By the time that David and the bitch were exchanging vows, Gemma had amassed a bright orange jacket from Pia Bang, three silk tops from Airwave, a denim skirt from Principles, two pairs of shoes from Nine West and an outrageously expensive leather handbag from Brown Thomas.

But it  was at the Brown Thomas cosmetics counter – where she hadn’t originally intended to buy anything at all – that everything went horribly wrong.

The sales assistant, Monica Coady, smiled brightly at her.  It had been a quiet day so far – the weather had kept people out of the shops and on the beaches – so this sale would help her commission figures considerably.

“I’m terribly sorry, Ms Garvey,” she said she looked at the machine,  “but authorisation has been refused.  Maybe if you left out one item -?”

Gemma looked at the Christian Dior cleanser, toner and moisturiser package in front of her as well as the foundation, lipstick, blusher and bottle of Dolce Vita.  She attempted to calculate how much might be left on the card after all her previous purchases were taken into account.

“Oh.”  She tried to look nonchalant.  “I must have got a bit carried away.”

Carried away was an understatement, she thought.  It had been absolutely wonderful to walk into shops and simply buy things for the sake of it.  She’d got a buzz every single time a purchase was wrapped in tissue paper and slid into a bag.  The sales assistants had been smiling and cheerful and helped Gemma feel as though she should be smiling and cheerful too.  And every time she signed her card she felt a little better.

Now she simply felt embarrassed.

“I think I’d better forget it,” she said, much to Monica’s consternation.

“I’m sure some of it would fit on the card,” said the sales assistant. “There’s no need to leave everything.  Or you could use your store card if you have one?  Or cash, of course.”

Cash!  Gemma grimaced.

“Not right now,” she told Monica, “I think that I’ve done enough spending for the day.  I’m sorry.”

“OK.”  Monica tried to look friendly but it was difficult when she thought about the commission that had just disappeared.  “See you again perhaps.”

“Sure,” said Gemma and walked out into Grafton Street.  Beads of sweat had appeared on her forehead.  Partly because it was in the full glare of the sun and partly because she was reliving the scene in the shop.  She’d tried to ignore the curious glances of other customers as the sales assistant had taken back the cosmetics.  But it had been humiliating all the same. She should have known how close she was to her card limit.  She usually tried hard to  keep track of any purchases she put on it.  But she hadn’t kept track today because she hadn’t wanted to. 

She gritted her teeth and pushed her way through the crowded street towards St Stephen’s Green.  She needed to sit down and take the weight of her feet.  Besides, she could feel a blister beginning to form on her big toe because she’d worn her tight leather shoes with no tights today.  They were beginning to chafe at the heel too. 

The park was thronged with people – men with no shirts and women with skimpy tops or, in some cases, nothing but lacy wonderbras.  Gemma wished that she had the nerve to take off her plain white Calvin Klein T-shirt and sit in St Stephen’s Green in nothing more than her bra and skirt.  But it was one thing for a girl of eighteen to sit practically topless in the centre of Dublin, it was quite another for a woman of thirty-five to flaunt her sagging boobs in public.

There were no park benches available.  Gemma walked across the grass, past a group of laughing students and sat down in the shade of a chestnut tree.  She arranged her packages around her and closed her eyes.

Thirty-five.  She wondered when, exactly, thirty-five had started to feel old.  Maybe it was when she realised that no exercise in the world was ever going to give her back the body she’d had when she was younger.  The slim, taut body of someone who could eat as much as she liked and not put on weight.  It wasn’t as though she was fat, exactly, now of course.  But ten years and two children had changed her shape more than she would have liked.  Sometimes, when she looked in the mirror, she felt as though she’d turned into someone she didn’t even know. 

She was quite sure that there were hoards of thirty-five year old women walking around the city who looked as good as they had when they were twenty-five and who felt as young as ever.  Even worse, she’d opened a magazine today and seen a dewy-skinned Goldie Hawn smiling out at her.  The woman was in her fifties, for God’s sake.  A wrinkle or two would have been nice.  Gemma sighed.  She dreaded to think what she’d look like at fifty given how much her body had let her down already.  Especially when she compared it to that of the eleven years younger, flame-haired bimbo bitch.

She’d always thought of her as the bitch.  From the moment she’d heard about her.  It was stupid, really, she didn’t even know her and it wasn’t as though she cared anymore.  At the time when David had first met her, he and Gemma were already in the process of getting a divorce so it wasn’t as though the bimbo had broken up their marriage.  She hadn’t swooped in and lured David away from his wife and family.

But it had bothered Gemma when she heard about it.  David was seeing someone in the office, she’d been told, and the girl was young, red-haired and absolutely gorgeous.

When, one day, she finally met her, Gemma had almost choked.  She’d seen Orla’s smooth, clear complexion, her riot of tumbling red-gold curls and her long, long legs shown off to such advantage by her short, short cotton skirt and she’d wanted to scream with rage that he’d found someone so lovely.  She couldn’t help feeling consumed with envy that he’d found someone young and beautiful like Orla to be with while she trundled towards middle-age on her own.  Except for the children, of course.  David’s children.  Yet, much as she loved them, they didn’t make it easy to start all over again.

She told herself that it wouldn’t last, that David would get tired of Orla’s wide, beaming smile and irritating manner of clearing her throat before she spoke but it was hard to be sure.  She’d seen the looks that they’d exchanged, the same intimate glances that she had once shared with him, the unspoken belief that they were the only people in the world who mattered.

She sighed as she buried her toes in the grass.  It was funny how clear in her memory the day she’d met David Hennessy was.  It didn’t seem like almost fifteen years ago.  She smiled faintly.  A true sign of age, she told herself, that fifteen years seemed like a short time.