Cover

ABOUT THE BOOK

Maisie Brennan is standing on a podium on the twentieth anniversary of the death of her son, trying to find the first breath that will help her start talking to a roomful of strangers. A daunting task at the best of times, but she’s also menopausal and one hot flush away from totally losing it.

But as Maisie begins her story, she relaxes and word by word soon disappears into her past, back to 1st January 1995: the day when one misunderstood action led to a chain of events that changed her life for ever . . .

Somewhere Inside of Happy will have you laughing and crying from the first page to the very last.

Title Page

Dedication

To my husband, Donal. I’d be lost without you.
(You’re a bit like GPS that way …)

Prologue

Introducing Maisie Bean Brennan

The room was silent, but for the sound of shuffling, an unidentifiable clicking and Maisie’s own heartbeat. Shuffle, click, boom, shuffle, click, boom. Calm down, ya silly old cow. It’ll be OK.

She could feel her husband’s hands on her shoulders. He was standing right behind her, at the side of the stage, and she could hear him talking in her head. It’s all good, lady, you’re doing fine. Forget the sweats. Just smile. She watched her daughter Valerie limp in and lean against her stepfather, then pull off her shoe and shake out a piece of gravel.

Her face and head were on fire: her latest hot flush had drenched her scalp, frizzing her lovely blow-dry at the roots. She tried to smile but her lips stuck to her upper teeth. Oh, brilliant. Now I’ll look mental.

The distinguished, learned man introducing her to the stage had been talking for several minutes; clearly he liked the sound of his own voice. It was a nice voice, to be fair, posh and plummy, and he was so softly spoken it had a lulling effect as you listened.

Maisie was busy scanning the crowd and immediately spotted Deirdre, in an immaculate and expensive dark suit. Just behind her, Mitch and Jonno sat together. Mitch was eating a large ham roll, dropping half its contents on to Jonno’s lap. Years pass by … Everything changes, yet everything stays the same. She looked for Dave: he’d promised he’d be there if he could, but he toured a lot and his girlfriend had just given birth to twins. That’s no joke, Dave. She smiled to herself as she spotted him moving across the aisle to push a gawky teenager out of his seat so that he could sit with his old mate. John elbowed him and grinned, then tickled the back of Lynn’s neck, earning himself a shake of one of her knitting needles.

Now Maisie focused on Lynn, who had been knitting since she took her seat, lost in one-plain, one-purl. Over the years Lynn had grown more and more nervous of crowds, but she had been determined to be there for her best pal, and knitting calmed her. Everyone who had contributed to the book was there to support her. Even after all these years they stood by one another. Her heart swelled. The gang’s all here.

It would be the first and possibly last – depending on how badly she ballsed it up – college lecture she’d give. Barely educated Maisie Bean Brennan lecturing a bunch of academics? It didn’t feel real, but there she was, waiting in the wings a few feet away from a large glossy poster of her book: Jeremy’s Spoken: A Recollection of Love and Misunderstanding. It was a larger-than-life photo of her sixteen-year-old son Jeremy and his best friend Rave, both glistening, fresh-faced and beaming. She’d been looking at that photo for twenty years and it still made her well up.

The plummy-accented academic looked her way. It was time.

‘Ladies and gentleman, I now take great pleasure in introducing you to Maisie Bean Brennan.’ The audience clapped and Maisie felt her husband nudge her gently on to the stage.

‘Go get ’em, Ma’sie,’ Valerie whispered.

What am I doing here?

The clapping died down. She stood behind the lectern. The room returned to silence, save for the murmur of youthful restlessness.

Shuffle, click, boom, shuffle, click, boom.

Maisie cleared her throat, took a sip of water and separated her teeth from her lip. All eyes were on her. Theirs had been a story a long time in the making and it was time to tell it. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, opened them and began.

‘My name is Maisie. My husband calls me Mai and me children call me Ma’sie but yous can call me what you like.’

There was a little laughter. Maisie wasn’t sure if it was because of her opening line or accent. It didn’t really matter, so she forged on.

‘Me first-born, Jeremy, was conceived in violence and he died in violence, but while he was alive he was the light of me life.’ Maisie’s voice hitched slightly. My sweet, lovely Jeremy. ‘I’m here to talk about him and the things our short time together taught me, if yous’ll bear with me for just a little while.’

The students stopped shuffling, whispering and giggling. The fancy mahogany wood-clad hall disappeared. The shuffle, click, boom, shuffle, click, boom slowly quietened.

As Maisie continued, she was back in her small cottage in Tallaght, twenty years ago. It was the morning of 1 January 1995, the day her life had changed irrevocably, and the day her son’s had ended.

