‘Lisa Edwards, editor-in-chief, Colleen magazine,’ Lisa moved amongst the photographers, informing them. ‘Lisa Edwards. Lisa Edwards. I’m an old friend of Tara’s.’

‘How do you know Tara Palmtree?’ Ashling asked, in awe, when Lisa returned to her on the sidelines, where she’d been completely ignored by the photographers.

‘I don’t.’ Lisa surprised her with a grin. ‘But rule number two – never let the truth stand in the way of a good story.’

Lisa swept into the hotel, Ashling trotting behind her. Two handsome young men came forward, greeted them and relieved Ashling of her jacket. But Lisa airily refused to relinquish hers.

‘May I remind you of rule number three,’ Lisa muttered tetchily, en route to the reception room. ‘We never leave our jacket. You want to give the impression that you’re very busy, just popping in for a few minutes, that you’ve a far more interesting life going on out there.’

‘Sorry,’ Ashling said humbly. ‘I didn’t realize.’

Into the party room where a see-through-skinny woman dressed head-to-toe in Morocco’s Summer collection established who they were and made them sign a visitors’ book.

Lisa scribbled a perfunctory few words, then handed the pen to Ashling who beamed with delight.

‘Me too?’ she squeaked.

Lisa pursed her lips and shook her head in warning. Calm down!

‘Sorry,’ Ashling whispered, but couldn’t help taking great care as she wrote neatly, ‘Ashling Kennedy, Assistant Editor, Colleen magazine.’

Lisa ran a French-manicured nail down the list of names. ‘Rule number four, as you know,’ she advised, ‘look at the book. See who’s here.’

‘So we know who to meet.’ Ashling understood.

Lisa looked at her as if she was mad. ‘No! So we know who to avoid!’

‘And who should we avoid?’

With contempt, Lisa surveyed the room, full of liggers from rival magazines. ‘Just about everyone.’

But Ashling should know all this – and it had just become clear to Lisa that she hadn’t even a grasp of the basics. In high alarm, she whispered, ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never been to a publicity bash before? What about when you were with Woman’s Place?’

‘We didn’t get many invites,’ Ashling apologized. ‘Certainly nothing as glamorous as this. I suppose our readership was too old. And when we did get invited to the launch of a new colostomy bag or sheltered-housing project or whatever, Sally Healy was nearly always the one who got to go.’

What Ashling didn’t add was that Sally Healy was a round, mumsy type, who was friendly to everyone. She had none of Lisa’s hard, lacquered rivalry or strange, aggressive rules.

‘See him over there –’ Awestruck, Ashling indicated a tall, Ken-doll-type man. ‘He’s Marty Hunter, a television presenter.’

‘Déjà vu,’ Lisa snorted. ‘He was at the Bailey’s bash yesterday and the MaxMara one on Monday.’

This plunged Ashling into a distressed silence. She’d had high hopes for this do. She’d wanted to shepherd and mind Lisa and prove to her that she needed her. And she’d anticipated that she’d win some much-coveted respect from Lisa by her indispensable insider knowledge on famous Irish people – knowledge that Lisa, as an English woman, couldn’t possibly hope to possess. But Lisa was miles ahead of her, already had a handle on the celebrity situation and seemed irritated by Ashling’s amateurish attempts to help.

A roaming waitress stopped and thrust a tray at them. The food was Moroccan-themed: couscous, Merguez sausages, lamb canapés. The drink, surprisingly, was vodka. Not very Moroccan, but Lisa didn’t care. She ate what she could, but couldn’t go berserk, because she was constantly talking to people, Ashling trailing in her wake. Energetically, charmingly, Lisa worked the room like a pro – although it delivered few surprises.

‘Same old, same old,’ she sighed to Ashling. ‘The Irish Liggerati – most of these sad losers would show up at the opening of a can of beans. Which brings me smoothly to rule five: use the fact that you still have your jacket as an excuse to escape. When someone becomes that soupçon too boring, you can say you have to go to the cloakroom.’

Wandering around the room were a few doe-eyed models, their unformed, unripe bodies dressed by Morocco. Now and again a PR girl shunted one of them in front of Ashling and Lisa, who were expected to ooh and aah about the clothes. Ashling, hot with embarrassment, did her best, but Lisa barely looked.

‘It could be worse,’ she confided, after another adolescent jerked and twisted in front of them, then departed. ‘At least it’s not swimwear. That happened at a sit-down dinner in London – trying to eat my meal while six girls stuck their bums and boobs into my plate. Ugh.’

Then she told Ashling what Ashling was beginning to realize anyway. ‘Rule number – what are we up to now? six? – there’s no such thing as a free anything. Come to something like this and you have to endure the hard sell. Oh no, there’s that creepy bloke from the Sunday Times, let’s move over here.’

Ashling became more and more diminished by Lisa’s encyclopaedic knowledge of almost everyone in the room. She’d been living in Ireland less than two weeks and already it seemed she’d bonded with – and dismissed – most of Who’s Who.

With her stapled-on smile securely in place, Lisa swivelled discreetly on her Jimmy Choo heel. Had she missed anyone? Then she spotted a pretty young man, squirming uncomfortably in a too-new-looking suit.

‘Who’s he?’ she asked, but Ashling had no idea. ‘Let’s find out, shall we?’

‘How?’

‘By asking him.’ Lisa seemed amused at Ashling’s shock.

Assuming a wide smile and twinkling eyes, Lisa descended on the boy, Ashling tagging behind. Up close he had spots on his youthful chin.

‘Lisa Edwards, Colleen magazine.’ She extended her smooth, tanned hand.

‘Shane Dockery.’ He ran a miserable finger under his tight shirt collar.

‘From Laddz,’ Lisa finished for him.

‘Have you heard of us?’ he exclaimed. No one else at this bash had a clue who he was.

‘’Course.’ Lisa had seen a tiny mention of them in one of the Sunday papers and had jotted down their names, along with any other names that she thought she should know. ‘You’re the new boy-band. Going to be bigger than Take That ever were.’