Back to the cleaning. But after wiping out the inside of the microwave, she needed a boost, so decided to try to get a sneak preview of her future. Her angel divination cards didn’t promise anything, so tö hurry along Marcus’s call, Ashling – rather sheepishly – unearthed her Wish Kit. Which hadn’t seen the light of day since the last days of Phelim. She was aware that this did not bode well.

The kit consisted of six candles, each emblazoned with a word – Love, Friendship, Luck, Money, Peace and Success – and six corresponding boxes of matches. The Friendship, Money and Success candles hadn’t even had their wicks lit, the Peace and Luck candles were burnt down slightly, but it was the Love candle that had seen the most action. It was the black fruit-gum of the packet. Reverentially, with the last Love match, Ashling lit the candle, which burned away merrily for about ten minutes until it ran out of wax, then flickered and died.

Ah, shite, Ashling thought, that better not be a Sign.

Early evening Ted showed up, suffering from the trough that comes after a great high. Despite having met lots of girls, he wasn’t taken with any of them.

‘What about that fantastic one you were talking to when I left? Did you sleep with her?’

‘No.’

‘Ted! You can’t say that. Even if you didn’t ride her, you have to say you did to protect her honour.’

But Ted wasn’t amused. ‘She said I smelt funny. Like her granny.’

‘Can’t people be very mad?’

‘No, actually.’ Ted was annoyed. ‘She was right. I did smell like her granny.’

As Ashling wondered aloud how Ted knew what the girl’s granny smelt like, Ted overrode her accusingly. ‘And do you know what I reckon it was?’

‘What?’

‘That fecking gear you rubbed on me before we went out.’

‘Oh, the lavender oil.’ Sometimes Ashling felt horribly unappreciated.

‘That’s a granny smell, isn’t it?’ Ted wouldn’t let it go.

‘I thought stale urine was more customary.’ Feeling hard-done-by made Ashling uncharacteristically sharp.

‘Ah, she wasn’t right for me anyway,’ Ted conceded grumpily. ‘They’re all too young and silly, and they like me for the wrong reasons… Your friend Clodagh,’ he asked, suddenly. ‘Still married, is she?’

‘Of course she is.’

‘Is something wrong with you?’ Ted had realized that he wasn’t the only one down in the mouth.

Ashling considered, and decided not to moan about Marcus not ringing. He hadn’t broken any promises and could ring at any stage. So instead she said lightly, ‘Sunday-evening blues.’ She’d often discussed with Ted, Joy, Dylan – anyone who had a job, in fact – the thunderclap of dread that clangs inside at around five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon. When it hits like a ton of bricks that you’ve to go to work on Monday morning. Even though there’s still some hours of the weekend left to run, it’s to all intents and purposes over as soon as you get that deathknell despair.

Ted looked at his watch and seemed happy with that explanation. ‘Ten past five. Right on the button.’

‘I’ve got cabin fever. Let’s go out.’ Ashling had just remembered one of the basic rules of male-female engagement. Of course Marcus hadn’t rung – she’d been waiting by the phone! All she had to do was leave her flat and he’d be burning up the phone lines.

Before they left she grabbed a couple of books for Boo. She’d been caught humiliatingly on the hop the previous night when she hadn’t a novel in her handbag to give to him in place of the mushroom encyclopaedia. But as she shoved Trainspotting into her bag, she went into a loop. Would he be offended if she gave him a book about heroin addiction? Would he think she was implying something?

Best to be on the safe side. Back it came out of the bag. Instead she brought Fever Pitch and some science-fiction crap that Phelim had given her two birthdays ago and that she’d never read. A boy’s book. But, on the street, there was no sign of Boo.

Ted and Ashling went to the Long Hall for a couple of rather subdued drinks, followed by a low-key pizza at Milano’s, then home again. As Ashling let herself back in, the first thing she did was look for the red flashing light on her answering machine. And there it was! She’d been so poised for disappointment that she thought she was conjuring it up. She stood and watched, as the light blinked on and off. Little red circle, no little red circle, little red circle, no little red circle… It was a message, all right. As she pressed the ‘play’ button, an awful thought afflicted her. If this is from Cormac saying that hell be delivering a lorry-load of shrubs on Wednesday, I’ll scream.

But the message was from neither the mystery gardening supplier nor from Marcus Valentine. It was from Ashling’s father.

Oh God, what’s happened?

His voice was preceded by silence overlain with crackles, static scrapes and adenoidal breathing. Then he said to someone in the room with him, ‘Will I talk now?’

The other person – Ashling’s mother, presumably – said something that Ashling couldn’t hear, then Mike Kennedy said, ‘There were a few short ones, and a long one. God, I hate these yokes… Ashling, Dad here. I feel like a terrible eejit talking to a machine. We were just thinking we hadn’t heard from you in a while. Are you all right? We’re grand here. Janet rang us last week, she had to get rid of the cat, he kept head-butting her while she was asleep. And we’d a letter from Owen, he thinks he’s discovered a new tribe. Not brand new, of course. Just new to him. I suppose you’re busy with your new job, but don’t forget us, will you? Hahaha. Ah, bye so.’

More crackles and breathing. Then, ‘What’ll I do now? Just hang up? I don’t have to press a button or anything?’

Abruptly the connection was severed.

Ashling stewed in guilt and resentment, Marcus Valentine completely forgotten. She could feel the pressure for a visit to Cork coming on. At the very least she’d have to call them. Especially if her younger sister Janet managed to circumvent the eight-hour time difference to ring from California, and her brother Owen could get a letter to them from the Amazon Basin.

She flicked a glance at the photo she kept on top of her telly. It had been there so long that she was usually blind to it. But the emotions stirred up by the phone call made her take it and stare at it, as if looking for clues.