‘It started with my sixteen-year-old boy Jeremy waltzing his granny Bridie around the kitchen table …’

SUNDAY,
1 JANUARY 1995

Chapter One

‘Jeremy’
Pearl Jam, 1992

Maisie

SEVENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BRIDIE BEAN was gliding around the room, her grandson Jeremy leading her in an old-time waltz. As Maisie looked on, Bridie counted to three, then pivoted. It was beautiful to watch and it seemed as though the old woman hadn’t a care in the world. Maisie had spent most of her early morning bathing her mother, then dressing her in a crisp white shirt, a soft grey cardigan and her favourite tweed skirt, which came to just above the knee, then pinning her long white hair neatly into a smooth bun. Bridie liked to look nice so her daughter made sure that she was always pristine. It was the least she could do for her: despite her advanced age and mental condition, Bridie still enjoyed an innocent flirt and was full of fun. She was what the locals would refer to as a ‘game old bird’ and everybody loved her. As she twirled, her skirt lifted to reveal her twig-like legs moving in time to the music. She had no trouble keeping pace with sixteen-year-old Jeremy, and even though her mind was cluttered and foggy, ex-army nurse Bridie Bean was as fit as a flea. Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ played and she hummed along.

‘Ah, it’s just like the old days, Arthur – you, me and a bottle of rum.’ She giggled to herself.

‘Grammy, it’s me, Jeremy!’ Jeremy said. The last time he’d allowed her to think he was her long-lost husband, she’d mentioned how much she missed his manhood – and when the word ‘vagina’ fell out of her mouth Maisie’s first-born complained of battling a combination of nausea and light-headedness. It was clear to Maisie that he wasn’t willing to go through that trauma again. She smiled to herself when he stopped dancing and pointed to himself. ‘Jeremy, your grandson, so don’t be mentioning your bits.’

‘I know who you are, sunshine,’ Bridie said. ‘Just talking to your auld gramps in the sky.’ She held out her right hand and he clasped it in his left. ‘Once more around the table for luck.’

‘All right, but then I’m off. It’s me last day of holidays and I have a life, ya know.’

‘Oh, I know,’ Bridie whispered. ‘Very exotic, filled with girls and secrets.’ She tapped her nose with her index finger. ‘I have a few secrets of me own.’

‘Ah, Jesus,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘please don’t start.’

‘All right, love.’

Jeremy often feigned exhaustion, because it entertained his gran. It was a game Maisie often watched them play, a role reversal: he was the adult and she the bold child. She smiled at him and pushed his sandy hair away from his eyes. She didn’t speak, just sighed contentedly, then tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Good boy,’ she said. She raised a finger in the air, turned slowly and pointed to the large sticker with the word ‘Fridge’ on it. She went towards it purposefully and opened the door. ‘I would like cheese.’

Jeremy grinned at his mother. The old lady was having a good day.

Maisie intercepted her: ‘Cheese gives you wind, Ma.’

‘Well, it’s a good thing I don’t give a shite about wind.’ Bridie laughed.

‘Ah, let her, Ma’sie. Go on, Grammy, you only live once.’

‘Ah, Jeremy loves me enough to let me pop off in peace.’ Bridie’s head was firmly stuck in the fridge as she rummaged around.

‘Jeremy is a teenage boy. He finds your noisy arse hilarious,’ Maisie remonstrated, as Jeremy grinned.

Bridie emerged from the fridge with a block of Cheddar. ‘Ah, cheese,’ she said, and Maisie watched her son’s grin widen. If there was one thing you could say about Jeremy Bean, it would be that he loved his grammy. ‘One thin slice. I’m cooking breakfast,’ Maisie said firmly, and Bridie nodded, unwrapped the cheese and sank her teeth into it.

It was the first day of a new year and the last day of the Christmas school holidays so Maisie had made a large fry-up to celebrate both. Jeremy and Bridie were both tucking into theirs when she opened twelve-year-old Valerie’s bedroom door to tell her to come and eat. Valerie was lying on her bed singing along, painfully loudly, to East 17’s ‘Stay Another Day’.

‘I’ve been shoutin’ “Breakfast!” at the top of me lungs for the past five minutes, Valerie Bean.’

‘I’m not hungry yet, Ma’sie,’ Valerie said.

‘Get your skinny arse into the kitchen before I murder ya. Not hungry yet? Where do you think you are, the bleedin’ Ritz?’

‘As if! Bleedin’ Holiday Inn is as far as we’d get.’

‘Don’t say “bleedin’” and move it,’ Maisie warned.

Valerie huffed as she got to her feet.

