A Grand Old Time

by Judy Leigh

  Brendan was upstairs, packing his things, putting clothes into his case then taking them out again. He decided he probably should stay and forget about the interview. Maura’s case was empty on the bed and he heard her footfall. She stood in the doorway and watched him pack.

  He closed his suitcase and turned to her sadly. When he spoke to her, it was with his head down; he was not sure how he should be with her. ‘I’m not sure what to do, Maura. The interview?’

  She pursed her lips. ‘He looked so healthy, Brendan.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Your mammy’s devastated.’

  ‘I’ve never seen her like this.’

  ‘I came up to get extra blankets. She’s frozen down there, even with the fire on.’

  They crept into Evie’s room with a kind of reverence. The curtains were still closed and a Beatles T-shirt was lying across the pillow, the duvet thrown back. Everything was as they had both left it, the morning before.

  ‘Will we find some blankets, Brendan? Best not to take this duvet from their bed. It’s the one they slept under—’

  They found a duvet in a tall cupboard, folded in plastic, probably new, and Brendan pulled it down. Maura was looking at the photos on the chest of drawers; she picked up the one of Jean-Luc as a young man, with his guitar, and Brendan was about to accuse her of being nosy when he saw tears in her eyes. ‘You liked Jean-Luc, didn’t you?’

  ‘Didn’t we all like him?’ She picked up his bottle of tablets and studied the label. She sighed. ‘I’ve seen prescriptions for these at the clinic. They’re beta-blockers.’

  Brendan hugged the duvet. ‘Come downstairs. Let’s get Mammy comfortable then perhaps we should pack. We need to be off soon. That’s if we’re going. I mean, I’ve the interview to go to, but I’m not sure it’s right to leave, not now …’

  ‘Brendan, I think I might just stay here. We both should.’ The wrapped duvet was still pulled close to his chest, the plastic making light crackling sounds in his arms. ‘I mean, I might stay for the time being. You go back on your own if you need to, have your interview. I will stay on with your mammy for a week or two. She needs someone in the house.’

  ‘You’re right, Maura. I’ll ask her what she thinks. I mean, it’s a bit sudden to go …’

  ‘They’re not happy with me at the surgery for taking all this time off. It’ll be a job share anyway when I’m back. I don’t really care any more.’

  He did not move.

  ‘You go back to Dublin if you must. Ask your mammy. I can get a flight over later on. And I won’t contact you until I come back. I want you to do the same. A week or two apart will give us space to think about what we want …’

  ‘From each other?’

  ‘I think you need time to decide about what you want, Brendan. About priorities. And feelings.’ She turned abruptly and went down the steps in front of him, leaving him staggering behind her, his arms full.

  Maura sat in the huge chair by the fire, her arms folded across her stomach. Brendan was standing and he held Evie close. His shoulder was wet; the material on his shirt was soaked in her tears as Evie clung to him, her head on his shoulder. His arms were round her and her back was shuddering beneath his touch.

  ‘Will I stay here, Mammy? You’re upset. You need me here with you.’

  ‘Brendan.’

  ‘I don’t have to go. I mean – it’s only an interview and you’re—’

  She sniffled and looked at him. ‘You should go.’

  ‘No, Mammy. I’m staying. I mean, I can’t leave you all alone, not after—’

  ‘I’m not alone.’ She looked around the room. It was full of Jean-Luc’s things: his coat, his cap, his guitar.

  ‘I’ve made my mind up. You need me here. There will be other interviews.’

  She stared at him and her eyes were red and fierce. ‘No, I don’t need you, Brendan. You go back. Have your interview.’

  ‘I’m not going. I’ll stay.’

  ‘I said no. I’ll manage. I’ll be just fine.’

  ‘But, Mammy. I can’t go now. Let me stay a few days at least—’

  ‘Go, Brendan. It’s an important interview. Let me know how you get on. I have my smartphone. Ring me anytime, or text.’ She stopped speaking, taking a breath, wiping her eyes. ‘I have Maura here and Caroline, and Benji will be over tomorrow. I’ll be …’ She thought for a moment. ‘I’ll be grand.’

