A quick scan of those who remained in the kitchen indicated that Marcus had stormed out!

It was seven-thirty on a Thursday evening in late October, and Ashling and Jack were the only people still remaining in the office. Jack switched off his light, closed his office door and stopped at Ashling’s desk.

‘How’re you getting on?’ he asked tentatively.

‘Grand. Just finishing this article on prostitutes.’

‘No, I meant… in general. With the counselling and that? Is it helping?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

‘As my mother says, time is a great healer,’ he reassured. ‘I remember when my heart was broken I felt I’d never be right again –’

Ashling cut in. ‘You’ve had your heart broken?’

‘And there was you thinking I had no heart at all!’

‘No, but….’

‘Go on, admit it, you did.’

‘I didn’t.’ But she had to look away as a smile curved her hot face. ‘Was it Mai?’ she asked curiously.

‘The woman before Mai. Dee. We were together a long time and she left me, and I eventually got over it. You will too.’

‘Yes, but Jennifer – she’s the counsellor – says it’s not just a broken heart I’m dealing with.’

‘So what are you dealing with?’ And he asked so gently and kindly that she heard herself telling him about her mother’s depression and the mechanisms she’d developed to try and cope with it.

‘Little Miss Fix-it,’ she finished with.

Jack looked utterly stricken. ‘Sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m sorry I ever –’

‘’s OK. It’s the truth.’

‘Is it? Why you carry all that stuff in your bag, why you’re so obliging?’

‘Jennifer seems to think so.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I suppose I agree,’ she sighed.

She didn’t add that Jennifer had also suggested that that was why Ashling had always picked men whom she could organize. And that after an initial burst of angry denial, Ashling had actually agreed with her: she’d been useful to most of her boyfriends from long before Phelim the sweet goofball, right up to Marcus the needy comedian, and she’d enjoyed it.

‘And what does this Jennifer say about your Weltschmerz?’

‘She says it’s better than it was, even if I can’t see it myself. And she says I might get bouts of it in the future, but I can do things to keep it under control. Like doing some voluntary work to help all the other Boos… The ones who weren’t lucky enough to have a Jack Devine!’ she added jokily.

‘Shucks.’ Jack played coy and peeped up from under his lashes at Ashling – then they locked eyes.

Their high spirits faded abruptly, leaving obsolete smirks still loitering on their confused mouths.

Jack recovered first. ‘Christ, Ashling,’ he declared over-jovially, ‘I’m feeling quite emotional! Boo is doing really well over at the station, you know.’

‘You’re good to sort all that out.’ She realized she’d been so fogged up for the past couple of months that she’d never properly thanked him.

‘Don’t mention it!’ They were in danger of another intimate eye-meet. When in doubt, talk about the weather. ‘It’s pissing down outside. D’you want a lift home?’ He placed his palms on her desk and suddenly she remembered him washing her hair. His touch on her skin, the gorgeous, squirmy feelings administered by those big hands, the hard warmth of his body pressed up against hers… Mmmmmm.

‘Er, no,’ she hurriedly recovered herself. ‘I’d better finish this.’

To her surprise he asked, ‘Do you ever go to salsa any more?’

She shook her head. She had no appetite for it. ‘Maybe I’ll go again, you know, when things are…’

‘Could you show me the basics sometime?’

In all honesty, she couldn’t think of anything more unlikely. ‘We’ll have a sushi-and-salsa night,’ she joked.

‘I’ll hold you to it’

As Jack moved off, Ashling asked, ‘How’s Mai doing?’

‘Good, I see her occasionally.’

‘Tell her I said hi. I thought she was great.’

‘I will. She’s going out with a landscape gardener now.’

‘Called Cormac?’ Ashling was flip.

Jack’s face was a picture of awe and horror. ‘How do you know?!’

In the middle of the night Lisa’s phone rang. She bolted awake, her heart pounding. Could something have happened to her dad or her mum? Before she got to the phone, the answering machine picked up and someone began to leave a message.

Oliver. And he sounded even louder than usual. ‘Excuse me, Lisa Edwards,’ he called stroppily, ‘you have changed.’

She picked up the phone. ‘What?’

‘And hello to you too. That day in Dublin when you were playing football with those kids, I said you’d changed and you told me you hadn’t. You lied to me, babes.’

‘Oliver, it’s twenty to five. AM.’

‘I knew it didn’t add up and it’s been bugging me ever since. It’s just clicked. You’re different, babes – not working so hard, being so sweet to those kids – why tell me you’re not?’

She knew why, she’d known the day it had happened, but should she tell him? Oh, why not, what difference could it make?

‘Because it’s too late… To save us,’ she elaborated, when he didn’t speak. ‘Better to say that I’m still the same old control-freak I’ve always been, right?’

Oliver processed this strange logic. ‘Is that your final answer?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK, babes. It’s up to you.’

Ted and Joy were in the video shop.

‘Sliding Doors?’ Ted suggested.

‘No, doesn’t someone have an affair in it?’

‘How about My Best Friend’s Wedding?’

‘The name alone is looking for trouble,’ Joy pointed out.

They eventually settled on Pulp Fiction.

‘Good choice.’ Joy was pleased. ‘No! Bad choice. Very bad choice. Someone is unfaithful! Uma Thurman?’