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

face brightened, a smile flickering on his lips, and he looked at Evie with tenderness and something close to desperation.

      ‘Come on, Brendan.’ Maura’s mouth was now screwed tightly in anal closure. Brendan saw his mother wink at him before he rushed out after his wife.

      Mrs Lofthouse snorted. ‘We’d better clean you up, Evelyn.’

      ‘I’m coming back as a stag,’ Evie announced.

      Evie was sitting at her dressing table in room 15, second floor: her room. On the door was a small notice which read: ‘Please respect my dignity. Knock before entering and wait. I may be asleep.’ In the mirror, Evie saw the room reflected behind her: the single bed with the red rose duvet cover, her little chest of drawers, the shelf with her photos, the moss-green curtains and magnolia walls and the mouse-grey carpet. This was her home now, thanks to the sale of the house. Maura had said the house was too big for her, but room 15 was far too small. Brendan had thought she would have company in Sheldon Lodge and, when she had first looked round it, the thought of spending her first Christmas alone made the place look like a hotel. The bedrooms were attractive, as was the dining room with the little tables set for four, and Barry, the cheerful chef in his pristine checked pants, had promised her that he would let her have real butter on her toast. The manager, Jenny, had been friendly and welcoming, enthusiastic about the new lifestyle Evie would enjoy – fitness programmes and music nights and watercolour painting. Evie had looked with a child’s hopeful eyes at Sheldon Lodge, at the twinkling tree and the decorations, signed the forms and moved in. Christmas had turned out to be turkey, torpor and television.

      The triple mirror held her reflection, and her mother’s face looked back at her from three angles, hollow-eyed. Her mother had had no teeth when she died. Evie still had all her own teeth, bar one. Her mother had been grey but Evie’s hair was soft and brown, although the roots were streaked with silver. Her mother was all done in at forty; Evie was seventy-five, but she was certain she was not done yet.

      ‘Hot chocolate for you, Evie? Rich Tea biscuits or Penguins?’ Evie glanced over her shoulder to see Alex, his smiling face peeping around the door. Alex placed the tray down, and lifted off a mug and a plate of biscuits. ‘Everything all right for you today, darling?’

      ‘I’d rather have a nice glass of Merlot.’ She chewed her lip. ‘Alex – do you like it here?’

      Alex’s cheeks lifted with laughter. ‘I am here for three years, Evie. I have girlfriend here. Work is good and the people are friendly. Dublin better than Kiev for me, that is for sure.’ Evie looked miserable and turned away. ‘Why you don’t like it here, Evie?’

      ‘I am bored, Alex.’

      ‘There is television, darling. Banjo player is coming in later. Maybe now you can play dominoes downstairs with Barbara?’

      ‘I don’t give a shite for dominoes.’

      ‘I know what you mean.’

      ‘It’s driving me mad.’ Evie’s eyes were intense. ‘I’ve come here by mistake.’

      Alex shook his head. ‘Maybe tomorrow things are better?’ he suggested, but his face lost its smile as he picked up the empty tray and left Evie alone again. She lifted the cup. The hot chocolate was tepid and the biscuit tasted like grit.

      Evie looked around at her room. She could not live like this for the rest of her days. Images came to her of static yoga classes and gurning banjo players and the two old ladies who stared, unblinking, at the television. Her fingers clutched at the neck of her jumper and as the idea came to her she stood paralysed, and could only feel the beating of her heart. In one movement, she was in front of the dressing table.

      She tugged open her top drawer, lifting underwear to find her purse, her driving licence, her cheque card. Below were more familiar things: her bus pass, a passport, some jewellery, a small umbrella. She touched the four-leaf clover that her father had given her so many years ago, still dried and pressed in tissue paper, now between the pages of her small photograph album that was crammed with pictures of a younger Brendan in shorts with his father Jim. She found the mobile phone that Brendan had given her for Christmas so they could keep in touch, still in its box. These items were no longer relics of the past – they were tickets to new freedom. Without thinking, she pushed them all into her small handbag. June in Dublin was always pretty, and the Monday morning shops would be full of people. She would spend time breathing fresh air; just a small scent of the real world was already in her nose. Evie knew the door codes and the schedules of Sheldon Lodge. Each day ran like clockwork. It would not be difficult. That night, she slept the sleep of the smug.

       Chapter Four

      The children swarmed across the pitch, some yelling, some pushing, some straggling behind. Brendan blew the whistle with a pheep so loud it hurt his ears. The kids buzzed around him, their voices a cacophony of complaints.

      ‘Get yourself changed now.’

      ‘Mr Gallagher, that last ball was a penalty. Dennis brought the striker down.’

      ‘Did not, you gobshite.’

      ‘And you did so.’

      ‘I’ll give you a fat fucking lip.’

      ‘Yeh? Yeh? Come on, then.’

      Brendan blew the whistle again. The kids’ faces were red with sweat and effort.

      ‘In the changing rooms: showers, now. Go on.’

      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?’