'You're sticking your elbow into me,' Francine complained to Lisa.

'Sorry.'

'Don't say sorry,' Francine was instantly contrite. 'You should say that at least you don't make noise when you eat.'

'Right, got it.'

'Or that you're not a big fat greedy guts,' Jessica offered helpfully.

'Or that I'm not the one who keeps farting,' Lisa said.

'Yeah!'

Crammed around the small kitchen table, the telly blaring, milk moustaches on everyone, including herself probably, Lisa had a flash of deja vu deja vu. Of what? What did this remind her of? And a dreadful realization lunged at her. It was just like her own home in Hemel Hempstead. The crampedness, the noise, the good-natured bickering, the whole feel feel was the same. was the same. How on earth did I end up back here? How on earth did I end up back here?

'Are you OK, Lisa?' Kathy asked.

Lisa nodded. But she was fighting the desire to catapult vertically from her chair and run from the house. She was a working-class girl who'd spent her life trying to be something else. And despite years devoted to the gruelling treadmill of networking, sucking up, doing down, always paying attention, never relaxing, she'd been brought inexorably back to where she started.

It knocked the power of speech from her.

She'd never really considered what she was sacrificing as she'd rocket-launched herself away from her roots. The rewards had always seemed worth it. But sitting in Kathy's kitchen, she could see no evidence of the glamorous life she'd constructed for herself. Instead she was walloped by what she'd forfeited friends, family, worst of all Oliver, and for nothing.

60.

It was midnight and Jack Devine was exhausted and dispirited. He'd been pacing the streets of Dublin for a couple of hours, looking for Boo and having no joy. He felt like a particularly bad gumshoe. Apart from checking the doorways in the streets around Ashling's flat, he had no idea where to look. Where were good homeless haunts?

The street people he'd asked had denied all knowledge of Boo. Perhaps they really didn't know him, but Jack suspected that it was more to do with protecting him. Should he have slipped them a tenner, blown smoke in their eyes and said, 'Maybe this'll help your memory'? Wasn't that what happened in Raymond Chandler books?

Cursing his dearth of street smarts, he continued walking. Off the main streets, along dark laneways, into loading bays... maybe this was him! A fleshless bundle of limbs was huddled under a coat on a flattened cardboard box.

'Excuse me,' Jack crouched down beside him, and a small, thin, very very young face looked up at him. Defensive and frightened. It wasn't Boo. 'Sorry.' Jack backed away. 'Sorry to have disturbed you.' young face looked up at him. Defensive and frightened. It wasn't Boo. 'Sorry.' Jack backed away. 'Sorry to have disturbed you.'

He made his way back out on to the main drag and just ran out of steam. He'd had enough for one night, he'd try again tomorrow. Heading for his car, he suddenly heard someone call, 'Jack! Over here.'

And there, sitting on a hairdresser's step, reading a book was, of all people, Boo.

'Out on the piss?' Boo enquired, with his gappy grin.

'Er, no.' Jack was stunned that it was Boo who had found him him. 'I've been looking for you for the past couple of hours.'

'So it was you you.' Earlier JohnJohn had warned him that some chap was asking about him. He'd suspected he was a plainclothes because what else could he be? but he wasn't entirely sure.

'It was me.' Jack crouched down beside Boo and suddenly, as though crossing an invisible line, the smell hit him like a blow from a lump-hammer. With enormous effort of will, he forced his face not to register it.

'So what's up?' Boo was wary. He'd liked Jack that time he'd stopped and chatted about those fashion photos with him. But generally people did not seek Boo out unless he was in some sort of trouble.

Tuning out the reeking air. Jack searched for the right words, unwilling to sound patronizing. He wanted Boo to come away from this with some dignity.

'I have a problem,' Jack began.

Muscle by muscle, Boo's face began to shut down.

'I have a vacancy at the television station I work at and I'm looking for the right person to fill it. Your name was suggested to me by a colleague.'

