‘Bring me the lucky Buddha,’ he hyperventilated from the couch.

‘How’s Half-man-half-badger?’ Ashling asked Joy, as they hefted the statue to Ted.

‘Mick is fine.’

Things must be serious, if Joy was now calling Half-man-half-badger by his real name. Next they’d be visiting garden centres together.

Ted perked up after he’d polished the lucky Buddha, located a comforting tarot card and had his horoscope read to him. (Ashling read out Aries even though Ted was a Scorpio, because Scorpio wasn’t looking so hot.)

‘Now, the pair of you are to be on your best behaviour tonight,’ Ashling warned. ‘You’re to be very nice to Lisa.’

‘She needn’t think she’ll be getting any special treatment from me,’ Joy said defensively.

‘Is she a total bitch?’ asked Ted.

‘Not as such.’ Not always, in any case. ‘But she’s tricky. The trickiest of tricky biscuits. Let’s go.’

Looking their very best, the three of them clattered and chattered down the stairs. Buoyed up by that bright Saturday-night sensation of standing right on the very fringe of their future. The exhilarating anticipation that the rest of their life was ripe to reveal itself.

The homeless boy was sitting on the pavement outside, with his ever-present orange blanket, which wasn’t very orange any more. Ashling ducked her head – every time she saw him she felt obliged to give him a pound and she was beginning to resent it. Then she snuck a glance at him and he wasn’t even looking, he was reading a book.

‘Hold it, lads, I just want to…’ She trotted back to him.

‘Howya!’ He looked up, pleasantly surprised, as if they were old friends who hadn’t met for ages. ‘You’re looking well. Off out?’

‘Er, yes.’ She held out a pound which he didn’t take.

‘Where to?’

‘Comedy gig.’

‘Nice,’ he nodded, as if he was at comedy gigs all the time. ‘Who?’

‘Someone called Marcus Valentine.’

‘I’ve heard he’s very funny.’ He finally made eye contact with the coin in her hand. ‘Would you put that away, Ashling. I don’t want you tipping me every time you see me. You’ll be afraid to come out of your flat.’

Ashling neighed with nervous laughter. Most times as she came down the stairs lately, she was praying fervently that he wouldn’t be there. ‘How do you know my name?’ she asked, almost flattered.

‘Don’t know. I must have heard your pals saying it.’

Ashling plunged into silence as something bizarre occurred to her. She finally voiced it. ‘What’s your name?’

‘My friends call me Boo,’ he grinned up at her.

‘Pleased to meet you, Boo,’ she said automatically, and before she knew what was happening, he’d stuck up his grubby hand and she was shaking it.

The book face-downwards on his lap was An Encyclopaedia of Mushrooms.

‘Why are you reading that?’ Ashling was astonished.

‘I’ve nothing else.’

She had to run to catch up with Joy and Ted.

‘Another of Ashling’s waifs,’ Ted observed archly, the neediness he’d displayed not ten minutes earlier completely forgotten.

‘Ah, shut up.’

Imagine having to spend Saturday night begging on a cold street, reading a book about mushrooms.

19

Lisa had hoped to make some progress with Jack by getting him along to the comedy gig. It would have been a great chance to socialize with him, under the pretext of work. But she never got an opportunity to casually suggest it because a crisis had erupted at the television station – a regular occurrence, apparently – and he’d been out of the office trouble-shooting, all day Thursday and Friday. This also meant that she missed out on being praised by him for getting her picture in the paper and generating a little advance publicity for Colleen. It pissed her off.

On Saturday, she’d managed to fill her day buying things for her ‘new’ house. She’d moved in the previous night and was keen to dilute the effect of all that pine. Besides, there was nothing like being busy to keep one step ahead of herself. Though, like everything else in this horrible country, the interiors shops were pitifully, depressingly bad.

No one had heard of Japanese rice-paper blinds, pocketed shower curtains or cupboard handles in the shape of glass flowers. She’d managed to track down decent ecru bed-linen, but not in the size she needed and it would take for ever to order because they had to import it from England.

Then she got ‘home’ and had to wait half an hour for the water to heat up for her shower. So much for Jack saying he’d sort out the timer for her. Men, they were all alike, all mouth and trousers. And sometimes not even trousers.

Sour and resentful after her alarmingly disappointing day, she was nevertheless pleased to be going out on the trail of Marcus Valentine. At least she was doing something constructive. Since the bad news about the advertising situation, the need to get brilliant columns for Colleen had greatly intensified.

Shortly after nine, she arrived at the River Club. Like everything else in Ireland, it was a disappointment – smaller and scruffier than she’d expected. K-Bar, it wasn’t.

She hadn’t been sure if she’d get a chance to buttonhole Marcus Valentine, but just in case, she’d worn her I’m-a-regular-girl-and-not-a-scary-magazine-bitch-at-all outfit. Frayed, embroidered jeans, slip-on trainers, slashed-neck T-shirt. Though her make-up was plentiful, it was subtle to the point of invisibility. She looked young, pretty and approachable, as if she’d just thrown on the first things that came to hand, and not as though she’d spent an hour staring into her (pine) mirror, carefully calculating the effect she would have.

She scouted around the milling room for Ashling and her mates, but no sign, so she went to the bar and ordered a cosmopolitan. That was the ultra-fashionable martini quaffed at K-bar and Chinawhite and all the other red-hot watering holes she used to frequent in London.

‘A what?’ asked the round, red-faced barman, bursting out of his nylon shirt.

‘A cosmopolitan.’

‘If it’s magazines you require, there’s a place a few doors down,’ he apologized. ‘All we sell here is drink.’

Lisa wondered if she should give him instructions on how to make it, then realized she didn’t know. ‘A glass of white wine,’ she snapped irritably. Perhaps they wouldn’t even have that. She’d have to drink that disgusting Guinness.