Jack Devine had rung his mother on Sunday morning. ‘I’ll be out later,’ he said. ‘And can I bring a friend?’

His mother had nearly choked with excitement. ‘A lady friend?’

‘A lady friend.’

Lulu Devine tried very hard to keep her mouth shut and failed utterly. ‘Is it Dee?’

‘No, Ma,’ Jack sighed, ‘not Dee.’

‘Ah well. Any sightings of her?’ Lulu was torn between missing the woman who’d ditched her beloved only son and partisan hatred of her.

‘Actually, yes,’ Jack admitted. ‘I saw her in Drury Street carpark. She sends you her regards.’

‘How is she?’

‘She’s getting married.’

Hope sprang eternal. ‘To you?’ Lulu gasped.

‘No.’

‘The bitch!’

‘Ah no,’ Jack soothed. At the time it hadn’t been the most welcome news he’d ever received, but not the worst either. ‘She was right not to marry me. We’d grown apart. She just saw it sooner than I did.’

‘And this girl you’re bringing today?’

‘Her name is Mai. She’s great, but a bit nervous.’

‘We’ll be nice to her.’

Wearing a demure fifties-style shirtwaister that she’d bought in an Oxfam shop almost as a joke, and sandals that were only a shameful three inches high, Mai sat beside Jack for the drive to Raheny.

‘Will they mind me being half-Vietnamese? Are they racist?’

Jack shook his head in alarm. ‘Not at all’ He touched her hand in support. ‘Mai, don’t worry, they’re decent people.’

‘And they’re both teachers, you say?’

‘Retired now, but they were.’

Lulu and Geoffrey pulled out all the stops – welcoming Mai with two-handed handshakes, dashing the newspapers off the couch so she could sit on it, showing Mai photos of Jack when he was little.

‘He was gorgeous,’ Lulu sighed meltingly, flashing Mai a picture of Jack as a pretty four-year-old on his first day at school. ‘And look at this one.’ A colour shot of a gawky teenage Jack standing next to a little table.

‘I made that table,’ Jack said proudly.

‘He’s great with his hands,’ Lulu confided.

I know, Mai agreed, and for a horror-stricken second wondered if she’d said it aloud.

Mai’s nervousness continued to be lovebombed away, and things were going well until she noticed a photo on the mantelpiece. A younger, thinner, less careworn Jack with his arm around a tall, brown-haired girl who smiled with upright confidence. Lulu clocked it at the exact same moment, and she collided with Mai in a horrified eye-meet. Why hadn’t she hidden it?

‘Who’s your friend?’ Mai asked Jack, almost enjoying tormenting herself. She knew all about Dee, how she and Jack had lived together since their college days and how, when after nine years together they’d decided to get married, Dee had done a runner. She was dying to get a look at her.

The potential awkwardness was sidestepped by the arrival of Karen, Jack’s older sister, with her husband and her three children. No sooner were their rowdy greetings out of the way than Jenny, Jack’s younger sister, rolled in, also with her husband and children in tow.

‘Come on, we’ll head off,’ Jack said presently, when Mai started to look overwhelmed.

Lulu and Geoffrey watched the car pull away.

‘A lovely girl,’ Lulu said.

‘With a most unusual job,’ Geoffrey remarked.

‘Selling mobile phones?’

Geoffrey twisted to look at her in surprise. ‘Selling mobile phones? That’s not what she told me!’

32

Hair. On legs. Too much of it. Ashling was in a depilatory dilemma. She’d got her legs waxed a couple of weeks before during the Phantom Summer, so the hairs were too short to be done again. But they were too long, oh yes, way too long, to go to bed with someone.

So was she planning to sleep with Marcus Valentine? Well, who knows, she thought. But she didn’t want her hairy legs to be an impediment.

She could shave them, she supposed. Except she couldn’t. Once you start getting your legs waxed, it is strictly verboten to undo all the good work by shaving them and turning them bristly and spiky again. Julie, the girl who waxed her legs, would kill her.

It had to be Immac and due to some terrible lapse, Ashling was out of it. Ted was dispatched to the nearest chemist with a handwritten note.

‘Why can’t you go?’ he grumbled, embarrassed.

Ashling indicated the tin-foil wrapped around her head. Tve hot oil in my hair. If I went out like this everyone would think the aliens had landed.’

‘As if! They’d know the aliens wouldn’t be able to find a parking space in this city. Ah, Ashling,’ he complained. ‘do I have to give the note to the girl? Can’t I just pick it off the shelf?’

‘No. There are too many variations and you’re a man. I want plain-flavoured mousse and you’d come back with lemon-flavoured gel. Or worse, you might even get me the spatula one. Now, please go!’

Astonishingly, the mission was successful and Ashling repaired to the bathroom to stand in the bath, her legs fizzing with noxious white stuff as she waited for the hairs to burn off. She sighed. Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman.

The beautifying frenzy had kicked off when Marcus phoned on Monday afternoon and suggested, ‘How about it?’

‘How about what?’

‘Whatever. A drink? A bag of chips? Rampant sex?’

‘A drink sounds great. So does a bag of chips.’

He took a moment. ‘And the rampant sex?’ he enquired, like a cute little boy.

Ashling swallowed and tried to sound jokey. ‘We’ll have to see about that.’

‘If I’m good?’

‘If you’re good.’

Then Ashling raced into action, a blur of rubbing stuff on her or rubbing stuff off. Over the course of the afternoon she washed and heavily conditioned her hair, exfoliated her entire body, removed the chipped polish from her toenails and applied fresh stuff, melted away the hairs on her legs, slathered herself in Gucci Envy moisturizer which was only wheeled out on special occasions, combed quarter of a tube of smoothing creme through her hair, plastered herself in make-up – this was no time for subtlety – and drenched herself in Envy eau de parfum.