'Not a bad idea,' Jack said reluctantly.

Ashling gave a wobbly smile. She wasn't sure how long she could keep this sort of thing up ideas weren't really her strength. The feature had been Joy's suggestion only because Joy hoped to be the guinea-pig. 'I'm always trying to meet men, anyway,' she'd said. 'I might as well get bankrolled while I'm doing it.'

'Any other thoughts?' Jack prompted.

'How about a celebrity letter?' Lisa put forward. 'Find some Irish celebrity. Like...' Then she was completely stumped, because she didn't know any Irish celebrities. 'Like... like...'

'Bono,' Ashling suggested, kindly. 'Or one of the girls from the Corrs.'

'Exactly,' Lisa said. 'A thousand words, about flying first-class, going to parties with Kate Moss and Anna Friel. Risque and glam.'

'Very good.' Jack was pleased. But Lisa was back in the horrors. She'd been hit anew by the size of the task ahead of her. To set up a completely new magazine in an unfamiliar country!

'And how about an uncelebrity letter?' Trix suggested in her hoarse voice. 'You know the sort of thing I' an ordinary girl, I got really pissed last night, I'm two-timing my boyfriend, I hate my job, I wish I had more money, I lifted a bottle of nail varnish from Boot's...'

Everyone had been nodding enthusiastically until she got to the bit about stealing the nail varnish, then the nodding slowed down and stopped. Everyone had done it but no one was going to admit to it.

Trix noticed immediately and recovered with aplomb. '... My ma hates my boyfriend both of them I bleached my hair and burnt my scalp, that kind of thing.'

'Good idea,' Jack said. 'Mercedes, any thoughts?'

Mercedes had been doodling, her dark eyes distant and opaque. 'I'm going to showcase as many Irish designers as possible. Attend the degree shows of the fashion colleges 'How parochial is that? that?' Lisa interrupted, caustically. 'We've got to feature international designers to be taken seriously.'

No way was she going to wear amateurish, home-made garments run up by Mercedes' mates in their bedrooms! Proper magazines like Femme Femme did photo shoots of exquisite garments sent from the press offices of international fashion houses. The clothes were only on loan but more than once they'd got 'lost' after a shoot. Naturally, the models had got the blame let's face it, didn't they all have heroin habits to support? And if the missing threads turned up in Lisa's wardrobe, then no one was any the wiser. Well, actually, everyone was very much the wiser, but there was nothing they could do about it. And it was a perk that Lisa had no intention of relinquishing. did photo shoots of exquisite garments sent from the press offices of international fashion houses. The clothes were only on loan but more than once they'd got 'lost' after a shoot. Naturally, the models had got the blame let's face it, didn't they all have heroin habits to support? And if the missing threads turned up in Lisa's wardrobe, then no one was any the wiser. Well, actually, everyone was very much the wiser, but there was nothing they could do about it. And it was a perk that Lisa had no intention of relinquishing.

Mercedes flicked Lisa a knowing, contemptuous look. To Lisa's surprise, she was unsettled.

'Is that it?' Jack asked.

'What about...?' Ashling said slowly, barely trusting herself to speak. She suspected she was having an original thought, but couldn't be sure. 'How about a regular piece by a man? I know it's a women's magazine, but could we have a kind of A-Z of how a man's head works? What he really really means when he says, "I'll call you." In fact,' she squeaked with excitement, 'how about showing the woman's side too? A his'n'hers piece?' means when he says, "I'll call you." In fact,' she squeaked with excitement, 'how about showing the woman's side too? A his'n'hers piece?'

Jack gave Lisa a questioning eyebrow.

'That's so five minutes ago,' Lisa said shortly.

'Is it?' Ashling said humbly. 'OK.'

'It's the twelfth of May today,' Jack concluded the meeting. 'The board want the first issue on the stands for the end of August. That sounds like a long time for those of you who've come from weekly publications, but it's actually not. It's going to be a lot of hard work.

'But fun too,' he added, because he knew he should. Whoever he was hoping to convince, it certainly wasn't himself. 'And any problems, my door is always open.'

'Which isn't much use if you're not in your office,' Trix said cheekily. 'I mean,' she said hastily, as his face darkened, 'that you're often over at the telly studio, keeping the peace.'

'Unfortunately,' Jack directed this at Lisa, 'our television and radio operations are at different premises, half a mile away. Demands of space mean that my office is here, but I still have to spend a fair amount of time over there. But if you need me and I'm not here, you can always ring me.'

'OK,' Lisa nodded. 'And what circulation are we aiming for with Colleen? Colleen?'

'Thirty thousand. We may not get that initially, but over six months that's what we hope to work up to.'

