A Grand Old Time Read online

  He pulled his pyjamas over his head and Maura sat on the bed, taking off her new sandals. The silence between them hung cold in the air and neither of them knew how to break it.

  Then Maura sighed. ‘He’s nice, Jean-Luc, isn’t he?’

  Brendan brought his lips together and made a small sound.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Brendan? Don’t you like him?’

  ‘You obviously do.’ Brendan shuddered at the pettiness of his own voice. He saw Maura look at him steadily, unsure how to read his mood. He thought about reaching out, putting an arm round her, but sulkiness squatted on his shoulders and he couldn’t move.

  ‘I had such a lovely time today.’ Her voice was a whisper.

  ‘You seemed to enjoy being with Mammy at the market and you got on well with Jean-Luc tonight. You looked like you were having fun. You didn’t need me at all. I was just a millstone …’

  Maura couldn’t speak for a moment, then she muttered, ‘Don’t you think we can be good together, Brendan? Like Evie and Jean-Luc? Can’t we be more like them, the two of us?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  He turned off the light and climbed into bed. He felt her slide in beside him. It was quiet for a moment, and then he heard her sigh. He breathed out. ‘I’m sorry, Maura.’

  She sniffed. ‘You were very moody tonight, Brendan. I don’t understand at all what got into you downstairs.’

  He was quiet for a while and, when it came, his voice was hollow. ‘I was just tired.’

  ‘You looked unhappy.’ Another pause. ‘Is it because of me?’

  ‘Perhaps it’s because of me.’

  ‘Are you needing a hug? I am.’

  He put his arms around her and squeezed her to him, whispered into her hair, ‘Oh, Maura, it’s all such a mess. I don’t know what to do—’

  He didn’t finish the sentence; she pulled away and rolled over. He heard her snuffling quietly. Brendan put out a hand and touched her shoulder. He wished she would turn back again, tell him he was special, help him to tell her that she had moved his heart this evening, that she had been wonderful and he had truly admired her warmth and friendliness, something he couldn’t summon himself. She’d looked beautiful in the firelight and he was jealous of her easy conversation with others and angry with himself for being so foolish. He had wanted her to smile at him, to chatter animatedly to him as she had chatted to Jean-Luc, to look at him as her mother had looked at her new man and he wanted so badly to be able to go back in time, to replay the last few hours again, to be seated at the firelight and to join in the song and put his arms round Maura. But he had failed at the first hurdle and he was failing again. Jealousy stopped his mouth and spread like cement. Maura’s sobs became quieter and the opportunity was lost. He waited for sleep.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Everyone else was eating breakfast but Maura was still in the bathroom. Evie left her coffee and hurried to the stairs; she could hear Maura retching from the depths of her throat. Evie went upstairs, wondering why Brendan was still downstairs at the table spreading butter and jam on a baguette.

  She put a hand on Maura’s back, feeling the violence of her gagging, rubbing gently between each heave. Maura was almost vomiting, her face was wet and she was clearly unwell. Evie turned on the tap as the bouts subsided. Maura was trying to apologise between swallowing and sobbing.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Maura. Was it the drink last night? I mean, we drank quite a lot between us …’

  Maura turned to Evie and her face was washed out. Her eyes glistened and were hollow. She put a hand on Evie’s shoulder. ‘This is the fourth time this week I have felt so bad. I might be ill. I think it’s my nerves. I’m in tatters. Brendan and I – things are not going well between us at the minute.’

  Evie stared at Maura’s face and was thinking about something else, a memory, a sensation in her stomach, shreds of her own past. She clutched Maura’s arm.

  ‘Come downstairs and we’ll get you a cup of tea. You and I need to have a chat, I think.’

  There was a long conversation in which Maura and Evie had their heads close together, talking in hushed voices, then Jean-Luc was given his instructions. Brendan stood alone haplessly and followed Evie into the garden, watching Jean-Luc slide into the red sports car. Maura was trembling as she sat in the passenger seat and clicked the seatbelt. Evie gave her a conspiratorial wink and said she would see them in an hour and asked Jean-Luc to pick up some eggs for her so that she could make omelettes for lunch. She waved until they passed the crooked sign, then she turned to Brendan, who was standing next to her quietly. ‘You and I need to talk.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve sent the pair of them off to the shops, Mammy? So we could have a chit-chat?’

