Evening Class

by Maeve Binchy

  “No, but you know…most nights.”

  “But suppose they came looking for you in Dublin, you mightn’t be in the pub the night they came. Don’t you have any names and addresses?”

  “Names and addresses aren’t important in something like this,” Barry said.

  Fiona hoped he was right. He had set so much store about meeting them all and living through those glory days again. He would be very disappointed if it turned out that nobody ever gathered there anymore. Or worse, if they had forgotten him.

  THAT WAS THE evening that everyone was at leisure. If things had been different, Connie might have gone window-shopping with Fran and Kathy and had coffee at an outdoor cafe. But Connie was afraid to go out at night in case somebody really was waiting to push her in front of the cars that sped up and down the Roman streets.

  If things had been different, Signora and Aidan would have had supper together and planned the visit to the Vatican the next day. But he was hurt and lonely, and she had to be somewhere quiet until she could think over the turbulent proposal that had been made to her.

  They wanted her to go back and help in the hotel, bring them English-speaking visitors, be part of the life she had looked on for so long as an outsider. It would make sense of all those years she had watched and waited. It would be a future for her now as well as a past. Alfredo had begged her to come back. Even for a visit first so that she could see how things were. She would realize all that she could contribute and know how much people had admired her. So Signora sat alone in a cafe thinking about what it would be like.

  And a few streets away Aidan Dunne sat and tried to think about all the good things that had come out of this trip. He had managed to create a class that not only had stayed together for the year but had traveled in a block to Rome at the end of it. These people would never have done that without him. He had shared his love of Italy with them, nobody was bored at his lecture today. He had done all he had set out to do. It had, in fact, been a year of triumph. But of course he had to listen to the other voice, the voice that said it was all Nora’s doing. It was she who had created the real enthusiasm, with her silly games and her boxes pretending to be hospitals and railway stations and restaurants. It was Nora who had called them these fancy names and believed that one day they would go on a viaggio. And now that she was back here in Italy, its magic had worked too strongly for her.

  She had to talk business, she told him. What business could she have with a waiter from Sicily, even if she had known him as a child? He ordered a third beer without even noticing. He looked out at the crowds walking around on the hot Roman night. He had never felt so lonely in his life.

  KATHY AND FRAN said they were going for a walk, they had planned a route and it would end up in the Piazza Navona, where they went the first night. Would Laddy like to come?

  Laddy looked at the route. It would pass the street where his friends the Garaldis lived. “We won’t go in,” Laddy said. “But I can point out the house to you.”

  When they saw the house, Fran and Kathy were dumbfounded.

  “We can’t possibly be going to a party in a place like that,” Kathy said.

  “Giovedì,” Laddy said proudly. “Thursday, you’ll see. He wants all of us, the whole forty-two. I said to him quaranta-due but he said sì, sì, benissimo.”

  It was only one more extraordinary thing about this holiday.

  CONNIE WAITED FOR a while in her room for Signora to return, she wanted to give her the information and the surprise. But it got dark and she never came back. From outside the window came the sounds of chatter and people calling to each other as they went along the street, the distant sound of traffic and of cutlery clinking in a nearby restaurant. Connie decided that she would not allow herself to feel imprisoned by this mean, cowardly letter writer. Whoever it was would not kill her in broad daylight, even if it was someone sent by Harry.

  “To hell with him, if I stay in tonight he’s won,” she said aloud. She walked around the corner to a pizza parlor and sat down. She didn’t notice someone following her from outside the door of the Hotel Francobollo.

  LOU AND SUZI were across the river in Trastevere. They had walked with Bill and Lizzie around the little piazza, but, as Signora had warned, the restaurants were a bit too pricey for them. Wasn’t it wonderful that they had learned all that about the piatto del giorno, and how to think in lire rather than translating back into Irish money all the time.

  “Maybe we should have kept our sandwiches from lunchtime,” Lizzie said sadly.

  “We can’t go in the door of these places,” Suzi said philosophically.

  “It’s not fair as a system, you know,” Lou said. “Most of those people are on the take somehow, they all have an angle, a scene for themselves. Believe me I know…”

  “Sure Lou, but it doesn’t matter.” Suzi didn’t want the murky past brought up. It was never discussed, but it was hinted at wistfully when Lou might sometimes tell her how the living could have been very easy had she not been so righteous.

  “Do you mean like stolen credit cards?” Bill asked, interested.

  “No, nothing like that, just doing favors, someone does a favor and they get a dinner, or a big favor and they get many dinners or a car. It’s as simple as that.”

  “You’d have to do a lot of favors to get a car,” Lizzie said.

  “Yes and no. It’s not doing a lot, it’s just being reliable. I think that’s what people want when favors are being exchanged.”

  They all nodded, mystified. Sometimes Suzi looked at her huge emerald engagement ring. So many people had claimed it was the real thing that she had begun to believe it might have been the result of a huge favor Lou had done for somebody. There was a way of finding out, like having it valued. But then she would know one way or the other. Far better to leave it as part of the unknown.