'What do you mean?' Boo's eyes were narrow with suspicion.

'I'm offering you a job. If you'd like it,' he added quickly.

Boo's face was a study of incomprehension. This was outside the breadth of his experience. 'Why?' he finally managed. People being nice to him was a rare event and he wasn't inclined to trust it.

'Ashling thought you would be suitable and I respect her opinion.'

'Ashling...' If she had something to do with this, maybe it wasn't a total put-on. But what else could it be? Sharply, he said, 'You're taking the piss, are you?'

'No, I'm really not. Why don't you come and see us over at the station and you might believe me then.'

'You'd let me in?'

At that Jack thought his heart might cave in. 'Of course we would. How else would you do any work?'

It was then that Boo went against his every natural instinct and began to believe Jack. 'But why...?' His eyes glistened and he looked terribly young, so like a child. Jack felt his own face fill with emotion. 'I've never had a job before.' Boo swallowed.

'Well, isn't it about time you started?'

'Can't be a layabout all my life!'

'Er, yeah.' Jack wasn't sure whether or not to laugh.

'Oh, lighten up,' Boo elbowed him with a watery grin. 'And will it be just book reviews I'll be doing, or will you be needing other stuff done as well?'

'Erm ' Jack was entirely wrong-footed. 'Other stuff as well, I'd say.'

The next morning at work, Jack offered his news to Ashling as if it was a present. 'I found Boo and told him about the job over at the TV station. He seemed keen.'

'Great!' Her enthusiastic voice didn't match her whey-face.

'He's short of clothes, so I've told him to come in and see Kelvin. There's a lot of men's clothes in the "fashion department" that no one wants, he might as well get togged out.'

Ashling became very still. She still hadn't shed one tear, but this was almost enough to dissolve her. 'That's very nice of you,' she said to her chest.

'The thing was,' Jack sounded confused, 'at first Boo seemed to think that we wanted him to do book reviews for Colleen Colleen. Why's that?'

She lifted and released her shoulder bones. 'Search me.' Suddenly she wished she hadn't said that. The words had caused something to dart across Jack's face and it froze her mid-shrug. Whatever it was made her feel alive. And afraid. 'Book reviews?' She tried to focus, then remembered. 'I've been giving him proof copies. Of books no one else wanted,' she added hastily. 'And he always gave me his opinion.'

'Oh right. Well, he starts as a runner at the station on Monday. The book reviews on Colleen Colleen are Lisa's call. But we can always ask her,' he concluded cheerfully. are Lisa's call. But we can always ask her,' he concluded cheerfully.

In floods of tears, Clodagh opened her front-door.

'What's wrong?' Marcus gasped.

'It's Dylan. He's a bastard.'

'What's he done?' Marcus demanded, following her into the kitchen, his face bruised with fury.

'Oh, I deserve it,' Clodagh sat at the table and wiped her leaking eyes. 'I'm not saying I don't. But it's so hard. Whenever I see him he has more bad news and he makes me feel awful.'

'So what's he done?' Marcus demanded again.

'He made me give back all my credit cards. And he's closed our joint account and instead he's going to give me an allowance every month. For guess how much?'

Sobbing again, she named a sum so low that Marcus exclaimed, 'Allowance? That's more like a forbiddance!'

She rewarded this with a trembly smile. 'Well, I've been a bad girl, what do I expect?'

'But he has a duty to look after you, you're his wife!' Marcus's vehemence wasn't matched by his actions. He was fumbling in the containers along the window-sill.

'But I suppose he doesn't feel he should take care of me...' She paused. 'What are you doing?'

'Looking for a pen.'

'Here.' One was located in Craig's pencil case. 'What are you doing?'

'Just...'He scribbled something on a scrap of paper. 'Something. Let's go to bed,' he murmured into her neck.

'I thought you'd never ask.' She summoned a less watery smile and led him to the front-room. But Marcus paused and wouldn't go in. The novelty of having teenage sex on a couch had begun to pall.

