‘C’mon babes,’he coaxed. ‘We can do this totally, like, amicably. One on one. Mano a mano’ When she didn’t speak he cajoled further, ‘Hombre a hombre.’

With the tiniest of laughs, she managed, ‘OK.’

‘Yeah? For real? When?’

‘This weekend?’

‘You won’t be working?’

‘No.’

‘Well, well, well,’ he said, in a tone she wasn’t quite sure of. Then he lightened up. ‘I’ll try and get a flight on Saturday and I’ll bring all the bumpf.’

‘I’ll meet you at the airport.’

Just one night, she promised herself. One night pressed up against him, then she’d get over it.

She hung up the phone, unsure of what to do next. She could go back to bed, but instead, on a wild whim, decided to ring Jack.

‘Thank you for the flowers.’

‘Don’t mention them. They were just to say that we… I… have the greatest respect for you and that –’

‘Jack, apology accepted,’ Lisa cut in.

‘Ehm, what are you talking ab –’ Then Jack stopped and sighed. ‘OK, thank you.’

‘So what’s been happening?’ She almost managed to sound interested.

Jack’s tone cheered. ‘Lots of good stuff, actually. The magazine’s gone into reprint. I don’t know if you saw them but pictures of the party were in five papers over the weekend and we’ve had requests for you to go on national radio during the week. We’ve had four unsolicited applications to replace Mercedes. Dublin’s a very small place. And I found out which magazine Mercedes has gone to. It’s not Manhattan, it’s a teen weekly called Froth’

It could have been because Oliver was coming, it could have been the good reports about Colleen, it certainly could have been the news about Mercedes, but something had shifted in Lisa, because when Jack then asked, ‘Any chance of you coming back to work?’ she was able to answer, ‘S’pose.’

‘Good.’ he said. ‘That means I can stop writing this article on men’s skincare.’

‘???’

‘Trix made me do it. With yourself and Ashling out and Mercedes gone, she’s the most senior member of Colleens editorial staff who’s in. The power has gone to her head. She’s talking about sending Bernard for a facial just to see if she can make him cry.’

‘I’ll be in in an hour.’

En route to the bathroom for a much-needed shower, Lisa passed her bedroom and was shocked at the state of it. What had she been thinking of? She just wasn’t the kind of person who lost it. Other people did, and good luck to them. But not Lisa – like it or not she was a survivor. Not that she didn’t feel raw and wretched. She did. But nervous breakdowns were like coloured contact lenses – fine for other people, but they weren’t really her.

57

Ashling shifted in the bed and located the phone from underneath her. She’d been sleeping with it for four days. For the millionth time she pressed Marcus’s home number. Answering machine. Then his work number. Voicemail. Finally his mobile.

‘Still no reply?’ Joy asked sympathetically as she and Ted clustered on Ashling’s smelly bed.

‘No. God, I wish he would. I’d just like some answers.’

‘He’s a dirty coward. Call around to his work. Hassle him at gigs. That’d be good, actually,’ Joy said fiercely. ‘In the guise of heckling, you could really wreck his head. Shouting up at him that he’s hopeless in bed and that his mickey’s

‘– really small,’ Ashling finished wearily for her.

‘Really freckly, I was going to say,’ Joy said. ‘But I’ll accept “small”.’

‘No. No way. To either of them.’

‘OK, forget the heckling. But why don’t you call around to him? If you want him back you should fight for him.’

‘I don’t know if I want him back. Anyway, I don’t stand a chance. Not against Clodagh.’

‘She’s not that beautiful,’ Joy said savagely.

Automatically they both turned to Ted, who blushed. ‘Not at all,’ he lied atrociously.

‘See?’ Ashling flung at Joy. ‘He thinks she is.’

In the awkward silence that lowered on to them, Ashling took a dispassionate look around. She’d been in this room since Friday afternoon. It was now Monday evening and she’d left her bed only for brief visits to the bathroom. Her intention had been to have a sleep to get over the shock, then find Marcus and see what she could salvage. But somehow she’d never managed to get back out of bed. She liked it here now, she thought she might stay.

Her empty stare alighted on a bundle of tissues. All unused. Why wasn’t she crying? With the weight of sadness she was carrying she felt she should be in perpetual convulsions. But she remained resolutely dry-eyed. Not even a hint – no catch to her voice, no achey swelling in her throat, no fullness in her face bones.

Not that she was numb. Oh, if only.

She spoke slowly, more to herself than the other two. ‘I keep wondering what I did wrong, and I don’t think it’s my fault. I let him try out new material all the time. I went to all his gigs. Well, nearly.’ Look at what happened the one time she didn’t go. He’d picked up her best friend. ‘I agreed with him ten times a day that he was the best and that all the other comedians were crap.’

‘Even me?’ Ted asked uncertainly. ‘Did he think I was crap?’

‘No,’ Ashling lied. The first night she’d met Marcus he’d enthused madly about Ted, but only – she realized with hindsight – because he didn’t take him seriously. When it became clear that Ted had garnered a small but devoted following, Marcus began subtly to slag him off. Smart enough to know that Ashling wouldn’t permit full-blown insults, he contented himself with remarks like, ‘Good on Ted Mullins. We need one or two lightweights in this game.’ By the time Ashling noticed that he was actually denigrating Ted, she was too set in her helpmeet role to object.

‘It was all about Marcus Valentine,’ Joy observed. ‘He sounds like a selfish fucker.’

‘It wasn’t like that. It was fun helping him. We were close, we were pals.’ That was what hurt so much. But he’d met someone he liked better, it happened all the time.