Can Anybody Help Me? by Sinéad Crowley

champagne. ‘Get that into you. I just want to say hello …’
    â€˜You go on.’ Yvonne squeezed his hand. This was a work night for Gerry and it was important for him to network. They’d have plenty of time to chat later.
    â€˜Thanks, love. Won’t be long.’
    Released, her husband bounded off, immediately firing off three ‘great to see you’s, two ‘not a bother’s and a ‘there ya are, now’ to a tall figure Yvonne recognised as being the chief news reporter on Ireland 24.
    Looking around, she realised how alone she was. Everyone in the room seemed to know everybody else and her husband wasn’t the only one participating in three-, four- and five-way conversations. In the hope it would make her look less desperate for company, Yvonne rummaged in her bag for her phone. There were no new text messages. Great. No messages meant her mother-in-law was getting on just fine. No baby emergencies. Then again, Hannah was so confident of her baby minding skills that Yvonne reckoned she wouldn’t ring with a problem unless the baby was actually in danger of being hospitalised.
    In fact given the glint in her eye when she had ‘finally’ taken sole charge of her only grandchild, Yvonne wondered if even a medical emergency would make Hannah swallow her pride and ask her to come home. The atmosphere had been strained from the moment they’d arrived in her mother-in-law’s house earlier that evening and Hannah had done nothing to put herself and Gerry at their ease.
    â€˜So. they’ve finally decided to trust me to look after you, have they, sweetheart? Oh, yes, they have, they’ll probably be ringingme every five minutes though, won’t they? Ah, we won’t pay any heed to them, pet. I’ll have you all to myself this evening, we’ll have a ball.’
    The words, uttered in a high-pitched baby voice had been directed to the infant in the car seat, but Yvonne had been under no illusion about where they were really aimed. By her side, she had felt Gerry stiffen. Strange, it wasn’t like him to get riled by his mother. He must be nervous about the night ahead, she had thought, and decided she would be magnanimous for both of them. She bent her own head down to her little girl and smiled as broadly as her mother-in-law.
    â€˜You’re going to have a great time with Granny, aren’t you? Ooh, yes, you are. We won’t be worried about you anyway!’
    From across the room, she could see her brother-in-law stifle a grin. Hannah hated being called Granny. Well, feck her, as they said over here. She was getting her wish, a whole evening with the baby, and if Yvonne wanted to call her Granny, she could suck it up. She had to swallow a grin herself then. She didn’t often stand up to Hannah. It felt good, even in this most subtle of ways.
    And then Bill had made tea and the tension in the room had dropped to a manageable level. It was no wonder, Yvonne thought, that Gerry made a point of meeting his brother for a weekly pint. Bill wasn’t the high achiever of the family. But there was something restful about him and she had a feeling that Hannah, despite her bossiness, depended as much on him as he seemed to do on her.
    And her mother-in-law was right, she decided. Róisín would be fine.
    She took another sip. Róisín would be fine and she wasfine and they would have a great evening. All she needed was someone to talk to. But the room just seemed so … impenetrable. In the distance, she could see Gerry at the centre of a crowd of people. He was laughing, his head thrown back, blonde hair glinting under the giant mirror ball. God, he was gorgeous. He hadn’t changed at all since they’d met. He was still the most attractive man in the room, still the centre of all that was fun and lively and happy. Parties only started when Gerry got there.
    Yvonne had never been that type of person. No one ever