He didn’t disappoint me.

‘You’ve heard of the writer, Lois Fitzgerald-Schmidt?’ he asked, in a tone that implied that of course I had.

‘Yes!’ I said enthusiastically.

Who?

‘You have?’ Daryl asked enthusiastically back.

‘Of course,’ I said, glad to have achieved an air of animation. It seemed to please him.

‘I was in a key position for the marketing of her book, Gardening for Ballerinas, which made the New York Times list in the spring.’

‘Oh yes, I’ve heard of it.’ In fact, as I remembered, it had won novel of the year award, or something similar. I smiled across at Daryl, proud to be with someone who had such an interesting and successful career.

Thinking fast, I wondered if I should pretend I’d read the book. I could throw in a few vague sentences like ‘Wonderful lyrical use of language’, and ‘Marvellous strong imagery’. But, on balance, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to sustain an entire conversation like that.

All the same, in New York it was very important to read the books that were currently fashionable. Or at least to pretend to. I’d even heard of people offering a service where they would read the book for you then present you with a résumé of it. And for an extra charge they would give some recommended phrases to throw around at glamorous dinner parties (‘Derivative plagiarism’ and ‘Yes, but is it art?’ and ‘I liked the cucumber scene’).

So I said apologetically to Daryl ‘I haven’t got round to reading it yet. I’ve bought it, of course, and it’s in a pile by my bed that I keep trying to work my way through. It’s hard when you’re as busy as I am…’

Naturally, there wasn’t a single syllable of truth in that sentence. The only book beside my bed was The Bell Jar, which I was reading for the umpteenth time.

‘I’m going to start as soon as I’ve finished Primary Colors,’ I promised him, as I wondered if Primary Colors was still happening. It wouldn’t do to get such a thing wrong.

‘So tell me,’ I smiled winningly at him. ‘Gardening for Ballerinas, will it change my life? What’s it about?’

‘Er,’ said Daryl awkwardly. ‘You know…?’

I moved closer to him, wondering at his reticence. It was obviously a controversial book addressing what? Incest? Satanism? Cannibalism?

‘It’s about… well… gardening. For, em, ahem, ballerinas. Well, not just ballerinas, obviously,’ he added hurriedly. ‘The bending and squatting could apply to all dancers really. We’re a non-élitist publishing house.’

My mouth made shapes as if I was enunciating vowels. A, then O, then A again, then O.

‘You mean it’s not a novel?’ I finally managed.

‘No.’

‘It’s a gardening manual?’

‘Yes.’

‘And what number did it get to in the New York Times best-seller list?’

‘Sixty-nine.’

‘And what form did the work you did in your key marketing position take?’

‘I packaged up the books and sent them to the shops.’

‘Goodbye, Daryl.’

43

Not as such. I didn’t actually, there and then, utter the words ‘Goodbye, Daryl’. Not to him. But I said them to myself. Especially as he let slip that the lovely loft apartment he’d taken me to after my party wasn’t even his.

So, even though we spent the night together, and most of the next morning, I didn’t hold out any hopes that Daryl and I would be shortly applying for a joint mortgage. I only put up with him, and all the crap he talked, for my share of the drugs.

Of course the stingy creep didn’t look too pleased when it became obvious that he wasn’t going to make his escape from me with his full two grams intact.

But I just thought ‘Tough, you owe me.’

At a very late stage in the evening, it dawned on me like a punch in the face that I’d been thinking of Boating for Beginners, not Gardening for fecking Ballerinas.

In the days that followed I heard nothing from Luke. My head kept saying soothingly he’ll call. But he didn’t.

Poor Brigit was forced to come out with me every night, as I scoured the city looking for him. Everywhere we went, even if it was only down to the grocery store for ten tubes of Pringles, I was in a state of constant alert and full make-up.

I shouldn’t have let him escape, I reiterated frantically, over and over. I’ve made a terrible mistake.

We never saw him. Which wasn’t fair because in the days when I didn’t give a damn about him I could hardly put a foot outside my front door without tripping over him or one of his hairy friends.

In the end I had no choice but to co-opt a select few, a very select few, friends to assist with the search. But still no luck. If I met, say, Ed, at the Cute Hoor and he told me he’d seen Luke not ten minutes previously at Tadgh’s Boghole and Brigit and I tore at breakneck speed to the Boghole, all that would be there when we arrived would be an empty glass of JD, a smoking ashtray and a still-warm seat with a Luke’s-arse-shaped indentation in it.

Very frustrating.

I finally ran into him on the day I like to call Black Tuesday. That was the day I got sacked and Brigit got promoted.

I’d known for ages that my days were numbered at the Old Shillayleagh, and I found it hard to give a damn. I hated working there more than life itself. And ever since I’d cut out an article on impotency cures and sellotaped it onto my boss’s locker, with a Post-it saying ‘I thought you might find this helpful,’ I’d felt the unemployment line moving several steps closer.

All the same, being sacked wasn’t nice.

It became even less nice when I got home and found Brigit dancing jigs round the apartment because her salary had been doubled and she’d been given a new office and a new title. Assistant deputy vice-president of her department. ‘I only used to be junior assistant deputy vice-president, look at how far I’ve come,’ she said with glee.

‘Lovely,’ I said bitterly. ‘I suppose now you’ll go all New York and macho, getting to the office to start work at four in the morning, working till midnight, bringing files home with you, skipping holidays, thinking you’re great.’

‘I’m glad you’re so happy for me, Rachel,’ she said quietly. Then she went into her bedroom and slammed the door so hard, the front wall nearly fell off the apartment block. I stared bitterly after her. What was her problem, I wondered self-righteously. She wasn’t the one who’d just been sacked! Talk about salt being rubbed into my wound. I threw myself onto the sofa, savouring my well-deserved self-pity.