A Grand Old Time

by Judy Leigh

  She shuddered. Home was a puzzle she did not want to solve yet. She needed time to think. But one thing was certain: she was not going back to Sheldon Lodge. That was a certainty. She said out loud, ‘Bollocks if I’m going back there. I’ll go to my grave first.’

  Silence gave no answer from the blackness around her. The cabin was too warm. She rolled over and took the duvet with her. It was like being in a womb, surrounded by water. Or it was like a grave, the grains of darkness like stifling soil. Sleep would not come and Jim’s face appeared in her head. Jim as he was when she first saw him, when he came into the baker’s shop and asked for a macaroon. He had been shy, looking at her, and she had liked him for his gentleness. He had returned each day; it was weeks before he’d asked her name and months before he’d asked her to accompany him to the pictures.

  The starchiness of her wedding gown scratched at Evie’s memory; a white lace dress that predicted what was to come: it had been uncomfortable, worn once for tradition, then put away in the cupboard, like hope, like love. The reality had come to her on her wedding night, Jim awkward, taking off his tie and shirt and watching her, his eyes waiting for her to speak. She’d stared at his bare shoulders, noticing a rash of spots against pale skin. What had followed was the beginning of marriage, a tacit compliance, a warm respect for a kind man, each detail on the wallpaper, a routine, a habit. She had lain meekly beside him, stroking his hair. She had encouraged him, soothed him. But it wasn’t love, thought Evie. She had never felt what Emma Bovary felt. Nor had Jim been a Heathcliff, a passion to be ridden and never assuaged. He was just a nice man with whom she had spent her married life; he had been the reason she kept the house comfortable and the food hot and filling.

  He had given her Brendan, all those years later when they had lost all hope of having children. Those first few brittle months of pregnancy, when her waking thought was for the baby and Jim had been a breath beside her ear, placing cushions and raising her feet. He had marvelled as the baby blossomed into a hard mound of belly, a hidden miracle and finally a wide-mouthed cry in her arms. Jim had stared at them both from a distance, his face twisted in pride. Perhaps that was when they truly bonded, when the mild husband became a playful father and the quiet house was filled with sound. But that was all in the past now, she had laid Jim in the earth and he was gone. She would make her own way in life now, but she would never know what real love was. That opportunity was liquid; it had slipped through her fingers, drained away and dried out.

  Evie was in a boat which was bucking and twisting. Water was leaking through a porthole, huge lapping tongues of water, seeping around her ankles. She pulled at a door which would not open and the sea rose high, soaking her white nightgown, making it a dark grey and pulling her down with its weight. She struggled; she looked around but there was no means of escape and no-one to help her. She cried out and held out her arms to no-one. Strange taunting music began to play and a demonic voice sounded in her ears, mocking her. Evie opened her eyes and turned on the light. The lilting music told her it was time to wake up. The French voice heralded the arrival in Roscoff and requested that foot passengers made their way to the foyer. She picked up Wuthering Heights and looked at the bleak picture on the cover, the small figure bent against the wind, struggling towards the future, the elements against her. Evie gave a grim laugh and started to collect her things.

  She was dragging her case. Her handbag and coat were over her arm and she was heaving along as lorries rumbled by. There was a four-by-four towing a caravan with stacks of bicycles on the back and then a lovely little campervan with floral curtains. There was no taxi rank, bus stop, or anyone to ask the way, nothing but the dawn wind for company. An articulated lorry juddered past and Evie felt the vibrations. ‘Roscoff’ was the same in French as it was in English, so Evie felt confident of finding a nice hotel. There must be somewhere close to the port, but she’d already walked far enough and her knees were hurting. She pulled the case up onto the kerb and tugged it along the pavement, each movement sending a shock of pain up her bruised arm.

  A white lorry with some black writing in French came by very close to her and she raised a shoulder against the shudder, as something twisted beneath her and she felt the clunk like a cracking bone. At first she thought she had broken her ankle, but realised the case was twisted, hump-backed under her grip, and the wheel had come free and rolled away from her. Evie dropped the coat on the case and chased after the wheel, which fell on its side. She picked it up and her hands were immediately grimy. A jutting piece of metal stuck out, but Evie could not make the wheel fit. She turned the case, offered the wheel to the metal, pushed against the fitting and decided another piece must be missing. She hunted around on the pavement.

