‘Oh, Dylan.’ Then Ashling said nothing more. She was enjoying this.

‘And who is he?’ Lisa eventually had to ask.

‘An old friend.’

‘Single?’

‘He’s married to my best friend. So you like my article?’ Ashling said stubbornly.

‘I said it’s fine.’ Lisa was irritable. Then her next words rubbed salt into the wound. ‘I think we’ll make it a regular feature. Knock together another piece about meeting men for the October issue. What did you suggest at the first meeting we had? Going to a dating agency? Horse-riding? Surfing the net?’

She remembered everything, Ashling thought, impossibly burdened by the thought of having to make this monumental effort next month and every month. And never getting fecking well praised for it!

‘Or you could do something on the chances of meeting men at a comedy gig,’ Lisa said, with an artful smile.

Ashling shrugged uncomfortably.

‘Has he called you yet?’ Lisa asked suddenly.

Ashling shook her head, embarrassed at what a loser she was. Had he rung Lisa? Probably, the gloaty cow. After some seconds without speech the curiosity got too much. ‘Has he called you?’

To her surprise, Lisa also shook her head.

‘Prick!’ Ashling said energetically, cruising on relief.

‘Prick!’ Lisa agreed, with an unexpected giggle.

All at once it seemed very funny that he’d rung neither of them.

‘Men!’ The burdensome anticipation Ashling had carried since Saturday dissolved into giddy laughter.

‘Men!’ Lisa agreed, frothy with merriment.

At that moment, both of them were drawn to look at Kelvin, who was standing mid-floor, idly scratching his balls and staring into space. He looked so like a man that when their eyes swivelled back to each other, they jack-knifed into convulsions.

Spasms of mirth issued from Lisa’s core. Which so uplifted and liberated her that she realized it was a long time since she’d really laughed. A proper belly-laugh where nothing else mattered.

‘What?’ Kelvin demanded edgily. ‘What’s so funny?’

That was enough to start them again. Their mutual suspicion was washed clean by the high tide of hilarity, and they were – for the moment, at least – warm with unity.

Her mouth still dolphin-wide with the remnants of glee, Lisa on impulse said to Ashling, ‘I’ve got an invite to a make-up demo this afternoon. D’you want to come?’

‘Why not?’ Ashling said lightly. Grateful, but no longer pitifully so.

The make-up presentation was by Source, who were the current big thing, favoured by supermodels and It girls. Reassuringly expensive, all their products were organic, the packaging was bio-degradable, recyclable or reusable, and they made a big song and dance because they ploughed some of their profits back into replanting trees, patching up the ozone layer et cetera. (The actual amount was 0.003 per cent of the post-tax profit, after the shareholders had received their dividend. In practice the sum amounted to a couple of hundred quid, but even if people knew, they wouldn’t care. They’d bought wholesale into the notion of ‘Source – responsible beauty’.)

The Morrison hotel was the site of the demonstration, just far enough away from the office for Lisa to insist on getting a taxi. It would have been quicker if they’d walked because the traffic was so bad, but she didn’t care. In London she’d never walked anywhere and she considered it a slur on her status to be expected to here.

One of the function rooms of the hotel had been converted into an old-fashioned pharmacy for the day. The Source girls wore white doctors’ coats and were positioned behind miniature apothecary desks (made of MDF, tampered with to look like aged teak). All around were glass-stoppered bottles, medicine droppers and prescription jars.

‘Pretentious nonsense,’ Lisa laughed scornfully into Ashling’s ear. ‘And when they speak about the new season’s products, they behave as if they’ve just discovered a cure for cancer. But first a drink!… Wheatgrass juice!’ Lisa exclaimed, when the waiter deconstructed the contents of his tray for her. ‘Pants! What else have you?’

She beckoned another waiter, whose tray was covered with silver canisters, each with a tube like a bendy opaque straw. ‘Oxygen?’ Lisa said, in disgust. ‘Don’t be daft. Bring me a glass of champagne.’

‘Make it two,’ Ashling said nervously. The mere sight of the green, lumpy wheatgrass juice was making her feel sick, and to the best of her knowledge, she could get oxygen any time she liked. They had three glasses of champagne each, much to the envy of the other liggers, who were timidly sipping their free wheatgrass juice and trying not to barf. Only Dan ‘I’ll try anything once’ Heigel from the Sunday Independent had sampled the oxygen and became so lightheaded that he had to lie down in the lobby, where tourists were stepping over him and smiling indulgently, thinking he was the quintessential example of a mouldy drunk Irishman.

‘Come on,’ Lisa eventually said to Ashling. ‘We ought to go for our lecture, then we can claim our free gift.’

Lisa was right, Ashling noted. Caro, who demonstrated the cosmetics for them, was remarkably earnest and humour-free about the products.

‘This season’s look is shimmery,’ she said, lovingly stroking some eye-shadow on to the back of her hand.

‘That was last season’s look too,’ Lisa challenged.

‘Oh no. Last season’s was shimmering.’ This was said without a trace of irony.

Lisa poked a sharp elbow into Ashling and they shared a shudder of silent mirth. It was nice to have someone to have a laugh with at these things, Lisa realized.

‘We’ve broken new ground this season by producing a lip-gloss for the browbone, we’re very excited about it… any inconsistency in texture is because, unlike other cosmetic houses, we refuse to corrupt our products with animal fats. A small price to pay…’

Finally, the worthy demonstration came to an end, and Caro clinked together a selection of the new season’s cosmetics. All the products were in thick brown glass containers, like old-fashioned medicine bottles, and were packaged into a replica of a doctor’s case.

She handed it to Lisa, who was obviously in charge. But when Ashling and Lisa didn’t move off, Caro said anxiously, ‘Only one gift per publication. Our philosophy at Source is to discourage excess.’