard...I thought...did I hear fighting?'

'Huey, he's pretty mashed. He had another go at the snake.'

'It's dead.'

'No. It isn't, it's alive. Tess calmed Huey down, he's gone to bed.'

I lay back down on the mattress. I still feel a little panicked, disorientated.

'I watched him,' I say, 'while you were out. On the video...I watched Huey's film.'

'Did you,' says Michael, yawning and stroking my head. 'How was it?'

'It was...it was good.'

Michael curls up beside me, holding me tight until my heart slows.

'I wondered where you'd got to,' I say, quietly. 'It got so late. You never called.'

'I'm here now,' he tells me. 'I'm here now.'

Guess Who That Party Was For?

Huey is sat in the living room, sorting through his drawer full of coupons: money off burgers and wine boxes, and discounts on whitening toothpaste and fungicidal sprays for athlete's foot. A visit to the Everglades; discount entry to the zoo; a free guided tour of the deco district.

'You want this?'

I shake my head.

'You sure? It's a pretty cool tour. If you want to know about the history, the architecture of this place, this tour is a good place to start.'

I thank him. I take the coupon. Huey goes back to his sorting.

'Aren't you going to throw any of them away?'

'Maybe the lice powder. I don't think I'm likely to get hair lice.'

He stops. He thinks. He runs his hand over his trousers.

'Unless I get them in my pubic hair. I might need this if I ever get them in my p.u.b.es.'

He folds the lice powder coupon neatly back into the centre of the pile. Just in case.

'So, did we wake you last night? I'm sorry about that...I was in an odd sort of mood when we got home.'

'That's OK. This is your place...it's good of you to let us stay here. You don't have to keep quiet for me.'

'You think I'm weird, though, I suppose? You heard me try to get at the snake?'

'I was half asleep. I thought...maybe I dreamt it?'

'No, you didn't dream it. I was wasted last night. I drank far too much at that party.'

I try hard to look sympathetic. Huey decides to change the subject.

'So, who's your favourite actor?' he says, testing me. 'In films. Who's your favourite actor of all time?'

'I don't know...Brando, De Niro...Nicholson maybe?'

Huey looks disappointed, he shakes his head.

'No, no no. You're saying that because you think you ought to. You're saying that because somebody else told you they were good. Think for yourself. Who do you you really like. When you see them on the screen, who really moves you?' really like. When you see them on the screen, who really moves you?'

I try to think of a good film I've seen recently. I try to come up with a great performance. I still think I like Jack Nicholson. But nothing he's done lately. I wonder if I should tell Huey that.

'Well, I don't know, it's difficult...I'd need some more time to think about it.'

'You should know just like that,' says Huey, snapping his fingers. 'If they're great you should know just like that. My favourite actor is Eduardo Garcia. He's new, he's Peruvian. Peruvian cinema is up and coming.'

'Really...well...'

'You've never heard of him, right?'

I shake my head.

'Amazing. Amazing Amazing. This guy's got everything going on. It's like he's mainlining emotion when he's up there. He's not done all that much yet, nothing commercial anyway, but man, he's going to be huge. Integrity, that's what he's got. He's not in it for the money, not for the fame game. He's in it for the pa.s.sion, for the art.'

Huey visibly relaxes in his chair; just thinking about this actor cheers him up.

'That's what Tess said about you,' I say, gently, as Huey reshuffles his coupons.

'Really?'

'Well, not in so many words, but I think that's what she meant. She said it wasn't about vanity or ego with you; she said it was all about the acting.'

'Tess doesn't know s.h.i.t about acting,' he says. 'She just wants the big house and the pool. She want the position, the status, the money. Tess just wants the dresses and the t.i.ts.'

'Huey, I don't think that's fair.'

'No,' he says, softly. 'I know it's not.'

I stare right at him. He looks tired. He has no hat on this morning, and his head, when you see it naked, it sort of shocks you. Some men look OK bald, but Huey doesn't. His cranium is all out of shape. It's b.u.mpy, rough and asymmetrical, it's hard to believe he looked so good with hair.

'I watched your film last night. I'm sorry...if I wasn't supposed to.'

'What did you think?' he says, not bothering to look up.

'Well...I mean, I don't know all that much about it...perhaps I'm not the best one to judge. I don't even know who my favourite actor is.'

'Don't vacillate, Claire. Give it to me straight. You're the audience, you're the real people. You're not an expert so you're the best kind of judge, man. It's all about someone like you.'

I take a breath.

'I thought you were brilliant. I thought you were bold and spare and absolutely real and I should say, before I watched it...I didn't think you had anything like that in you. When your wife closed the door at the end of the film and you walked away, I felt like you might die from pain.'

Huey looks floored.

'You're being honest? You're not just spinning me a line?'

'No. I promise you. I'm not.'

Huey digs to the bottom of his empty coupons bag and pulls out a creased clipping from the LA Times LA Times.

'It wasn't a big budget feature,' he says. 'We didn't get all that much press. But they thought I was OK, the critics that saw it. They seemed to think I did OK.'

He did more than OK, the reviewer loved him.

'I lose myself in front of the camera,' he says, rubbing his head. 'I'm like a blank canvas, or something. I don't know...it's hard to work out. I'm not so great at expressing myself, not in real life but it's like the camera, it gives me permission. I don't have to put on any front. I don't feel choked up or self-conscious. It's some weird f.u.c.ked-up alchemy...it's exquisite. I just...I become someone else.'

He trails off. He sighs.

'Now all I get offered is these stereotyped roles. Bad man number three. Young thug with chainsaw. Unhinged psychopath with sword. Tess had all these dreams for us, you know? She had the whole thing planned right out. She wanted us to be a celebrity couple or some c.r.a.p like that, she was fixing up all these interviews for me to do. It was...I don't know...the publicity part, I always hated it. I never knew what they expected me to be. Then the hair went, then the confidence, then...well, you know the rest of the story. If I could just have done that film, man. If they'd only let me wear that wig. They wouldn't even have had to have paid me.'

Huey gets back to his sorting. He finds a coupon for oven-ready turkey: fifteen per cent off at Heartland supermarkets.

'Do you like turkey?'

'Not really.'

'No, me neither.'

He folds the coupon back into his pile, rubs at his temples and apologises for being so morose.

'Sorry,' he says. 'It's this hangover, it's fierce.'

'Sure...don't worry. I understand.'

'Great news about your brother though, huh? I meant to say something before...it really is great news.'

'Thanks, Huey, it is. All I have to do now is find him.'

Huey stares at his hands.

'You ever think...I mean, did you ever wonder? What if he doesn't want to be found?'

'It's funny, someone else said that. But that's not the point.'

'Isn't it?'

'No. It's really not. People miss him, Huey. People really miss him.'

I wake Michael up for the second time in two days. Again he pulls me down into bed.

'Where were you? I missed you.'

'I got up. I was talking to Huey.'

'Is he OK? Did he tell you?'

'Tell me what?'

'About last night.'

'He said he got drunk. He said that he tried to attack the snake again.'

Michael sn.i.g.g.e.rs and stretches his legs.

'He didn't tell you about the c.o.c.ktail party? He didn't tell you who was there?'

'No.'

'Guess who it was?'

'I don't know Michael, who was it?'