Was he going to apologize? Explain that he'd only been comforting Ashling and that it was Lisa he really cared for? But all he wanted to talk about was work.

'First, I'd like to congratulate you on last night, and on the first issue. What you have achieved is above and beyond what we'd hoped for and the entire board offer their congratulations.'

Lisa nodded, aware of an undertow of loss. All their easiness was slipping away, being tugged from under her feet. Jack was clearly uncomfortable with her.

'I'm sorry to do this when you should be enjoying your success,' he went on. 'But I have bad news.'

You're in love with Ashling?

'Mercedes resigned this morning.'

'Oh. Oh. Why?'

'She's leaving Ireland.'

Bitch, Lisa thought viciously. She hadn't even had the decency to say it was because Lisa was a power-crazed tyrant whom she could no longer work for.

'She's got a job in New York,' Jack elaborated. 'Apparently her husband's been seconded there.'

'New York?' Lisa was reminded of the trip Mercedes had taken in June. The most horrible thought in the world hit her. 'Her new job, it's not... not... at Manhattan? Manhattan?'

'I don't know which magazine, she didn't say.'

'Where is she?' Lisa snarled, suddenly feral.

'Gone. She was due a week's holiday, which she took in lieu of notice.'

Lisa put her face in her hands. 'Do you mind if I go home?'

She called a cab, and fifteen minutes later, still feeling like she was dreaming, she found herself at home. Scratching the key in her front door, she let herself in. The post had come one big manila envelope was lying in the hall. Absently she picked it up and, as she kicked off her shoes, tore it open. She unfolded the stiff paper within while tossing her handbag on to the kitchen counter. Then, finally, she turned her attention to the pages she held in her hand.

A one-second glance was all it took. She sank to the floor, jack-knifed with disbelief.

It was a divorce petition.

Clodagh opened her front door and recoiled as 'You bitch!' was flung at her.

'Ashling!'

'Weren't you expecting me?'

She hadn't been. All she'd been able to think about was Dylan, that he'd found out and that he'd left her. Somewhere at the back of her head she knew she'd have to talk to Ashling, but she hadn't been able to think about it yet.

'So, my best friend,' Ashling pushed into the kitchen. 'Did you think of me at all when you were fucking my boyfriend?'

Clodagh was in agony. How could she explain the guilt, the torture? 'I did think of you, Ashling,' she said humbly. 'I did, it's been so difficult. But you think only people in soap operas have affairs. Ordinary people do, it just happens.'

'But to me? How could you do it to me?'

'I don't know. But you hadn't been going out with him long, it's not like you were married or anything, and I've been so unhappy, I've felt so trapped and like I was going mad '

'Don't try to make me feel sorry for you. You have fucking everything,' Ashling said wildly. 'Why did you have to go and take him? You have everything.'

All Clodagh could say was, 'Sometimes everything isn't enough.'

'When did this start with Marcus?'

'When you were in Cork,' Clodagh said stiffly. 'He gave me a note with his phone number '

'"Bellez-moi."' Ashling was pleased at the surprise on Clodagh's face. 'You and most of Dublin got one of those notes. So why did he collect me from the train that weekend?'

Clodagh gave a dismal shrug. 'Maybe he felt guilty.'

'Then what happened?'

'He called here to the house on the Monday after. Nothing happened. He just had a cup of tea, then when he was leaving, he washed his cup. It was just a small thing but '

'He said "my Mammy trained me well",' Ashling chimed in with. 'Yes, I was fucking charmed by that too.'

'He loves me.' Clodagh was defensive.

He probably does, Ashling realized, shards of agony piercing the protective lagging of anger. 'Then what happened?'

'He invited me out for a cup of coffee...'

'And then?'

'And then... he showed up here again the following day.'

'When he did more than wash his cup?' We're not having this conversation. I'm hallucinating not having this conversation. I'm hallucinating.

Clodagh nodded, avoiding eye-contact.

'Did you go to Edinburgh with him?'

Once again Clodagh nodded humbly.

'I wouldn't have thought he was your type,' Ashling accused, aware that her face was twisted and ugly with pain. How she longed for a smooth, dignified mask.

'I wouldn't have thought he was my type either,' Clodagh admitted. 'But from the first night I saw him at that comedy place I really liked him. I didn't want to, but I couldn't help it.'

'And what about Dylan?'

Clodagh hung her head. 'I don't know, I just don't know... Look, I've betrayed you, our friendship, and that must hurt more than the end of your, um, romance.'

'You're wrong,' Ashling corrected nastily. 'I mind losing my boyfriend much more.'

Clodagh gazed at Ashling's pale, angry face and admitted uncertainly, 'I've never seen you like this before.'

'What? Angry? Well, it's long overdue.'

'How d'you mean?'

'You've done this to me before,' Ashling said quietly. 'Dylan was my boyfriend first.'

