‘Celtic what?’

‘Tiger.’ The young man had registered that Lisa’s accent wasn’t an Irish one, so he explained. ‘Remember when the economies of countries like Japan and Korea were booming they called it the Asian Tiger?’

Of course Lisa didn’t. Words like ‘economy’ just bounced right off her.

The young man continued, ‘And now that Ireland’s economy is going through the roof, we call it the Celtic Tiger. Which means,’ he said as tactfully as he could, which wasn’t very, ‘we don’t need any free publicity.’

‘Right,’ Lisa said dully, hanging up the phone. ‘Thanks for the lecture on economics.’

On Ashling’s advice, she bought the evening paper, scanned the letting columns for apartments and mews houses in fashionable Dublin 4, and made appointments to see a few places after work. Then she rang a taxi on the Randolph Media account to take her around them.

‘Sorry love,’ the taxi controller said. ‘I don’t know your name.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Lisa said silkily. ‘You will.’ It had been years since she’d used public transport – or paid for a taxi out of her own pocket for that matter. And she didn’t intend to start now.

The first property was a maisonette in Ballsbridge. It had sounded lovely in the paper – right price, right postcode, right facilities. Sure enough, the area seemed nice with plenty of restaurants and cafés, the quiet tree-lined street was attractive, all the little houses kempt and spruce. As the taxi inched along, looking for number forty-eight, Lisa’s spirits lifted for the first time since she’d clapped eyes on Jack. Already she could imagine herself living here.

Then she saw it. The only house in the road that looked like it was inhabited by squatters; torn curtains at the window, the grass several feet high, a rusting car on concrete blocks in the drive. She counted along the house numbers from where she was now, wondering which one was forty-eight. Forty-two, forty-four, forty-six, forty-ei… ght. Sure enough, number forty-eight was the house that looked like it had had a demolition order slapped on it.

‘Oh fuck,’ she exhaled.

She’d forgotten. It was so long since she’d had to look for somewhere to live that it had slipped her mind what a living hell it was. That it was a series of disappointments, each one more crushing than the previous.

‘Drive on,’ she ordered.

‘Right you are,’ the taxi-driver said. ‘Where are we off to now?’

The second place was slightly better. Until a little brown mouse ran along the kitchen floor and disappeared in a wiggle of oily tail beneath the fridge. Lisa’s scalp buckled with revulsion.

And the third place had described itself as ‘bijou’ when the correct phrase was ‘unbelievably tiny’. It was a one-roomed studio, with the bathroom in a cupboard and no kitchen at all.

‘Tell me now, what would you want with a kitchen? You career women don’t have time for cooking,’ the seal-plump landlord had flattered. ‘Too busy running the world.’

‘Nice try, fat-boy,’ Lisa muttered to herself.

Hopelessly, she trailed back to the taxi, and on the drive home to Harcourt Street had to converse with the driver, who had by now decided that they were firm friends.

‘… and my eldest fella is great with his hands. The nicest poor divil in the whole world, he’d do anything for anyone. Changing light-bulbs, assembling tables, cutting grass, all the oul’ wans on our road love him…’

She was certain the driver was irritating the life out of her, but when she got out of the car, she found she missed him. And now she’d never find out what had happened when he challenged the gang of girls who’d been bullying his fourteen-year-old.

Back in her joyless room, her soul gaped in a howl of misery. Everything was made even more hellish by tiredness and lack of food. She was twisted by déjà vu, from when she was eighteen, working on a shitty magazine and having no luck trying to rent a half-decent home. Somehow, in the board-game of life, she’d slithered down a snake and had arrived once more at the beginning. Though back then it had seemed to be a lot more fun.

She’d been desperate to escape the mean narrow confines of her home. From the age of thirteen she’d been bunking off school and taking herself up to London to shoplift. Returning home bearing eye-liners, earrings, scarves and bags and watched with anxious suspicion by her mother, who didn’t dare challenge her.

At sixteen, as soon as she’d got the business of failing her O-levels out of the way, she left home and went to London for good. She and her friend Sandra – who achieved instant street-cred by changing her name to Zandra – met up with three gay boys called Charlie, Geraint and Kevin and moved into their squat in a tower block in Hackney. Where a life of wild fun began. Taking speed, going to the Astoria on a Monday night, Heaven on Wednesday nights, The Clink on Thursday nights. Doctoring their out-of-date bus passes, getting the night bus home, listening to the Cocteau Twins and Art of Noise, meeting people from all over.

Clothes were central to their lives and first up was best dressed. Advised by the boys, who had an encyclopaedic knowledge of fabulousness at their fingertips, Lisa quickly learnt how to look amazing.

In Camden market, Geraint made her buy a red, stretchy-tight Body-Map dress with a cut-out on the thigh, which she wore with red and white candy-striped tights. Her handbag was a little hard white case with a red cross on it. To complete the outfit, Kevin insisted on nicking her a pair of Palladiums from Joseph – little canvas trainers with a truck-tyre sole. Which he got to her only just in time, because he was sacked the following day. On her head Lisa wore a knitted pirate-style hat covered with safety-pins – a home-made pastiche of a John Galliano, knocked together by Kevin, who wanted to be a fashion designer. And Charlie was in charge of her hair. Hair attachments were hot news, so he bleached Lisa’s hair white-blonde and affixed a waist-length blonde plait to the crown of her head. One night at Taboo, I-D magazine took her photo. (Though they bought it religiously for the following six months, the picture never appeared, but still.)

The squat had almost no furniture so there was great excitement when they found an armchair in a skip. All five of them ferried it home joyously and took turns to sit in it. Likewise, cups of tea had to be had on a rota basis, because they owned only two mugs between them. But it never occurred to anyone to buy extra ones – a terrible waste of money. The small amounts of cash they had were earmarked for buying clothes, paying into clubs (if there was no way of avoiding it) and buying drinks.