‘Get dressed, Craig,’ she called. ‘Molly, hurry, put your clothes on. Flor will be here.’

Thundering down the stairs, breakfast was the usual war-zone.

‘Don’t want the All-Bran,’ Craig screeched and bawled. ‘Want the Coco Pops.’

‘You can’t have the Coco Pops until the All-Bran is eaten,’ Clodagh said, pretending for a moment that she might be obeyed.

Her weekly shop included six-pack selection boxes of cereal, of which the Sugar-Puffs and Coco Pops always got scoffed immediately, while the boring ones like All-Bran mounted up in an abandoned slush-pile. Until they’d been consumed, she tried to resist being bullied into opening a new selection. And always caved in. Particularly today because time was of the essence. Tearing cellophane from a virgin six-pack, she thumped the Coco Pops in front of Craig. Then in her nightdress she hurried out to the car, retrieving several shopping bags from their hiding place in the boot. She often did that when she bought something new to wear. Even though Dylan never complained about her spending money on clothes, it didn’t stop her feeling guilty.

But this was different. While Dylan had been at work on the bank holiday, Clodagh had dumped the children with her arthritic mother and gone on a mini-spree. The bags that she hustled into the house contained young, funky party clothes, clothes that she wasn’t entirely confident how to wear. She’d also bought a suit in honour of her visit to the employment agency – about which Dylan knew nothing. She didn’t know why she hadn’t told him but she had a vague, free-floating suspicion that he wouldn’t approve.

Back in her room, she frantically snapped price tags and labels from the grey skirt and jacket and got dressed. The suit had been expensive. Sick-makingly so, but she reasoned that she’d get to wear it again and again when she got a job. Fifteen-denier tights, high black shoes and a white shirt followed. After she’d applied lipstick and arranged her hair into a neat French twist, she felt she looked good.

Apart from her bloodshot eye, that is.

She wasn’t in time to escape Flor this morning. She was lumbering through the gate just as Clodagh was hustling Craig and Molly out the door.

‘How are you, Flor?’

‘I was over at Frawley on Friday,’ Flor replied. Frawley was her doctor. Though Clodagh had never met him, she felt she knew him intimately.

‘What had he to say?’

‘It’s got to come out.’

‘What has?’

‘My womb, what else?’ Flor hooted in surprise.

‘Bloody hell, that’s awful news.’ Clodagh summoned energy to administer sympathy and woman-to-woman understanding.

‘It is not!’

‘Aren’t you upset?’

‘Why would I be?’

‘Aren’t you worried that you’ll feel…’ Clodagh stalled. She’d been about to say, ‘Less of a woman?’ But that was way too tactless. Instead she settled for, ‘Aren’t you worried that you’ll feel a loss?’

‘Not a bit if it,’ Flor said gaily. ‘Whip it out. Sure, it’s only a nuisance. No good ever came of it. What would you like me to do for you today?’

‘Oh.’ Clodagh was mortified. ‘A little bit of ironing, if you’re able. And maybe the bathroom. Whatever you’re able for really…’

Pushing open the door of the city-centre employment agency, fear and excitement manifested themselves in Clodagh’s trembling hands. She stopped before a young girl with a pale-haired chignon, whose fresh, apricot-bloom skin was smothered with heavy foundation.

‘I have an appointment with Yvonne Hughes.’

The girl stood up. ‘Hello,’ she said coolly, with surprising confidence. ‘I’m Yvonne Hughes.’

‘Oh.’ Clodagh had expected someone a lot older.

Then Yvonne gave her the mother of all firm handshakes, as though she was in training to be a male politician. ‘Take a seat.’

Clodagh palmed over her CV, which had got slightly bent in her bag.

‘Now let’s have a look.’ Yvonne had a delicate, very deliberate way with her hands. She kept stroking the CV with the pads of her splayed, child-like fingers, flattening it out, straightening it up, realigning it with the edge of her desk. Then before she turned the page she took a moment to grasp the corner of it between her thumb and forefinger and did a brief frenzy of rubbing, just to make sure she hadn’t picked up two pages at once. For some reason, this really irritated Clodagh.

‘You’ve been out of the workplace for a long time?’ Yvonne said. ‘It’s… how many… over five years.’

‘I had a baby. I never intended to stay away so long, but then I had another child, and the time never seemed right until now.’ Clodagh defended herself in a rush.

‘I… seeeeeee…’ Yvonne continued to toy with Clodagh’s nerves as she studied her career details. ‘Since you’ve left school, you’ve worked as a hotel booking clerk, receptionist at a sound studio, cashier in a restaurant, filing clerk in a solicitor’s office, goods inward for a clothing company, cashier at Dublin zoo, receptionist in an architect’s firm and a booking clerk at a travel agent’s?’ Clodagh had made Ashling put down everything she’d ever done, just to show that she was versatile. ‘You stayed… three days at Dublin zoo?’

‘It was the smell,’ Clodagh admitted. ‘No matter where I went I could smell the elephant house. I’ll never forget it. Even my sandwiches tasted of it…’

‘Your longest stint was at the travel agent’s,’ Yvonne interrupted. ‘You were there for two years?’

‘That’s right,’ Clodagh said, eagerly. Somehow she’d moved forward so that she was sitting on the edge of her chair.

‘Were you promoted in that time?’

‘Well, no.’ Clodagh was taken aback. How could she explain that you could only be promoted to be a supervisor and that everyone both despised and pitied the supervisors.

‘Have you done any of the travel-agency exams?’

Clodagh nearly laughed. The very thought! That’s why you leave school, isn’t it? So that you never have to sit another exam?

Yvonne twiddled her fingers in the air, before bringing each one down separately, to deliberately, hypnotically stroke the page flat again. ‘What software did you use there?’