  She linked her arm through his and turned him away from the house, walking past the barn and the tractor to where the vines grew like little trees. They walked along the path, and she hugged his arm.

  ‘I thought it would be nice for you and me to spend some time, just the two of us, yes?’ Brendan smiled weakly and she held his gaze. ‘But it’s clear you’re unhappy and Maura is looking like a wet weekend herself. You hardly said a word last night, and you’re just like your father was, with his moods – I can read you like a book. So, how can I help?’

  He took a deep breath. ‘You can’t, Mammy. It’s such a mess. When you left the home in Dublin, I was really worried about you. You just took off. Then I found out you were in Liverpool and the next thing I knew you were in France. You never said goodbye or anything. So I came out here to bring you back. I thought you’d need me to look after you. And now things are different. You’ve changed so much.’

  For a second she was angry. ‘I was wasting away in Sheldon Lodge, Brendan. Is that what you wanted? I was a little old lady waiting to die in a place that was sucking the soul out of me.’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘And you say I’ve changed, but haven’t I changed for the better? Haven’t I come here and found out who I am and made my own new life? I like it better here, Brendan. I’m stronger and fitter and happier. I’m busy and I have friends and a lovely man who loves me. Don’t you think that is a good thing?’

  He agreed.

  She turned them around and they walked silently back to the house. Inside, Evie went over to the range, heating water, putting tea-bags in the pot, opening a tin of biscuits. Brendan stood behind her, hesitant.

  ‘Mammy, so much has changed in my life too. I came here to find you and then I followed your texts—’

  ‘Why the hell couldn’t you just ring up?’ Her hands were on her hips.

  His face crumpled and she went over to him. ‘I wanted to bring you back. I wanted you to need me, to look after you. I wanted to see the look on your face, the joy of it, when I turned up to take you home. And I missed you, Mammy. And I wanted to get away but Maura was always there and it’s going badly between us and I wanted to see you. I thought you weren’t safe. I mean, you’d gone abroad. I thought … I sort of wanted to rescue you, but, but now I’m here and you don’t need me and you won’t come back home and my own life is such a mess—’

  She put a mug of tea in his hands and clasped them around the soothing heat. He took a mouthful and breathed out.

  Her gaze was intense. ‘Don’t you love Maura?’

  ‘I think I do. But I’m not sure I can make her happy.’ Brendan shrugged and he looked like he would cry.

  ‘Does she love you?’

  He shrugged again and Evie sighed.

  ‘It’s a fecking mess, I’m sure, but these things have a way of sorting themselves out.’

  ‘I don’t know how to sort it out any more, Mammy. I don’t know what to do next.’

  She put her hand on his shoulder and her cheek was next to his. He could smell the warmth of a perfume, a gentle smell of something sweet and woody, and he inhaled. Her hands found his curls and she wound her fingers into them as she had done when he was a child.
r />   ‘Things will get better with time, Brendan. Stay here. Can you stay for a week?’

  He closed his eyes. ‘I think so. I need to be at an interview in Dublin in nine days so maybe we can stay for five or six more.’

  ‘Stay, have some time to relax, enjoy yourself, get to know Jean-Luc.’ She saw the expression on his face. ‘He’s not going to replace your dad, Brendan, but he is such a good man. Get to know him a bit. Give him a chance.’

  Brendan drank the tea, and stared into the depths of the liquid. Evie went over to the range and started to select vegetables.

  Jean-Luc came in followed by Maura, who said she needed to go to the toilet and made a quick exit past the table without looking at Brendan. He sighed. His mother was hugging Jean-Luc, who was mumbling about looking at the equipment and taking the tractor around the vineyard; he had work to do. Evie kissed him, laughing and telling him to be back in three hours as she would have lunch ready.

  ‘Brendan, go with Jean-Luc, will you? I’d love him to show you the wine-making equipment. We have six five-hundred-litre stainless steel tanks in the other barn and all sorts of interesting devices for filtering and bottling and what-not.’ She made a small movement with her head, twice. ‘Go on with you. You’ll enjoy it.’ Brendan looked puzzled. Jean-Luc put on his cap and his jacket and Brendan followed him sheepishly, while his mother beamed away at him.

