Evening Class (13 page)

Signora met Brenda for a walk in St Stephen’s Green. Brenda brought stale bread for the ducks and they fed them together, peaceable in the sunshine.

‘I go to see your mother every month, will I tell her you’re home?’ Brenda asked.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think no, but then that’s just because I’m still afraid you’ll go and live with her.’

‘You don’t know me at all. I am as hard as hell. Do you like her as a person? Truthfully now?’

‘No, not very much. I went to please you in the beginning and then I got sucked into it because she seems so miserable, complaining about Rita and Helen and the awful daughters-in-law, as she calls them.’

‘I’ll go and see her. I won’t have you trying to cover over for me.’

‘Don’t go, you’ll give in.’

‘Believe me, that will not happen.’

She called on her mother that afternoon. Just went and rang on the bell of number 23.

Her mother looked at her, confused. ‘Yes?’ she said.

‘I’m Nora, Mother. I’ve come to visit you.’

No smile, no arms outstretched, no welcome. Just hostility in the small brown eyes that looked back at her. They stood almost frozen in the doorway. Her mother had not moved back to let her enter, and Nora would not ask could she come in.

But she did speak again. ‘I came to see how you are and to ask whether Daddy would like me to go and see him in the home or not. I want to do what’s best for everyone.’

Her mothers lip curled. ‘When did you ever want to do what was best for anyone except yourself?’ she said. Signora stood calm in the doorway. It was at times like this that her habit of stillness came into its own. Eventually her mother moved back into the apartment. ‘Come in as you’re here,’ she said ungraciously.

Signora recognised a few, but not many, pieces from her home.

There was a cabinet, where the good china and the few small bits of silver were kept. You could hardly see into it years ago, any more than you could see now. There were no pictures on the wall, or books on the bookshelf. A big television set dominated the room, a bottle with orange squash stood on a tin tray on the dining table. There were no flowers, no sign at all of any enjoyment of life. Her mother did not offer her a seat so Signora sat at the dining table. She wondered had it known many meals served on it, but then she was not in a position to criticise. For twenty-six years she had lived in rooms where nobody was entertained to a dinner. Maybe it ran in the family.

‘I suppose you’ll want to smoke all over the place.’

‘No, Mother. I never smoked.’

‘How would I know what you do or don’t do?’

‘Indeed, Mother, how would you?’ Her voice was calm, not challenging.

‘And are you home on a holiday or what?’

In the level voice which was driving her mother mad, Signora explained that she had come home to live, that she had found a room and some small sewing jobs. She hoped to get further work to keep herself. She ignored her mother’s scornful sniff at the area she was living. She paused then and waited politely for some reaction.

‘And did he throw you out in the end, Mario or whatever his name is?’

‘You know his name was Mario, Mother. You met him. And no, he didn’t throw me out. If he were alive I would still be there. He was killed very tragically, Mother, I know you’ll be sorry to hear, in an accident on a mountain road. So then I decided to come home and live in Ireland.’ Again she waited.

‘I suppose they didn’t want you there in that place once he wasn’t there to protect you, is that what happened?’

‘No, you’re wrong. They wanted what was best for me, all of them.’

Her mother snorted again. The silence hung between them.

Her mother couldn’t take it. ‘So you’re going to live with these people up in that tough estate, full of the unemployed and criminals rather than with your own flesh and blood. Is this what we are to expect?’

‘It’s very kind of you to offer me a home, Mother, but we have been strangers for too long. I have developed my little ways and I am sure you have yours. You didn’t want to know about my life so I would only bore you talking about it, you made that clear. But perhaps I can come and see you every now and then, and tell me if Father would like me to visit or not?’

‘Oh, you can take your talk of visits with you when you go. None of us want you and that is a fact.’

‘I would hate to think that. I tried to keep in touch with everyone. I wrote letter after letter. I know nothing about my six nieces and five nephews. I would love to get to know them now that I am home.’

