‘Good,’ he said, his pupils dilating in a gratifying flicker of interest. ‘Good.’

Lisa was almost home from work when she bumped into a wrecked-looking, mustardy-blonde woman wearing a bobbly track-suit and – very incongruously – carrying a DKNY tote. Lisa’s DKNY tote. At least it had been until she’d given it to Francine, one of the little girls on the road. She had a feeling the fried-looking woman – Kathy? – was Francine’s mother.

‘Hello Lisa,’ she beamed. ‘Are you well?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ Lisa said coolly. How did everyone round here know her name?

‘I’m just off to work. Silver-service gig at the Harbison. Thirty quid into your hand and your taxi home.’ Kathy appeared to be talking about waitressing. She waved two hundred pounds’ worth of handbag at Lisa. ‘I’ll be late. See ya.’

Lisa was suddenly visited with inspiration. ‘Um, Kathy – it is Kathy, isn’t it? Would you be interested in a cleaning job?’

‘I thought you’d never ask!’

‘Oh? Why’s that?’

‘Er, you’re a busy woman, when would you get time for cleaning?’ What Kathy really meant was that Francine had inveigled an invitation into Lisa’s house and had reported back that it was a right pigsty. ‘Miles worse than ours!’

Ashling, meanwhile, had spent Wednesday evening ferrying a gift-wrapped Portmeirion bowl to Phelim’s mother, thus completing her set.

‘My work here is done,’ she teased.

Then she had to sit for way too long in Mrs Egan’s kitchen, listening to the familiar lament.

‘Phelim didn’t know what side his bread was buttered on. He should have married you, Ashling.’

She waited for Ashling to agree but, for the first time ever, she didn’t.

When Ashling got home, there was no message on her machine. Damn Joy and her boys’ rulebook.

‘It’s only nine o’clock, you pessimist,’ Joy berated, when she arrived to accompany Ashling on her vigil. ‘Still plenty of time. Open a bottle of wine and I’ll tell you all the nice things Mick said to me last night.’

Ashling could hardly keep up with the roller-coaster twists and turns of Joy and Mick’s relationship. They were almost as bad as Jack Devine and his little finger-biting friend. She located the corkscrew, poured two glasses of wine and settled in to analyse, syllable by syllable, everything Mick had ever said to Joy.

‘… So then he said that I was the kind of woman who liked late nights. What do you think he meant by that? He means I’m the kind of woman you party with but don’t marry, doesn’t he?’

‘Maybe he just means that you like late nights.’

Joy shook her head energetically. ‘No, there’s always a subtext…’

‘Ted says there isn’t. That when a man says something he means just what he says.’

‘What would he know?’

Reading meaning into everything was so involving that when the call came at seven minutes past ten, Ashling had nearly forgotten she was waiting for it.

‘Answer it.’ Joy nodded at the ringing phone. But Ashling was almost afraid to, in case it wasn’t him.

‘Hello,’ she said tentatively.

‘Hello, is that Ashling, patron saint of comedians? It’s Marcus here. Marcus Valentine.’

‘Hi,’ Ashling said. ‘It’s him,’ she mouthed silently at Joy, then dabbed her fingertip about her face to indicate freckles. ‘What did you call me?’ she giggled.

‘Patron saint of comedians. At Ted Mullins’s first gig, you helped him out, remember? And I thought to myself, that girl is a comedian’s friend.’

She considered – yes, she liked the idea of being patron saint of comedians.

‘So, how are you?’ he asked. She decided she liked his voice. You’d never know it belonged to a freckly man. ‘Been to any good comedy gigs lately?’

She giggled again. ‘I was at one on Saturday night.’

‘You’ll have to tell me all about it,’ he laughed, in his freckle-free voice.

‘I will,’ she heard herself giggle in reply. From far away she wondered what was with all the giggling. She sounded like a half-wit.

‘Any chance that you’d come out to play this Saturday night?’ he invited.

‘Oh, I can’t.’ There was genuine regret in her voice. She thought about explaining about having to babysit for Clodagh and somehow managed to stop herself. It wouldn’t do any harm if he thought she had a life.

‘Going away for the bank-holiday weekend?’ He sounded disappointed.

‘No, just busy on Saturday night.’

‘And I’m busy on Sunday.’

Conversation stalled, then erupted simultaneously on both sides.

‘Doing anything on Monday?’ he asked, at the same time as she suggested, ‘How about Monday?’

She giggled. Again.

‘Sounds to me like we have a plan,’ he said. ‘How about I call you on Monday morning – not too early – and we take it from there?’

‘I’ll see you then!’

‘You will,’ he said, his pitch warm and full of promise.

Ashling put down the phone. ‘Oh my God, I’m going out with freckly Marcus Valentine on Monday.’ She was frothy with excitement and shock. ‘I haven’t been on a date for years. Not since Phelim.’

‘Happy now?’ Joy asked.

Ashling nodded cautiously. Now that he had rung, there was always the fear that she’d go off him again.

‘Right then,’ Joy ordered. ‘Let’s get you into training. Repeat after me, “Oh Marcus! Marcus!” ’

The following morning when Ashling arrived at work, Lisa called her over. ‘Hey, guess who rang me last night?’

Ashling looked at her combative, competitive expression, at the triumph that lit her grey eyes.

‘Marcus Valentine?’ Who else could it be?

‘Too right,’ Lisa agreed. ‘Marcus Valentine.’

‘Oh yeh?’ Ashling put her hand on her hip with bold attitude. ‘’Cos he rang me too.’

Lisa’s mouth half-opened at this unexpected news. She’d thought she was the winner.

‘When are you meeting him?’ Ashling asked.