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.
Part 3
The first feathers to be shed by the male bird in the moult are the two fine, narrow, wire-like, lyre-shaped plumes which, when the tail is spread, project above the fan and are always maintained at an acute angle from the main plumes while the bird is displaying …
When the tail moult is complete, the male bird is hardly to be distinguished by a casual observer from the female for a period of several weeks. During this period the male bird keeps more or less in retirement. He disappears from his accustomed haunts and his singing is rarely to be heard … He never dances and seldom sings … Moreover, his general mien is sad and dejected. Close and prolonged study has induced the conclusion that the male Menura is an intensely proud and vain creature, who, when shorn of his magnificence, feels ashamed and disconsolate and is happiest in hiding.
Ambrose Pratt, The Lore of the Lyrebird
35
Bo sits alone in the silent apartment watching the clock. Solomon hasn’t returned from his trip to Galway yet, he hasn’t even phoned. She hasn’t called him either. She’s not sure if he’s coming home today or tomorrow. She’s not sure she cares. They’ve had so little to say to each other that’s positive, lately, and it’s clear to her that they’ve reached the end. This wasn’t just a speedbump – those were designed to make you slow down, get your wits about you, process what’s happening. No, this time they’d come up against an enormous stop sign, yelling at them to quit. No more moving forward.
She sits at the table, her head spinning, contemplating what’s left of her life. Her documentary has fallen apart, she doesn’t want to press charges against Laura as her dad was suggesting – that was never her intention. She needs to move on, that much she knows. But how can she move on? The embarrassment is not the worst thing that has come from this, though. Her reputation is a little tarnished, but that’s not what’s bothering her. It’s that she can’t bring herself to move on to the next story until she’s finished telling this one. Despite whatever Solomon might think, her heart is in Lyrebird’s story.
The phone rings and when she looks at the caller ID her heart leaps. Since they broke up and she embarked on a relationship with Solomon, Jack always managed to call her at her weakest moment; as if he could sense when she’s at her most vulnerable, her most likely moment to let him in. Since this Lyrebird legal mess had begun, she had been praying for the return of those calls that she’d begged him to cease.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi,’ Jack says, sounding defeated.
‘I appreciate you finally calling me back,’ she says unable to keep the anger from her tone.
He sighs. ‘Bo Peep. Help.’