'Let's go upstairs.'

'We can't.'

'How long is this cloak-and-dagger stuff going to go on for? C'mon Clodagh,' he cajoled. 'They're only kids. They don't understand.'

'You brat,' she giggled. 'You'd better not better not make noise.' make noise.'

'In that case you'd better not better not be so fucking sexy.' be so fucking sexy.'

'I'll try,' she grinned.

The sex was fantastic, as always. She managed to lose herself and her shame and her new-found penury with each stroke that Marcus banged into her. Until she felt his rhythm falter.

'Go faster!' she hissed.

But he went even slower, then stopped altogether.

'What's wrong?'

'Cloooodaaaagh.' His voice was full of warning, his eyes were focused elsewhere and she was hurriedly excavating herself from under him. I forgot to lock the door I forgot to lock the door.

It was both a shock and not a shock to see Craig framed in the doorway, staring at Marcus.

'Daddy?' he asked in tremulous confusion.

'Mum, it's Lisa.'

'Hello, love,' Pauline said warmly. 'How lovely to hear you.'

'You too.' Lisa's throat ached at the love she heard in her mum's voice. 'Hey, I was thinking of coming to see you and Dad next weekend. If it's good for you,' she added hastily.

'Do you know?' Pauline mused. 'We couldn't possibly think of anything we'd rather do. We'd absolutely love to see you.'

When Lisa had left Kathy's house on Friday night she'd felt raw, naked and exposed, as though everything which made her who she was had been stripped away. And out of nowhere she'd wanted her mum.

It was an unexpected reaction, and so was what followed next the first shock of realization passed and it no longer seemed so dreadful. You can take the girl out of the council house, hut you cant take the council house out of the girl You can take the girl out of the council house, hut you cant take the council house out of the girl, she half-laughed to herself. She wasn't exactly happy about it, but she wasn't exactly unhappy either.

In the immediate aftermath she'd been engulfed with the desire to run away. But that had left her and instead she wanted to return to the source.

'I'm so looking forward to seeing you, Lisa. It's cheered me right up.' Such was Pauline's delight and warmth that Lisa wondered how much she'd imagined her parents' uncomfortable awe of her. Had it all been projected by herself?

The days stacked up for Ashling. The world remained a griefscape and when she woke up every morning, she felt as though she'd been drinking really heavily the night before. Even on the nights when she hadn't. But after a couple of weeks she realized that the small things, like brushing her teeth and having a shower, no longer seemed ridiculously onerous.

'That'll be the anti-depressants taking hold,' Monica said, in one of her many phone calls. 'Those Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors are a godsend. Much better than those old-fashioned Tricyclic whatever-they're-calleds.'

Ashling was surprised. She hadn't expected the anti-depressants to work and she realized she'd had no faith in anything. After all, her mother hadn't got well. At least not for a very long time.

As well as keeping herself clean, she managed to work, so long as it wasn't anything too tricky. She'd always been embarrassed about her conscientiousness but now vaguely recognized that it had probably been her salvation.

'The November horoscopes are in,' Trix waved pages. 'Gather round everyone and I'll read them out.'

The entire office crashed to a halt. Any excuse. Even Jack hovered, aware he should be reading the riot act. He would, he decided, just as soon as they'd done Libra.

'Read Scorpio,' Ashling urged Trix.

'But you're Pisces.'

'Go on. Scorpio. And then Capricorn.'

Clodagh was Scorpio and Marcus was Capricorn and Ashling wanted to know how they were going to fare in November. Jack Devine caught her eye and flashed her a tricky look a mix of censoriousness and sorrow. He knew what she was up to. Haughtily she turned her head away. She could read whoever's horoscopes she liked and there were far worse things she could be doing. After all, Joy had suggested putting a curse on Marcus and Clodagh.

According to their horoscopes, Clodagh's and Marcus's month was going to be up and down. Ashling could well believe it.

'What are you, JD?' Trix asked.