‘Anyway, I’ve to go out to the credit union,’ he lied. And off he raced.

Ashling slumped at a desk and tears were way too close for comfort. Her ear hurt, she was exhausted, she’d have to go to the party with flat, filthy, greasy hair and everyone else would look fantastic. She cupped a hand over her throbbing ear and let a few exploratory trickles run down her face.

‘What’s wrong?’

She jumped. It was Jack Devine, studying her with what was almost concern.

‘Nothing,’ she mumbled.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘The party’s tonight,’ she recited resentfully. ‘My hair is dirty, I can’t get a hairdresser’s appointment for love nor money, I can’t wash it myself because I have an ear infection and no one will help me do it here.’

‘Who’s no one? Bernard? Was that why he was leaving at such high speed? He nearly knocked me over coming out of the lift.’

‘He’s gone to the credit union.’

‘No, he’s not. He only goes to the credit union on a Friday. God, you must have really spooked him.’

Jack had a good old laugh at that while Ashling regarded him sullenly. Then he laid down his pile of documents and abruptly snapped into action. ‘Right then, come on!’

‘Come on what?’

‘Come on to the bathroom till we wash your hair.’

She turned her dismal face up to his. ‘You’re busy,’ she accused. He was always busy.

‘It won’t take long to wash your hair. Let’s go!’

‘Which bathroom?’ she finally asked.

‘The gen –’ he started, then stopped. They locked eyes in a silent struggle. ‘But –’

‘Not the gents’, she said, as firmly as she could.

‘But –’

‘No.’ Bad enough for Jack Devine to be washing her hair, but to have to eyeball a wall of urinals into the bargain – I don’t think so.

‘All right then,’ he sighed, defeated.

‘It’s not a bit like our one.’ Jack hovered on the threshold, looking into the innocuous washroom as if it was something remarkable, frightening even.

‘Come on,’ Ashling said snippily, trying to hide her awkwardness. She took the rubber shower-hose that had been a freebie from a shampoo company and tried to suction it on to the tap. But it concertinaed up into bendy uselessness. ‘No-good pile of shite.’ Her jaw was clenched. Could this day get any worse?

‘Give it here.’ He leant over her, and she stepped smartly out of the way. With one upward yank he thrust it on to the faucet.

‘Thanks,’ she muttered.

‘Now what?’ He watched her dash her hands under the pinpricks of water, adjusting the tap until she got the right temperature.

Tipping her head forward she leant into the white porcelain basin. ‘Get it wet first. And mind my ear.’ God, she could have done without this!

Uncertainly he picked up the hissing shower-head and buzzed an experimental trail of water over her head. Her brown hair changed instantly to a black slick.

‘You’ve to get it all wet,’ she called, her voice upside-down smothered.

‘I know!’ She felt him start at her left ear – the good one – lifting the hair, systematically separating it into hanks, soaking it all, moving around to her hairline, then down to her neck. It tickled, not unpleasantly.

As he stretched to reach it all, he was bent over her yielding back and his thigh was near against her side. At the same time that she realized she could feel the heat of him, she became very aware that the door was shut. They were alone. She started to sweat.

But as the trail of water tickled its way towards her right ear, she was diverted by fear. ‘Careful!’

‘All right!’ Jack was disappointed. He’d thought he was doing quite well for a man who’d never washed anyone’s hair other than his own before.

‘Sorry.’ Her voice was muffled. ‘But if any water gets in, the eardrum will perforate. It’s happened twice already.’

‘Right, I get the picture.’ He made himself slow right down and, with his fingers, stroked gentle furrows to sluice water away from the danger area. To his surprise there was something about the arc of skin at the back of her ear that bizarrely touched him. That little line of clean tenderness before her hair sprang into vibrant life. It looked so pitiful and sweet and inexplicably brave. And the big, idiotic-looking lump of cotton wool which blossomed from the side of her head… He swallowed.

‘Shampoo,’ she interrupted. ‘Put a blob on the hair, then lather it –’

‘Ashling, I know how shampoo works.’

‘Oh. Of course.’

Slowly he began to circle his fingers on her scalp, working the shampoo through. It was unexpectedly pleasurable. She closed her eyes and let herself lapse into it, letting the last exhausting month, her enormous workload recede.

‘How’m I doing?’ he asked.

‘Fine.’

‘I always wanted to be good with my hands,’ he admitted. He sounded wistful.

‘You couldn’t be a hairdresser,’ she murmured, half-resenting having to speak, so much was she enjoying this. ‘You’re not camp enough.’

Her skull tingled with ecstasy as he worked his hard, sure hands along her. She was going to be dead late for Niamh Cusack and frankly, she didn’t give a shite. Little shivery thrills crawled along her hairline, the tension departed her over-stressed body and the only sound in the shady room was that of Jack’s breathing. Slumped over the sink, she was sleepily cocooned in his warmth. Bliss… But then, as she felt an ache opening way down in her, she became frightened. He was not giving her a normal shampoo. She knew it. He must know it. It was far too intimate.

And there was something else. A presence. An upright hardness that was hovering around her liver, just about where Jack Devine’s groin was. Or was she imagining it… ?

‘Perhaps you could rinse it now,’ she said in a little voice. ‘And put some conditioner in, but do it quick, I’ll be late.’

This was Jack Devine. Her boss’s boss. She didn’t know what was going on, but whatever it: was, it was too freaky.

The very second he finished, she squeezed out the excess water, then saw him approaching with the towel. ‘I can dry it myself, thanks.’ She was breathless.