'Yes, but... he fell in love with me.'

'You stole him.'

'Well, why didn't you say anything before now?' Clodagh said, with sudden savagery. 'You were always such a victim.'

'So this is my fault?' Ashling was unpleasant. 'Let's get one thing straight. I forgave you for Dylan. But I will never forgive you for this.'

54.

'Dammit,' she realized. 'I think I'm having a nervous breakdown.'

She looked around at the bed she was flung in. Her well-overdue-for-a-bath body was sprawled lethargically on the well-overdue-for-a-change sheet. Tissues, sodden and balled, littered the duvet. Gathering dust on her chest of drawers was an untouched arsenal of chocolate. Scattered on the floor were magazines she'd been unable to concentrate on. The television in the corner relentlessly delivered daytime viewing direct to her bed. Yip, nervous-breakdown territory all right.

But something was wrong. What was it?

'I always thought...' she tried. 'Youknow, I always expected...'

Abruptly she knew. 'I always thought it would be nicer nicer than this...' than this...'

55.

Clodagh thought she was cracking up, she was certain she was. But she had to get dressed and collect Molly from playgroup. Once back, she returned to bed and attempted to take up where she'd left off, but Molly began agitating that noodles be micro-waved for her. With resignation, Clodagh got up again.

She hadn't been enjoying it anyway which had come as a big surprise. As a child, she'd watched Ashling's mother take to her bed and thought that it looked gloriously abandoned. But in practice, lying down feeling unable to cope, riddled with self-hatred and confusion, wasn't half as much fun as she'd expected.

Since ten o'clock this morning was it really really only this morning? her entire life had become an out-of-body experience. From the moment she'd heard Dylan's key in the door, she only this morning? her entire life had become an out-of-body experience. From the moment she'd heard Dylan's key in the door, she knew knew. The gig was up.

She'd paused from her frantic bucking beneath Marcus and cupped an ear to listen. 'Sssh!' In a fluid movement he'd rolled off her: frozen and bug-eyed, they'd listened to Dylan mounting the stairs.

She'd had every opportunity to jump from the bed, fling on a robe and hustle Marcus into the wardrobe. Indeed, Marcus had tried to skid out of bed, but she'd arrested him by gripping his wrist tightly. Then she'd waited with horrible calm, the scene set to change her life.

For the last five weeks she'd endured sleepless nights wondering where her affair with Marcus would end up. She'd vacillated between ending it with him and resuming a normal life with Dylan, or fantasizing about a situation where Dylan was magically absent, but without her having actually told him it was over.

But as she listened to Dylan's footsteps get ever closer, she'd realized that the decision had been taken for her. Suddenly she wasn't sure she was ready.

The door to the bedroom opened, and even though she knew it was Dylan, his presence shocked her into a stupor.

His face. The expression on his face was so much worse than she'd ever imagined it could be. She was almost surprised at the amount of pain there. And his voice when he spoke was not Dylan's. There was an Oof Oof to it, as though he'd been slammed in the abdomen. 'At the risk of sounding like a song lyric,' he'd struggled for breath with pathetic dignity, 'how long has this being going on?' to it, as though he'd been slammed in the abdomen. 'At the risk of sounding like a song lyric,' he'd struggled for breath with pathetic dignity, 'how long has this being going on?'

'Dylan...'

'How long?'

'A month.'

Dylan turned to Marcus, who was clutching the sheet to his chest. 'Would you mind leaving? I'd like a word with my wife.'

Cupping his genitals coyly, Marcus edged crab-like from the bed, snatched up some clothes and muttered to Clodagh, 'I'll call you later.'

Dylan watched him leave, then turned back to Clodagh and asked quietly, 'Why?' A hundred thousand questions were contained in that one word.

She struggled for the right words. 'I don't really know.'

'Please tell me why. Tell me what's wrong. We can fix it, I'll do anything.'

What could she say? With sudden certainty, she knew she didn't want want him to fix it. But she owed him honesty. 'I think I was lonely...' him to fix it. But she owed him honesty. 'I think I was lonely...'

'Lonely? How?'

'I don't know, I can't describe it. But I've been lonely and bored.'

'Bored? With me?'

She hesitated. She couldn't be that cruel. 'With everything.'

'Do you want to fix this?'

'I don't know.'

He studied her in long, painful silence. 'That means no. Do you love this... him?'

A miserable nod. 'I think so.'

'OK.'

'OK?'

But Dylan didn't answer. Instead, he slid a holdall off the top of the wardrobe, bounced it on to the bed and, slamming drawers open and closed, began flinging in underwear and shirts. Nothing had prepared her for how shocking it was.

'But...' she tried, her eyes flicking back and forth, seeing ties, his shaving stuff, then some socks hop into the bag. Everything was happening very quickly.