Free Something in Common by Roisin Meaney

in the process when someone’s elbow connected with her.
    ‘Helen!’
    In the act of reaching for a napkin, she turned. Catherine was making her way back through the crowd, followed by someone in a dark suit – presumably the famous M. Breen, dragged over to meet her so he could be duly thanked for his patronage. Helen gave a quick swipe at the damp stain with her sleeve and summoned as much of a smile as she could muster.
    ‘There you are,’ Catherine said. ‘Mark, this is Helen O’Dowd – or should I say Fitzpatrick? Helen, meet Mark Breen.’
    The navy suit looked expensive – having grown up with her father, she knew a well-cut suit when she saw it. Immaculate white shirt, dark grey tie. Almost-black hair, cut so short it stood in bristles around his head. Startlingly blue eyes that met hers full on, the barest ghost of a smile on his face as he nodded once, crushing her fingers briefly in his.
    Not handsome – the nose a shade too wide, the cheeks a little pocked, the skin about the eyes deeply creased and shadowed – but a face you wouldn’t easily forget, with the intensity of that gaze. Hard to put an age on him: somewhere between forty and fifty, she thought.
    She opened her mouth to say something suitably grateful, like Catherine had suggested – butthe words refused to come. She was working for her cheques, for Christ’s sake, he wasn’t handing out charity. She was a decent writer: if she wasn’t, he’d have told her to take a running jump.
    She raised her glass. She’d say what she chose. ‘Happy Christmas. Thanks for the invite. Good to put a face to the voice.’ There, that would do him.
    He inclined his head again, the smallest hint of a nod. She had the feeling he was taking her measure. She saw his glance flick to the darker patch on the front of her jacket. ‘Someone bumped into me as I was pouring,’ she said. ‘I’m not blotto yet.’
    ‘It wasn’t an accusation,’ he pointed out mildly. The voice was familiar, if less peremptory than she was used to.
    ‘Just thought I’d explain.’ She indicated the bottle. ‘Can I get you one?’ It was a party, for crying out loud. Did he have to look so damn serious?
    ‘Not just now.’ As he spoke, his gaze drifted from her face to wander off to her left. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me,’ he went on, extending his hand towards her again. ‘Good of you to come, help yourself to the wine.’ Another finger-crushing shake and he was gone, disappearing into the crowd.
    Helen looked after him, prickling with annoyance. Clearly, the great M. Breen didn’t consider her interesting enough to spend more than thirty seconds in her company. Help yourself to the wine indeed, as if she should be grateful for his atrocious plonk. As if all she’d come for was his free booze.
    She turned back to Catherine. ‘That went well.’
    The PA didn’t notice, or chose to ignore, the sarcasm. ‘It went fine. I’m delighted you finally got to meet him. Let me introduce you to some more of the gang.’
    But Helen decided she’d had more than enough. ‘Thanks,’ she said, setting down her untouched glass, ‘but I really mustbe going – I promised the babysitter I’d be home by ten.’
    The white lies she told, the fronts she put up, the hard shell she’d grown around her heart over the last two years. She stood on the path outside the newspaper offices, pulling the cold, crisp air into her lungs, ignoring the people who pushed past her. Everyone looking happy, three days before Christmas.
    On the way to the bus stop she went into an off-licence and bought a bottle of their second cheapest whiskey.
    ‘Happy Christmas,’ the youngish bearded man behind the counter said, and Helen took her change and wished him the same, because for all she knew he deserved one.
    Back home she felt her way along the tiny darkened hallway until her foot touched the bottom stair. She climbed halfway up and sat, taking the bottle from its brown paper bag and