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

The kids sloped off, shoulders down. One of them muttered, ‘Twat.’

Minutes later, Brendan sat in the staff room, clutching a coffee. He looked down at his muddy shorts and saw two pale booted legs dangling. He gazed around the office; piles of paper meant piles of report writing. More evenings at home in front of the laptop. The coffee tasted burnt. The door swung open and Penny Wray came in, her shorts pristine, her ponytail bouncing. She put a hand on Brendan’s shoulder as she passed.

‘Was it murder?’

‘That group is always murder.’ Brendan took another mouthful of coffee as punishment. ‘I spend all Sunday night dreading the little beggars.’

Penny sat down and crossed perfect legs. She pulled a bottle of water from her bag and unscrewed the lid effortlessly. ‘I just had Year Seven girls doing performance on the trampoline. I have some great little gymnasts in that group.’

Brendan thought that Penny didn’t look like she had been on the trampoline. She smelled of something sweet, something fresh, and Brendan sighed. Then he remembered. ‘It’s the Class From Hell next for English.’

Penny laughed, a sound soft with sympathy and warmth, and she touched Brendan’s arm. ‘I don’t know why they make you teach English, Brendan. You are a sports teacher.’

He shrugged. ‘I am thirty-nine, Penny. That is what they do with old PE teachers – farm them out to the classes no-one wants to teach. The losers in front of the losers.’

‘I will be a head teacher by the time I am your age.’

Brendan did not doubt it, and that made the prospect of teaching poetry to the worst class in the school almost unbearable. Twenty years to retirement. Years of teaching kids who disputed penalties, who hated Yeats’ poetry, who hated him, then home to Maura in the evening to write reports while she grumbled about how they needed a new car and how he didn’t have time to take her out in the evenings. Brendan swallowed more coffee.

‘I’m running my kick-boxing class tonight.’ Penny looked at him and smiled. ‘Why don’t you come along?’

Brendan pictured Penny in her boxing kit, throwing punches and kicks, touching his arm, his waist, as she helped him do the same, their voices loud in one groan of effort. ‘Wish I could.’

‘You could bring your wife?’

He thought of Maura in her jog bottoms, kick-boxing, and pushed the thought away. She’d never shared his love of sport. The klaxon sounded and Brendan rose up like a trained pigeon and grabbed his battered briefcase, heading for the door. He heard Penny call:

‘Good luck with the evil ones, Brendan. I’ll get you a baguette for lunch when you’re back.’

In the corridor, a sudden gust of wind blasted through the banging door and gripped him by the throat.

An hour later, the klaxon screeched and room E5 was empty again. Brendan put his head in his hands. The silence rang in his ears, more deafening than the shouting and banging on desks that had filled the room minutes before. His head hurt, a dark throbbing behind his eyes. When he opened them, the room looked back at him, a panorama of upturned chairs and screwed-up paper. Brendan picked up the bin and began to fill it with litter. He held a paper ball in his hand, squashed to fist-size. He opened it, with slow care, and read the words:

I have spread my dreams under your feet,

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

He bent again and picked up more paper.

‘Brendan. Ah. Here you are.’

Nancy Doyle pushed her glasses up from her nose and showed him her practised lipstick smile. He looked around at the mess in the room and noticed Nancy surveying the space: a professional head teacher’s assessment of his lesson, based on the amount of discarded detritus.

‘Brendan, can we sit down a minute? I need to have a little chat with you.’ The smile again; Brendan assumed the worst.

‘Of course, Nancy.’

He moved his chair to look at Nancy; the dark suit, silk shirt, hair swept up. She drew a breath. ‘Look, Brendan, I’ll cut to the chase. I’ve just had a call from Sheldon Lodge.’

Brendan sat upright. ‘My mother?’

‘They’d like you to phone them. As soon as you can. It appears your mother left the home first thing this morning, and she hasn’t returned.’

Brendan saw an image of his mother in her coat, her shoulders hunched against the cold. It was her back view as she walked along crowded streets. In his mind she was frail, and passers-by bumped her out of their way as they rushed in the opposite direction.

‘I’m sure everything is fine. Your mother does seem to have taken quite a few of her belongings, though. I think you should go and ring Sheldon Lodge now. Do you have a phone on you?’

He did not move.

‘Go and sort it out about your mother. Give me a call at the end of the day, will you? Let me know she’s safe and sound.’

Brendan felt energy rising through his legs; he was up and grabbing at his briefcase, walking frantically to the door, calling over his shoulder:

‘Thanks Nancy. Yes, I will. I’ll be sure to get back to you later. Thanks.’

He was through the swing doors and moving towards the yellow Fiat Panda, parked between white lines in the car park; his mobile was in his hand, searching for the number of the care home, as he muttered, ‘Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams? Oh, Mammy, what in hell have you done now?’

Chapter Five (#ulink_6e9ca599-39a4-5cb3-814a-5d1267ffdbdb)

On the crowded bus to Dublin, Evie sat low in her seat and hugged herself. It was as if eyes were focused on her back, as if she was constantly being watched. She stared through the window, thinking she could be recognised at any moment, identified and apprehended. The idea came to her: she would buy a hat, one which would update her appearance and cover her hair at the same time: a disguise. Her fingers fiddled in the little bag; they were all there, all of her things. Clutching the bag to her chest, she shuffled to the front as the bus slowed.

In a department store, she tried on the whole range, looking at herself in the mirror wearing floppy hats, wedding hats, fur hats, fascinators. Finally, she decided on a red beret. It had panache; it covered her hair completely and she thought she looked like an intelligent outdoor type who might be independent and take walks with a dog. She bought sunglasses, a huge handbag and a jaunty coat in a lightweight fabric and she saw herself in the mirror: a middle-class lady of leisure, or a stylish Parisian tourist. She paid with her card and headed for the chip shop, her old coat and bag in plastic carriers banging against her legs. Fried food was frowned upon in Sheldon Lodge. Evie bought chippers, battered cod and four pickled eggs and settled down on a bench to enjoy them. The chips were hot, mouth-burning, delicious with the forbidden tastes of fat and too much salt and vinegar. The batter crunched perfectly, releasing a stream of grease onto her tongue. It would all go down well with a nice glass of Prosecco, she thought.

A man sat on the bench next to her. He was middle-aged, hunched over, and wore an old overcoat; his face was a dark rash of stubble. Evie offered him a pickled egg.

‘And I don’t mind if I do,’ he told her, pushing the whole egg into his mouth and swallowing it in a gulp.

She offered him another.

‘Thank you kindly,’ he said and, like an anaconda, opened his mouth into a broad yawn before the egg disappeared.

Evie imagined his neck becoming egg-shaped for a moment before it made the downward plunge. She ate her chips one by one. A pigeon fluttered by her feet, its beak jabbing at scraps, and she almost flicked her foot at it. She thought again; perhaps the pigeon was in need of a chip too. She dropped a couple by her feet and the pigeon pecked, its wings folded behind its back like a dapper little man.

‘You’re in Dublin on holiday, then?’ asked Anaconda Man.

Evie considered her reply. ‘Ah, I am a crime writer. Doing research.’

‘Oh and what are you researching?’

‘Good fortune.’

‘Then I am your guy,’ said Anaconda Man, licking egg from the corner of his mouth.

‘Indeed?’ Evie was intrigued. The pigeon fluttered away.

‘Yes, I like to take a chance myself. I am on my way right now to place a bet on a certain horse. And why not come along for the fun of it? To find good fortune.’

Evie thought for a moment. Sheldon Lodge seemed a long way away. She smiled.