7

Hank remains ignorant of Maria modelling for Daniel until he sees the painting in an exhibition, but he doesn't suspect anything about the love scenes that followed the modelling. The painting is bought by an art dealer who's acting on behalf of an anonymous buyer. Maria wonders who this could be when she gets a photo of the painting over a fireplace. It comes with a note that says 'This fills a hole in my life, but only partially'. She doesn't know that Murphy is behind the camera.

Maria's younger sister, Kirsten, has been in love with Darren since he was a boy and she was a girl. They were sixteen when they first started going out and now he's a famous pop star and it's putting a strain on their relationship. She gets to go to celebrity parties and meet celebrities who had previously existed as bright red names before exclamation marks, but now that she sees them in the flesh they're not so impressive. They're just partially concealed flesh and she wants to get away from that world and return to reality with Darren, but he's becoming one of them, like a zombie, beckoning her to join them, asking her to do photo shoots and wear expensive jewellery and knee a waiter in the groin to get in the tabloids.

Darren is the lead singer with 'Future Fog Maker', a manufactured indie band who go on tour with a team of stylists. They have to get photographed smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, so they have people to smoke some of their cigarettes and drink some of the beer before the photos are taken. Darren gets all the attention from the press but the rest of the band don't mind because they get more than enough attention from the groupies. Their latest single makes the top ten in twenty-three countries, and not just backwater countries where dancing sheep farmers can get to number one with hose pipe instrumentals.

Photographers follow Darren everywhere and it's a bit of a strain on Kirsten, partly because he has to phone the photographers in advance to tell them where he is. He punches one of them, but Darren has paid this man in advance. He's diving headfirst into celebrity life but she's waiting nervously at the edge of the diving board. "Come on," he says, "it's fun. It's perfectly safe. Statistically, you're more likely to get killed crossing the Antarctic." She sees shark-infected waters below. Leering sharks, and sharks with sneers. Cosmetically enhanced fish who'd get sick if they had to eat themselves. It's not the life for her -- she knows it's not, but she's always believed that Darren is the one for her. Always, in the past. But does she still believe it?

He loves doing photo shoots with models and singing songs about women who sound nothing like Kirsten. He says it's just an act, part of the character he's created with his management team, but he's becoming that character.

Maria doesn't feel guilty about tagging along because her little sister tagged along behind her for so many years. She knows just how vacuous this is, but she loves this world. If kneeing waiters in the groin was an Olympic sport, she could do it for her country and win because she'd knee all of the other competitors in the groin as well. She leaves big tips for the waiters and she assumes they don't feel any animosity.

Daniel tags along with her. Hank lets his brother chaperone her when he's out of town. He still doesn't suspect anything. Daniel is keeping an eye on her and she's introducing him to famous people, and famous people buy his paintings, and he becomes a famous artist.

Daniel feels cut off from all the celebrity insect-life buzzing around him, but he enjoys observing it. This is what he tells himself: "I'm an observer, an outsider looking in, a man who takes in all facets of life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful and the things that get stuck to my shoes. I process all these things and the result comes out through my pores as art." This is what he tells other people when he tells them about his art. He wouldn't like to go into celebrity party-life on a full-time basis, but he does get a slight thrill from it, a mild electric shock when the latest skeletal starlet walks by or smiles at him, and if she were to wink at him and they ended up alone together in her hotel room he'd do it for the advancement of science or art or whatever it is that goes on in his head when he processes these things.

This is what he tells himself, but the more contact he has with this world, the more he despises it. There's nothing more to see. He's processed everything he can possibly process.

Kirsten finds herself drawn to Daniel because he's the only one there with depth. She inches closer to him all the time until she's just inches away and they're alone in their own bubble at a party.

"I feel like such an outsider here," he says.

"Me too."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I hate it here."

"Darren seems to be enjoying himself."

"I don't know if that's really Darren anymore."

"Right... Who is it?"

"He's a 'character'. He says he's playing a character, and like a character actor he needs to be that character. So he is that character. All the time. And when I say, 'I'm not sure I like that character,' he says, 'It's just a character.' And that's supposed to make it okay."

"Your sister seems to like this life too."

"It's just a bit of fun for her, just a passing whim. She knows it won't last. She's always been able to enjoy things, whereas I always think about everything. I wonder what should I be doing and should I enjoy it. She just does it and enjoys it."

"I know what you mean."

"I envy her. I don't envy Darren at all. He thinks it will last forever. He's becoming part of that world. But Maria can dive right in and get out any time she wants."

"I think you're right about that. Who knows what she'll be doing in a few months."

"She won't be at these parties in a few months. She knows how vacuous it all is. She's an outsider who can enjoy the inside."

"The novelty of this life wears off. I admit I felt a bit excited by it at first, but it becomes wearying."

"I thought an artist as good as you would be way above this sort of thing from the start."

"That's the attitude I was trying to project, that I was far above it all but I chose to join it in the interests of science. Or art. Or mankind. I'm not really sure whose interests I was advancing. Well, no, I know exactly. My own."

Maria walks into a room lit by chandeliers. Her face is illuminated by a smile that dazzles everyone and nearly gives a man a heart attack. The man is Harold, a sixty-year-old film director who's had more heart attacks than hot dinners since he gave up hot dinners in favour of cold liquid ones. He wants her. He needs her. He might even love her. He fires his latest young blonde girlfriend to clear the way for Maria.

After downing a double whiskey to protect his heart he makes his way to Maria and says to her, "I need you. You're the one I've been looking for. For my film. You have to star in my film. You're the one I've been waiting for. I even prayed to God. I said, 'God, sorry about that whole business with the puppy. I need someone for my film. I have a certain face I need, a certain look. I'll send you a fax of what I'm looking for.' You have that face. God sent you to me."

"What's the film called?"

"I don't know. God's supposed to get back to me on that. I'll pay you whatever you want. Twice whatever you want. You're going to be a star."

Maria's smile is so dazzling it nearly blinds a waiter, who drops a tray full of champagne glasses.