The high she was on lifted even further. Tonight was the night. Since he’d come back from New Orleans they’d all been too busy for enjoyment, she’d barely had time to flirt with him. But they could rest on their laurels after tonight and she fully intended to have him resting alongside her. She scanned her audience with a transcendental smile. Where the fuck was Ashling? Ah, there she was. Lisa gave the nod – time for the bouquet.

After the speeches, the partying moved up several gears. Calvin looked quite alarmed – they didn’t drink like this in New York. And where had Jack disappeared to?

Jack, worn out from glad-handing, had found a quiet seat in a corner and fallen gratefully into it. On the table there were some abandoned pieces of sushi – which someone had clearly been too perplexed by to eat.

Then, shattering his calm, the nearby swing doors burst violently open and, completely in time to the music, in danced Ashling, holding a glass and a fag. She was a surprisingly good dancer, every part of her body moving like a rhythmic sackful of puppies. Possibly because she was very, very drunk, he realized.

She made her way over to Jack, flung down her bag with drunken force, then noticed something on her knee. ‘Ladder alert!’ she announced. ‘Pass me my bag.’ Her fag thrust in her mouth, her eyes narrowed against the smoke, she fished out a can of hair-spray and briskly and efficiently ran it from mid-shin to thigh.

Jack watched, mesmerized. ‘What’s with the hairspray?’

‘Should stop the ladder.’ Her mouth did a kind of peristalsis, holding her fag steady in a corner, while she spoke and exhaled further along it. He was strangely in awe.

As he watched her put the canister back in her bag, he fixed upon the certain notion that he could trust her with his life.

She gave a sharp exclamation, as if she’d just thought of something great, then dived back into her bag and, seized by a spasm of laughter, emerged with a little glass bottle. In the grip of great mirth, she sprayed it on her wrist, which she then extended to Jack. ‘Guess what? I smell of wee.’

The way she gave at the middle indicated that she thought this was hysterical and he found himself laughing also, though he didn’t get the joke.

She demonstrated the bottle of Oui. ‘Oui, wee, geddit? Tonight’s free gift. Pity it’s not being given out until the end, else we could go round saying to everyone “You smell of wee”… Hey look,’ she’d noticed something. ‘You bite your nails.’ She picked up his hand and examined it.

‘Um, yeah,’ he admitted.

‘Why?’

‘Dunno.’ He wanted to come up with a reason but couldn’t seem to.

‘You worry too much.’ With fuzzy compassion, she patted the tender quick of his ragged fingers. ‘Here,’ she looked at him with sudden urgency. ‘Have you any cigarettes? Jasper Ffrench stole mine.’

‘I thought you’d have a spare pack.’ He was striving for a jokey tone, but his mouth felt mumbly-numb, as though he’d been at the dentist.

‘I had, but he stole them too.’

Across the room Jack noticed Lisa raising her glass to him. Everything about her body-language was an invitation. As he fumbled for his cigarettes, his head felt full of cotton-wool and he couldn’t think straight. Lisa was beautiful. She was smart and sassy and he was full of admiration for her vision and energy. More than that, he genuinely liked her. He must do – hadn’t he kissed her? Even if he still wasn’t sure exactly how it had happened.

Lisa had plans for him tonight, but with a sudden cold certainty he knew he didn’t want to fall in with them. Why not? Was it because Lisa was married? Because they worked together? Because he wasn’t over Mai? Or could it be because he wasn’t over Dee? But it wasn’t for any of those reasons. It was because of Ashling. The woman formerly known as Little Miss Fix-it.

What on earth was happening to him? Could it be jet-lag? he wondered swimmily. But he’d been back twelve days, it couldn’t be jet-lag.

Well, there was only one other conclusion he could draw. One sole, unavoidable conclusion.

He was having a nervous breakdown.

53

Ashling woke up and felt as if she’d been run over by a juggernaut in the night. Her ear throbbed, her bones hurt, weariness gripped her, but who cared? Last night had been great. The party had not only been a huge success, but lots of fun too.

For a moment she didn’t know whether or not she was alone in the bed. Then she remembered that she’d mislaid Marcus at some point in the evening and that she’d come home by herself. No problem. Now that the magazine was up and running, life could return to normal.

Aching all over, she dragged herself to the couch, where she smoked and watched morning telly. Her brain felt bruised. She was heinously late for work, but she didn’t care. The unspoken consensus was that everyone could roll in at whatever time they liked today. Eventually she reluctantly washed and dressed herself and it was eleven o’clock by the time she hit the street. It was raining. Dirty low September clouds hung over the city and the light was greeny-grey. A few yards from Ashling’s door Boo was sitting on the wet pavement. He was huddled into himself, his hair flattened against his skull, rivulets of rain running down his face. But as Ashling got nearer she noticed, with a hard bang to her heart, that it wasn’t the rain that was making his face wet. He was crying.

‘Boo, what’s wrong? Has something happened?’

He looked up at her, then his mouth gaped wide as a silent bawl overtook him. ‘Look at me.’ Covering his eyes with one hand, he used the other to indicate himself, his soaked dirty clothes, the absence of shelter over his head. ‘It’s so fucking degrading,’ he shuddered.

Ashling froze. Boo was usually so cheerful.

‘I’m hungry, I’m cold, I’m soaked, I’m dirty, I’m bored, I’m lonely and I’m scared!’ His face was contorted as he wept. ‘I’m tired of being hassled by the police, I’m tired of being pissed on by drunk stag parties, I’m tired of being treated like a piece of shit. They won’t even let me into the café across the road to buy a cup of tea. A takeaway.’

Ashling had never actually thought Boo enjoyed being homeless, but she hadn’t realized he hated it so much.

‘I get so much abuse. People tell me I’m a lazy bastard, that I should get a job. I’d fucking love a job. I hate begging, it’s so humiliating.’