'He wasn't always working,' Clodagh said sullenly. 'He was often here.'

She handed Marcus an illustrated copy of Little Red Riding Hood Little Red Riding Hood, which he refused to take. 'Sorry, but I've got to put in an hour on my novel.'

She stared at him long and hard. 'My marriage has broken up because of you.'

'And my relationship with Ashling broke up because of you you. So we're quits.'

Clodagh was raging. She didn't even believe that Marcus had liked Ashling that much, but he insisted he had, so what could she do?

62.

And then, taking everyone by surprise, as it did every year, Christmas arrived. All and sundry drank their heads off for most of the month and on the twenty-third of December Colleen's Colleen's office closed for eleven days. 'Compassionate leave,' Kelvin called it. office closed for eleven days. 'Compassionate leave,' Kelvin called it.

Phelim came home from Australia and expressed mild surprise when Ashling wouldn't sleep with him. Nevertheless he took it well and still gave her the didgeridoo he'd brought for her. Ashling went to her parents for Christmas an event worthy of comment, as she'd stayed in Dublin with Phelim's family for the previous five years. Ashling's brother Owen came home from the Amazon basin and made his mother's Christmas by not having a plate in his lower lip. Ashling's sister Janet flew in from California. She was taller, slimmer and blonder than Ashling remembered. She ate a lot of fresh fruit and refused to walk anywhere.

Clodagh spent the day alone. Dylan took the children to his parents and she boycotted her own parents when they said Marcus couldn't come with her. But at the last minute Marcus decided to spend the day with his his parents. parents.

Lisa went to Hemel and was grateful for the fuss her mum and dad made of her. She'd signed and posted the final divorce papers a few weeks before Christmas and still felt ridiculously fragile. The next part of the process was the decree nisi.

The night Ashling returned from Cork, she found she had a new neighbour. A blond, wiry boy was huddled in her doorway, tucking into a sandwich and a can of Budweiser.

'Hiya,' she said. 'I'm Ashling.'

'George.' He noticed her looking at the can of Bud. 'It's New Year's Eve,' he said, defensively. 'I'm having a drink like anyone else.'

'I don't mind,' she said softly.

'Just because I'm on the streets doesn't mean I have a problem with booze,' he explained, relenting slightly. 'I'm just a social drinker.'

She gave him a pound and went inside, where despair threatened to overwhelm her. Homelessness was like a many-headed monster cut off one head and two more appear in its place. Boo was sorted, with a job, a flat and even a girlfriend, but he'd been one of the few lucky ones: intelligent, presentable-looking and still young enough to have the capacity to adapt to a mainstream life. There were so many others who had nothing, and who never would beaten by the life which had catapulted them on to the streets in the first place and further beaten by hunger, despair, fear, boredom and other people's hatred.

Her doorbell rang. It was Ted, proudly sporting a small, tidy girl. 'You're back,' he announced, then turned to encompass the girl by his side. 'This is Sinead.'

Sinead extended a neat little hand. 'Pleased to meet you,' she said, with prim self-confidence.

'Come in.' Ashling was surprised. Sinead didn't look like your usual comedy groupie.

In Ted swaggered, then smoothed the couch cushions before solicitously inviting Sinead to sit down.

She placed herself daintily on the couch, her knees and ankles aligned, and graciously accepted Ashling's offer of a glass of wine. All the while Ted watched her like a soppy hawk.

'You, um, met Ted at a gig?' Ashling tried to make conversation, as she scouted on the floor for the corkscrew. She was sure that's where she'd left it the night before she went to Cork...

'A gig?' Sinead sounded as though she'd never heard the word before.

'A comedy gig.'

'Oh no!' Sinead tinkled.

'She's never seen my act, says she never wants to.' Ted gazed at her with isn't-she-great? fondness.

It transpired that Sinead and Ted worked together, toiling shoulder to shoulder in the department of agriculture. At their Christmas party, as they had drunkenly jived to 'Rock Around the Clock', their eyes had met and that was it love.

Ashling entertained a strange suspicion that Sinead's advent signalled the beginning of the end of Ted's stand-up career. But as he'd only ever become a comedian to get a girl, perhaps he wouldn't mind. He certainly didn't seem seem upset. upset.

'Tonight? You want to go out again?' Clodagh asked. 'But you were out last night and the night before and Wednesday night.'

Patiently Marcus explained, 'I've got to keep an eye on the new comics out there. This is my career, I have to go.'

'Which is more important to you? Me or your career?'

'You're both important.'

Wrong answer.

'Well, I won't be able to get a babysitter, it's too short notice.'

'OK.'

And that, Clodagh thought, was that. Until at nine o'clock Marcus stood up and said, 'I'll be off. It'll be a late one, so I'll go home instead of coming back here.'

Clodagh was astonished. 'You're going? going?'

'I said I was.'

'No. You said it was OK that I couldn't get a babysitter. I thought you meant you weren't going to go without me.'

'No, I meant I was was going to go without you.' going to go without you.'

'Ashling, I've something to tell you,' Ted said.

'What?' It was a freezing January evening and Ted and Joy had showed up deputation-like, with sleet on their collars.

'You'd better sit down,' Joy advised.

'I am am sitting down.' Ashling thumped the couch she was on. sitting down.' Ashling thumped the couch she was on.

'That's good. I don't know if you're going to be upset,' Ted said.

'What?'

'I've worried about whether or not you should be told.'

'Tell me!'

'You know Marcus Valentine.'

'I might have heard of him. Duh, Ted, please please.'

'Yes, sorry. Well, I saw him. In a pub. With a girl. Who wasn't Clodagh.'

