59

On Monday morning, Monica walked Ashling to work. ‘Good girl, off you go.’ It was like her first day at school. Ashling walked through the front-doors, then half-turned back and Monica gesticulated Go on! through the glass. Reluctantly she traipsed towards the lift.

When she took up her position at her desk everyone looked funny at her, then suddenly they became humiliatingly extra-nice.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Trix offered awkwardly.

‘Trix, you’re freaking me out,’ Ashling replied, then tried to look at the things on her desk. When she looked up a second later Trix was shaking her head at Mrs Morley and mouthing She doesn’t want tea.

Jack came flying in, a huge bundle of documents under his arm. He looked stressed and narky but when he noticed Ashling he slowed down and lightened up. ‘How are you?’ he asked gently.

‘Well, I’m out of bed,’ she offered. But her plaster-of-Paris rigid face was an indication that all wasn’t exactly jolly either. ‘Look, the day you came round to my flat… Thank you for the sushi, I was a bit, um, touchy.’

‘No problem. How’s the Weltschmerz?’

‘Alive and well.’

He nodded in encouraging, but impotent silence.

‘I’d better do some work,’ she said.

‘This sadness you feel?’ Jack asked slowly. ‘Is it free-floating or does it take a particular form?’

Ashling considered and after a while spoke. ‘A particular form, I suppose. There’s this homeless boy I know. Boo, the one in the photos, remember? He’s made homelessness real for me and it’s breaking my heart into pieces.’

After a silence Jack said thoughtfully, ‘You know, we could give him a job. Start him on something basic like being a runner at the TV station.’

‘But you can’t offer a job to someone you haven’t met.’

‘I know Boo.’

‘How?’

‘I saw him in the street one day. I recognized him from the photos, so we had a little chat. I wanted to thank him, those photos made a huge difference to the profile of Colleen. I thought he seemed very bright, very keen.’

‘Oh, he is, he’s interested in everythi– Wait a minute, are you serious?’

‘Sure. Why not? God knows, we owe him. Look at all the advertising those pictures generated.’

Ashling lifted momentarily, then she slid back into the pit. ‘But what about all the other homeless people? The ones who didn’t get into the photos.’

Jack laughed sadly. ‘I can’t give them all jobs.’

With a loud clatter the door opened and a dapper-looking young man beamed around the office. ‘Morning campers!’ he declared.

‘Who’s that?’ Ashling wondered, taking in his streaked hair, tailored magenta pants, see-through T-shirt and the tiny leather jacket he was peeling from his body.

‘Robbie, our new boy. Mercedes’ replacement,’ Jack said. ‘He started on Thursday. Robbie! Come and meet Ashling.’

Robbie fluttered a hand to his almost-naked chest and affected surprise. ‘Little old moi?!’

‘I think he’s gay,’ Kelvin hissed.

‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Trix said with withering sarcasm.

Robbie solemnly shook hands with Ashling then, with a gasp, fell on her handbag. ‘Very Gucci! I think I’m having a fashion moment.’

Ashling actually managed to work – which came as a surprise. In fairness, she wasn’t given anything remotely taxing. And the one thing that resolutely didn’t appear on her desk for her to edit, sub-edit or input was Marcus Valentine’s monthly article.

At the end of the day, her mother collected her from work and permitted her to go straight to bed when she got home.

On Tuesday morning, with much prodding, poking and motherly encouragement, she managed to get up and go to work again. Same on Wednesday morning. And Thursday.

On Friday, Monica returned to Cork. ‘I’d better. Your father will probably have burnt the house down in my absence. Now, keep taking the tablets – never mind if they make you feel dizzy and like puking – then sort out some counselling and you’ll be grand.’

‘OK.’ Ashling went to work and felt she was doing quite well – until midday, when Dylan walked into the office. Immediately, her low-level nausea increased. He’d have information. Information she was hungry for but which would inevitably cause pain.

‘Free for lunch?’ he asked.

His arrival sent a thrill through the office. Those who didn’t know what Marcus Valentine looked like mouthed excitedly to those who did, Is that him?. Were they going to be witness to a romantic passionate reunion? So they were very disappointed when those in the know mouthed back, No, that’s the friend’s husband.

As Ashling got her bag, Dylan’s and Lisa’s eyes met in a flare of one-beautiful-person-to-another interest.

Dylan looked different. He’d always been handsome, if a mite bland. But overnight, he’d acquired a glittery hardness, a dissipated magnetism. With his hand on Ashling’s waist, he guided her out, the eyes of the entire office burning the backs of the two cuckolds.

They went to the pub next door and found a table in a corner. Though Ashling would only have Diet Coke, Dylan ordered a pint of lager.

‘Hair of the dog,’ he exhaled. ‘On the serious razz last night.’

‘Still at your mother’s?’ Ashling asked.

‘Yes.’ A bitter little laugh.

So that meant Clodagh and Marcus were still together. It hadn’t all blown over and revealed itself as a brief madness. She had a very real, visceral desire to vomit. ‘What’s been happening?’

‘Not much yet, except that we’ve decided I’ll see the kids every weekend and stay in the house on Saturday nights.’ Shame-faced he admitted, ‘I’ve told Clodagh I’ll wait for her, so hopefully she’ll cop on. Though she’s actually told me she loves this wanker. God knows why.’ A pause of realization. ‘Sorry.’

‘’s OK.’

‘How are you doing?’ He turned the spotlight of his concern on to her and momentarily he was like the old Dylan.

She hesitated. What was she going to say? I hate the world, I hate being alive, I’m on anti-depressants, my mother has to put the toothpaste on my toothbrush in the morning and now that she’s gone back to Cork I don’t know how I’ll manage to brush my teeth.