The dressing room at twelve past midnight smells of hairspray and the cold half of a rider nobody touched.

The hall is empty. You can hear the crew striking the front barriers two floors down, and the party upstairs under it, a bass line going through the floor.

Clifford is sitting on the arm of the old leather couch with the credit sheet flat on his knee and the pen still in his hand.

he says.

He turns the sheet round so you can read the writing credit, then turns it back before you can decide anything about it.

He is twenty-five, still in the black shirt he came off stage in, the dog tag he has worn since he was nineteen hanging out of it, and his hands are shaking in a way they did not shake in front of four thousand people.

He puts the sheet down on the cushion beside him, not between you.

he says.