  “I wish someone would ask us to do them a favor,” Lizzie said, looking at the restaurant with the musicians going from table to table, and the flower sellers passing among the diners offering long-stemmed roses.

  “You keep your eyes peeled, Elisabetta,” said Lou with a laugh.

  And at that moment a man and woman rose to their feet at a table near the road, the woman slapped the man across the face, the man snatched her handbag and leapt over the little hedge that formed the restaurant wall.

  In two seconds Lou had caught him. He held one of the man’s arms behind his back in a lock that was obviously extremely painful; he raised the other hand, the one holding the stolen handbag, high for all to see. Then he marched him through all the guests right up to the proprietor.

  Huge explanations in Italian were exchanged, leading to the arrival of the carabinieri in a van and enormous excitement all around. They never got to know what had happened. Some Americans nearby said they thought the woman had picked up a gigolo. Some English people said that he was the woman’s boyfriend who had been taking a cure for drug addiction. A French couple said that it was just a lovers’ tiff but it was good that the man should be taken to a police station.

  Lou and his friends were the heroes of the hour. The woman was offering him a reward. Lou was quick to translate it into a meal for four. This seemed entirely suitable to all parties.

  “Con vino si è possibile?” Lou added. They drank themselves into a stupor and had to take a taxi home.

  “It wash the besht time I ever had,” Lizzie said as she fell twice before getting into the taxi.

  “It’s all a matter of looking for opportunities,” said Lou.

  CONNIE LOOKED AROUND the pizza place. They were mainly young people her children’s age. They were animated and lively, interrupting each other laughing. Very alive and aware. Suppose this was to be the last place she was to see. Suppose it was really true and someone stalked after her, leaving frightening messages at the hotel. But she couldn’t be killed in front of everyone here. It wasn’t possible. And yet how else to explain the letter? It was still in her handbag. Maybe if she were to write
a note to leave with it just in case, a note explaining how she feared it might be from Harry, or one of his associates, as he always called them. But was this madness? Or was he just trying to make her go mad? Connie had seen films where this happened. She must not let it happen to her.

  A shadow fell over the table, and she looked up expecting the waiter or someone to ask for one of the spare chairs. But her eyes met those of Siobhan Casey, her husband’s mistress of many years. The woman who had helped Harry salt away money not once but twice.

  Her face was different now, older and much more tired. There were lines where they had never been before. Her eyes were bright and wild. Connie suddenly felt very afraid indeed. Her voice dried in her throat. No words would come out.

  “You’re still alone,” Siobhan said, her face scornful. Connie still couldn’t speak. “It doesn’t matter what city or how many deadbeats you travel with, you still end up having to go out by yourself.” She gave a little bark of a laugh with no humor in it.

  Connie struggled to remain calm, she must not let the fear show in her face. Years of pretending that everything was normal stood her in good stead now. “I’m not by myself anymore,” she said, pushing a chair toward Siobhan.

  Siobhan’s brow darkened further. “Always the grand lady with nothing to back it up. Nothing.” Siobhan spoke loudly and angrily. People began to look at them, sensing a scene about to begin.

  Connie spoke in a low voice. “This is hardly the setting for a grand lady,” she said. She hoped her voice wasn’t shaking.

  “No, it’s part of the slumming duchess routine. You have no real friends so you go and patronize a crowd of no-hopers, and you come on their cheapo trip with them and even then they don’t want you. You’ll always be alone, you should prepare for it.”

  Connie breathed a little more easily. Perhaps Siobhan Casey did not intend to launch a murderous attack on her after all. She wouldn’t speak about an empty, lonely future if she were about to kill her. It gave Connie a little courage. “I am prepared for it. Haven’t I been alone for years,” she said simply.

  Siobhan looked at her surprised. “You’re very cool, aren’t you?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You knew the letter was from me?” Siobhan asked. Did she seem disappointed, or was she pleased she had instilled such fear? Her eyes still glinted madly. Connie was unsure which way to react. Would it be better to admit that she had no idea, or was it more clever to say that she had rumbled Siobhan from the start. It was a nightmare trying to guess which way would be the right one. “I thought it must be, I wasn’t sure.” She marveled at how steady her own voice was.

  “Why me?”

  “You’re the only one who really cared enough about Harry to write it.”

  There was a silence. Siobhan stood leaning on the back of the chair. Around them the babble and laughter of the restaurant went on as before. The two foreign women did not appear to be about to have a fight, as had looked possible. There was nothing of interest there anymore. Connie would not ask her to sit down. She would not pretend that matters were so normal between them that they could sit together as ordinary people. Siobhan Casey had threatened to kill her, she was literally mad.

  “You know he never loved you at all, you do know that?” Siobhan said.

  “In truth possibly he did, in the very beginning, before he knew I didn’t enjoy sex.”

