Trix approached with a scrap of paper. ‘There’s been a phone call for you –’

‘Not now.’

Some minutes later, Ashling emerged, putty-grey and avoiding eye-contact. She left the office.

Then out came Jack, looking weary. ‘Lisa!’ he exclaimed. ‘Ashling’s had a bad shock, I’ve sent her home.’

Speaking to him required effort. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘She’s, ah, discovered that her boyfriend is having an affair with her best friend.’

‘What? Marcus Valentine and that Clodagh?’

‘Yes.’

Lisa had a hysterical urge to laugh.

‘Could you come into my office?’ Jack asked. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

Was he going to apologize? Explain that he’d only been comforting Ashling and that it was Lisa he really cared for? But all he wanted to talk about was work.

‘First, I’d like to congratulate you on last night, and on the first issue. What you have achieved is above and beyond what we’d hoped for and the entire board offer their congratulations.’

Lisa nodded, aware of an undertow of loss. All their easiness was slipping away, being tugged from under her feet. Jack was clearly uncomfortable with her.

‘I’m sorry to do this when you should be enjoying your success,’ he went on. ‘But I have bad news.’

You’re in love with Ashling?

‘Mercedes resigned this morning.’

‘Oh. Oh. Why?’

‘She’s leaving Ireland.’

Bitch, Lisa thought viciously. She hadn’t even had the decency to say it was because Lisa was a power-crazed tyrant whom she could no longer work for.

‘She’s got a job in New York,’ Jack elaborated. ‘Apparently her husband’s been seconded there.’

‘New York?’ Lisa was reminded of the trip Mercedes had taken in June. The most horrible thought in the world hit her. ‘Her new job, it’s not… not… at Manhattan?’

‘I don’t know which magazine, she didn’t say.’

‘Where is she?’ Lisa snarled, suddenly feral.

‘Gone. She was due a week’s holiday, which she took in lieu of notice.’

Lisa put her face in her hands. ‘Do you mind if I go home?’

She called a cab, and fifteen minutes later, still feeling like she was dreaming, she found herself at home. Scratching the key in her front door, she let herself in. The post had come – one big manila envelope was lying in the hall. Absently she picked it up and, as she kicked off her shoes, tore it open. She unfolded the stiff paper within while tossing her handbag on to the kitchen counter. Then, finally, she turned her attention to the pages she held in her hand.

A one-second glance was all it took. She sank to the floor, jack-knifed with disbelief.

It was a divorce petition.

Clodagh opened her front door and recoiled as ‘You bitch!’ was flung at her.

‘Ashling!’

‘Weren’t you expecting me?’

She hadn’t been. All she’d been able to think about was Dylan, that he’d found out and that he’d left her. Somewhere at the back of her head she knew she’d have to talk to Ashling, but she hadn’t been able to think about it yet.

‘So, my best friend,’ Ashling pushed into the kitchen. ‘Did you think of me at all when you were fucking my boyfriend?’

Clodagh was in agony. How could she explain the guilt, the torture? ‘I did think of you, Ashling,’ she said humbly. ‘I did, it’s been so difficult. But you think only people in soap operas have affairs. Ordinary people do, it just happens.’

‘But to me? How could you do it to me?’

‘I don’t know. But you hadn’t been going out with him long, it’s not like you were married or anything, and I’ve been so unhappy, I’ve felt so trapped and like I was going mad –’

‘Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. You have fucking everything,’ Ashling said wildly. ‘Why did you have to go and take him? You have everything.’

All Clodagh could say was, ‘Sometimes everything isn’t enough.’

‘When did this start with Marcus?’

‘When you were in Cork,’ Clodagh said stiffly. ‘He gave me a note with his phone number –’

‘“Bellez-moi.”’ Ashling was pleased at the surprise on Clodagh’s face. ‘You and most of Dublin got one of those notes. So why did he collect me from the train that weekend?’

Clodagh gave a dismal shrug. ‘Maybe he felt guilty.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘He called here to the house on the Monday after. Nothing happened. He just had a cup of tea, then when he was leaving, he washed his cup. It was just a small thing but –’

‘He said “my Mammy trained me well”,’ Ashling chimed in with. ‘Yes, I was fucking charmed by that too.’

‘He loves me.’ Clodagh was defensive.

He probably does, Ashling realized, shards of agony piercing the protective lagging of anger. ‘Then what happened?’

‘He invited me out for a cup of coffee…’

‘And then?’

‘And then… he showed up here again the following day.’

‘When he did more than wash his cup?’ We’re not having this conversation. I’m hallucinating.

Clodagh nodded, avoiding eye-contact.

‘Did you go to Edinburgh with him?’

Once again Clodagh nodded humbly.

‘I wouldn’t have thought he was your type,’ Ashling accused, aware that her face was twisted and ugly with pain. How she longed for a smooth, dignified mask.

‘I wouldn’t have thought he was my type either,’ Clodagh admitted. ‘But from the first night I saw him at that comedy place I really liked him. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help it.’

‘And what about Dylan?’

Clodagh hung her head. ‘I don’t know, I just don’t know… Look, I’ve betrayed you, our friendship, and that must hurt more than the end of your, um, romance.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Ashling corrected nastily. ‘I mind losing my boyfriend much more.’

Clodagh gazed at Ashling’s pale, angry face and admitted uncertainly, ‘I’ve never seen you like this before.’