• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1577 0

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 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?’

‘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 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 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.’

‘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