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

She stared at him for a second and he wondered if she was having the same thoughts, then she sighed and started up again. ‘Brendan, it’s always the same every Saturday afternoon. You know these visits upset me.’

Brendan couldn’t help noticing the lines that puckered perfectly around the mouth as she spoke. She has the mouth of an arsehole, he thought to himself. As she stared at Brendan, her eyes were like bullets, small, blue-grey, ready to fire. Any attempt to pass her would be a battle manoeuvre in the making, so he stayed fixed, bloody paper in hand.

Maura rustled away, her heels tapping like nails to the brain. Brendan flushed the toilet and watched the paper, its perfect whiteness blotched with red spots, as it gurgled, dissolved and disappeared.

Brendan was sitting in the yellow Fiat Panda on his driveway. A wafting fragment of toilet paper was still attached to the dried blood on his neck. The engine thrummed gently.

He listened to the DJ on the radio: ‘The birds are singing and summer is blooming here in Dublin, and so let’s have the Beach Boys, bringing us “Good Vibrations”.’

He banged his head softly against the steering wheel. Harder. Harder still. There were definitely no good vibrations to be had anywhere here. Still no sign of Maura.

He saw a young woman and her child who emerged from their front door. It was Erin from number 27 and little Colm. Erin found her phone and started to chatter. The little boy moved from one foot to another, kicking stones. He only had on a thin jacket. The wind ruffled his hair, shaking the flags of his trouser legs, and he looked cold. He sat down on the kerb, dangling his fingers in the dirt. He scrabbled purposefully in the gravel, found something and picked it up. It was a discarded cigarette. Colm held it in his two fingers, raising his hand in an imitation of an adult pose, pulling a haughty face.

They’d both wanted children, him and Maura. The doctor in the hospital in Dublin said there was nothing wrong with the pair of them, and they should both just relax. That was ten years ago. He was nearly forty. Too late now. It was around that time that Maura’s soft eyes hardened. Her sweet smile became pursed lips, puckered and hard. Maura was always the love of his life. Now she was just his wife, who sat across the table at breakfast in a tight suit, her hair pulled back and pinned up and her brow tight with a frown. She used to gaze up into his eyes and promise to love him for ever. Now she slammed his coffee on the table at breakfast and told him not to let it go cold. He sighed. Perhaps that was what love was now; like coffee, it starts hot and strong, only to become tepid and cool.

Outside the car, the child looked up at his mother, who was talking and waving the arm carrying the handbag. Colm put one end of the cigarette in his mouth. He began to smoke as he had seen his mother smoke, as he had seen other adults smoke. He had it off to perfection, inhaling deeply, holding his breath while he smiled like the Bisto kid and then blowing out the imaginary smoke in a steady stream. Brendan laughed, a quiet chuckle. Erin stopped talking, pushed her phone into her bag, turned to the boy and gave him a slap across the head.

Colm dropped the cigarette butt and screamed, his face reddening with furious tears. He looked like a comic book character. Erin grabbed his hand and with a swift pull she yanked him to mobility. His little feet moved in the air, then landed in a run to keep time with his mother. Brendan thought that was no way to treat a kiddie; his hands clutched the steering wheel harder as the Panda shuddered when Maura leapt in. She swung the carrier bags of cakes into the space behind her and looked sharply at Brendan.

‘Are we ready to go, Brendan? Do we have everything?’

He nodded. ‘I think so, my love.’

Maura stared straight at him, her eyebrows making a deep V in her forehead, her mouth pursed. He knew the expression like he knew his own reflection.

‘Brendan, what in the name of God is this stuck on your neck? Toilet paper. Now look at the state of you.’

She reached in her handbag for a tissue. He knew what was coming. Her pink tongue poked through her lips, dampened the paper and scrubbed the hard tissue against his neck. Like a dutiful child, Brendan kept still and closed his eyes and thought that he could feel the love leaking from his life.

She looked at him, breathing out sharply, the moist hanky in her fist. She paused and, for a second, her eyes were soft again. She ruffled his hair, her fingers snagging in his curls. She touched his neck with the tenderness she’d have bestowed on a child. ‘There, Brendan, you’re all done. Much better. Shall we go?’

The Panda engine was still humming softly. Maura was sandwiched inside a brown checked jacket with a faux-fur collar; she had the red lipstick and crimson nails of a ferocious hunter that had just skinned and swallowed its prey whole. ‘What are we waiting for?’

He gulped. ‘Maura, I don’t think Mammy likes Sheldon Lodge. I mean, she hasn’t settled—’

‘She is in the best place, Brendan. They can do Tai Chi and cookery classes for the aged. They can give her a good life. Better than she was, by herself.’

‘She looks miserable, to tell the truth.’

Maura thought for a second. ‘Nonsense. I’m sure she’ll be happy as a lark. Come on, let’s get moving. Traffic will be terrible in Dublin centre.’

His hands were squeezing the steering wheel. He glanced at the faux-fur collar around Maura’s throat. He moved the gears into first. The DJ on the radio was excitedly talking about the heyday of Oasis and the 1990s, then the chords struck out and the song began: ‘Wonderwall’. It was a song that was playing all the time, the year they’d met.

The tune epitomised the ecstasy of their young love. Brendan had taken Maura, slender and soft, in his arms, as they kissed and whispered and planned for the future. They had both been just eighteen and she had gazed at his face as if he was a blessed saint. He had felt that he could achieve anything, for her sake. And the voice sang the words just for them. Words which promised undying love, love beyond measure, love so vast it would last for ever.

