‘How do you know he’s good-looking?’ she asked.

‘He just sounds it. Geeky men don’t get their fingers bitten.’

‘’s true,’ Ted chipped in. ‘It’s never happened to me.’

But all that might be about to change, Ashling suspected. Joy jogged her. ‘Your boss?’

‘He’s – um – very serious,’ Ashling settled for. Then in a splurge she admitted, ‘He doesn’t seem to like me.’ She felt both better and worse for saying it.

‘Why not?’ Joy enquired.

‘Yeah, why?’ Ted wanted to know. How could someone not like Ashling?

‘I think it’s because I gave him the Band-Aid that day.’

‘What’s wrong with that? You were only trying to help.’

‘I wish I hadn’t,’ Ashling realized. ‘Let’s get some food.’

They rang the local Thai delivery and, as was customary, ordered way too much. Even after they’d eaten till their stomachs were painfully stretched, there was loads left over.

‘We just always have to go that Pad Thai too far,’ Ashling said regretfully. ‘OK, whose fridge do we want to leave the leftovers in for two days before we throw them out?’

Joy and Ted shrugged at each other and looked back at Ashling. ‘Might as well be yours.’

‘I’m worried,’ Joy announced. ‘My fortune cookie says I’ll suffer a disappointment. Let’s read our horoscopes.’

Then they got out the I-Ching and messed around with that for a while, taking several goes until they got the solution they wanted. After they’d tried and failed to find something they all wanted to watch on telly, Joy looked out the window in the direction of Snow, the club across the road. The door whores let them in free because they were local.

‘Anyone fancy going over the road for a dance?’ she suggested, casually. Too casually.

‘NO!’ Ashling said, fear making her emphatic. ‘I have to be on top form for work in the morning.’

‘I have a job too,’ Joy said. ‘The fastest insurance-claim processor in the west. Come on, just one drink.’

‘You have no understanding of that concept. I’m surprised you can even say it. If I go out with you for “just the one” I end up at five in the morning, wrecked out of my head, dancing to Abba, watching the sun come up in a strange apartment with a group of even stranger men who I’ve never met before and that I never want to see again.’

‘I’ve never heard you complain before.’

‘Sorry, Joy. I’m probably just a bit anxious about the job.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Ted offered Joy. ‘If you’re not afraid I’ll scare the boys away.’

‘You!’ Joy laughed scornfully. ‘I don’t think so.’

*

It was after nine before Dylan got home. Clodagh had managed to get both Molly and Craig to bed, which was nothing short of miraculous.

‘Hiya,’ Dylan said wearily, flinging his briefcase against the wall in the hall and pulling at his tie. Swallowing anger as the briefcase buckles scratched the paintwork again, she braced herself for his kiss. She’d have preferred it if he didn’t bother. It wasn’t like it meant anything, it was just an irritating habit.

She opened her mouth to launch into her horrible day, but he beat her to it. ‘Christ, the day I’ve had! Where are they?’

‘In bed.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Yes.’

‘Should we ring the Vatican to report a miracle? I’ll just go and see them, then I’ll be back down.’ He’d changed out of his suit and into sweatpants and a T-shirt when he came back.

‘Any news?’ she asked, eager for information and excitement from the outside world.

‘No. Any dinner?’

Ah, dinner.

‘Between Craig’s stomach-ache and Molly’s tantrums…’ She opened the fridge looking for inspiration. Nothing doing. The freezer didn’t help either. ‘Alphabetti Spaghetti on toast do you?’

‘Alphabetti Spaghetti on toast. Good job I didn’t marry you for your cooking skills.’ He shot her a smile. Was she imagining a certain tightness to it?

‘Good job indeed,’ she agreed, fetching a can from the cupboard. She couldn’t be sure whether he was angry or not. He always acted sunny even when he was raging. Not that she minded, it made life easier.

‘So how was work?’ She tried again. ‘What has you so late?’

He sighed wearily. ‘You know that big American sale? The one that’s been dragging on for ever?’

‘Yes,’ she lied, sticking bread in the toaster.

‘I can’t remember what the state of play was the last time I talked to you about it. Had they actually made any decisions?’

‘They might have been just about to,’ Clodagh attempted.

‘OK, so after deliberating for ever, they finally narrow it down to three packages. Then they say they want to test them. Which, as you know, is a huge waste of fucking time so I offer them the reports from the trial sites. First they say OK, they’ll accept that. Then they change their minds and send over two techies from their Ohio office to run the tests…’

Clodagh stirred the saucepan and tuned out. She was disappointed. This was extremely fucking boring.

Slumped at the table, Dylan let it all pour out. ‘… Then I get a phone call this afternoon, they’ve only gone and bought a package from Digiware, and they’re not even going to test ours!’

This was the point where Clodagh tuned back in. ‘But that’s brilliant! If they’re not even going to test yours!’

10

In her cold lonely bed in the bleak room in Harcourt Street, Lisa tried to sleep, but she felt she was already in the land of nod. And in the middle of a terrible nightmare.

After the shocking day at the amateur office, she’d been quietly confident that things couldn’t get any worse. That was before she’d tried to find a home to rent.

She’d thought she’d be able to use a relocation agency, but the registration fee was extortionate. And a tactfully worded offer over the phone that she’d give them a nice mention in the magazine if they waived the fee was stonewalled.

‘We don’t need any publicity,’ the young man told her. ‘More business than we can handle due to the Celtic Tiger.’