Ashling chattered excitedly about her new job, about the famous people she'd nearly met, about the free T-shirt she got from Morocco, and Clodagh's spirits slid into the bottom of her gin-and-tonic.

'Maybe I should get a job,' she suddenly interrupted. 'I always meant meant to go back to work after Craig.' to go back to work after Craig.'

'That's right, you did.' Ashling knew Clodagh was vaguely defensive that she wasn't one of those super-women who did a full-time job as well as rearing children.

'But the exhaustion was beyond belief,' Clodagh insisted. 'Whatever you hear about the agony of labour, nothing prepares you for the hell of sleepless nights. I was forever shattered and waking up was like coming round from an anaesthetic. I couldn't couldn't have held down a job.' have held down a job.'

And luckily Dylan's computer business was doing well enough that she didn't have to.

'Do you have time now for a job?' Ashling asked.

'I am am very busy,' Clodagh acknowledged. 'Apart from a couple of hours when I go to the gym, I never have a moment to myself. Mind you, it's all inconsequential stuff; changing clothes that've been puked on or having to watch Barney video after Barney video... Although,' she said, with a glint in her eye, 'I've put an end to Barney.' very busy,' Clodagh acknowledged. 'Apart from a couple of hours when I go to the gym, I never have a moment to myself. Mind you, it's all inconsequential stuff; changing clothes that've been puked on or having to watch Barney video after Barney video... Although,' she said, with a glint in her eye, 'I've put an end to Barney.'

'How?'

'I've told Molly that he's dead.'

Ashling roared laughing.

'Told her he'd been knocked down by a lorry,' Clodagh continued grimly.

Ashling's smile faded. 'You didn't... really?'

'I did, really,' Clodagh said smartly. 'I'd had quite enough of that big purple fucker and all those awful irritating brats, delivering morals and telling me how to live my life.'

'And was Molly upset?'

'She'll get over it. Shit happens. Am I right?'

'But... but... she's two and a half.'

'I'm a person too,' Clodagh said defensively. 'I have rights too. And I was going mad from it, I swear I was.'

Ashling considered in confusion. But maybe Clodagh was right. Everyone just expects mothers to sublimate all of their own wants and needs for the good of their children. Perhaps that wasn't very fair.

'Sometimes,' Clodagh sighed, heavily, 'I just wonder, what's the point? My day is filled with ferrying Craig to school, Molly to playgroup, Molly home from playgroup, Craig to his origami lessons... I'm a slave.'

'But bringing up kids is the most important job anyone can do,' Ashling protested.

'But I never have any adult conversation. Except with other mothers, and then it's all so competitive. You know the sort of thing "My Andrew is much more violent than your Craig." Craig never hits anyone, while Andrew bloody Higgins is a junior Rambo. It's so humiliating!' She fixed Ashling with a bleak look. 'I see magazine articles about the competitiveness of the workplace, but it's nothing compared to what takes place in the mother-and-toddler group.'

'If it's any consolation, I've been worried sick all this week because I've to write an article on a salsa class,' Ashling provided. 'It's literally kept me awake at night. You don't have to deal with that kind of worry.' To finally bring her round, Ashling finished softly, 'And above all, you have Dylan.'

'Ah now, marriage isn't all it's cracked up to be.'

Ashling wasn't convinced. 'I know you have to say that. It's the rule, I've seen it in action. Married women simply aren't allowed to say that they're mad about their husbands, unless they're just just married. Get a group of married women together and they compete to see who can diss their husband the most. "My one leaves his dirty socks on the floor," "Well my one never noticed that I got my hair cut." I think you're all just embarrassed by your good fortune!' married. Get a group of married women together and they compete to see who can diss their husband the most. "My one leaves his dirty socks on the floor," "Well my one never noticed that I got my hair cut." I think you're all just embarrassed by your good fortune!'

Back out on the sunlit street, Ashling heard a familiar voice shout, 'Salman Rushdie, Jeffrey Archer or James Joyce?'

It was Joy.

'What are you doing up so early?'

'Haven't been to bed yet. Hiya.' Joy nodded warily at Clodagh. Clodagh and Joy didn't really like each other. Joy thought Clodagh was too spoilt and Clodagh resented Joy for her closeness with Ashling.

'Go on, then,' Joy urged. 'Salman Rushdie, Jeffrey Archer or James Joyce?'

'James Joyce alive or decomposing?'

'Decomposing.'

Ashling considered her gruesome choice and Clodagh's face was a picture of leftoutness. 'James Joyce,' Ashling finally decided. 'Right, you cow. Gerry Adams, Tony Blair or Prince Charles?'

Joy winced. 'Ooooh! Well obviously not not Tony Blair. And not Prince Charles. It's going to have to be number one.' Tony Blair. And not Prince Charles. It's going to have to be number one.'

Ashling turned to Clodagh. 'Your turn.'

'What do I do?'

'You pick three horrible men and we have to choose which one we sleep with.'

Clodagh hesitated. 'Why?'

Ashling and Joy glanced at each other. Why indeed?

'Because it's... um... fun.'

'I have to go.' Joy rescued the situation. 'I'm afraid I'm going to die. See you later. What time are we going to the River Club?'

'I said I'd meet Lisa there at nine.'

'You have all these friends that I don't know.' Clodagh stared resentfully after her. 'Her, and that Ted. I'm buried alive.'

'Well, why don't you come out with us? I keep inviting you.'

'I could, couldn't I? Dylan can bloody well babysit for a change.'

'Or Dylan could come too.'

18.

Ashling had been wrong Marcus Valentine didn't ring her. She could hardly believe her luck. All week her answering machine had crouched in her flat with the menace of an unexploded bomb. If she came in from work and the light was flashing red, her heart leapt into her mouth. But, though there was a message from Cormac saying that a skip for the dead branches would be delivered on Tuesday and another to say that the skip would be collected on Friday, there was not a word from Marcus Valentine. By Saturday evening, when she got home from her day's shopping with Clodagh, she knew there wouldn't be.

But as she painted her fingernails (and a fair portion of her surrounding fingers also) light-blue in honour of the gig at the River Club, she realized there was a small chance Marcus would notice her in the audience. She hoped he wouldn't, she really really hoped he wouldn't. The spoils from her day's shopping were spread out on her bed light-blue Capri pants, killer sandals, white waist-tied shirt. Maybe she shouldn't wear them tonight after such a lucky escape wouldn't it be foolhardy to look nice? hoped he wouldn't. The spoils from her day's shopping were spread out on her bed light-blue Capri pants, killer sandals, white waist-tied shirt. Maybe she shouldn't wear them tonight after such a lucky escape wouldn't it be foolhardy to look nice?

But she'd only be cutting off her nose to spite her face. There'd be other people there she had to think about them.

Around nine o'clock, Ted and Joy showed up. Joy complimented Ashling on her funky pastel glamour, but Ted was agitatedly whispering, 'My owl has got no wife. Shit, that's wrong! My wife has got no nose. No! Shit, shit, shit!... We might as well stay at home,' he said tearfully. 'I'm going to be atrocious. People have expectations of me now. It was different when I didn't have a following. My owl has got no nose...'

Already Ashling was plopping a drop of rescue remedy on his tongue, rubbing lavender oil on his temples and shoving the Serenity Prayer under his nose. 'Read that, and if it doesn't do the trick, we'll move on to the Desiderata.'

'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.' 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 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 An Encyclopaedia of Mushrooms.

'Why are you reading that? 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 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 Colleen had greatly intensified. 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.