  Brendan stared at huge vats and racks upon racks of bottles. The barn was dark and full of cobwebs in the corners but the machinery was pristine. There was even a little ladder that led up to the tap at the top of the vats. Jean-Luc explained the process and Brendan was trying to listen, rubbing his forehead.

  Jean-Luc stopped speaking and took off his cap. ‘You have no need to worry about your mother, Brendan.’

  Brendan did not know what to say. Jean-Luc put a hand on his shoulder.

  Brendan began to stammer. ‘Please … please don’t think I was being …’ He looked at the huge hand, at Jean-Luc, whose gaze was steady.

  ‘Evie is a wonderful woman. She is special.’

  Brendan agreed, wondering if he should escape, run away, or stand and listen to a man he hardly knew talking to him about his own mother.

  ‘Evie is my life now, she is everything to me, and I will make sure she is cared for.’

  Brendan agreed quickly.

  ‘You can trust me with that, Brendan. With your mother.’

  He agreed again and looked anxiously at the door. Jean-Luc positioned himself in front of Brendan and grasped his hand in his fist. Brendan’s colour faded.

  ‘We can be friends, perhaps? I know you must miss your father and, well, I can see you are not happy, but I hope at least you will trust me.’

  Jean-Luc was shaking his hand vigorously. Brendan looked at his trapped hand and back to the big man and he swallowed hard.

  ‘Ah, yes, Jean-Luc, all right, so … so tell me, tell me all about the fermentation process.’

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Maura held out the little plastic tube to Evie. The small oval window in the middle contained two vertical red lines. They were clearly red. Maura’s hand was shaking.

  ‘Is that positive?’ Evie asked and Maura nodded. Evie had been sure of it: hadn’t she been there herself, four times? She bit her lip and led her to the armchair. Maura sank into the cushions and leaned back.

  ‘So – how many weeks? Can you work it out?’

  ‘Seven, maybe eight. Now I think about it, it makes sense. We were in Brittany. It was the end of June, beginning of July. Now it’s the end of August. I hadn’t realised, hadn’t given it a thought. Oh, I’m so stupid.’

  Evie took her hand. ‘How are you feeling about it all?’

  Maura stuck out her bottom lip and stared ahead. She was numbed, in shock. In contrast, Evie’s thoughts rushed: Brendan, the child, their futures. She shook Maura’s arm. ‘You’re going to tell Brendan?’

  Maura did not blink. Her voice was empty and she looked drained. ‘I suppose so. I doubt he’ll be interested. I haven’t the first clue how he’ll react.’ She thought for a moment and her voice was quiet. ‘I’m worried. I don’t know if he’ll be pleased or angry. I shouldn’t imagine he’ll be happy. It’ll be my fault. To be honest, Evie, I hardly know him these days. I’m keeping the babby though, whatever happens.’

  The next day, Evie and Jean-Luc went out in the morning. They spent the afternoon working in the fermentation rooms and in the evening they shared a meal with Brendan and Maura and then proclaimed they were tired and needed an early night. The following day, Maura was retching again in the bathroom and Evie surreptitiously popped her head around the corner and asked, ‘Have you told him yet?’ only to be greeted by a sad shake of the head.

  In the morning, Evie and Jean-Luc went over to help Nige and Caroline with an unexpected problem in the house. Later that day, Evie and Jean-Luc were painting an outside wall together, refusing Brendan’s offer of help, and in the evening they went to O’Driscoll’s to chat to Ray, Evie telling Brendan he needed to spend some time alone with his wife. Evie was not being very subtle. She could tell from Maura’s pained expression, by the anxiety furrowing her brow, that she had not told Brendan about the pregnancy, but Evie did not care about being obvious about her intentions. She was taking desperate measures in a desperate time. When they came home in the evening, Brendan went to bed to read and Maura sat in front of the fire, flicking through a magazine and staring into the sparks. Jean-Luc filled the coffee pot and put it on the range.

