Page 63 of Lyrebird

‘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.