‘But he said that in his act!’ Ted said excitedly. ‘The girl he was talking about was you. This is outstanding!’

Ashling held up her hand for silence. ‘Then I met him again the weekend before last at the party in Rathmines and I still didn’t fancy him. But I saw him on Saturday night and I think I started to like him. And he said he’d ring me and he hasn’t.’

‘But of course he hasn’t!’ Joy exclaimed. ‘It’s only Monday.’

With her words, sanity returned to Ashling. ‘You’re absolutely right! I’m tying myself up in knots as usual and I’m not even sure I fancy him. And to think I spent all day yesterday on edge. Will I ever learn…?’

‘If he’s going to call you, it’ll be on Tuesday or Wednesday,’ Joy said, with confidence.

‘How do you know?’

‘It’s in the boys’ rulebook. Ted, take note. You meet a girl on Saturday night and you never ring before Tuesday because you might seem too keen. If the call doesn’t happen on Tuesday or Wednesday it doesn’t happen at all.’

‘What about Thursday?’ Ashling asked, in alarm.

‘Too close to the weekend,’ Joy shook her head knowingly. ‘They reckon your plans are already made and they don’t want to risk rejection.’

‘Actually, Saturday night’s already booked.’ Ashling was briefly distracted. ‘I said I’d babysit for Dylan and Clodagh.’

Ted gasped, ‘Can I come?’

Joy said in contempt, ‘Don’t tell me he fancies the princess.’

‘She’s beautiful,’ Ted said.

‘She’s totally spoilt and –’

‘Can I come?’ Ted ignored Joy and implored Ashling.

‘Ted, if someone is babysitting for Clodagh, the idea is that Clodagh isn’t there.’ Ashling was annoyed at Ted as good as asking her to broker a flirtation between himself and her very married friend.

‘All the same… Look, will you ask her if I can come? You’ll never be able to manage two kids by yourself.’

Ashling was caught between irritation and the realization that Ted was right. On her own she was no match for the combined might of Molly and Craig. ‘OK, I’ll ask.’ But if Clodagh was as neurotic about the care of her children as Dylan had said, there was no way she’d let Ted into the house.

‘I’d say Marcus Valentine will call tomorrow night or Wednesday.’ Joy was tired of talking about Clodagh.

‘I won’t be here tomorrow night.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘Salsa lesson.’

‘What!?’

‘I liked it,’ Ashling defended herself. ‘It’s only for ten weeks. And I’m disgustingly unfit.’

‘You’re going to get really skinny,’ Joy wailed.

‘I am not,’ Ashling blustered. ‘I’ve been a member of the gym for years and I’m not one centimetre smaller.’

‘It might make a difference if you were to go once in a while,’ Joy said, drily. ‘Paying the monthly membership isn’t enough.’

‘I used to go,’ Ashling said, in sulky defence. And indeed she did, doing hundreds of variations of sit-ups and waist-exercises. Crunchies and obliques and waist-twists. Repeatedly touching her knee with her opposite elbow until her face filled with blood and little veins burst in her eyes. But when it became clear that even if she crunchied herself into a coma, her waist was stubbornly going to refuse to get any smaller, she gave up. The rest of her wasn’t so bad, she decided, so there was nothing to be gained by exercising.

Salsa was different. She wasn’t going for her waist. She wanted to have fun.

‘You’ve got a hobby,’ Joy accused, in a fresh bout of worry. ‘You’re going to be one of those funny people who have hobbies.’

‘It’s not a hobby,’ Ashling said in alarm. ‘It’s just something I want to do.’

‘And what do you think a hobby is?’

‘Speaking of salsa,’ Ted said, ‘I’ve looked over your article and it’s outstanding. I’ve made a couple of suggestions, but it’s fine as it is.’

‘Really?’ Ashling said, hardly daring to believe it. She’d sweated hard over it for three whole nights last week and reckoned she’d even managed to make it slightly funny, but she wasn’t sure if she’d been imagining it.

‘I enjoyed it. It made a nice change to work on something like that, instead of doing a report on the eradication of brucellosis amongst dairy herds. How sexy is that?’ Ted said, not without bitterness. ‘No wonder Clodagh isn’t interested in me. The sooner I get my transfer to the Department of Defence the better.’

He lapsed into a reverie of machine guns, armoured cars, dirty faces, complicated penknives and other macho paraphernalia.

‘And look what I’ve done for you.’ Joy whipped out a sheet of paper. It contained several drawings of shoe soles, illustrating the sequence of steps for a salsa routine. Joy had sketched them in funny, cartoonish fashion, with arrows and dotted lines to indicate what happened.

‘What a smart idea!’ Ashling exclaimed. ‘You’re both fantastic,’ The dreaded article was shaping up to being something decent. Apart from the photos of herself and Joy, she’d had Gerry the Art Director do a search for a picture of two dancers. He’d found a great one, the woman bent backwards from the waist, her black hair brushing the floor, the man leaning meaningfully over her. Very sexy. Ashling experienced a brief respite from the nagging suspicion that she wasn’t really able for her job.

The phone rang, and as the answering machine was still on, they listened intently to see who it was. Could it be Marcus Valentine?

‘It won’t be. I keep telling you,’ Joy sighed with annoyance, ‘it’s only Monday.’

It was Clodagh.

‘Be still your beating heart,’ Joy said sarcastically to Ted.

Brief though the message was, in the context of Dylan’s anxiety it made Ashling edgy.

‘Ashling,’ Clodagh spoke to the room, ‘can you call me? I want to talk to you about… something.’

25

On Tuesday morning when a glittery-faced Trix clattered into the office in her plastic platforms, she was accompanied by a faint but unmistakable smell of fish. Ashling noticed it the moment she arrived, then every subsequent arrival began sniffing in alarm as soon as they came through the door. Pointing it out to Trix was, however, a little awkward, and the matter remained unaddressed until the arrival of Kelvin. After all, he was a twenty-something lad and vulgarity was his currency.