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, I can stay …?’

  She smiled, a weak smile, and he hugged her again. She pulled out a huge blue handkerchief and buried her face in it. It was one of Jean-Luc’s.

  Maura put a hand on Evie’s shoulder, her face ashen. ‘You should go, Brendan.’

  Hours later, his cases were in the Panda and he opened the door and wriggled down into the seat and sighed deeply. He started the engine and hesitated, peering through the windscreen. They were both looking at him, not moving, not waving. He accelerated and swallowed hard as the car moved forward and out into the road. His mother and Maura were behind him in the distance, becoming smaller. It felt strange to be alone in the car, empowering but somehow hollow.

  He pulled out onto the main road and he scratched his head and glanced into the rear-view mirror. Evie and Maura had gone, and he noticed the crooked sign, the big wooden bottle leaning over to one side. He stared at his case on the seat behind him and thought of his mother, of Maura and the baby, and of Jean-Luc. He should have insisted that he stay and be with her, but now he was driving back to the ferry port for an interview at St Cillian’s. Brendan felt the sudden sharp pang of loneliness.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The bar was packed out with people. Many of them Evie had never seen before. Ray had insisted they all meet in O’Driscoll’s after the service for a wake, he would lay on a spread, and she hesitated in the doorway, gazing around at the crowds. Maura and Caroline were at her elbows. Evie breathed in and said, ‘Here goes – the gangplank,’ and Caroline whispered, ‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’

  Evie walked through a line of people who took her hand, kissed her cheek, hugged her, muttered ‘Désolé’, offered help with the wine harvest and promised a visit. Everyone gave her their most sympathetic expressions. She put on her sweetest smile and spoke to each of them – ‘Thank you’ – ‘Merci’ – ‘Vous êtes gentils’ – ‘I miss him very much’ – ‘You’re very kind’ – until she arrived at the bar where Ray and Paulette hugged her.

  ‘You’ll need a stiff drink, love,’ Ray suggested, and a glass was in her hand. Billy the Banjo was picking out a soft tune in the corner; voices were hushed and Evie was aware of a tremor in her lungs, constricting her breathing. She was determined not to cry. She had sobbed at the crematorium and the weather made it worse: the sun was slung soft and hazy behind clouds and the distant hills were obscured by a low mist that hung heavy as a sigh. She wondered about Jean-Luc, if he was watching it all, smiling and thinking of nature and pantheism, but she doubted it and she pushed the thoughts from her mind. She’d looked at the coffin, at the dark wood and the gold handles. She knew he was gone from her and her chest was racked with convulsions.

  She sipped her brandy and put it down on the bar. She didn’t want it. There wasn’t much she wanted: the only thing she needed she could never have back again and it was easy to lose herself in thoughts which, when she tried to remember them, amounted to blankness. Maura linked an elbow through Evie’s and attempted a question.

  ‘What will you do now? I mean, will you come back to Dublin?’

  Evie looked horrified. ‘I’ve no intention of going back to Dublin. I live here. I’ll never go in another bloody care home. This is my life.’

  Maura looked anxious and Ray leaned across to both of them.

  ‘Just a week or so ago, he came in here for a brandy at lunchtime. He said he was taking you to stay in his little cottage in the mountains. I said I’d take the girls to the coast and we’d all benefit from a day or two off work.’

  ‘I
remember it.’ Evie forced a smile.

  ‘He knew he was unwell, Evie.’

  She blinked hard, as if someone slapped her face. ‘He knew? What did he know?’

  Ray looked at Maura; they exchanged a glance that Evie did not see, which gave him permission to discuss Jean-Luc.

  Ray chose his words carefully. ‘He’d been to the doctor’s and then to his solicitor. He’d had bad news. He wasn’t getting better, despite the tablets, and he said he needed a brandy. We had a long chat. Mostly about you, how you’d changed his life, made him happy. Everything belongs to you, you know, Evie. He had it all arranged.’