Valerie was a tween before anyone had put a name to it. She liked loud pop music, black clothes, her room and little else. When she had turned eleven she had packed away all her dolls and cuddly animals, and a few weeks later she’d handed them to a gypsy woman, who had called to the door begging for old clothes. She had kept just a small pink Care Bear that her daddy had given her on the one and only occasion he’d visited after the separation. She had hidden it in the bottom of her wardrobe in a shoebox with her unused diary and a piece of sticky rock presented to her by her best and only friend, Noleen Byrne, following a family holiday in Blackpool. Valerie had licked it, then announced that it tasted like shite and rewrapped it.

Over Christmas, Maisie had introduced a swear jar to encourage her daughter to stop saying her two favourite words, ‘bleedin’’ and ‘shite’, but it simply served to highlight her own bad language. She had tried to change her ways after she was hauled into the school principal’s office to discuss her daughter’s use of the word ‘shitebag’.

‘To be fair, Principal Young, the lad was painting her hair with white Tippex.’

‘That is not the point, Ms Bean.’

‘I respectfully disagree.’

‘Valerie is learning this kind of language somewhere and it’s not in this school. We have strict rules about cursing here.’ Principal Young handed Maisie a list of banned words. She surveyed the list, most of which Maisie uttered on a daily basis. ‘I don’t see “shitebag” here,’ she said, in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Principal Young wasn’t amused. ‘Perhaps not, but you do see “shit”, and “shite” is simply “shit” with an e on the end. We have no problem with “bag”.’

Principal Young was being snotty. Maisie tolerated a lot but snottiness really got under her skin. It was her trigger, the thing that switched her gear from amenable to dogmatic. Normally she would have put that middle-class college-educated woman with the posh accent and bad attitude back in her box because Maisie did not react well to being looked down on. However, in this instance, her cheeks had flared red and she’d bitten her lip because the arrogant bitch was right. Valerie had picked up her cursing from herself and her mother, and although Maisie defended her right to express herself as she saw fit, little kids cursing was offputting. In that moment she resolved to set a better example for her children – after all, how hard could it be?

It turned out that it was very hard not to swear when you were a single mother of two and your mother was in the middle stages of dementia, you had a part-time job in a dental surgery during the week and cleaned a factory at weekends. By now the jar was overflowing. Maisie dreaded her next meeting with Principal Young.

When Bridie had still been well, she had often commented that Valerie would be the death of Maisie. ‘I love the bones of her but she’s hard raring, that child,’ she’d say. She’d often smile as she said it, as though the notion pleased her. ‘She’ll come good, though. I see my mother in her – she’d have picked a fight with Jesus on the cross – and when the chips are down, Maisie, that’s when our Valerie will come into her own.’

In contrast, Jeremy was the golden boy. He minded his grandmother, his mother and even his little sister when she’d allow him. Aside from his fondness for the word ‘Jesus’ (Bridie always maintained that it was used more as a prayer than a curse), he never swore, at least not in front of adults. He helped his ma carry the shopping and he always made sure the doors were locked and the fireguard was in front of the fire. He was the man of the house and he took his role seriously. Of course, he wasn’t a saint: he had a very annoying habit of lecturing his mother.

‘Jesus, Ma’sie, how many times do we have to talk about the dangers of hanging tights on the fireguard?’

‘Sorry, son.’

‘Seriously, Ma’sie.’

‘You’re right. Sorry.’

‘Don’t let me see it again.’

‘You’re crossing the line, buddy.’

‘Sorry, Ma’sie – but tights off the fireguard.’

Sometimes Maisie dreamed of shoving a pair of tights into her son’s mouth. He was mad for closing doors, too. He spent half his life shouting at people to shut them. It was especially annoying when the person he was roaring at was still walking through the door in question. Even Bridie had a pain in her face with it. ‘Ah, for God’s sake, child, let me get through the fucker first,’ she had once hollered. Everyone got out of Bridie’s way when she shouted.

Gentle, sweet, lovely Bridie had never shown any signs of aggression before she’d started to lose her marbles. The doctor explained that anger and lashing out were symptoms of her condition. It was understandable but every now and then, when she lost her temper, it terrified Maisie. Bridie had pushed Jeremy into a wall one day when he’d annoyed her over a door. He was shocked but pretended he was fine, even though he’d banged his elbow against the frame. Bridie breezed past as though nothing had happened but Maisie saw the tears in Jeremy’s eyes. Her heart had sunk. Oh, no. It was only a small incident, no real harm done, but it had upset her and, more importantly, it had upset her son. Maisie had removed her children from one violent home and she didn’t fancy having to do it a second time.

