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

about the Miss Wray one. Does she have soft thighs?’

      Brendan considered each face; the kids were rocking with delight, punching the air and looking at each other, mouths twisted in sarcasm. He brought his palm down hard on a desk. His mouth twisted and held still, a frozen grimace. He spluttered, and then the words came. ‘Shut up. Do you hear me? Just shut up, all of you.’

      The room went quiet for a moment. The air prickled. Brendan felt damp under his arms, and smelled the stale sweat pooling there.

      Softly, Kevin Fearon cooed: ‘Ooohh, he’s getting angry …’

      There was a snigger; someone made a farting sound on their arm. Brendan was pale as the page as he walked over to Kevin’s desk and leaned over, inches from his face. Something was building inside him, a hard mass of anxiety: the son, the husband, the teacher, the total failure. His mouth was dust-dry. He licked his lips, once, like a snake. Behind his eyes a throbbing pulse was blinding his vision. He brought his hand down on the table. ‘All this has to stop. Now. It has to stop.’

      His voice was raw and the edges of his words signalled a fury beyond his own control. Kevin leaned back in his seat, a smirk ready to curve on his lips, but something made him hesitate. At the back of the class, someone scraped a chair; someone else exhaled noisily.

      Brendan thumped the table again, his fist bloodless. ‘Yeats is an important part of our studies,’ he began. ‘This is all going to change. Over the holidays each and every one of you will write me an essay about Yeats’ poetry. You hear me? All of you?’

      He banged his fist again, twice, three times, and he was beating at his anxieties, flattening each one. All eyes were fixed on him. Brendan stood up, dizzy, and walked over to the board, pointing at a question projected in print. His voice shook, but his eyes were livid coals. He felt a pain in his hand. A nail was bent backwards and the skin was purpling.

      ‘Right. Right. What literary devices has Yeats used in “The Second Coming”? I want two sides of A4 paper from each of you, handed in to me the first day back after the summer break. Now, write it down in your homework diaries. In silence.’

      He stared wildly around the room. Each student bent a head towards the page, writing, and some twisting up to look at the white board, each face a study of perplexed or feigned interest. Brendan bent down and picked up the postcard, his hand a palsy of nerves and triumph, and he read the handwriting again. His mother was on a beach in Brittany.

      When the klaxon sounded and the students left, one or two bumping into desks as they went, Brendan collected the papers together and pushed them deep into his briefcase.

      ‘Happy holidays, Brendan,’ Penny Wray said when she came into the classroom, cool and confident in her shorts and T-shirt. Brendan’s face flushed violet. It occurred to him that he would not see her for several weeks. He breathed deeply and forced out the question that had popped into his mouth and filled it like cement.

      ‘Are you away for the summer, Penny?’

      She grinned. ‘I’m off to Mexico. And you?’

      He shrugged. ‘No plans. Not really.’ He looked at her, all white shorts and glowing skin, and tried again. ‘So, will you go to Mexico with a boyfriend?’

      She turned away and picked up his copy of W.B. Yeats, examined the cover and put it down again. ‘It will be a sporting holiday. Snorkelling, sailing, sunbathing.’

      Brendan almost said he wished he could come along. ‘Sounds perfect,’ he mumbled.

      She grinned at him. ‘Will I email you some photos then? The scenery’s lovely. I’ve been there five times before.’

      He nodded and wondered again if her offer of friendship could have been something more. He was aware that his shirt held the stench of sweat. She sat at his desk, crossing her legs, and he swallowed. She had a newspaper in her hand and was unfolding it. Her ponytail swished and she flicked the pages.

      ‘Look,’ she said, pointing at an advertisement. ‘I’ve found us new jobs. Here – this one would suit me perfectly. In charge of sports, just in the north of the city. And this is the job for you. A pastoral post in St Cillian’s. The application date is this week. It’s just up your street. You’d be great at it.’

      Brendan followed her finger and read the print. A new job in a new school. Penny was right, it was what he needed, and he would apply. They would find different schools and have different lives and she would not miss him. But perhaps change was just what he needed.

       Chapter Fourteen

      ‘You have been on that laptop all evening. Why don’t you come through and watch TV with me?’

      Brendan was engrossed in finishing his application to St Cillian’s. He pressed his lips together but no sound came out in reply. Maura tried again, her voice saccharine with effort.

      ‘I could open a bottle and we could share some cheesy nibbles?’

      Brendan read through his application, adjusted a word or two and pressed send with a mixture of disbelief and satisfaction. ‘What was that?’ he said.

      ‘Wine and nibbles, darling.’

      She had been using new endearments throughout the week. Her eyes had taken on a kind of bovine hopefulness and her lashes fluttered, heavy with extra mascara.

      ‘In a minute.’ He thought about calling her a new tender name, ‘sweetheart’ or ‘honey’ perhaps, instead of the usual placatory ‘my love’, but it felt awkward. He picked up his mobile and found his mother’s number, pressed dial and waited. Nothing, again, except an empty voice requesting a message. He wondered if she had discovered how to pick up voicemail.

      ‘Brendan, will I start the film?’

      A sudden thought occurred to him. He started to search for something on the internet, his brows together, his eyes reflecting the moving screen. She was behind him, looking over his shoulder. He pressed the keys and waited. A white page flipped up, a timetable. Maura put her arms around his neck, looking over his shoulder. Brendan made the screen whizz up and down: Cork to Roscoff, Roscoff to Cork.

      She leaned against the back of his chair and rested her face against his head. He could hear her breathing, her mind processing the details.

      ‘Is it a little holiday we’re having? Are we going to France?’ She twirled her fingers in his hair and her voice was light and girlish. ‘Oh Brendan, I’d love to go to France. Just you and me. The food and the wine – just think, and the beaches. You’d have a chance to practise your French – you’d like that. And we could enjoy some culture, the churches, the history. You could do a bit of canoeing perhaps and I could sit in the sunshine and get a suntan. I’m so pale at the moment. It would do us both good.’

      Brendan put the laptop down and turned around. She was wearing a flimsy dressing gown. It was loose and he could see she had little on underneath, if anything. Her damp hair trailed across her forehead. He became aware he was staring.

      ‘Ah.’ He turned back to the laptop. ‘Maura. I was thinking of going by myself.’

      He swivelled around again and was surprised to see that she was upset. The smile slipped down from her face and her eyes became soft, almost tearful, then colder and hard.

      ‘I thought I would bring my mother home. I’d just be away a couple of days. Not long.’

      Frozen disbelief stared back at him.

      ‘She’s written to the Lodge and said she doesn’t want her place there any more. I need to go and get her, Maura, find out what’s happening.’