  Evie took a mouthful of her drink and closed her eyes. ‘He’s the most perfect man.’ She realised that she was speaking of him in the present tense: she could not let him go, not yet, and tears threatened to start again. She looked directly at Ray. ‘Do you think it would be all right if I …? So many people are here to say goodbye to him and they’ve all been so kind. Could I – would it be all right to say thank you?’

  Ray put his hand over hers, and then he rapped on the bar and said something in French, introducing Evie. The room became hushed. She sipped her brandy again and saw all the faces. She remembered some of them: the two men who had fought in the bar that night; the little man in the beret who had bought her drinks; Paulette; Billy the Banjo and his wife; there were other familiar faces from the market and from the wine-tasting event she had organised weeks ago, when it had all begun. In the corner she could see Benji in a black suit and tie with a tiny lady who was sitting down, her dark hair pulled back. She was wearing a black dress and her eyes were shining towards Evie.

  Evie coughed. ‘I – I wanted to say thank you all for coming here today to remember. I won’t try to say it in French. I am not that good yet, but someday I will be.’ She paused, thinking of Jean-Luc, their lessons together. ‘I will get much better at French. That is my first promise. My second promise is that I’ll always remember the most wonderful man I ever met, Jean-Luc Bonheur.’ She stopped again. All eyes were in her direction, all faces sombre. She raised her voice a little. ‘We didn’t know each other for very long but I knew him long enough for him to become … what’s the phrase the young ones use today? My soulmate. He is my soulmate, such a lovely kind man.’ She stopped. Present tense. She wondered how long it would be before she would stop thinking of him in the present. She carried on quickly. ‘A lovely man, intelligent, warm, generous, a little bit sentimental but he had a—’

  She clamped her lips together. She couldn’t say he had a good heart. She tried again. ‘He was full of love and I loved him.’ She swallowed once. ‘I still love him and – and I want to—’

  She paused and fumbled in her pocket and brought out a piece of paper, her hand shaking as she pulled on reading-glasses. She felt Maura and Caroline both put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I went on the Google Translate.’ There was a small laugh. ‘He once said this poem to me – it’s French – Alphonse de Lamartine. It sounds beautiful in French and he said it to me when we were together in the mountains and I didn’t know what he’d said, what it all meant. After he – after – well, I decided I might – I wanted to know what he’d told me so – so, yesterday, I found it on the Google and I translated it and I want to read it in his memory.’

  She took in the people around her, staring at the faces all focusing on hers. She adjusted her glasses and took a shuddering breath, and she read:

  ‘So let us love, let us love; and the transient hour

  Let’s enjoy in a hurry;

  Man has no harbour, time no shores;

  It flows, we fade merely!

  Jealous time, can it be that these drunken moments

  When love fills us with bliss to overflow

  Fly from us at the same speed

  As do our days of woe?’

  She stopped and felt the silence heavy on the air. Then she could hear Maura sniffing behind her. Others were crying, some wiping a single tear, some with wet faces, unashamedly moved. She picked up her small glass and lifted it high, and her voice was slight and weak.

  ‘Jean-Luc Bonheur.’

  His surname was lost in the chorus repeating his name over and she slumped back against the bar, the poem clutched tightly in her fist.

  When they arrived back it was early evening and a van was parked outside. Three men were packing away their equipment. The huge wooden bottle that sloped at an angle had been removed completely and a new sign was upright in its place. It was beautifully crafted, worked in wood, with the name ‘Cave Bonheur’ engraved deeply into the grain in black and gold. Next to the lettering was a design of a man in silhouette leaning over, playing a guitar. He had a little ponytail. It was unmistakeably Jean-Luc.

  Evie struggled out of Caroline’s car and she rushed over. Her face shone. It took her a while to speak, then she said, ‘It’s perfect.’

  Maura and Caroline were behind her, sharing anxious looks.

  Evie smiled but there were tears on her face. ‘I ordered it for him. It was meant to be a surprise. Oh, he would have loved it.’

  Caroline hugged her. ‘It’s beautiful, Evie.’

  She pulled away. ‘It’s a memorial.’ She sighed and went into the house.