Since then, she had made sure that she took the brunt of her mother’s outbursts. She’d been kicked, pushed, pinched and bitten, mostly when she was dressing or washing Bridie. It was nothing on the scale of what Maisie was used to – she batted her mother away easily, without suffering any real damage. She told herself that Bridie didn’t know what she was doing, that she just had to keep it all under control, away from the kids, and everything would be all right. It made life more stressful, but she wouldn’t abandon her mother when she needed her most.

Maisie left Valerie’s room and took a moment to fix a photo of Bridie, Jeremy and Valerie on the hall wall. Bridie was front and centre and her grandchildren were climbing all over her. Even though it was raining and their hair was stuck to their heads they were laughing and happy. She wished she’d been in the photo too. At the time Bridie had told her to hand her camera to a passer-by – ‘Maisie, get that spiky-haired young fella to take the picture’ – but Maisie had thought the spiky-haired young fella looked like he’d have no problem taking off with it. It had been expensive, and if she lost it, she couldn’t afford to replace it.

‘You have trust issues,’ Bridie had told her.

Maybe she did. The boy had been wearing runners. I’d never catch him, she’d thought, glancing down at her squelchy flip-flops. If she’d known then that, just a few short months later, her mother would display signs of dementia, she’d have risked it.

When the photo was straight, she returned to her mother and son in the kitchen. Bridie and Jeremy were finishing their breakfast when Valerie eventually joined them at the table.

‘Well, it’s about time, Maisie Bean,’ Bridie said to Valerie.

‘I’m Valerie.’

Bridie stared at her, trying to find some meaning. Valerie just ate her breakfast, pretending to ignore the mist that had descended behind the old woman’s eyes.

Jeremy was patient and he seemed to know instinctively how best to handle Bridie when she was having a moment. Now he took her hand in his and hummed ‘We’ll Meet Again’. After a moment or two Bridie joined in, leaning on her grandson’s shoulder, beating time to the music she could hear in her head.

‘I think you need a rest, Grammy,’ Jeremy said softly to her.

‘And I think you’re right, son.’

Maisie watched them walk down to Bridie’s bedroom. He opened the door for her and she stepped through, turning to say, ‘Nighty, night,’ even though she had just had breakfast.

‘Nighty, night, Grammy. Remember, Jeremy Bean loves you.’ He always said that: it was a ritual.

Bridie blew him a kiss as he pulled the door to. She wouldn’t remember it, but that was the last time Bridie saw her grandson alive.

Jeremy stayed in the house, babysitting his sleeping grandmother, while Maisie spent an hour in the supermarket, cursing because the entire lay-out of the shop had changed.

‘Why? Why would they do that?’ Maisie ranted.

Valerie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Maybe they knew it would make you mental, Ma’sie.’

Maisie skipped from the dairy aisle to the detergents. ‘It was here, right? There were fridges right here with pre-packed meat in them last time we came, right?’

‘Right.’

Maisie spun around. ‘Who puts the dairy aisle next to detergents?’

‘It’s bleedin’ unsanitary,’ Valerie mumbled.

‘Ten pence in the jar.’ Maisie stalked off towards what would turn out to be the biscuit aisle. As she turned into Jams and Canned Goods for the third time, she spotted her daughter emerging from the next aisle.

‘Dog food,’ Valerie said.

‘Right, back to Pizzas and Frozen Veg – it has to be somewhere near there.’

‘Jesus, Mas’ie, we’ve done that one three times already.’

Maisie was trying hard not to lose it but supermarket shopping was her least favourite occupation, even when the supermarket powers that be weren’t trying to mess with her mind. I’m going to write a letter of complaint. Dear Bastards …

It was hot and stuffy and Maisie’s head hurt from too much wine. Stupid New Year’s Eve. She had spent it alone. Her mother had gone to bed at just after seven p.m., her son had been with his friends and Valerie was holed up in her bedroom. Still, at least she’s not doing drugs … yet. Maisie was terrified of drugs. She had read every pamphlet imaginable on the subject and watched her children, like a hawk, waiting for the signs, paying particular attention to her twelve-year-old daughter. Each day she performed a mental check on Valerie: Appearance? Unchanged. Good. Eating habits? Unchanged. Good. Change in interests? No. Good. Rude or rebellious attitude? Always has been rude and rebellious so no change there. Good. Change in friends’ line-up? No, still just one friend. Although that does concern me – Jeremy’s so popular … Moody? She was born moody … Left to her own devices, Maisie had opened a bottle of wine and drunk it in front of Jools Holland. A few fireworks had gone off at midnight, setting off Vera Malone’s dog, Jake. His howls were punctuated by Vera roaring, ‘You didn’t do that when the house was being burgled. It’s a wonder ya didn’t make those lads a cup of fuckin’ tea!’ Through the wall, she couldn’t tell if the dog had quietened due to shame or fatigue.

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