  Evie swore, invoked the Lord and swore again. She looked up for a friendly face but there was no-one around. She considered the French words for ‘please help’, realising that ‘please’ was as far as she could go. Someone would understand once they saw the missing wheel, and she imagined a scenario where a nice man put it back together for her and offered breakfast. With determination, she tugged at the handle and tried to drag the case along on its one wheel. It was heavy, reluctant, and the metal made a slow grinding sound as it scored the pavement. She swore again.

  A voice came from over her shoulder and she could hear an engine idling.

  ‘Hello. Do you have a problem?’

  A young woman in sunglasses was leaning out of the window of an old Renault Espace. Evie exhaled and closed her eyes for a moment. They were British, English probably: they certainly spoke English. Pop music was playing from inside the van. She was about to speak to Evie again, then she turned to her companion who was making a comment in a low monotone. The woman turned back to Evie.

  ‘Have you had an accident?’

  Evie nodded. ‘The bloody wheel’s broken on the case.’

  ‘Can we offer you a lift?’

  The woman’s companion mumbled something again from the passenger seat. Evie couldn’t make out the words but the tone was distinctly hostile.

  ‘Jump in the back.’

  Evie heaved her case and coat into the van. As she wriggled in her seat, she was assaulted by a loud flurry of barking and a huge yellow Labrador leaped towards her.

  ‘Get down, Iggy!’ the passenger shouted and the dog obeyed. Evie’s shoulders tensed, although she wasn’t sure whether it was the dog’s bark or the passenger’s that had set her on edge. She wasn’t fond of dogs, but the passenger seemed even more difficult to placate.

  The driver turned around, took off her sunglasses and smiled. She was a pleasant-faced woman in her twenties or thirties wearing a skimpy vest, her light brown hair in a loose plait. It was hard to tell people’s ages these days, Evie thought, when everyone seemed to dress the same, whatever their age.

  ‘Where shall we drop you?’

  Evie surveyed the back of the van; behind her, there were cardboard boxes and a sink with taps. She turned back and looked at the woman.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To the Crozon peninsula, close to Pentrez beach. Is that on your way?’

  Evie didn’t stop to think. The words ‘peninsula’ and ‘beach’ were enough, and the words came into her mouth before she had time to consider her options. ‘Oh, the beach, yes. That is where I am going, too. That’s grand.’ She thought and then added: ‘What a coincidence.’

  The woman in the front passenger seat did not turn; she had dark hair cut short and spiky, and wore long bright earrings. She offered Evie a cold shoulder, which was visible to one side of her seat. She wore a pale T-shirt, and her lean arms were tanned. Evie thought she made a little grunting noise. She tried to make conversation with the unfriendly girl. ‘You have a sink in the back?’

  The driver turned over her shoulder to reply. ‘It’s for the gîte. We are renovating it.’ She swung the Espace onto the main road. ‘I am Maddie.’

  ‘Evie.’ She smiled at the friendly girl with the long plai
t, whose eyes smiled back in the rear-view mirror. Flicking her blonde fringe, her grin broadened. ‘Evie Gallagher.’

  The other passenger went on looking out of the window. Maddie said, ‘This is Katherine.’

  ‘Kat,’ said the irritated voice.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Evie began.

  Kat turned the pop music up louder, a pumping beat and woman’s voice repeating the word ‘umbrella’. Evie looked through the window at places she could not pronounce as the van pitched through one village after another. She thought about the Crozon peninsula, and wondered if it would be like the pictures in the travel agent’s window. Her phone sounded and she fumbled and found a message. It was Brendan. He had written Come home, Mammy. The dog was watching her with eager eyes, his tongue hanging from his mouth like a soft pink sock, and she wondered what she would do next.

  Chapter Twelve

  Evie held the dog by its collar. She was about to knock. The door marked ‘Privé’ was ajar and she paused and listened.

  ‘I hate it here. You’ve ruined everything.’