Thirty thousand. Lisa was appalled if the circulation of Femme Femme dropped below three hundred and fifty thousand, heads rolled. dropped below three hundred and fifty thousand, heads rolled.

Then Jack showed Lisa her freelance budget, but something was wrong with it it seemed to be missing a nought. At least one.

That was it. She found herself politely excusing herself from the room and, as though in a dream, gliding to the ladies', where she locked herself in a cubicle. To her surprise she found that she was heaving and sobbing. Weeping from disappointment, humiliation, loneliness, for all that she'd lost. It didn't last long, she wasn't really a cryer, but when she finally emerged from the cubicle her heart banged hard when she saw someone standing by the basins. Plain and simple Ashling, her hands behind her back. Interfering bitch!

'Which hand?' Ashling asked.

Lisa didn't understand.

'Pick a hand,' Ashling said.

Lisa felt like smacking her. They were all mad here.

'Right or left?' Ashling urged.

'Left.'

Ashling revealed the contents of her left hand to Lisa. A packet of tissues. Then her right hand. A bottle of rescue remedy.

'Stick out your tongue.' Ashling plopped a couple of drops on to Lisa's nonplussed tongue. 'It's for shock and trauma. Cigarette?'

Lisa angrily shook her head, then wavered and passively let Ashling stick a cigarette in her mouth and light it for her.

'If you want to fix your make-up,' Ashling offered, 'I've got moisturizer and mascara, it's probably not as good as your usual stuff, but it'll do.' Already she was rummaging.

'Did someone send you in here?' Lisa was thinking of Jack Devine.

Ashling shook her head. 'No one guessed but me.'

Lisa didn't know whether or not to be disappointed. She didn't want Jack to think she was wet, but it would be nice to know he cared...

'I'm not usually like this.' Lisa's face was hard. 'I don't want it mentioned again.'

'It's forgotten.'

9.

At the end of the first day Ashling was fit to collapse. Giddy with relief that she didn't have to struggle on to a bus or a Dart, she staggered straight home. She was lucky. At least she had a home to go to, she realized Lisa had to go out and hunt one down.

Ashling flung herself gratefully into her flat, kicked off her shoes and checked her answering machine. The red light winked lasciviously and joyously Ashling hit 'play'. She was wild keen for company and connection, to help her process her strange, challenging day. But to her disappointment, all it was was a strange message from someone called Cormac, who would be delivering a ton of mulch on Friday morning. Wrong fecking number.

Bodysurfing the couch, she grabbed the phone and rang Clodagh. But as soon as she'd said hello, Clodagh launched into 'I'm having the day from hell!'

Against a cacophony of yelling, she raised her voice and complained. 'Craig has a pain in his tum-tums and all he had for breakfast was half a slice of toast and peanut butter. Then at lunch-time he wouldn't eat a thing and I wondered if I should try him with a chocolate biscuit, even though he goes hyper every time he has sugar, so in the end I gave him a custard cream because I thought that would be slightly better than one with chocolate '

'Uh-huh,' Ashling nodded sympathetically, as the howling all but drowned out Clodagh.

' which he ate, so I tried him with another but he just licked off the icing and though he doesn't have a temperature he's pale and SHUT UP! LET ME HAVE FIVE SECONDS ON THE PHONE, PLEASE. Oh, bloody hell, I can't take much more of this!'

Clodagh's plea was ragged and the screeching simply intensified.

'Is that Craig?' Ashling asked. It must be quite a stomach-ache. He sounded like he was being disembowelled.

'No, it's Molly.'

'What's up with her? her?'

Ashling was able to make out some words in all Molly's bawling. Apparently, Mummy was mean. In fact, it seemed that Mummy was horrible. And Molly didn't like Mummy. A particularly hysterical bout notified Ashling that Molly HATED Mummy.

'I'm washing her security blanket,' Clodagh said defensively. 'It's in the machine.'

'Oh my good God.'

Molly went bananas whenever she was separated from her security blanket. It had once been a teatowel, before Molly's incessant sucking had rotted it away to a smelly, brown-edged shapeless rag.

'It was filthy,' Clodagh said desperately. She turned away from the phone. 'Molly,' she beseeched. 'It was dirty. Ugh, nasty, pah!' Ashling listened patiently as Clodagh made spitting-yuck noises. 'It was a health hazard, it would have made you sick.'

The wailing increased a couple of pegs and Clodagh came back on the line. 'The old bitch at playgroup said Molly wouldn't be allowed to bring it any more if it wasn't washed regularly. What could I do? Anyway, I don't think it's appendicitis '

It took Ashling a second to realize they were back to Craig.

' because he hasn't puked and the family medical encyclopaedia says that's a sure sign. But you think of everything, don't you?'