  Late into the evening, she and Maura were sitting by the fireside. A clock was ticking, but both women were quiet. Wood snapped and crackled and sparks flew up the chimney and they glanced at each other and saw the fire reflected. They were both deep in thought.

  Maura spoke first, her hand curved across her belly. ‘It’s hard to believe there’s a little babby in here.’

  ‘Life is funny.’ Evie’s voice was toneless. ‘Someone dies and someone else is born. That is the way of things, isn’t it?’

  Maura did not know what to say. Evie sniffed. ‘Are you looking forward to having this little one, Maura?’

  ‘I will be, when I get used to the idea. I can’t imagine it just yet, how it’ll feel being big and then giving birth and then bringing up a little human being.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Evie, what if I am all by myself? A single mother? What’ll I do?’

  ‘We’ll all help out. You’ll manage. That’s what we do, we women. We manage.’

  Maura thought for a moment. ‘What if I’ve lost him, though? Brendan. He was the only man I ever loved. The only one. And I might’ve lost him for ever.’

  Evie raised her head, her stare was firm, and her breath, when it came, was stretched out. ‘I know how you feel.’ She leaned over and grasped Maura’s hand for a moment. They both looked back into the flames and were occupied with their separate thoughts, their separate troubles, their personal pain.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Evie woke up in the early hours, feeling cold, although her arms were wrapped around his pillow. She breathed the fabric in deeply, but could find no smell of him there. There was no reminder of him in the Beatles T-shirt she wore, although it had once been next to his skin. There was no memory of him in their room. She looked for him, but he had left.

  She went downstairs. Her feet were ice-cold and pale, and her fingers were becoming numb. She sat in the armchair in the dark and looked at familiar shadows, furniture looming, dark body shapes rising and leaning towards her. For a while she wondered what she would do, what her future would hold. Three months ago she had not met Jean-Luc; now his absence was like a weight that pushed down on her shoulders, constricted her breathing and shivered like winter in her belly. She would move forward but she could not do it yet. It was too early. She still awoke at night and reached out. She still opened her eyes in the morning and looked for him, forgetting that he was gone, and she expected him to walk in at any time in the day whenever a door creaked.

  There were things she knew she could not do yet. She could not touch his belongings. She could not look at the tractor, empty and motionless, now back in the barn. She could not bear to flick through the photos on her phone that they had taken together in the mountains, not yet:
she had been so happy and light-hearted, those few days before she found him lying still. A knot of anger tightened within her, it glowed like an ember, that he could have known his health was failing and yet he did not tell her. But she knew why and she forgave him.

  The room was dark and quiet and his guitar was in its familiar place in the corner. As she blinked at it, she saw a long neck, the shape of shoulders, a waist. She closed heavy lids and she imagined him holding it, the way his arms looped around it and clasped it to his body. It was his first love, and she picked it up and held it tight, her arms around it. He would not come back and she knew that she had no choice but to accept it. But for now she just needed to cry.

  A week had passed, one day stretching into another. Maura was asleep. She slept until late in the day, curled in her bed, her face peaceful. Evie locked the door behind her. She was driving the red sports car to the cottage in the mountains. Caroline came along for company, to help with the directions and to support her in a vehicle she was unaccustomed to driving. Evie loved the way the little car handled; she kept miscalculating the gear changes and the accelerator growled and revved beneath her feet, but she was improving her skills. Caroline followed a map she had created from the internet; Evie did not recognise any landmarks and she commented that all bloody hills looked the same. The mountains were steep, whichever path she took, and mist lay thick around each twisting bend.

  She slowed down: the roads were narrow and the drop at one side was sheer. They decelerated to a steady pace in second gear when a sheep stepped in front of them and stopped, looking at them blankly before slipping away into a hedge. Evie braked firmly, she and Caroline bumping forward and then back in their seats. She managed a joke. ‘We nearly had mutton for dinner.’ It was a brave attempt to claw back her happier self, which was hidden somewhere inside, refusing to come out. The mist was damp and heavy, tearing apart into shreds, and Evie thought it was beautiful and it somehow cocooned her, keeping her apart from the world. Caroline was eating salted peanuts and offered her some. Evie turned away and wrinkled her nose.