‘I don’t know, I just am.’

‘You’re scaring me, Brigit.’ I looked at her as if I’d never seen her before. ‘You know what Claire always says, “The only way to get over one man is to get under another.” And you haven’t been riding anyone else, I’d have noticed.’

‘Doesn’t matter, I’m still over him.

‘Aren’t you glad for me?’ Brigit asked. ‘Aren’t you glad I’m no longer in rag order?’

‘Well, yes, of course I am. I’m just surprised, that’s all.’

But I wasn’t glad. I was unsettled and uncomfortable. And confused.

First her promotion, now this.

Brigit and I had always been so alike. Apart from our attitudes to our careers – in other words, Brigit had an attitude – our reactions to life were nearly always identical. In fact, the only other thing we didn’t share was the same taste in men, which was probably why our friendship had lasted as long as it had. Nothing like a clash of interests along the lines of ‘Here! I saw him first’ to put the mockers on a friendship that had endured since junior school.

But now she’d gone all weird on me. I couldn’t understand how she’d just turned around and ceased to care about Carlos. Because I’d never, under my own steam, got over a man. It was always a team effort. I needed a new man to come along and put his back into making me miserable before I could get over the grief caused by the previous one.

My reaction to rejection was to go out and seek immediate reassurance. Usually by sleeping with someone else. Or at least to give it my best shot; naturally I wasn’t always successful.

I had always envied those women who said things like ‘After Alex left me, I just shut down, I couldn’t feel anything for another man for nearly a year.’

I would have loved to have had no feelings. Because men were mad about you if you felt nothing for them.

And now Brigit seemed to be turning into the very image of those spooky self-contained women.

How dare she be over Carlos without having met someone else?

‘Go to the fridge,’ she pushed me with her foot. ‘Go to the fridge and find me something cold.’

‘I didn’t know Helenka lived in our fridge,’ I japed and we both laughed limply and weakly.

‘I can’t, Brigit,’ I apologized. ‘I’ve no energy, I’d collapse.’

‘You lazy, useless hoor,’ she complained. ‘You’d have energy aplenty if Luke seventies-throwback Costello arrived around here with his lad in his hand looking for some lurve action.’

I wished she hadn’t said that, though, because a shock of desire for him passed through me, leaving me dissatisfied and fidgety. It was hours before I was due to see him and suddenly everything until then seemed pointless and boring.

‘D’you want anything?’ Brigit asked, hauling herself to her feet.

‘Bring us a beer, why don’t you,’ I suggested.

‘There’s none left,’ she called a few moments later, from the kitchen. From the tone of her voice I sensed great narkiness emanating from her.

Not again, I thought dispiritedly. She’d been so moody lately. What the hell was up with her?

A good ride, that’s what she needed. It was what we all needed. I might even start a petition and carry a placard saying, ‘Ride Brigit Lenehan now!’ and ‘Ride the New York one.’ And maybe I’d organize a march from the Cute Hoor to Tadhg’s Boghole, me at its head, shouting into a megaphone ‘WHAT DO WE WANT?’

And everyone else would have to shout back ‘A RIDE FOR BRIGIT LENEHAN.’

And then I’d yell ‘WHEN DO WE WANT IT?’

And everyone would reply ‘NOW!’

‘Yeah,’ Brigit repeated nastily. ‘No beer left. Who would have thought it?’

‘I said I was sorry,’ I called out to her.

Then I steeled myself and added ‘How many more times do I have to say it.’

I was a lot braver than I would have been if Brigit had still been in the room. I was hopeless at face-to-face confrontations.

I had always found it easier to have arguments with people when they weren’t actually there. In fact, I’d had some of my best rows with people who were in other countries at the time.

‘I mean, for God’s sake, Rachel,’ she called back. ‘We needed everything. Bread, diet coke, and that’s diet coca cola, dear, not the coke you usually use to lose weight…’

I curled inwards with fear at the nastiness of her tone.

‘… jack’s roll, coffee, cheese. And what do you come back with? With bread? No. With cheese? No. With any of the things on the list? No. Instead she arrives back…’

I knew things had got pretty bad when she started to talk about me in the third person.

‘… and what has she bought, what has she got with her except twenty-four cans of lager and a bag of Doritos. Which is all very well if it’s her own money she’s spending. If it’s her own money she’s spending she can buy as much beer as she likes.’

Her voice was getting nearer, so I shrank back against the bed.

‘And then for her to drink them all in a matter of hours.’ She had appeared in the doorway and I wished I was in a North Korean logging camp, where they work the prisoners twenty-three hours a day. It had to be preferable to how Brigit was making me feel.

‘Sorry,’ I said, because it was all I could say.

She ignored me. When I couldn’t bear the tension any longer I braved the silence by saying again, ‘I’m sorry, Brigit.’

She looked at me. We locked eyes for ages.

I couldn’t read her face, but I willed and willed her to forgive me. I tried to send thought messages from my head to hers.

Forgive Rachel, I vibed. Be her friend.

It must have worked because Brigit’s face softened. Seizing my advantage, I said ‘Sorry’ again. I figured it couldn’t do any harm and it might actually do some good.

‘I know you are,’ she eventually admitted.

I breathed out with relief.

‘Although, really, come on,’ she said, her voice a lot more normal. ‘Twenty-four cans of beer.’ She started to laugh and I felt elated with deliverance.

‘Right,’ I said, hauling myself off the bed, fighting through the thick air. ‘I must get ready for Luke.’