'I suppose,' Ashling said doubtfully.

'Measles, chicken-pox, meningitis, polio, e-coli,' Clodagh reeled off miserably. 'Hold on, Molly wants to sit on my knee. You can sit on Mummy's knee if you promise to be quiet. Are you going to be quiet? Are you?'

But Molly was making no promises and a series of bangs and shifts indicated that she was being allowed to clamber on to Clodagh's knee, anyway. Mercifully, her shrieking quietened down to ostentatious sniffs and gasps.

'And as if I wasn't at the end of my rope, fucking Dylan rings to say that not only is he going to be home late again again, but that next week he's got to go to yet another overnight conference.'

'Fucking Dylan,' Ashling heard Molly sing-song, with perfect diction. 'Fucking Dylan, fucking Dylan.'

'... Plus Plus he's away this Friday at some dinner in Belfast!' he's away this Friday at some dinner in Belfast!'

More crying started up in the background. Male crying. Fucking Dylan home early and upset at being sworn at by his wife and daughter? Ashling wondered wryly. No, from the whingy, whiny complaints about a tummy-ache, it had to be Craig.

'I'll come over on Friday night,' Ashling offered.

'Great, that's LEAVE IT! WOULD YOU BLOODY LEAVE IT! Ashling, I have to go,' Clodagh said, and the line went dead. That was how phone conversations with Clodagh usually ended. Deflated, Ashling sat looking at the phone. She needed to speak to someone someone. Luckily, Ted was due any minute, she could usually set her watch by his arrival. Six fifty-three.

But at ten past seven, when she was halfway through a bag of Kettle chips and Ted hadn't appeared, Ashling began to worry. She hoped he hadn't had an accident. He was a demon on his bike and wouldn't wear a helmet. At half past she rang him. To her surprise he was home!

'Why didn't you call in?'

'Do you want me to?'

'Well...yes, I suppose. It was my first day at my new job today.'

'Oh shite, I forgot. I'll be right down.'

Seconds later, Ted appeared and he looked different. Unquantifiably, but undeniably. Ashling hadn't seen him since Saturday night remarkable in itself, but she'd been too antsy about the new job to notice until now. Somehow he looked less delicate, more twinklingly robust. Usually he invaded the space of others like an unstoppable force, but there was a straight-backed jauntiness about his posture that was new.

'Congratulations on Saturday night,' Ashling said.

'I think I have a new girlfriend,' he admitted, with a bashful ear-to-ear grin. 'At least one, in fact.' At Ashling's agog face he elaborated, 'I spent yesterday with Emma, but I'm meeting Kelly tomorrow night.'

Just then Joy arrived. 'A watched pot never boils. Half-man-half-badger will never ring if I wait by the phone. Right then! Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch or Donald Trump I thought I'd pick captains of industry in honour of your new job.'

'But that's easy.' Ashling couldn't believe how lightly she'd been let off. 'Donald Trump, of course.'

'Oh, really?' Joy was moody. 'I thought he was a bit bouffant and blow-dried. I find it hard to respect a man who spends more time on his hair than I do. Well, each to their own.'

Then she reached in her bag and waved around a bottle of Asti Spumante. 'For you. Congrats on the new job.'

'Asti Spew-mante,' Ashling exclaimed. 'Thank you.'

'Spew-mante?' Ted admired.

'Spew-mante,' Joy confirmed. 'Nothing but the best.'

When they'd got all the sniggery mileage they could out of saying 'Spew-mante', Joy gasped, wide-eyed with anticipated good news, 'So? How was your first day as a glamorous magazine person?'

'I have a nice desk, a nice Apple Mac '

'A nice boss?' Joy asked, meaningfully.

Ashling tried to formulate her thoughts. She was fascinated by Lisa's glowing, well-turned-out attractiveness and curious about the unhappiness that throbbed from her. She'd recognized her as the woman in the supermarket with the seven of everything, and she was interested in that too. But it had been a mistake to follow her to the ladies'. She'd been desperate to help, but she'd ended up being just pushy and insensitive.

'She's very beautiful.' Ashling didn't want to elaborate on her regret. 'And thin and clever and has fantastic clothes.'

Ted, the freshly minted womanizer, perked up, but Joy said scornfully, 'Not that that boss. The good-looking man whose girlfriend bit his finger.' boss. The good-looking man whose girlfriend bit his finger.'

Ashling felt no better thinking about Jack Devine. She'd only just started her new job and neither of her superiors seemed keen on her.

'How do you know he's good-looking?' she asked.

'He just sounds it. Geeky men don't get their fingers bitten.'

''s true,' Ted chipped in. 'It's never happened to me.'

But all that might be about to change, Ashling suspected. Joy jogged her. 'Your boss?'