As Brendan smoothly turned the Panda towards the edge of the estate, Maura’s eyes were half closed in a glaze and she began to sing, in her thin, cheese-grater voice:

‘Wonderwaaaaall …’

She was in her own world, and he had no idea what she was thinking. He wondered if she remembered the happy times; if she recalled their many walks by the River Liffey, how he gave her his anorak once when the rain started, how she squeezed his fingers and smiled into his face. He wondered if she was thinking anything at all. His fingers made deep grooves on the fabric on the wheel, wondering where she had gone, the sweet, soft-skinned girl of his past. He sighed from somewhere, lost fathoms inside him, and looked at the traffic ahead, nose to bumper, grumbling to a halt.

Chapter Three (#ulink_4ccbc78b-7782-5a8e-bd3f-b4f76db0c26a)

Four is the luckiest number. Born on fourth of April, 1942. Fourth of five children. Four hundred thousand euros from the sale of the house. Four sausages for lunch today. Four had always been lucky for her. Her da had given her a four-leaf clover, dried between the pages of a book, when she was four years old. She’d had her son on the fourth of March. He’d been her fourth baby, the only one who stuck.

Fifteen is not a good number. Left school at fifteen. Hated school. Married Jim on fifteenth of July. Married life, from then onwards, until he died. Moved to Sheldon Lodge on the fifteenth of December. Room number fifteen. No, fifteen is definitely not a lucky number.

Evie was deep in thought when Mrs Lofthouse spoke to her. Mrs Lofthouse spoke for the second time, and the third, more loudly and with slow emphasis.

‘Evelyn. Your son is coming to see you today. Brendan? He is coming to see you.’

Evie blinked. She put on her best confused look and stared directly back.

‘I’ll just give your hair a bit of a tidy up. Brendan will be here at four.’

‘Four.’

‘Brendan – and his wife Maura. Lovely couple, Evelyn.’

Evie pulled a face. Maura was always stiff, polite, putting on a pretence of wifely perfection. Evie didn’t feel she knew her well at all, even after almost twenty years. Maura was humourless, starchy. She reminded her of the nuns at school, who insisted she must be called Evelyn and not her preferred abbreviation. She’d decided at four years old that ‘Evie’ was so much nicer, cheekier: it suited her much better than the more formal version. Evie was a chirpy name. Maura could do with being chirpier, she thought. The nuns flitted into her head again and she remembered how they had punished her for using the Lord’s name gratuitously. That was the first time she took up swearing as a hobby. The words rolled in her mouth like sweets.

‘Bollocks,’ said Evie, and looked pleased.

‘That’s just not nice, is it?’ Mrs Lofthouse’s sigh showed how much she suffered in her work. She waved the brush in the air. ‘There, Evelyn. You look lovely. Shall we put on a bit of lipstick now? Make you look bright and breezy for Brendan?’

Evie took the lipstick from Mrs Lofthouse’s fingers and turned it over in her hand. Paradise pink. Mrs Lofthouse had paradise pink lips, which hung like prawns over her huge teeth. Her teeth pushed apart in different directions, one sticking out to the right and one leaning backwards to the left. Evie took the paradise pink lipstick and applied it to her own mouth like a child with a crayon.

Mrs Lofthouse’s lips sprang apart. ‘If you are going to be silly …’

Evie employed the vacuous stare again.

‘I’ll wipe it off and we can start again. Ah, now. You look a million dollars.’

Evie gurned at her, spreading her lips wide. Mrs Lofthouse’s prawn pout clamped itself into a thin line. The visitors were due.

Evie watched her waddle away then leaned forward in her chair and gazed around the Day Room. The other residents were in wingback chairs, turned towards the TV where Jeremy Kyle was doing a lie detector test. They were mostly oblivious to the chatter; the flickering screen was reflecting in the glaze of spectacles. Evie looked at the old ladies sitting in the window. Sunlight streamed against their faces, but they hardly seemed to notice the warmth. The flowers were out in the garden; daily, a robin perched on the oak. The old ladies stared straight ahead. One of them, Elizabeth, never spoke a word. Every day, Evie would try: ‘Good morning, Lizzie, and how are you today?’

Nothing. Elizabeth continued to stare ahead. The other one, Barbara, could not hear well. Even Alex, the friendly Ukrainian lad who brought the breakfasts, had to raise his voice to startle her from her dreams. At eight in the morning, Alex would be there, his hair stuck up in a little quiff at the front, his face all smiles:

‘Barbara, darling, your eggs and sausage – here you are – eggs and sausage – Barbara?’

The aged ladies were dry, thin sticks of women in their nineties, old enough to be her own mother. She saw them in the yoga class each Tuesday, looking around and lifting their twig-like arms. A thought popped into her head: Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Deaf. She was bored, and being bored made her feel mischievous. What else could she do in this sanatorium of smiles and sandwiches, which smelt the whole day long of perfumed piss?

The clock struck four. They would be here soon. She closed her eyelids and listened to the soothing music that told the residents they were in a caring environment. The armchair had moss-green cushions with silky fringes. Evie sank back into its fat embrace.

Frank Sinatra was singing ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ in his jolly lilt.

Evie thought about the moon and stars: where were they, exactly? Far up in the heavens? Is that where death was, alongside Frank and Jim and the others? What about after death? Evie decided she would like to come back as a reindeer.