None of this is helped by the fact that I’m completely on my own in the house. Everyone’s at work, which is driving me mental; the one occasion when I really need a touchstone of sense to bounce off. I know Steve is there for me, but it just doesn’t feel right somehow to discuss this with him. Like this is the one topic that would be absolutely verboten between us. If he copped onto something after a caller named Sam rang the show last night, he never mentioned it, which I was deeply grateful for. He took me home on his bike and if he did suspect that something was up, was gentlemanly enough not to ask. Or even comment on the fact that instead of all my normal high-octane chatter after a show, I barely opened my mouth the whole way back to Whitehall.

The other thing I’d forgotten about Sam is that, when he wants something, he goes after it with a kind of scorched earth policy. I know him of old, he’ll basically just batter down doors until he gets what he’s after, which he always, always does. So after about his twelfth attempt to call me, I eventually answer. Sitting trembling and unsure of myself at our kitchen table, with no one around to advise me or calm me down. I take a deep breath and answer the phone.

It’s a short chat, brief and to the point. He wants to see me and asks how soon can we meet? That what he wants to say isn’t for over the phone. He suggests we meet at Bentleys Oyster Bar in town at seven this evening, just before I go into work.

‘Woodsie? Are you still there? Does that suit you? I mean…do you want to meet me?’

A long pause.

‘I’m nodding.’

It’s the only two words I’ve uttered for the entire conversation.

The good news is that it’s a particularly busy day for me; the less time I have to think the better. Firstly, I’ve to run into Roger’s office to go through the new Jessie Wouldcontract (Sweet, gentlemanly old Roger even hands me a bouquet to congratulate me with a card that simply reads, ‘Welcome back’. The aul, dote.) Then I’ve an appointment at Chez Pierre, my old hairdresser, to get my hair put back to blonde again. On Liz Walsh’s explicit instructions it has to be said. Otherwise, I’d have been perfectly happy to stick to cheapo home colour kits for the rest of my life. Pay rise or no pay rise, the new credit crunch Jessie Woods is here to stay. OK, so I may be back in the money again, but my debts at Visa aren’t going anywhere, are they? In fact, all my new ‘re-employed’ status at Channel Six means to me financially is that I’ll be finally able to repay everything I owe that bit quicker. Like maybe before I qualify for the old age pension. If I’m very lucky, that is. But, no, Liz reckons viewers won’t recognise me unless I’m back to blonde, so I’ve no choice. By 7 p.m., I’m back to looking exactly like my old self again. The hair is almost platinum and, as I walk down to Bentleys to meet Sam, for a second I think, this was my life only a few months ago. Bouncing into Roger’s office, pricey hairdos, meeting my boyfriend at his favourite posh restaurant. It’s as though nothing’s changed.

Nothing except me, that is.

When I step into the Oyster Bar, Sam is sitting waiting for me in a quiet corner with a bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket beside him. Which, if he thinks is to celebrate my going back to him, is presumptuous and premature to say the least.

So I decide to make him work for it.

I say hi curtly and sit opposite him. As if this is a business meeting.

‘Wow, you look amazing!’ he starts off, x-raying me with the black eyes, the way he always used to. I just nod and let him talk.

I let him do all the talking, in fact. I use silence as a protective shield around me. His theme is clear. He’s missed me and feels terrible about our last meeting, when he had to haul me out of that minging police station in Kildare. I take a tiny sip of the champagne and try to tune out that particular memory. He says over and over again how sorry he is about the way he treated me. How he just panicked and felt he needed to take time out. But that there wasn’t a day that went by when he wasn’t thinking about me and deeply regretting everything that happened between us.

Then he says how much he admires the way I hauled myself back up from the ground again. How he heard from Nathaniel and Eva about my flipping burgers in Smileys and actually felt proud. That I’d behaved like a winner. I didn’t go under, I came out fighting. He even astonishes me by saying as soon as he read about my presenting The Midnight Hour, he became a regular listener, usually when he was driving home in his car after some swishy do.

For the first time since I got here, I start to feel myself melt a bit when he says, ‘I just liked hearing the sound of your voice.’ Then he read about the drama at Channel Six, how I was now reinstated and exonerated from any wrongdoing, and decided to get in touch. To say congratulations. It was a chance remark he heard me saying on the show that spurred him on as it happens; I’d made some comment about how little romantic gestures go a long way. So he picked up his phone and called into the show from his car. And couldn’t believe it when he actually got through to me. It was like some kind of sign from above.

‘And of course,’ he continues, ‘I wanted to see if you’d forgive me and give me another chance, give us another chance. The thing is…I’m useless without you, Woodsie, I need you.’

He takes a breath so deep it’s almost coming from his feet up. ‘I…I heart you.’ Then he looks at me expectantly with the coal black eyes and I realise he’s waiting for an answer.

That this is my cue to say, oh all right then, go on, sure let’s put the past behind us and give it another go. As if it would all be that easy for him and that simple for me. But the thing is that it’s not. Amazing, he’s said everything that I could have wished for, absolutely everything, and all I can feel in return is, well…numb. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This is the answer to my prayers, this is everything I possibly could have wanted out of life and yet all I can do is sit here and look back at him blankly.

‘If you’re really serious…’ I eventually say.

‘I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life. I swear.’

‘Then you’re going to have to accept that I’m not the same person I was. I’ve changed, you see.’

‘Changed…how?’

‘In a lot of ways. For one thing, I’ve come to realise the importance of family. They were there for me when the chips were down and I’ll never forget that.’

‘You mean, your two stepsisters who were with you that night in Kildare? But you always used to bitch about them! You said they were like Pattie and Selma from The Simpsons, only worse. You used to have to force yourself to talk to them after your dad’s anniversary mass and even at that you’d only ever stick it out for ten minutes or so. Then you’d turn up at my house needing a stiff brandy.’

‘Well, it turns out I was wrong. Wrong about a lot of things and about a lot of people too. So if you really do want to win me back…’

‘It’s my number one goal in life right now.’

‘Then you’re going to have to win them over too.’

Feck it, after everything he put me through, I’m not making this easy for him.

‘Whatever you say, Woodsie.’

Hours later, when I arrive into Radio Dublin in time for the show, the first person I bump into is Steve.

‘Ah, no, I don’t believe it,’ he shakes his head sadly, all disappointed the minute he sets eyes on me.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I much preferred you with the red hair.’

Chapter Twenty-One

‘You have to be fecking kidding me,’ is Sharon’s stunned response when I fill her in the next day on the latest twist with Sam.