All was still, then Ashling said, 'So what? He's allowed to be seen in the company of another woman.'

'I take your point. I take your point. But is he allowed to stick his tongue down her throat?'

A strange expression lit Ashling's face. Shock and something else. Joy glanced at her anxiously.

'You've met the girl,' Ted elaborated. 'Suzie. I was talking to her at a party in Rathmines one night and I left with you. Remember?'

Ashling nodded. She remembered a neat, pretty little redhead. Ted had called her a comedy groupie.

'So I, er, asked around,' Ted went on.

'And?'

'And he's sticking more than his tongue into her, if you take my meaning.'

'Oh, my good God.'

'For a freckly bastard he sure is a big hit with the goils,' Joy observed drily.

'Oh my good God,' Ashling repeated.

'Don't go all compassionate and start to feel sorry for Clodagh,' Joy begged. 'Please don't go rushing round there to hold her hand.'

'Don't be so stupid,' Ashling said. 'I'm fucking delighted.'

'I'm coming over to get my stuff,' Marcus said.

'It'll be ready,' Clodagh confirmed heatedly.

Fuming, she banged around the house, shoving his personal effects into a black bin-liner. She couldn't believe how quickly it had all splintered. They'd gone from mutual obsession to near-hatred in a matter of weeks, eddying in a downward spiral from the moment it had stopped being just about sex and started being about real life.

She'd thought she loved him, but she didn't. He was a boring bastard. The boringest of boring bastards. All he wanted to talk about was his act and about how none of the other comedians were as good as him.

And he needed so much attention. She found it distasteful the way he resented it whenever she focused on Craig and Molly. Sometimes it was just like having three children.

Not to mention that bloody novel he'd started. Garbage! Unbelievably Unbelievably depressing. He took criticism so badly, even constructive suggestions. All she'd said was that maybe the woman in it could set up her own business, baking cakes or making pottery, and he'd gone depressing. He took criticism so badly, even constructive suggestions. All she'd said was that maybe the woman in it could set up her own business, baking cakes or making pottery, and he'd gone mad mad.

And lately he wanted to be out every night. Simply refused to understand that she couldn't keep leaving her two children. It was hard to get babysitters. It was even harder to afford afford babysitters on what Dylan was giving her. But more than that, she didn't babysitters on what Dylan was giving her. But more than that, she didn't want want to be out every night. She missed Craig and Molly when she was away from them. to be out every night. She missed Craig and Molly when she was away from them.

Staying in at home was nice. There was no shame in watching Coronation Street Coronation Street and having a glass of wine. and having a glass of wine.

And the sex. She no longer wanted to do it three times a night. She shouldn't be expected to. No one No one did after the first crazy passion had passed. But he was still on for it, and it was exhausting. did after the first crazy passion had passed. But he was still on for it, and it was exhausting.

But all that was small potatoes compared to the bombshell he'd just hit her with that he'd 'met someone else'.

She was boiling with anger and deeply humiliated. Especially because in some remote corner at the back of her head she'd always entertained a suspicion that she was doing him a favour, that it was the luckiest day of his life when she'd fallen out of a stultifying marriage and into his arms. She minded desperately that she'd been dumped. It hadn't happened since Greg the American jock had lost interest in her a month before he went back to the States.

She was shoving the last pair of underpants into the bag when the doorbell rang. She marched out, opened the door and thrust the bin-liner at Marcus. 'Here.'

'Is my novel in there?'

'Oh yes, Black Dog Black Dog, the masterpiece, is in there all right. Bin-liner's the right place for it,' she said in an undertone, which wasn't really an undertone at all.

His thundery face indicated he'd heard and he prepared to retaliate.

'Oh, by the way,' he threw over his shoulder as he turned to go, 'she's twenty-two and she's had no children.' He accompanied this piece of information with a wink. He knew Clodagh had a thing about her stretch marks.

Scalded, she thumped back in. Eventually the first rush of bilious rage passed, and she tried to talk herself into something positive. At least she was rid of Marcus and his jokes and his novel and his moods that had to count for something.

And it was then that she realized she was in a bit of a bind. No husband, no boyfriend.

Oh fuck.

The Jack Devine fanclub were in full flow. Robbie, the Honey Monster and Mrs Morley were clustered together outdoing each other in their bid to wax lyrical.

Jack had recently passed through the office, looking better turned out than usual. Which, as Trix said, wouldn't be hard.

'I wonder,' she often mused, 'if anyone has ever come up to him in the street, given him ten pence and told him to buy himself a cup of tea?'

But this morning he was spruce and glossy, his dark suit pressed, his cotton shirt snowy. Even his tumbled hair wasn't too bad he sometimes came to work with only the sides of his hair combed and the back still a complete bedhead.

He scrubbed up well, no doubt about it. But when he stopped to pick up his messages from Mrs Morley, his shirt gaped where a button was missing midway down his chest.

This inflamed the fanclub further.

'A tormented man who can save the world but who needs a good woman to take care of him,' Honey Monster Shauna declared. She'd been at the Mills & Boons again.

'Yeah, like he's got that boho chic thing going on,' Robbie concluded.

'He does to be sure,' agreed Mrs Morley, who wouldn't have known boho chic from a bar of soap.

'Wouldn't you ride him as soon as look at him?' Robbie asked. 'Ashling?'

A frantic mouthing session of Don't ask her Don't ask her began. began.

But it was too late. Obedient Ashling was already imagining riding Jack Devine, and several emotions galloped across her face, none of which served to reassure her anxious colleagues.

'She was badly let down,' Mrs Morley hissed. 'I'd say she's off men.'