  ‘Kat, that’s not true. We decided—’

  ‘You decided—’

  ‘We agreed—’

  ‘You wanted to live here; it’s always about what you want …’

  ‘We were going to make it our home.’

  ‘Yes, me and you, Maddie. Now you’ve invited that bloody woman to stay with us.’

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Kat?’

  ‘You didn’t even ask me. She was in the back of the van, saying, “Isn’t the beach lovely, do you have any idea where can I stay for a few days?” and you were like, “We have a room here with us.” And she was all simpering, “Oh that would be grand,” and you didn’t ask me what I thought.’

  Evie pulled a face at Kat’s awful attempt at an Irish accent. Iggy looked up in sympathy, his eyes round. Maddie’s voice was placatory. ‘She’s sweet. And she can help. She said she’d do a few jobs for us around the place.’

  ‘Look at her, Maddie. She’s an old woman. That’s typical of you, picking up any old waif and stray, doing just what you want. She’ll have to pay rent.’

  Old woman? Evie wrinkled her nose, raised a hand to knock and then changed her mind.

  ‘Kat—’

  ‘You didn’t even ask me if she could stay. You made the decision. Because I don’t bring anything to the table any more, do I?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  Evie pushed the door and stepped inside. Both women looked horrified. The dog broke away from Evie’s grasp and ran over to Maddie, sniffing her outstretched fingers. Evie held up the lead. ‘Thought I’d help everyone out by taking Iggy for a little walk on the beach.’

  ‘Thanks, Evie,’ said Maddie, her expression uncomfortable, and Kat rushed out of the door, brushing against her. Evie thought she heard a sob.

  She had never been sure about dogs. There was something a bit unpredictable about the way they lurched and leaped and barked. The one she was holding on a lead now was tugging her along the beach, pulling forward with relentless enthusiasm. Evie muttered grimly, ‘It’s a shame the fecking case couldn’t do this.’

  Evie’s brow furrowed as she thought about Kat and Maddie. She would offer to help them to renovate the other two buildings, which had once been a piggery and, to be honest, still looked more like pig sties than gîtes. She might enjoy a short working break. She could cook and clean and chop wood for a week or two, but she wouldn’t stay long. A couple of weeks would give her time to think. She would be able to arrange something back in Dublin, perhaps.

  A damp blanket of warmth hung in the air. She passed the campervans, parked up for the night by the sea wall. The rich smell of cooking onions came from inside a grey camper with a German number plate; a bearded man was on the steps and he greeted Evie by raising his glass as she passed. Iggy tugged at the lead and she hurtled forwards at a fast pace. Her sore arm ached and was still mottled with dark blotches, which were spreading to pale yellow. The sea breeze whipped at her newly blonde hair. It was late now and the wind scattered a few smudges of people to the edges of the beach. The horizon spat out scraps of sunset, red scars across the darkening skies, and the wide stretch of sand merged into the blue of the sea.

  ‘What do you think of Pentrez beach, then, Iggy?’ The dog had put its nose into something it found in the sand and was snuffling. The beach was like life should be: open, uncomplicated. There were just a few people with dogs who smiled and said, ‘Bonsoir’, and moved on, and Evie had a clear view of where it would eventually end, suddenly and in a flurry of soft mounds. She turned the dog and headed back towards the farmhouse, the little gîtes and the bare stones of the renovation project. She was ready to sleep; the day had been a box sprung full with surprises. Above her, a moon was rising, an ancient bronze disc, hard and thin. Iggy strained at his lead and Evie tugged him back, surprised at the strength of her resolve. She looked at the sky. ‘I wonder if you ever look back at me, Jim.’

  Her voice sounded quiet against the hushing of the waves.

  ‘I wonder about the babbies, the should-have-beens. I gave them special names in my head. I dreamed them, each one of them, after every time, a little girl with no face, who knocked on our front door and looked at me with no eyes and said, “Don’t cry Mammy because I will come back to you again.”’

  Evie swallowed a lump of unresolved emotion. Brendan had been number four, the lucky one, the one who had stuck. Iggy pulled her forwards, his mouth gaping and eager. Her sob turned into a laugh, brittle and short. Jim was not up in the sky; Evie was not even sure there was a God there, or anywhere. She was not sure about anything at all.

