The first person Ashling saw when she walked in was the enthusiastic bloke who’d given her the note saying ‘Bellez-moi’.

‘Shite,’ she exhaled.

‘What?’ Joy hissed, terrified that Ashling had spotted Half-man-half-badger snogging someone else.

‘Nothing.’

‘There he is!’ Joy noticed. Leaning against a wall – a risky business in these gerry-converted flats – was her quarry. She slipped her moorings and was gone. Suddenly alone, Ashling gave Bellez-moi a cheesy, sweaty-apologetic grin. To her great alarm, instead of repelling him, it sent him hurtling towards her.

‘You never called me,’ he declared.

‘Mmmm.’ She tried another smile, while inching away.

‘Why not?’

She opened her mouth to launch into a long list of lies. I lost the piece of paper, I’m deaf and dumb, there was a typhoon in Stephen’s Street and the phone lines were down…

Unexpectedly, she had it. ‘I can’t speak French,’ she said triumphantly. How about that for a watertight excuse?

He smiled the wistful smile of one who knows when he’s not wanted.

‘I’m sure you’re very nice and everything,’ she added hastily, keen not to cause any hurt. ‘But I didn’t know you and –’

‘Well you’re never likely to if you don’t ring me,’ he pointed out, pleasantly.

‘Yes, but…’ Then she hit on something. ‘Isn’t it more traditional for the man to ask for the woman’s number, and for him to phone her?’

‘I was trying to be liberated, but right you are then, can I have your number?’

He has freckles, she thought, wondering how to get out of this. She didn’t want to give her number to an enthusiastic man with freckles. But he had his pen out and his eyes were keen and warm. She swallowed away the rage of being put in such a spot. Pushed it down, buried it. ‘Six, seven, seven, four, three, two –’

She wavered over the final digit. Should she say ‘Two’ when it was actually ‘Three’? The moment took for ever.

‘Three,’ she said, in a sigh.

‘And your name?’ His smile flashed bright in the darkened room.

‘Ashling.’

What was his name? Something silly. Cupid, or something.

‘… Valentine,’ he said. ‘Marcus Valentine. I’ll call you.’

This was one instance, Ashling thought angrily, when ‘I’ll call you’ meant just that. Why did the awful ones always ring and the good-looking ones never?

Through the crowds she spotted Joy conversing energetically with Half-man-half-badger. Good, now she could go home. ‘See ya,’ she said to Marcus.

She was too old for this studenty-type shite. On the way out she tripped over Ted, talking to a gamine redhead. He was smiling a smile Ashling didn’t recognize: no longer a panting, please-love-me rictus, but something more contained. Even his body language had altered. Instead of bending forward, he tilted away slightly, so the girl had to lean towards him.

‘Howya.’ Ashling greeted him with a punch to his upper arm.

‘Ashling!’ Excitedly he tried to trip her up.

Greetings having been exchanged, he turned to the little red-head. ‘Suzie, this is my friend, Ashling.’

Suzie gave a suspicious nod.

‘Have you a drink?’ Ted asked Ashling.

‘No, I’m not staying. I’m knackered.’

Indecision zigzagged across Ted’s thin face before he surprised everyone by saying, ‘Hold on, I’ll come with you.’

Outside, in the cool night air, Ashling exclaimed, ‘What are you at? She was into you.’

‘No point being too eager.’

Ashling felt a pang. She and Ted used to take it in turns to be the walking wounded. His new-found confidence had altered things between them.

‘Anyway, she’s a comedy groupie,’ he said. ‘I’ll see her again.’

You couldn’t get a taxi in Dublin for love nor money on a Saturday night. Those who lived in distant suburbs tried to beat the four-hour queues by walking out of town in the hope of flagging a taxi on its way back in. Which meant that on Ted and Ashling’s walk home into town, there was a constant stream of Night-of-the-Living-Dead-style drunken zombies lurching in their dozens towards them.

‘So how’s the job going?’ Ted asked, side-stepping another zigzagging reveller.

Ashling hesitated. ‘Great in lots of ways. It’s glamorous. Sometimes. When I’m not cross-eyed from photocopying press releases, that is.’

‘Have you found out why the Mercedes girlie is called after a car?’

‘Her mother is Spanish. Actually, she’s very nice, once you talk to her,’ Ashling elaborated. ‘She’s just quiet and extremely posh. Married to a rich fella, hangs around with a horsey crowd and I get the impression her job is only a hobby. But she’s nice.’

‘And how are you getting on with the boss-man who doesn’t like you?’

Ashling’s stomach tightened. ‘He still doesn’t like me. Yesterday he called me Little Miss Fix-it just because I offered him two Anadins for his headache.’

‘The bollocks. Maybe you were enemies in a former life and that’s why you don’t get on in this one.’

‘Do you think so?’ Ashling exclaimed. Then took one look at Ted’s grinning face. ‘Oh, you don’t, I see. Oh, ye of little faith. The next time you want your future foretold, don’t come to me.’

‘Sorry, Ashling.’ He flung his arm confidently around her neck. ‘Well, this will cheer you up – I’m doing a gig at the River Club next Saturday night. Will you come?’

‘Didn’t I just say that I’m not foretelling your future? You’ll have to wait and see.’

13

On Monday morning Craig followed his mother around the room, whining, ‘Why are you tidying?’ Clodagh snatched up a snarl of tights and flung them in the linen basket, then launched herself on the mountain of clothes on the bedroom chair, her arms a blur as she tossed jumpers into drawers, dressing gowns on to pegs and – after a short hesitation where everything became just too much – everything else under the bed.

‘Is Grandma Kelly coming?’ Craig pestered.

He fully expected the answer to be in the affirmative – this sort of frenzy was usually followed a short time afterwards by a visit from Dylan’s mother.