  Evie went over to Maura. ‘Does he know yet? Have you told him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’

  Maura’s head hung down.

  Evie was not sure if tears were falling. ‘Shall I call him down? Shall I tell him for you?’

  Maura sniffed. ‘It’s so difficult—’

  ‘It was never going to be a bloody picnic in the park.’ Evie’s teeth were gritted.

  ‘Evie, he’ll hardly speak to me. He sulks all the time. When I smile at him, he ignores me. When I say something, he tells me he has a headache.’

  Evie put her hands on her hips. ‘Get yourself up there and talk to him, Maura. You need his help with this problem and the pair of you need a damn good shaking-up so you can sort it out. There’s a babby, for goodness sake.’

  Maura looked around nervously. Jean-Luc came to sit by the fire and he breathed out deeply. Evie turned to Maura again and this time her tone was gentler. ‘It’s difficult, but he has to know what’s happening. Maybe then you can both talk about it, work things out.’

  Maura smiled weakly and moved towards the stairs. Evie looked at Jean-Luc hopefully. By the time Maura opened the bedroom door, Brendan was on his back, his arms over his head like a child asleep, snoring.

  ‘Mammy, what’s going on?’ Brendan came downstairs in a T-shirt and shorts, his hair sticking up. Maura was at the table eating toast and Jean-Luc was packing flasks and sandwiches. Evie cut slabs of cake and put fruit in containers.

  ‘I’ve decided. We’re going out for a picnic, the four of us. We’re taking the day off and going into the mountains.’

  Brendan reached for a coffee. ‘Lovely.’ His voice conveyed no enthusiasm.

  ‘We’ll go in the sports car and you two can follow in the Panda. Is that OK?’

  Brendan wasn’t convinced. Maura passed the toast and he accepted it warily. She gave him a careful smile. ‘Your mother says they need a break. They have been working hard. Jean-Luc was chopping logs yesterday with Nige and then we did all that painting. I think a little break would probably be good for us all.’

  Evie was concentrating hard on looking interested in cutting tomatoes. Jean-Luc did, in fact, look tired, the skin below his cheekbones seemed looser. Brendan shrugged his shoulders and bit into the toast.

  They had lunch in the mountains, the picnic cloth spread on the ground between the two cars. Evie was talking about Benji’s mum, who had been a widow for ten years and was n
ow unwell, and she said she thought a cake might cheer her up. The sun was overhead and Brendan stretched out on a rug with his book; Maura was trying to rub sun-cream on his face and the back of his neck and he felt irritable. A thin string of clouds hung between the peaks and clung to the sides of the mountains like snow. Some hikers passed, rucksacks bouncing on their backs, boots kicking pebbles into the dust, and Brendan followed them with his eyes. More distant mountains hung beyond them, huge and hazy in the heat, and he could hear the tinkle of goats’ bells on the air. Maura bit into her second ham roll and Jean-Luc pulled Evie to her feet.

  ‘Where are you going, Mammy?’ Brendan asked.

  ‘Jean-Luc and I are going to take a little walk. We might take a few pictures on my smartphone. We don’t have any photos of the two of us.’

  ‘Shall I come?’ Brendan instinctively felt Maura turn towards him sharply.

  Evie was already on her way, her hand in Jean-Luc’s. ‘Don’t worry, Brendan. We won’t be long. I am sure you and Maura have plenty to talk about.’

  He watched them go, and then went back to his book. He muttered, ‘Like a couple of teenagers,’ and straight away regretted it. His voice sounded whining and petty, even to his own ears.

  Maura thought for a few moments. ‘I think they’re sweet.’

  ‘You would.’ It was out of his mouth before he’d thought what to say. He stared at the page, his eyes stuck on the same sentence.

  Maura rolled over onto her back and began to speak to the clouds. ‘We need to talk—’

  Brendan had nothing to say. He reread the sentence again twice.

  Maura breathed out and started again: ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

  His mouth twisted in a miserable line. ‘Not sure I want to hear it.’

  ‘I’m pregnant, Brendan.’

  He read the line again. The words began to move on the page, letters merging and separating, black against white.

  ‘Eight weeks, I think. It was when we first arrived in Brittany. I’ve done a test.’