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

‘You tell her, Dan.’

Evie pressed her nose against the window. Beneath her the plane shook. The sky was moving towards her; she was hurtling towards clouds. Danny launched into his story.

‘Well, Evie, Paul here had had a real skinful, and this copper came over, from Dublin like, and Paul was swaying around like this …’

Everything below was small and the plane rocked to one side, its wing drooping. Danny took the opportunity to continue with his tale.

‘So, Paul was bursting and looking for some place to – you know. And this copper seen we was Scousers and came over to have a go at us and he says – in this dead deep Irish voice, like – he says, “Well, what do you think you’re up to, eh lads …?”’

At this point, Paul laughed out loud at Danny’s attempt at an Irish accent. Evie saw clouds through the window, hovering fat pillows, and she wondered how it was possible to be so far from the world she knew. Paul and Danny were waiting for her attention, so that Danny could continue.

‘So, Paul says to this copper, “Eh, pal, I need a burst,” and the copper gets cross and says to me and Paul, he says, “Now, me lads, what’s your names?” and Paul looks at me and he starts to stutter and he says, “Eh, eh, don’t tell him your name, Danny.” And then he falls flat on his face.’

Danny and Paul were squirming in their seats, red-faced. Evie stared at them for a moment, and then she started to laugh too. She breathed out, put her hands in her lap and sat back in her seat. Danny offered his chuckle again. ‘So, Evie, you all right?’

Evie looked at Danny’s concerned face.

‘You were proper pale back there. I was dead worried. I thought you were going to be sick.’

Paul agreed.

‘I’m fine now, thank you.’

‘So how’s about we get something off the drinks trolley, then? Calm your nerves a bit?’

The stewardess was level with them, smart in her blue suit. She glanced at Danny and Paul, and then looked across at Evie. ‘Is everything all right, Madam?’

‘Fine thanks.’ Evie nodded towards the trolley. ‘I could do with a drink though.’

Paul chimed in. ‘I’m buying – what you having, Evie?’

The hostess looked askance at the two young men, her face conveying something like suspicion. Evie ignored her and offered to buy a bottle of champagne.

Twenty minutes later, Evie and her new friends had drunk a bottle of Veuve de something; she had taught them to say ‘Sláinte’, which both Paul and Danny were repeating loudly as they waved glasses. Evie waved over to the stewardess and ordered a second bottle, explaining with a confidential whisper, ‘It’s a special occasion. You’re only young once.’

The stewardess leaned over, which made the boys double over, given the proximity of her uniformed torso. She spoke gently. ‘Are you sure everything is all right, Madam?’ She was smiling with her mouth but her eyes appeared anxious.

‘Thank you, everything is grand now we have another bottle.’

‘Of course, Madam.’

She took out the champagne from the ice bucket, uncorked it and turned to Danny and Paul, who cheered when they saw the bubbles froth over. ‘Please can you keep the noise down? You’re disturbing other passengers.’

The boys burst out laughing again. ‘Got a couple of packs of Pringles, love? I’m starving,’ said Danny and they began to toast Paul’s birthday and the joys of flying.

Evie was oblivious to the changes outside as the plane started its descent. Paul was asleep, his trout mouth puffing out air. Danny, noticing the plane’s trajectory, looked furtively at Evie to check she was calm and then began extolling the virtues of Steven Gerrard’s free kick and how his slip-up against Chelsea had cost him the Premiership title before he retired. Evie was smiling, but there was a whistling sensation in her ears and a nagging feeling that she might find her route out of Liverpool Airport a little difficult to negotiate.

‘I liked him, that John Lennon one,’ she mused. ‘It was a bloody shame they shot him.’

‘Whereabouts you going in Liverpool, Evie?’

Danny raised an eyebrow, pushing Paul upright, before his head flopped onto Danny’s shoulder.

‘I need to find myself a hotel for a few days. Can you recommend …?’

‘Yeh, no probs – we’ll get you a taxi to the city centre when we get out, won’t we, Paul?’

Paul continued to sleep, a snore rattling in his mouth. The wheels on the plane bumped against the runway; the brakes came on and Danny took up the conversation quickly. ‘So, you doing anything special in Liverpool, Evie? Besides shopping.’

Evie wasn’t sure. So she said, ‘Yes. I’m visiting my son.’

‘Oh? Does he live in Liverpool?’

She considered for a moment. ‘No, he’s meeting me there.’ She had drunk too much and suddenly mischief popped like a champagne cork in her head. ‘He’s a rock star.’

Danny looked directly at Evie. ‘A rock star? Anyone famous?’

Danny’s face loomed drunk and earnest. It was time for another small performance. Evie sat upright, stretched her arms and swept a hand through her hair. ‘Oh yes, my son’s quite famous. I’m sure you’ll have heard of him. He’s a singer and he plays with his band all over the world. He’s called Bono.’

Danny sat up straight, jerking Paul to a seated position. They stared at each other. Paul blinked and Danny poked him with his elbow and gave a little laugh.

‘Bloody hell, Paul,’ breathed Danny. ‘We just got drunk with Bono’s ma.’

Chapter Eight (#ulink_61cdba56-7c2c-54b1-88b1-480d11e2758c)

The clock showed that it was almost nine, and Evie blinked her eyes open, stretching herself in the luxury of the king-sized bed the next morning. She marvelled at how the flight had become so enjoyable after such a nervy beginning. She didn’t regret a little bit the fibs she had told the young men about Bono. It had made the boys happy as they’d ushered her into the cab and shook her hand and said: ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Evie. Tell your Bono we loved Achtung Baby.’

Evie’s stomach groaned; the champagne had furred her tongue; she was ready for breakfast. She had slept in her undies. She’d brought no change of clothes or toothbrush, so she resolved to go shopping. After all, this was Liverpool and she could do as she pleased for the next few days. She would contact Brendan today, and Jenny at Sheldon Lodge. She grabbed the beret she had bought in Dublin and tugged it over her hair. Now she could become someone else, not the Evie she had been, not the wife, the mother, the old lady in the lifestyle home, but someone interesting, someone she had never met. She pulled on her clothes and her new coat, and the smells reminded her suddenly of airports and taxis and betting shops, and she laughed again.

In the hotel foyer, she asked the receptionist for a map of the city, planning her shopping list. She wondered about a good place to have breakfast, one that would have a caramel latte, and the sweet taste was in her mind as she stepped out into the street.

She felt the bump. It knocked her back against the wall and she instinctively clutched at her handbag. She looked up. The beret fell over one eye, and she tugged it off her head. A woman was staring at her.

‘Why you don’t look where you going?’ the woman said.

Evie was stunned. The breath was knocked out of her.

The woman, Italian or Spanish, was annoyed. Her eyes ignited in Evie’s direction, raising unimpressed eyebrows. Her face was not young. Her eyes were made up, surrounded with kohl, and her mouth was scarlet; she wore an orange jacket and her hair was piled on top of her head. Evie gaped at her hair, which was magenta red, tied with a pink silk bow.

‘You should be careful, old lady,’ the woman continued. ‘You might hurt yourself.’ She turned and swept away down the road.

Evie studied the jacket, the high heels and skinny ankles, and the orange leather handbag that the woman threw across her shoulder as she walked away.

‘What does she mean, old lady?’ Evie grumbled. ‘She was sixty-five if she was a day.’

Evie looked down at two dusty shoes, at her legs in slacks that widened around her ankles and revealed the top of white socks, at the shapeless blue coat she had been so proud of a day ago.

‘Hmmm.’