The gig is in the centre of town and I’m doubly delighted to see that a huge gang from Radio Dublin have turned out in force to support Steve. Including a lot of the pretty young things, Steve’s office fan club, in other words, all looking as pert and young and gorgeous as ever. Anyway, Sharon, Matt and I grab a table and I rush to the bar to get a round of drinks in. Ian is there, in yet another one of his astonishing T-shirts. Tonight’s is no exception, it says, ‘My mother is a travel agent for guilt trips.’

‘Steve will be pleased you came,’ he smiles. ‘I think someone has a crush on you.’

‘Come on, Ian, that’s ridiculous. We’re friends, going back years. Nothing more!’ A good, forceful nip-this-in-the-bud-right-now statement. Just wish I wasn’t flushing to my roots as I said it.

‘Oh yeah? So you think it’s normal for him to hang around the station most nights till past 2 a.m. so he can escort you home?’

I put this out of my head and get on with enjoying the band. The gig is absolutely brilliant too. Turns out The Amazing Few write all their own songs and they’re surprisingly good. Steve is terrific onstage, not a nerve in his body, as he plays lead guitar, looking like he’s approximately a foot taller than the rest of the band.

Sharon and Matt seem to enjoy it too; although it has to be said that Matt spends most of the night either a) staring adoringly at Sharon or b) laughing at Sharon when she puts him down with that weird mixture of distain and fondness she treats him with. He disappears off to the loo at one point and Sharon immediately starts neck-swivelling around to check out any other single fellas that might be loitering around and on the loose.

‘May I remind you that you’re here with someone?’ I say sternly, after I catch her ogling some guy sitting opposite us who’s covered with tattoos.

‘Listen to you, the dating police. I’m only checking out what else is on offer. You know, on the principle that when you have a fella on your arm, suddenly other guys start paying you a bit more attention. Its like they look at you in a whole new light. Admit it, Jess, in your heart you know I’m right.’

I shake my head and go back to watching the band. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve created a dating monster.

Anyway, when it’s all over, at about 11 p.m., Steve saunters past all the girlie girls from the station who are catcalling him to join them and instead ambles over to our table. I jump up to give him a bear hug and tell him how fabulous he was. Only the truth.

It’s one of those wonderful, fun nights; Steve messing and joking like he always does, everyone in good form and relaxed. Sharon and Matt decide to leave early-ish as Matt has a meeting first thing in the morning and Sharon’s on the Smiley breakfast shift too. They offer me a lift home but Steve insists on my staying, saying he’ll give me a lift on his bike later.

‘If I’m sober enough, that is,’ he laughs, heading off to the bar to get another round in.

‘The more I see of Steve Hayes,’ says Sharon as I hug her goodbye, ‘the more I’m getting to like him. He’s…Fertiliser Man.’

‘By that, I’m hoping that you don’t mean full of shite?’

‘No, you eejit. I mean he grows on you. Just slowly and over time, that’s all.’

After they’ve left, he’s full of lovely things to say about Sharon too.

‘I can’t get over how different she is,’ he keeps telling me. ‘She’s looking fantastic but it’s like her personality has changed too. I used to be terrified of her and Maggie and now I think Sharon’s completely cool. One of us.’

‘I’ll be sure to pass that on.’

‘Congratulations, Jessie, you’ve done a complete Pygmalion on her. Except that you’re Henry Higgins and she’s Eliza Doolittle.’

For the first time in I don’t know how long, I can honestly say this.

I’m happy.

Chapter Sixteen

This lasts right all the way up until the end of the following week and then the blow falls. What makes it worse is that, up till then, everyone’s in top form. And I really do mean everyone, including most astonishingly of all, Maggie.

Remember the flyer I whipped off the kitchen wall at Radio Dublin? It was an ad for an open mike contest, to be held at the Comedy Cellar in town in just two weeks’ time and called, appropriately enough, So You Think You’re Funny? A one-off night to give first-time stand-up comedians a chance at performing in front of a live audience. With a prize of €1,000 andthe chance to be seen by one of the top comedy agents in town. The only stipulation is that all entrants must be novices. Complete unknowns, so it’s a level playing field.

Now, knowing full well that if I mentioned this to Maggie, she’d do the exact opposite of what I was suggesting purely just to spite me, I got Sharon to pitch it to her instead. With one hundred per cent success. She took one bite of the cherry and said what the hell, nothing to lose, she’d give it a go.

But that’s only part one of the miracle I have to report. The big news is that, finally, after all this time, there’s been, let’s call it a ‘cessation of hostilities’ between Maggie and me. Hard to believe, I know, but it all dates back to a few nights ago, when it was just she and I alone in the house in, quelle surprise, the TV room.

For starters, there was a very different atmosphere. Maggie was all twitchy and what’s more I could sense it. She was sitting in her usual armchair, but instead of giving the telly her usual laser-like focus, she had a notepad on her lap and kept either staring into space or else scribbling down into it. Every now and then, she’d throw a furtive glance in my direction, as though she was about to ask me something, then would think better of it and look away just as quick. At first I thought I was imagining it, so I did a little experiment.

‘Mind if I change channels?’ I asked her innocently.

‘Hmm? Yeah, go ahead.’

Immediate alarm bell. Because we were watching EastEnders, Maggie’s favourite soap that she never misses and would knife you if you even talked over, never mind changed the channel. So, figuring it would be a long, long time before I got a golden opportunity like this again, I went for it.

‘Maggie, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is everything OK?’

Silence. I could practically feel her wondering whether she should open up to me, the arch enemy, or not. And then the miracle happened. She did.

‘Well, as a matter of fact…’ she began, sounding more unsure of herself than I think I’ve ever heard her.

‘Yeah?’

‘The thing is…there’s this open mike night at the Comedy Cellar coming up that Sharon told me about and…well…I’ve decided to enter.’

‘Hey, that’s great news!’ I said, mentally reminding myself to act all surprised. ‘You’ll be wonderful. I’ve no doubt.’

‘Yeah, but…’ she went on, ‘you see…I need to test out my material. I mean, I have loads of ideas and that, but I won’t know if they’ll work until I actually try them out. So I was wondering…only just because you happen to know a bit about performing in front of an audience…’

‘Maggie, if you want to test your material out on me, I’d be absolutely delighted to lend an ear. Just get us two tins of Bulmers out of the fridge and let’s do it right now.’

She smiled, actually smiledat me and we spent the next two hours going through her gags. With the TV…drum-roll for dramatic effect…switched off.

It was amazing. She paced up and down the TV room, notebook in hand, rehearsing her material as I listened attentively, making helpful comments and remembering at all times to keep her confidence up. Some of her stuff was great, but very Maggie, if you know what I mean. For instance, she had this whole riff about being a civil servant in the Inland Revenue and the pitfalls to avoid if you want to have a long career there. From there, she segued into a whole sequence about how she’s going to turn thirty-four soon, referring to it as the ‘Is this all there is?’ age. ‘It’s the age when you finally accept that you’re not going to win X Factoror the National Lottery on a Saturday night. Or that you’re not going to enchant George Clooney over a muffin in Starbucks on your way into work.’ And off she went spinning into this whole existential routine about how mid-life can do funny things to the most normal and conservative of people, even ones that work in the tax office. How, in her own case, the shock of reaching her mid-thirties now has her doing something she’s never thought possible before: attempting to be funny in front of a drunken cellar full of hecklers, all expecting to see the next Jo Brand.