As soon as she had gone, Claire burst into the room and grabbed me. ‘Come here,’ she said urgently. ‘Don’t listen to a word she says.’

I hero-worshipped Claire who, at sixteen, seemed outrageously glamorous. Naturally, I believed everything she told me.

‘Don’t walk tall,’ she urged, ‘don’t hold your head up.’

‘Not,’ she added ominously, ‘if you ever want a boy friend.’

Well, of course I wanted a boyfriend, I wanted that more than anything in the whole world, even more than a rara skirt or a pair of tukka boots, so I listened to what she had to tell me.

‘They won’t go near you if you’re taller than them,’ she advised. I nodded solemnly. She was so wise! ‘In fact, unless you’re a lot shorter than them, they don’t like it. It makes them feel threatened,’ she finished darkly.

‘Short and stupid,’ she summed-up. ‘They like that. That’s their favourite.’

So I had taken Claire’s advice to heart. And I found it to be true. In fact Claire would have been well-advised to heed her own words. I was convinced that Claire’s marriage had broken up simply because when she wore high heels, she was the same height as James. His ego just wasn’t able for it.

14

And so to bed. Cue: yawns, outstretched arms, rubbing of knuckles into eyes, smacking lips and muttering ‘Myum, myum, myum’, putting on a fleece-lined, Care Bears nightshirt and snuggling under the weight of a protective duvet to gratefully receive twelve hours of restoring, healing, happy sleep.

Fat chance!

Or if you prefer, Me arse!

There was a shock in store for me when I slumped into my room, all set to fling myself on the bed and not take off my make-up. (A special treat, the not-taking-off-my-make-up one, reserved for evenings of particular exhaustion. Or inebriation, of course.) To my dismay, I found Chaquie already in the bedroom. Dammit, I’d forgotten about her.

She was sitting on her bed, elegant ankles crossed, as she gave herself what appeared to my untutored eye to be a manicure. I had never needed a manicure to tidy up my nails. My life-long habit of biting them to the quick did just as well.

‘Oh, hello,’ I said nervously. Would I have to talk to her…?

‘Hello, Rachel.’

Apparently I would.

‘Come in and sit down.’ She patted her bed invitingly. ‘My heart went out to you at dinner, sitting next to that disgusting animal, John Joe. The noises that come out of that man. He must eat with the pigs at home.’

The relief! It was as though someone had just unlaced the tight, tight knot of tension in my chest.

‘Yes,’ I breathed, delighted to be with someone who felt the same way as I did. ‘I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never heard anyt…’

With pursed lips she nodded along with me for a moment or two as she did things with an ice-pop stick to her nails. Then, out of the blue, she demanded ‘Are you married, Rachel?’

‘No,’ I said. I’d managed to stop thinking about Luke for two seconds, but her question had pitched me right back into it. My brain tightened because for a second I simply could not believe it was over with him.

‘Are you married?’ I managed to ask.

‘Oh Lord, yes!’ she tinkled. She rolled her eyes at me, to indicate long-sufferingness.

I realized that she wasn’t interested in me at all. She had simply opened the conversation to bring it round to her.

‘For my sins!’ She gave me a dazzling smile. ‘My husband’s name is Dermot.’ She pronounced it ‘Durm’t’ to let me know she was posh.

I smiled weakly.

‘Twenty-five happy years,’ she said.

‘I was married straight out of school,’ she added hastily. ‘A schoolgirl bride.’

I forced another smile.

Suddenly she flung down her ice-pop stick with force.

‘I can’t believe Durm’t put me in here!’ she exclaimed. She moved closer and to my alarm she had tears in her eyes. ‘I just can’t believe it. I’ve been a devoted wife all these years and this is how he repays me!’

‘You’re in for, er, alcoholism?’ I asked discreedy. I didn’t want to sound as if I was accusing her of anything.

‘Oh please,’ she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand. ‘Me? An alcoholic?’

She opened her well-made-up eyes wide in disbelief.

‘A few Bacardis and coke with the girls once in a while,’ she went on. ‘To let my hair down. God knows I deserve it, considering that I work my fingers to the bone for that man.’

‘But why did Durm’t put you in here?’ I asked in alarm. A few Bacardis and coke didn’t sound serious.

And I wished I hadn’t called him ‘Durm’t’. It was an awful habit of mine. Talking in the same accent as the person I was with.

‘Don’t ask me, Rachel,’ said Chaquie. ‘Do I look like an alcoholic to you?’

‘God, no.’ I laughed with the warmth of understanding. ‘Do I look like a drug addict to you?’

‘I wouldn’t know, Rachel.’ She couldn’t keep the disgust from her voice. ‘I don’t move in those sort of circles.’

‘Well, I’m not.’

Stupid cow, I thought. I was hurt. Especially when I’d been so nice about her not being an alcoholic.

‘Where are your family from?’ she asked, with another abrupt change of subject.

‘Blackrock,’ I mumbled sulkily.

‘What road?’

I told her. She obviously approved. ‘Oh I know it. A friend of mine used to live there but they sold it and bought a lovely one in Killiney with a view over the bay and five bathrooms. She got a famous architect over from London to do it for her.’

‘Is that right?’ I asked snidely. ‘Who is he? I know a bit about architecture, myself I didn’t know the first thing, of course, but she had annoyed me.

‘Oh, what’s that his name is?’ she said vaguely. ‘Geoff something or other.’

‘Never heard of him.’

She didn’t turn a hair. ‘You can’t know that much about architecture, then,’ she said airily.

Which served me right for being bitchy. I had learnt my lesson.

Oh yes, I thought bitterly, I had learnt my lesson, all right. Next time I’d be far nastier to her.