Then her dad came home at the weekends and smiled and smiled and smiled.

‘What’ll we do today?’ He’d clap his hands together and beam around at his family.

‘What do I care?’ Monica mumbled. ‘I’m dying inside.’

‘Sure, what would you want to do a stupid thing like that for?’ he joshed.

Turning to Ashling, he smiled and said, as if sharing a secret, ‘Your mother’s artistic’

Her mother had always written poetry. She’d even had a poem published in an anthology when Ashling was a baby, and since the crying and strangeness had begun, she’d written a lot more. Ashling knew about poems. They were pretty rhyming words about sunsets and flowers, usually daffodils. But when, at Clodagh’s giggling instigation, they sneaked a look at some of Monica’s poems, Ashling was shocked raw by them. Through the haze of distress there was one thing she was violently grateful for – that Clodagh couldn’t really read.

The poems didn’t rhyme, the verse lengths were all wrong, but it was the individual words that were the greatest cause for concern. There were no flowers in Monica Kennedy’s poems. Instead there were strange, brutal terms that Ashling spent a long time deciphering.

Stitched into silence,

my blood is black.

I am broken glass,

I am rusting blades,

I am the punishment and the crime.

Back in the present, Ashling found Dylan watching her with anxious interest. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

She nodded assent.

‘For a minute I thought we’d lost you there.’

‘I’m fine,’ Ashling insisted. ‘Clodagh hasn’t started writing poetry, has she?’ She made herself smile as she asked.

‘Clodagh! The very thought.’ Dylan quietly chuckled, as if realizing how silly he’d been. ‘So if she starts writing poems, then I should be worried?’

‘But until then, don’t bother. She’s probably just tired and needs a break. Can’t you do something nice? Cheer her up by going on a holiday or something?’ Another one, she thought bitchily. She felt a vague resentment that Dylan was asking her for advice on how to make Clodagh’s life even nicer.

‘I can’t take any time off at the moment,’ Dylan said.

‘Well, go out for a fancy-shmancy dinner then.’

‘Clodagh’s worried about the babysitters.’

‘Why, what’s wrong with them?’

Dylan laughed, slightly embarrassed. ‘She’s afraid that they might be child-abusers. Or that they might hit the kids. To be honest I sometimes worry too.’

‘Jesus, they keep inventing new things for everyone to worry about. So get someone you can trust. How about your mother?’

‘Oh no!’ Dylan quirked his mouth down ruefully. ‘That would be so not a good idea.’

Ashling nodded. True enough. The only time that young Mrs Kelly and not-so-young Mrs Kelly saw eye-to-eye was when they were nose-to-nose in an argument – usually over the best way to take care of Dylan and Dylan’s children.

‘And Clodagh’s mother is crippled with arthritis,’ Dylan said. ‘She wouldn’t be able to manage the kids.’

‘I can babysit if you want,’ Ashling offered.

‘On a weekend night? A wild young thing like yourself?’

After a hesitation, she said, ‘Yes… Yes,’ she said again, more firmly and with slight defiance, ‘why not?’

If she was genuinely unavailable, it would increase the chances of Marcus Valentine ringing.

‘That’s spectacular.’ Dylan perked up. ‘Thanks Ashling, you’re a pet. I’ll book a table for Saturday night. I’ll see if I can get one at L’Oeuf.’

But of course, Ashling thought, amused despite herself. Where else? L’Oeuf was the elder statesman of Dublin restaurants. It had the unique distinction of always being in fashion – despite not serving Asian fusion or Modern Irish. Perennially glamorous, the food would bring a tear to your eye. So would the prices.

‘Your mammy, she’s better now, isn’t she?’ Dylan tried to make up for forcing the issue in the first place.

‘Better’ was a relative concept and anyway, that wasn’t always the point, but to please him, Ashling nodded and said, ‘Yes, she’s better now.’

‘You’re a great girl, Ashling.’ Dylan bade her farewell.

I am, Ashling thought drily, Aren’t I?

23

Ten minutes away from Dylan and Ashling, Lisa and Jasper Ffrench, the celebrity chef, were dining at the Clarence. Jasper had specifically requested that he be taken there, just so he could scorn the food as not being a quarter as good as what he produced in his eponymous restaurant. He was good-looking, unpleasant, manifestly thought he was a genius and had nothing but jealousy for everyone else in his field. ‘Amateurs,’ he declared, waving his sixth glass of wine, ‘they’re nothing but amateurs and dilettantes. Marco Pierre White – amateur! Alasdair Little – amateur!’

Jesus Christ, you’re a pain. Lisa nodded and smiled. Good thing that difficult men were her speciality. ‘That’s why you’re the one we’ve chosen to be part of Colleens success, Jasper.’

Not exactly true. Jasper was the one who was chosen because Conrad Gallagher had already turned her down, pleading pressure of work.

As Jasper made great inroads into the second bottle of wine, Lisa dazzled him with talk of synergy. Without actually promising it, she implied that a column in Colleen could easily lead to his own programme on Channel 9, Randolph Media’s television station.

‘I’ll do it!’ Jasper decided. ‘Bike me over a contract in the morning.’

‘I actually have one here,’ Lisa said smoothly, striking while the iron was hot.

Jasper scribbled his signature, and only just in time, because there was a tricky moment when the waiter came to take her plate away. As usual, Lisa had moved her food around, but had eaten almost nothing.

‘Was there anything wrong with your dinner?’ the waiter asked.

‘No. It was delicious but –’ Lisa became aware of Jasper glaring across the table at her and quickly amended her verdict to a more neutral, ‘It was fine.’

‘If it was anything like as insultingly bad as mine I’m not surprised she couldn’t force it down,’ Jasper challenged. ‘Black-pudding blinis? That’s beyond a cliché. That’s a joke!’