  ‘Is this what it is now for me, Iggy? Am I lurching onwards at a lick, so fast I don’t know where I am going? Is that what it’ll be until I find it, the meaning or whatever it is?’

  Iggy barked and Evie decided she liked the dog. The sea breathed in and out like a sleeping child and Evie wondered how long this peaceful beach could hold her there. As the sun sank low, she thought about time as a smudge of light dimming in the sky. You couldn’t hold onto it for long.

  Both of the postcards’ glossy pictures were the same, divided into three images, all summer yellows, sands and sunshine and bleached prickly gorse. The words ‘Pentrez Plage’ were blazed red inside a sea-blue ribbon. Evie wrote on the back of the first card: Thank you all at Sheldon Lodge. I have decided not to come back though. Please can you give my things to my son. I will be in touch soon. With best wishes for the future, Evie Gallagher. On the other, she wrote Brendan’s address and the words, I’m having a holiday. I am living two minutes from this beach. It is wonderful. Sending love, Mammy.

  She asked the proprietor for two stamps. He frowned at her and she waved the cards. She tried again. ‘Deux … stamps.’

  ‘Anglaise?’ he asked.

  ‘Irish.’

  ‘Irlandaise,’ he corrected, and handed her two small stamps.

  Evie went back into the sunlight and pushed her cards into the box marked ‘étranger’ with a swelling sense of having shed all her worries.

  The last day of June was intense in the heat and Evie hid in the shade with Wuthering Heights. Iggy was at her feet, his tongue dipping in and out of a bowl of water. She could hear the buzzing of a drill and a hammer hitting brick. Kat was in the piggery working on plumbing in the sink and Maddie was plastering walls.

  Heathcliff had just plucked Cathy from her grave and Evie marvelled at the power of passion, how it could bind people together and how it could break a man’s resolve. Voices shrilled between the vibrations of machinery in the piggery; Kat’s dominating, a hard edge to her words. There was a silence and then a single yell. Evie sat up and Iggy pointed his ears. Kat came running from the building, brown and lean in shorts, plaster clinging to clumps of dark hair, a dusting of white on her cheek.

  ‘Come on, Iggy.’ Her words were staccato with each breath as she jogged by and the Labrador followed her, down the driveway towa
rds the road.

  Evie went back to the chapter and read on; a few minutes later, she was conscious of a shadow over the page, and she looked up. Maddie’s hair was over her face; behind the fallen strands her eyes were swollen with tears.

  ‘Evie?’

  Evie put her book down and stood, wrapping her arms around the younger woman.

  ‘We just had a massive row.’

  Evie waited.

  ‘It’s all going wrong … Kat’s really angry with me. I think – I think she’s going to leave.’

  Evie blinked. The sunlight was in her eyes. Maddie dropped down beside her and Evie reached over and patted her hand. ‘I’m sure it’ll be all right.’

  Maddie bent forward and snivelled, wiped her hand across her face. ‘No, Evie, it won’t. It was great when we first came here. We’ve been working flat out for a year. Then we went back to England last week to see my parents, to buy some things for the gîtes. It was our dream, to set up home here together, to run it as a business, but it’s all going wrong.’

  Evie waited, watching the young woman’s shoulders shake, and she put a gentle hand on her back. When Maddie turned to Evie, her face was blotchy and her voice strained. ‘My granny left me the money. We both so desperately wanted to make a go of the gîtes. I mean, we’ve been together since the second year at university – nine years, and things have always been good. I did business management, Kat studied foreign languages – it seemed like a no-brainer for us to come out here. There’s always been this problem, though, with my parents’ interference. We kept it under wraps, hoped it would go away. Then last week, my mother made a stupid comment in front of Kat. Since then, she’s been really moody.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  Maddie sniffed. ‘Something about me providing all the money for the gîtes and doing all the brain work and Kat not bringing anything to the table. It really hurt her feelings. She thinks my parents are privileged and I’m spoiled and I think she’s lost respect for me. She’s very independent; that’s one reason why I love her.’