She looked so lost and bleak that Phelim said softly, ‘Oh baby, let me help. I’ll buy you some furniture.’

‘A bed, I bet,’ Ashling said scornfully.

‘Well, now that you mention it…’ Phelim was fond of having sex with Ashling. Buying a bed for her was no hardship. ‘Can I afford it?’

Ashling considered. Now that she’d reorganized Phelim’s finances, he was a lot better off. ‘I suppose,’ she said sulkily. ‘If you do it on your credit card.’

Bitterly, irritably she applied for a bank loan, then bought herself a couch, a table, a wardrobe and a couple of chairs. And that, she resolved, would be that. For over a year she refused to buy blinds. ‘I’ll just not wash the windows,’ she said. ‘That way no one can see in.’ And she only got herself a shower curtain when the daily puddles on her bathroom floor began to leak through to Joy’s. But somewhere along the line her priorities had changed. Though she wasn’t anything like the Ninja-decorator that Clodagh was, she certainly cared. To the point where she owned not just one but a grand total of two sets of bed linen (a funky denim-look set and a crisp white Zen ensemble with a waffle throw). Recently she’d shelled out forty quid on a mirror that she didn’t even need, just because she thought it was pretty. Granted she’d been premenstrual and not in her right mind, but still. And the sea change was obviously complete the day she’d handed over two hundred quid for a dust-sucker.

There was a knock at the door. Joy, white as a ghost, sidled in.

‘Sorry, I got a bit carried away with the cleaning,’ Ashling realized. ‘Did I wake you?’

‘It’s OK. I’ve to go out to Howth to see my mammy.’ Joy made an anguished face. ‘I can’t cancel again, I’ve done it for the past four Sundays. But how will I cope? She’ll have made a huge roast dinner which she’ll try to force-feed me and she’ll spend all afternoon quizzing me, trying to establish if I’m happy. You know what mothers are like.’

Well, yes and no, Ashling thought. She was familiar with the ‘Are you happy?’ questions. Only thing was, it was Ashling who used to monitor her mother’s happiness levels, not the other way round.

‘If only she’d have Sunday lunch at a more civilized time,’ Joy complained.

‘Like Tuesday evening,’ Ashling grinned. ‘Now, I suppose you haven’t seen Ted so far today?’

‘Not yet. I presume he got lucky last night and is refusing to leave the poor girl’s bedroom.’

‘He really was surprisingly excellent last night. So, are you going to tell me what happened with Half-man-half-badger or do I have to beat it out of you?’

Joy instantly lightened. ‘He spent the night with me. We didn’t actually have sex but I gave him a b-j and he said he’ll call. I wonder if he will.’

‘One swallow doesn’t make a relationship,’ Ashling warned, with the wisdom of experience.

‘Who are you telling? Give me them –’ Joy leant over to the pack of tarot cards, ‘– till I see what they say. The Empress? What does that mean?’

‘Fertility. Mind you keep taking your pill.’

‘Cripes. How did you get on last night? Meet anyone nice?’

‘No.’

‘You’ll just have to try harder. You’re thirty-one, all the good men will be gone soon.’

I don’t need a mother, Ashling realized. Not with Joy around.

‘You’re twenty-eight,’ Ashling retorted.

‘Yeah, and I sleep with tons of men.’ More gently, Joy enquired, ‘Don’t you get lonely?’

‘I’m just out of a five-year relationship – it takes a while to get over something like that.’

Phelim hadn’t been a cruel person, but his inability to commit had had the effect of a scorched-earth policy on Ashling’s attitude to love. Since he’d gone, loneliness had whistled through her like a bleak wind, but she was in no way equipped to get involved with a new man. Not that she’d been exactly inundated with offers, mind.

‘It’s nearly a year, you’re well over Phelim now. New job, new beginnings. I read somewhere that a hundred and fifty per cent of people meet their partners at work. Did you see any sexy men when you had your interview?’

Immediately Ashling thought of Jack Devine. A handful. A skilled nerve-shredder.

‘No.’

‘Pick a card,’ Joy urged.

Ashling split the deck and held a card up.

‘The Eight of Swords, what does that mean?’ Joy asked.

‘Change,’ Ashling reluctantly admitted. ‘Disturbance.’

‘Good, it’s long overdue. Right, I’d better go. I’m just going to rub the lucky Buddha to make sure I don’t puke on the bus… Actually, feck the Buddha. Loan us money for a taxi?’

Ashling handed Joy a tenner and two big plastic bags of rubbish, which seemed to do an embarrassing amount of clinking. ‘Stick them down the chute for me, thanks.’

Quarter of a mile away in Malone’s Aparthotel, Sunday was hanging heavy on Lisa’s hands. She’d read the Irish papers – well, the social pages anyway. And they were pants! They seemed to consist of nothing but pictures of fat, broken-veined politicians, oozing bonhomie and backhanders. Well, they wouldn’t be getting into her magazine.

She lit yet another cigarette and scuffed moodily about the room. What did people do when they weren’t working? They saw their mates, they went to the pub, or the gym, or shopping, or decorating, or they hung out with their blokes. She remembered that much.

She longed for a sympathetic ear and thought about ringing Fifi, the closest thing she had to a best friend. They’d been juniors together on Sweet Sixteen many years ago. When Lisa moved to Features on Girl, she wangled Fifi the job of assistant beauty editor. When Fifi got the job of Senior Features writer on Chic, she tipped Lisa off when they were looking for an assistant editor. When Lisa had left to become assistant editor of Femme, Fifi took over Lisa’s position of assistant editor of Chic. Ten months after Lisa became editor of Femme, Fifi became editor of Chic. Lisa had always been able to moan to Fifi – she understood the perils and plights of their so-called glamorous jobs, when everyone else was ugly with envy.

But something was stopping Lisa from picking up the phone. She was embarrassed, she realized. And something like resentful. Though their careers had run almost parallel, Lisa had always been further down the track. Fifi’s career had been a struggle but Lisa had risen without trace through the ranks. She’d been made an editor nearly a year before Fifi was, and though Chic and Femme were in almost direct competition, Femme’s circulation was well over a hundred thousand more. Lisa had blithely assumed that the promotion to Manhattan would propel her so far in front she’d be beyond catching altogether. But instead she was shunted to Dublin and Fifi was suddenly, by default, top-dog.