The home struck Emily as distinctly Nicole-focused. As you entered, on the wall was a framed caricature of Nicole, with comical distortions applied to her chin and hair, all done in black-and-white except for her diamond-shaped red lips. Alongside this illustration hung a signed football jersey and photographs of Nicole singing, and diplomas, awards, citations, photographs of Nicole in Elizabethan costume. Novelty items on a sideboard: beads, decorative plates, ceramic echidnas, ashtrays in the shape of comic masks. Jamie put his hands behind his back, as if he didn’t want to touch anything in case it broke. Sophia explained to her friend that Emily, a journalist, had been helping Jamie with one of his assignments and recognised talent in the boy.

Nicole said: ‘Really? What sort of talent?’

‘Academic,’ said Emily.

‘I thought he was underachieving.’

‘That’s where Emily comes in,’ Sophia replied, sitting down with Nicole.

Emily and Jamie entered a bedroom where cardboard boxes and stacked chairs were pushed up against one wall. Sophia’s television and VCR and portable stereo bunked in one corner of the room, their cords all bundled together. In the midst of the clutter was Jamie’s single bed.

‘Mum says she needs only four hours sleep a night. That’s why she took the couch,’ said Jamie. ‘She claims she doesn’t need to sleep much when she’s not working.’

Emily asked: ‘How did you get money for the snake?’

‘Lucky gave it to me.’

‘Thought you didn’t see much of him.’

‘We don’t. I called Lucky and said I wanted some shoes to play basketball and he was like, “Sure, kid,” and deposited the money in my Junior Savers account. But I changed my mind about the basketball team. I’d rather have a snake. Maybe I’ve said too much. Don’t tell Mum about Lucky and the money. She’ll hate him and he’s a nice man. I’ll say I traded football cards for cash at school. That’s the story. You think it’s an okay story?’

‘It’s fine. It’s clever,’ said Emily. Jamie stuffed a package of mice in her handbag.

In the backyard, Nicole’s daughters jumped on a trampoline, two counterforces rising and falling, their blonde braids flapping. Emily closed the curtains. In the wardrobe, behind a pile of video cassettes and an untidy bundle of clothes, was a large Tupperware container that housed Louis II. Jamie carefully lifted the lid. The snake did not move.

Jamie said: ‘Their bad odour is perhaps part of their self-defence mechanism. It’s discharged from their cloaca. The smell doesn’t trouble me.’