Suspicion altered his face into something hard and cold. ‘Is that why you came out with me? To persuade me to write a column?’

‘No! Not at all.’ She had a horror of being thought pushy. ‘I’ve nothing to do with it and I don’t care if you never do it.’

Not exactly true. If he agreed to do the column it’d be a feather in her cap, but she wasn’t going to press it. But she was moved by his insecurity and out of nowhere a protective urge sprang to life in her.

‘Honestly,’ she said softly, ‘I’m only here with you because I want to be. Nothing to do with anything else.’

‘OK,’ he nodded thoughtfully. Then he laughed, ‘I believe you, you’ve an honest face.’

Ashling screwed up her nose. ‘God, what an awful thing to have.’ She indicated his empty pint glass. ‘More tea, vicar?’

‘Oh? No. Ashling, can I ask you,’ his tone was apologetic, ‘would you mind if we dropped into a comedy gig? Just for half an hour? There’s someone that I’d love to have a look at.’

‘Sure, why not?’ This clearly wasn’t going to be a soft-lighting-and-expensive-dinner kind of date. Just as well, really.

The gig was only a couple of streets away, in another pub. Marcus was greeted at the door like royalty and, to Ashling’s amusement, both of them were waved through without having to pay. In the crowded room, people kept coming up to him – mostly other comedians – and Marcus introduced Ashling to all of them. I could get used to this, she thought.

The gig was similar to the others Ashling had been at. Loads of people crammed into a small dark room, with a tiny patch of stage in the corner. The comedian Marcus was interested in modelled himself on a manic depressive and called himself Lithium Man.

When he finished his ten-minute stint, Marcus touched Ashling lightly. ‘We can go now.’

‘But I don’t mind if we stay…’

He shook his head. ‘No. I want to talk to you.’

He smiled through the gloom, and Ashling suddenly noticed that though he was ordinary, he erred on the good-looking side of it.

When they were resettled in another pub, Marcus asked, ‘So what did you think of Lithium Man?’

Ashling paused. ‘To be honest, I didn’t really like him.’

‘Yeah? How so?’ Marcus seemed very interested in her opinion, and she was flattered.

‘I don’t think it’s clever to make fun of mental illness,’ she admitted. ‘Not unless you’re really funny, and he wasn’t.’

‘And who do you think is funny?’ he asked, intently.

‘Well, you obviously.’ She laughed a bit shrilly at that, but he didn’t seem to mind. ‘Who do you like?’

‘Well, me obviously.’ They giggled conspiratorially at that. ‘And Samuel Beckett.’

Ashling squealed with laughter until she realized he was serious. Shite.

‘I think he’s the best comic writer of the century,’ Marcus enthused.

‘I once saw Waiting for Godot,’ Ashling said tentatively. No need to mention that it was a school outing and she hadn’t been able to make head nor tail of it. But apart from the Beckett hiccup, the evening passed without incident. The drinks flowed and Marcus was charming and interested in her. Because of his freckles, she was relaxed around him and told him lots of things. About her salsa classes – she had to admit she was thrilled she’d actually taken it up because she must seem like a person with ‘interests’ – her fondness for handbags and how, lots of the time, she loved her new job on Colleen. ‘Although that’s not a hint,’ she said, suddenly anxious.

‘I know. But be honest, is the pressure on you to bring them the head of Marcus Valentine?’

‘N-no;,’ she stuttered.

‘And they’re not leaning on you at work about it?’ he asked again.

‘No way.’ Ashling was adamant. ‘There’s been no mention of it, actually.’

‘Oh.’ After a spell of silence he added, ‘I see… I see.’

Looking out from under his eyelashes, he smiled slightly at her, and with a sudden warmth burring in her solar plexus, Ashling realized that she found him attractive. He must be the kind of person who grows on you. And he wasn’t really like his stage persona at all. Just as well – goofy gobshites weren’t exactly bedroom fodder.

Then he shifted, tilted his head against Ashling’s and said in a low, meaningful tone, ‘Would you like a bag of chips?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘So we’ve had a drink, you don’t want chips, all that remains on the agenda is…’ The rampant sex!

Though she’d lost count of the number of drinks she’d had, the idea filled her with sudden, inexplicable paralysis. Not exactly fear, but not exactly not fear either. She really liked him, she found him attractive, but…

‘Oh, would you mind… You see, I hadn’t planned to be out late tonight. Work in the morning and all that.’

‘0h right. Sure,’ he said evenly, but he wouldn’t look her properly in the eye. ‘We’d better get going then.’

He kissed her when he dropped her home, but somehow she wasn’t convinced by it.

33

Soft, pudgy hands stroking her face… Halfway between sleeping and waking, Clodagh dreamily savoured the heat of Molly’s hands touching the sensitive, yielding skin of her face. Lying on Clodagh’s chest, Molly breathed with earnest weight as she trailed her tender, sticky fingers along Clodagh’s chin, her cheeks, around her nose, her forehead and… OW! Ouch! Stars went off in her brain.

‘You punched me in the eye, Molly!’ Clodagh yelled, in shock from the violent awakening.

‘Mummy woke up,’ Molly said, in fake surprise.

‘Oh course Mummy woke up.’Clodagh cupped her hand over her blinded eye, which was sluicing water as though from a burst dam. ‘Getting a belt in the eye usually does that to a person.’

Shrugging Molly off her, she stumbled to the mirror to check the damage. She needed to look her best today because she had an appointment at an employment agency.

One side of her face was normal, the other was collapsed into tearful, bloodshot disaster. Damn. Then she noticed the pile of clothes on her chair, and went into her usual pre-Flor frenzy of tidying and hanging.