‘Well, none of them want anything to do with you, I can tell you that, half cracked as you were thinking you can come back here and take up as if nothing has happened. You could have turned out a somebody. Look at that friend of yours, Brenda, a nice groomed person, married and a good job and all.
She’s
the kind of girl any woman would like as a daughter.’

‘And of course you have Helen and Rita,’ Signora added. There was a half snort this time, showing that they had been less than totally satisfactory. ‘Anyway, Mother, now that I’m back perhaps I could take you out somewhere for a meal sometimes, or we could go into town for afternoon tea. And I’ll enquire at the Home whether Father would like a visit or not.’

There was a silence. It was all too much for her mother to take in. Signora had not given her address, just the area. Her sisters could not come and track her down. She felt no qualms. This was not a woman who had loved her or thought of her welfare, not at any time during the long years she had pleaded for friendship and contact.

She stood up to leave.

‘Oh, you’re very high and mighty. But you’re a middle-aged woman, don’t think any man in Dublin will have you after all you’ve been through. I know there’s divorce and all now for all it broke your father’s heart, but still you wouldn’t find many men in Ireland willing to take on a fifty-year-old woman like yourself, another man’s leavings.’

‘No indeed, Mother, so it’s just as well I don’t have any plans in that direction. I’ll write you a little note and come and see you in a few weeks’ time.’

‘Weeks?’ her mother said.

‘Yes indeed, and maybe I’ll bring along a cake or a cherry log from Bewleys with me and we could have tea. But we’ll see. And give my warmest wishes to Helen and Rita, and tell them I’ll write to them too.’

She was gone before her mother could realise it. She knew she would be on the phone to one of her daughters within minutes. Nothing as dramatic as this had happened in years.

She felt no sadness. That was all over long ago. She felt no guilt. Her only responsibility now was to keep herself sane and strong and self-employed. She must not learn to be dependent on the Sullivan family, no matter how attracted she felt to their handsome daughter and protective to their surly son. She must not be a burden to Brenda and Patrick who were obviously the success story of their generation in Dublin, and she could not rely on the boutiques who would give her no guarantees that they could sell her intricate embroidery.

She must get a teaching job of some sort. It didn’t matter that she had no real qualifications, at least she knew how to teach Italian to beginners. Had she not taught herself? Perhaps this man up in Jerry’s school, the one that Tony O’Brien said was a lover of Italy… He might know some group, some little organisation that could do with Italian lessons. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t well paid, she would love to be speaking that beautiful language again, letting it roll around her tongue.

What was his name? Mr Dunne? That was it. Mr Aidan Dunne. Nothing could be lost by asking, and if he loved Italian he would be on her side already.

She took the bus to the school. What a different place from her own Vista del Monte, where the summer flowers would all be cascading down the hills already. This was a concrete yard, a shambles of a bicycle shed, litter everywhere, and the whole building needed badly to be painted. Why couldn’t they have had some greenery growing over the walls?

Signora knew that a community school or college or whatever it was did not have any funds or legacies or donations to make the place more stylish. But really, was it any wonder that children like Jerry Sullivan didn’t feel any great sense of pride in their school?

‘He’d be in the staff room,’ a group said when she asked for Mr Dunne the Latin teacher.

She knocked on the door and a man came to answer it. He had thinning brown hair and anxious eyes. He was in his shirt sleeves but she could see his jacket hanging on a chair behind him. It was lunch hour and all the other teachers were obviously out, but Mr Dunne seemed to be guarding the fort. Somehow she had thought he would be an old man. Something to do with teaching Latin possibly. But he only looked around her own age or younger. Still, by today’s standards that
was
old, much nearer to retirement than starting out.

‘I’ve come to talk to you about Italian, Mr Dunne,’ she said.

‘Do you know, I
knew
some day someone would knock at the door and say that to me,’ Aidan Dunne said.

