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the week, they often went to the pictures if they fancied what I was showing in the Stella cinema. Afterwards, they’d buy!
    chips and onion rings to eat in the flat’s tiny sitting room!
    while discussing the merits of Robert Redford as opposed to hunky young Richard Gere.
    Now Aisling went” out only to shop or to bring the kids to school or to have a quick cup of coffee in Fiona’s before her friend raced off for a game of tennis or an aerobics class. She often spent the entire day on her own, cooking, polishing and waiting for the twins and Michael to come home and liven up her life.
    It was a lonely existence, she realised. Was that all she could expect from the rest of her life? She’d planned to hang up her apron and get a job. But what was the point now?
    If she couldn’t keep her husband, how could she ever keep a job? Who wanted thirty-five-year-old housewives in their office, anyway? And let’s face it, her typing skills weren’t amazing ten years ago, so how would she cope with a computer?
    All she knew about the world of technology was limited to what she’d learned on a speedy tour of the News three years previously when they had finally upgraded their system.
    Fifteen minutes watching somebody playing hangman on a computer was hardly what you’d call experience.
     
    Thinking of the paper wrenched her mind back to Michael. Maybe everyone in the bloody office knew. How could she face Michael’s colleagues at the supplement launch party tonight knowing what she did, wondering if everyone there was in on the secret? She wouldn’t even have the chance to confront Michael before the party either. He’d told her he wasn’t coming home beforehand, adding that Aisling should make her own way there.
    Charming, she thought, wondering whether he made his girlfriend get to parties on her own or did he sweep up to her house bearing flowers and offers of X-rated antics in the back of a taxi?
    “Ash, try this on,” Fiona’s voice broke into her daydream and she stared at the dress her friend was holding up in astonishment.
    “Red is perfect for your colouring and with a bit of trollopy crimson lipstick and your hair done, you’ll knock them all for six.” Fiona said encouragingly.
    Aisling took the dress, a low-cut swirl of red crepe, into the changing room and held it up to her face. Brighter than anything she’d worn for ages, the rich colour made her pale face seem paler than ever.
    “Make-up, Ash, you need make-up,” advised Fiona before pulling the changing cubicle curtain over.
    “Does Liz Hurley look like that without make-up? See what I mean? All you need is half an hour in front of the mirror and you’ll look stunning in that dress.”
    As she stared at her reflection in the large mirror, Aisling made a decision. Why not, she thought? If I’m going to face all the people
    who know what’s been going on, I might as well do it in style.

CHAPTER THREE
    Bending slightly sideways in her grey swivel chair, Jo reached down and slowly slid the chemist’s paper bag out of her briefcase. She was trying to remove it with as little rustling as possible, hoping that Brenda, who was sitting at the opposite desk blowing kisses down the phone to her current boyfriend, wouldn’t hear anything.
    If only she’d stuck the package in her fake crocodile-skin handbag in the first place, she wouldn’t have to smuggle it clandestinely out of her briefcase now. She’d been waiting all morning for the right moment to sneak the distinctive blue and white bag into the toilet without someone demanding to know what she’d been buying in the chemist when they had enough make-up around to cover Claudia Schiffer from head to toe.
    That was one of the main problems of working in such a small office, and the office of a women’s magazine into the bargain, she thought ruefully. Everyone knew everything about you and, being inveterate shoppers, they wanted to know what you’d bought when you came back from the shops at