A Grand Old Time: The laugh-out-loud and feel-good romantic comedy with a difference you must read in 2018

Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-One (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Forty-Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifty (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One (#ulink_90385f58-78fd-5d25-aa35-2114cfb4303b)

She bounced up and down on the edge of her bed, still in her nightie. When the creaking stopped, the silence closed in around her. Everyone was asleep in Sheldon Lodge. The room was dim and cramped, so she went over to the window and looked outside at the path that led to the road into Dublin. A bird flitted up and away. A single cloud moved across a square of sky. Evie made a puffing noise through her lips and pulled herself away.

She went back to the bed and picked up the thin paperback lying on the duvet. Season of the Heart. Recommended reading for the ladies at Sheldon Lodge. Evie had never been much of a reader. There was a picture of a milkmaid in russet petticoats on the front cover, sitting in a cornfield. Her hair was the same bleached yellow as the corn and her face was sad. Evie flipped the novel over and read the blurb. Dulcie Jones isthrust into the life of a country maid when her gambling father sells her to pay his debts. But Marcus, the mysterious son of her new master Lord Diamant, has other plans for Dulcie …

Evie threw the book away from her onto the duvet. It was six thirty am.

‘What a lot of shite,’ she muttered to herself, and then she raised her voice: ‘It’s all complete shite.’

Sheldon Lodge offered its usual deaf ear, although she expected Mrs Lofthouse to run in, all wobbling bosoms and waving hands, to tell her to go back to bed and not disturb the other residents. Evie shuffled into her slippers and dressing gown, and snorted through her nostrils. Most of the other residents were disturbed already, well into their eighties and nineties – even the youngest of them at least ten years older than her.

She wandered into the kitchen, listening for Barry the chef who would make her a cup of tea. She could hear him behind the metal shutters, moving around, organising breakfast. She banged her fist softly to call for his attention and waited. No reply.

Evie sat down at the little table with its plastic cloth printed with yellow roses and realised she was in Maud Delaney’s seat. Maud, with her thin hair cropped short, usually spent the day in the chair, humped over the table, her head resting against a cold cup of tea, her eyes covered with her puffy ringed fingers. Maud’s place was next to Annie Armstrong, who gulped air like a fish. Every day Evie wondered if Maud was dead until Slawka and Joe, two of the carers, came to move her with the winch. At least it broke the monotony.

Barry would open the breakfast bar shutters in a minute and Evie would have a hot drink and toast. Even better, there would be someone to talk to. Barry would grumble about his daughter Natalie, who had been arrested for taking recreational drugs at a pop festival in the park, and Evie would discuss the problems of poor hen-pecked Brendan, and they would both laugh and chatter. Then there would be scrambled eggs and more toast and it would be halfway through the morning and the Irish Times would have been delivered in the Day Room. She’d have two cups of coffee and make her little joke, as she did every day, that it would taste a lot nicer with a nip of cognac. Of course, they let her have a glass of red wine with her meals, but somehow it tasted bitter. Like all the sunshine had gone from the grapes.

Evie picked up a pack of playing cards that had been left on the table and she shuffled them. She didn’t know how to play cards, but it was something to do. She sorted through them again and a card poked itself towards her. She took it out. It was the four of hearts.

Evie placed it on the table and smiled.

Four. Her lucky number.

Chapter Two (#ulink_7a792d7a-77f6-51a5-a79a-6c527128e35d)

He stared at his face in the mirror. His hair was still auburn, although faded, the curls flecked here and there with grey, and his blue eyes were crinkled around the corners. He lathered his face with shaving soap and smiled at his white-bearded reflection – a paternal face, like Santa Claus. He imagined how it would be to dress as Father Christmas, surrounded by four children. He’d always thought he’d like two of each: two boys who liked football, a sporty girl, maybe a surfer or a swimmer, and then one for Maura. A chirpy cheeky one with Maura’s soft shining eyes.

He lifted the razor and swiped it smoothly across his cheek, then screamed. Thin red blood seeped through his fingers and spattered on the pale tiles of the floor. He swore and dropped his razor in the basin, reaching for toilet roll to plug the small leak in his neck. He looked in the bathroom mirror: sallow face with a foaming beard and eyes round as a fish’s. His crisp shirt was going to have to come off. Maura would not be pleased.

He threw the paper in the toilet and applied more, torn into squares, folded urgently. He stiffened and strained his ears. A rustling sound like a cold breeze warned him of Maura’s approach; the linen-clad thighs were rubbing together with a soft hiss, a stalking reptile.

He heard her voice before he saw her. It rang ice clear.

‘Brendan, for the love of God …?’ She rounded the corner, looked him up and down and snorted.

Brendan looked her up and down in turn and snorted too, but discreetly. Her cleavage tippled over the top of her V-neck jumper, revealing the tentative lace of a beige bra. The orbs he had first coveted and then caressed now held less fascination for him. The tight slacks and high heels accentuated her curves, and her face, now stern, was topped with little blonde curls pinned high on her head. He mopped his wound and waited for the onslaught to begin.

‘Will you look at your shirt? It is completely ruined. I will have to get you another one. The blue one won’t go as well with those trousers but never mind, it will have to do.’

Her pause for breath was punctuated by his placatory ‘OK, my love’ – but even as he said it, he felt a pang of regret that it wasn’t OK and there wasn’t any love.