They smiled at each other and it was quite clear that they were going to be friends. They sat in the big untidy staffroom that looked out on the mountains and they talked as if they had known each other always. Aidan Dunne explained about the evening class which was his heart’s desire, but that he had got terrible news that very morning. The funding had not been passed by the authorities. They would never now be able to afford a qualified teacher. The new Principal-Elect had promised a small sum from his own funds, but that would go to do up the classrooms and get the place ready. Aidan Dunne said that his heart had been low in case the whole project might have to be scrapped but now he felt a glimmer of hope again.

Signora told how she had lived so long in the Sicilian hills and that she could teach not just the language but perhaps something of the culture as well. Could there be a class on Italian artists and sculptors and frescoes for example, that would be three topics and then there could be Italian music, and opera and religious music. And then there could be wines and food, you know the fruits and vegetables and the
frutti di mare
and really there was so much as well as the conversation and the holiday phrases, so much to add to the grammar and the learning of the language itself.

Her eyes were bright, she looked a younger woman than the tall person with anxious eyes who had stood at the door. Aidan heard the swelling sounds of children’s voices in the corridor. It meant that the lunch hour was nearly over. The other teachers would be in soon, the magic would end.

She seemed to understand this without his saying it. ‘I’m staying too long, you have work to do. But do you think we might talk of it again?’

‘We get out at four o’clock. Now I sound like the children,’ Aidan said.

She smiled at him. ‘That’s what must be wonderful about working in a school, you are always young and think like the children.’

‘I wish it were always like that,’ Aidan said.

‘When I taught English in Annunziata I used to look at their faces and I might think, they don’t know something but when I have finished they will know it. It was a good feeling.’

He was admiring her openly now, this man struggling into his jacket to go back to the classroom. It had been a long time since Signora had felt herself admired. In Annunziata they respected her in some strange way. And of course Mario had loved her, there was no question of that. He had loved her with all his heart. But he had never admired her. He had come to her in the dark. He had held her body to him and he had told her his worries but there had never been a look of admiration in his eyes.

Signora liked it, as she liked this good man struggling to share his own love of another land with the people hereabouts. His fear was that they didn’t have enough money for leisure time education themselves to make such a study worthwhile.

‘Will I wait outside the school for you?’ she asked. ‘We could talk more then after four o’clock.’

‘I wouldn’t want to keep you,’ he began.

‘I have nothing else to do.’ She had no disguises.

‘Would you care to sit in our library?’ he asked.

‘Very much.’

He walked her along the corridor as crowds of children shoved past them. There were always strangers in a big school like this, a new face wasn’t interesting enough to make them look twice. Except of course for young Jerry Sullivan, who did a double take.

‘Jesus, Signora…’ he said in amazement.

‘Hallo, Jerry,’ she said pleasantly, as if she were here in this school the whole time.

She sat in the library reading through what they had in their Italian section, mainly second-hand books obviously bought with his own money by Aidan Dunne. He was such a kind man, an enthusiast, perhaps he could help her. And she could help him. For the first time since she had come back to Ireland Signora felt relaxed, not just holding on by her fingernails. She stretched and yawned in the summer sunshine.

Even though she was going to teach Italian, she felt sure of it, she didn’t think of Italy. She thought of Dublin, she wondered where they would find the people to attend the class. She and Mr Dunne. She and Aidan. She pulled herself together a little. She must not be fanciful. That had been her undoing, people said. She was full of mad notions and didn’t see reality.

Two hours had passed and Aidan Dunne stood at the door of the big room. He was smiling all over his face. ‘I don’t have a car,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you do?’

‘I’ve barely my bus fare,’ Signora said.

BILL

Life would have been much easier, Bill Burke thought, if only he could have been in love with Grania Dunne. She was about twenty-three, his own age. She came from a normal kind of home, her father was a teacher up in Mountainview school, her mother worked in the cash desk of Quentin’s restaurant. She was good looking and easy to talk to.

They used to grumble together about the bank sometimes, and wonder how it was that greedy selfish people always got on well. Grania used to ask about his sister, and give him books for her. And perhaps Grania might have loved him too if things had only been different.