Something in Common by Roisin Meaney Page A

phrases hopped around in her head.
No need to have been so blunt … debut novelist, surely you could have given him a chance … very hurtful, after all his hard work
—
    ‘I forget where the spare butter dishes are kept.’
    Eve was seventeen and not blessed with any great initiative, but she was all that was to be had on Sundays. Sarah indicated a press. ‘In there. Give them a rinse before you use them. They might be dusty.’
    Anyone else would have opened doors and found the butter dishes. But Eve was young, andno doubt resented that she was stuck in the kitchen of a nursing home when her friends were probably off enjoying themselves. Maybe there was a boyfriend on the scene: she’d be quite nice-looking if she smiled more often.
    ‘You can slip away a bit early if you want,’ Sarah told her, ‘as soon as the tea prep is done. I’ll manage the rest.’
    The rest was washing down the worktops, putting tea towels and napkins to steep overnight, planning tomorrow’s lunch menu and shopping list. Easier, almost, if Eve wasn’t underfoot, asking questions she really should be able to answer herself.
    And Neil wouldn’t mind if Sarah was slightly late getting home; give him a chance to sort his records alphabetically, like he was always threatening to do, T. Rex after Queen after Dylan after Bowie.
    ‘Cut the butter into narrower strips,’ Sarah said, watching as Eve thumped a solid half-pound onto each dish. ‘Some of the residents are a little shaky. They find it easier to manage the small bits.’
    She was briefly tempted to point out that this was at least the third time she’d issued that particular instruction, but she held her tongue. Kinder simply to repeat it, and hope that it eventually sank in.
    It was just as easy to be nice as to be nasty. Maybe HelenO’Dowd needed to learn that.

Helen
    ‘D on’t play with your food.’
    ‘I don’t like it. It’s sour.’
    Helen took an orange segment from her daughter’s plate and ate it. ‘It’s fine. Anyway, there’s nothing else till I go shopping, so you’ll have to put up with it.’
    ‘There’s biscuits.’
    Helen sighed, stubbing out her cigarette. ‘Alright, you can have one.’
    ‘One is no good. Why can’t I have two?’
    ‘Because you shouldn’t be having any. And brush your teeth after.’
    Dramatic groan. ‘I
hate
brushing my teeth – it’s
boring
.’
    ‘Well, you’d hate the dentist more, trust me.’
    A battle every morning to get through breakfast, Alice fighting her every step of the way. Turned seven last week: what would she be like at seventeen?
    School was a different kind of battleground. Alice had been a reluctant student from the start, her teachers each year complaining to Helen of untidy work and disruptive behaviour. Her copybooks, within a week of use, dog-eared and torn, every margin filled with doodles of cats and elephants and horses.
    Since she’d gone into First Class in September, spelling and sums tests had become part of every Friday, thecorrected tests being sent home for parental signature on Monday. Alice’s results in both subjects were invariably disastrous.
    ‘Why don’t you make more of an effort?’ Helen would demand. ‘Didn’t you get those for homework?’ and Alice’s only response would be a shrug – and Helen would let it go, knowing she was partly to blame.
    Other parents, no doubt, sat dutifully beside their children, making sure that the homework was presentable. Helen couldn’t imagine anything more boring, so her supervision of Alice’s homework was sporadic at best. Serve her right if Alice got three out of ten for spellings, and not a single sum right.
    Alice had Cormac’s dimple, tucked into her left cheek. She had his long limbs and pale skin and grey eyes – and, so far, not an ounce of his musical ability. Cormac had held her, aged two, on his lap at the piano that his grandmother had owned, and she’d slapped the keys with her flattened-out palms. Nothing much had