‘No wonder you were so nice to me,’ she managed to say.

‘I would have been nice to you anyway.’

‘Would you?’

‘Sure,’ he smiled sheepishly. ‘Well, maybe. Probably… And you?’

‘Me?’

‘How do you, er, feel?’

Still the words wouldn’t come, and the best she could manage was, ‘I feel like going on a date with you on Saturday night.’

‘OK,’ he nodded, reading between the lines. ‘Maybe you’d come over to my house? You said you’d show me how to dance.’

She’d never actually said she would, but she let it go.

‘And I still think you’d like sushi, if you’d only trust me,’ he added wistfully.

‘I do trust you.’

The following day, when Lisa handed in her notice and announced her intention to return to London in a month, Jack had the good grace to say, ‘We were lucky to get you for as long as we did.’ But she was sharp enough to realize he wasn’t giving her his full undivided.

‘And you could replace me with Trix,’ she suggested innocently.

‘We’ll certainly give it some thoug –! Ahahaha, nice one!’ he laughed nervously.

64

In a house in a bleak, sea-facing corner of Ringsend a man and a woman nervously greeted each other. Through the uncurtained windows the still, black sea watched him lead her into a room that he’d spent several hours cleaning earlier that day. The sea had known Jack Devine a long time and it had never seen such a frenzy. Mind you, he could have ironed his flannel shirt and put on a pair of untorn jeans while he was at it.

The woman sat on the recently hoovered couch and touched a hand to the hair she’d had specially blow-dried. She rearranged herself slightly, feeling the crisp lace and cotton of her new underwear remind her of their presence.

‘Hungry?’ Jack asked, handing her a glass of wine.

‘Starving,’ she lied.

On a small table, Jack arranged chopsticks and soy sauce and ginger and other sushi paraphernalia, then, with painstaking care, he prepared the little rice parcels for Ashling, ‘It’s nothing too out there,’ he promised. ‘It’s sushi for –’

‘– beginners, I know.’ And she was touched to the soul, in a way that had been impossible six months previously, when her soul had been out of order.

‘Perhaps if I don’t have wasabi with the first one? Break myself in gently?’ she suggested.

‘Fine.’ But she saw a whisper of disappointment scoot across his face and it made her sad. He was trying so hard.

‘I’ll chance it,’ she amended. ‘It’s best to have them all together, isn’t it? The different tastes complement each other.’

‘Only if you’re sure,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to scare you away.’

Delicately he placed a tiny, transparent sliver of ginger perfectly centre. With his chopsticks he daintily tidied up the ragged edges and she marvelled that he was going to all this trouble, for her.

‘Ready?’ he asked, lifting the sushi towards her.

For a moment she panicked. She wasn’t sure she was. Feeling as though she was opening more than just her mouth, she let him place the tiny bundle on her tongue.

Anxiously he watched her reaction.

‘Yum,’ she finally said, with a smile. ‘Scary but yum.’ Not unlike yourself.

She tried a cucumber one, a tofu one, a crab and avocado one, then pushed the boat out altogether by having a salmon one.

‘You’re fantastic,’ Jack enthused, as though she’d just done something really worthy of note, like passing her driving test. ‘You’re just great. So whenever you’re ready for the salsa…’

Oh no.

‘Well, it’s kind of hard for me to show you,’ she said quickly, ‘because the man is supposed to lead.’

‘Try anyway,’ he urged.

‘But…’

‘Just a rough idea,’ he grinned.

‘We don’t have the right music.’

‘What do we need? Cuban stuff?’

‘Yeeeesss,’ she said slowly, realizing her error. She’d thought there wasn’t a hope he’d have such obscure music, but she was forgetting that he was a man.

She was going to have to go through with this.

‘OK, never mind the music. The stuff on the stereo will do. Right, we both stand up.’

Immediately he got to his feet and she felt threatened by his height looming over her.

‘And we face each other.’

They turned to each other. Except they were about ten feet apart.

‘Perhaps slightly further in,’ Ashling suggested.

He took a step, then she did. Eventually she arrived at his front, reluctant to get too close. But she was near enough to smell him.

‘You put your arm around me. If you want,’ she added hastily.

He slid his arm along the small of her back and, briefly, she hovered her hand above his shoulder, then with a small surrender lowered it. She could feel the heat of him through his shirt.

‘And this hand?’ He demonstrated his free one.

‘You hold mine.’

‘Right.’ He was so matter-of-fact that when his big, dry hand grasped hers, she decided to relax. She was showing him how to dance, it was perfectly acceptable that they touch each other.

‘When my leg goes back, yours follows it, right?’

‘Show me.’

‘OK.’ She slid her leg out behind her and his leg came forward in tandem.

‘Now the other way,’ Ashling said. ‘You move your leg back and I follow it. And again.’

They practised it several times, increasing in speed and grace, until mid-move Jack stopped and Ashling kept going and suddenly she found herself pressing her thigh hard against his. She jerked to a halt, but didn’t pull away. They were perfectly still, frozen in the dance. Eye-level with his chin, she thought vaguely, he needs to shave. It was important to think normal things at a time like this. Because in other corners of her consciousness, other thoughts were going on.

‘Ashling, would you please look at me?’ Jack’s voice against her hair was anguished.

I can’t.

Then suddenly she could. She turned her face upwards, his sloe-black eyes blazed down and their mouths met in a hard kiss. Many months of waiting went into it. The low-down opening sensation yielded in Ashling: normally it burgeoned gradually, but this time it arrived with an abrupt thrust of desire.