  “Enjoy it!” Siobhan snorted at the word. “He said you were pathetic, lying there whimpering, tight and terrified. That was the word he used about you. Pathetic.”

  Connie’s eyes narrowed. This was disloyalty of a spectacular sort. Harry knew how she had tried, how she had yearned for him. It was very cruel to tell Siobhan all the details. “I did try, you know, to get something done about it.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes. It was upsetting and distressing and painful, and in the end did no good at all.”

  “They told you that you were a dyke, was that it?” Siobhan stood swaying, mocking, her lank hair falling over her face. She was hardly recognizable as the efficient Miss Casey of former times.

  “No, and I don’t think that was it.”

  “So what did they say?” Siobhan seemed interested in spite of herself.

  “They said that I couldn’t trust men because my father had gambled away all our money.”

  “That is pure bullshit,” Siobhan said.

  “That’s what I said too. A little more politely, but it’s what I meant,” Connie said with a weak attempt at a smile.

  Unexpectedly Siobhan pulled out the chair and sat down. Now that Connie didn’t have to look up at her anymore, she saw close up the ravages that the past months had worked on Siobhan Casey. Her blouse was stained, her skirt ill-fitting, her fingernails bitten and dirty. She wore no makeup, and her face was working and moving all the time. She must be two or three years younger than I am, Connie thought, she looks years older.

  Was it true that Harry had told her that he was finished with her? This is what must have unhinged her. Connie noticed the way she picked up the knife and fork and fingered them, moving them from hand to hand. She was very disturbed. They were not out of the woods yet.

  “It was all such a waste when you look back on it. He should have married you,” Connie said.

  “I don’t have the style, I couldn’t have been the kind of hostess he wanted.”

  “That was only a small and very superficial part of his life. He practically lived with you.” Connie was hoping that these tactics would work. Flatter her, tell Siobhan that she was central to Harry’s life. Don’t let her brood and realize it was all over now.

  “He had no love at home, of course, he had to go somewhere,” Siobhan said. She was drinking now, the Chianti from Connie’s glass.

  Connie, with a glance and an indication of her finger, managed to let the waiter know they needed more wine and a further glass. Something about her also communicated itself, so that instead of the usual friendly greetings and banter of a place like this, he just left the bottle and glass on the table and went away.

  “I did love him for a long time.”

  “Fine way you showed it, shopping him and sending him to jail.”

  “I had stopped loving him by then.”

  “I never did.”

  “I know. And for all you may hate me, I didn’t hate you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “No, I knew he needed you and still does, I imagine.”

  “Not anymore, you put paid to that too. When he gets out he’ll go to England. That’s all your fault. You made it impossible for him to live in his own land.” Siobhan’s face was blotched and unhappy.

  “I presume you’ll go with him.”

  “You presume wrong.” Again the sneer and the very, very mad look.

  Connie had to get it right now. It was desperately important. “I was jealous of you but I didn’t hate you. You gave him everything, a proper love life, loyalty, total understanding about work. He spent most of his time with you, for God’s sake, why wouldn’t I have been jealous?” She had Siobhan’s interest now. So she continued. “But I didn’t hate you, believe me.”

  Siobhan looked at her with interest. “I suppose you felt it was better that he should have just been with me than having lots of women, is that it?”

  Connie knew she must be very careful here. Everything could depend on it. She looked at the ruined face of Siobhan Casey, who had loved Harry Kane forever and still loved him. Was it possible that Siobhan, who was so close to him, didn’t know about the girl from the airline, the woman who owned the small hotel in Galway, the wife of one of the investors? She searched the other woman’s face. Inasmuch as she could see, Siobhan Casey believed herself to have been the only woman in Harry Kane’s life.

  Connie spoke thoughtfully. “I suppose that’s true, it would have been humiliating to think he was running around with everyone…but even though I didn’t like it…I knew that what you and he had was something special. As I sa
id, he should have been married to you from the start.”

  Siobhan listened to this. And thought it over. Her eyes were narrow and very mad when she finally spoke. “And when you realized that I had followed you here and written that note, why were you not afraid?”

  Connie was very afraid still. “I suppose I thought you realized that whatever the difficulties were or maybe are, you were the only one who ever counted in Harry’s life.” Siobhan listened. Connie continued. “And of course I left a sort of insurance policy, so that you’d be punished if you did do me any harm.”

  “You what?”

  “I wrote a letter to my solicitor to be opened in case I died suddenly in Rome, or indeed anywhere, enclosing a copy of your note, and I said I had reason to suspect that it might have come from you.”

  Siobhan nodded almost in admiration. It would have been marvelous to think that she saw reason. But the woman was still too distraught for that. It was not the time to give her a woman-to-woman talk about smartening herself, setting her appearance to rights, and providing a home for him in England to await his release. Connie was very sure there was still money that had escaped any detection. But she wasn’t going to run Siobhan’s life for her. In fact, her legs were still weak. She had managed to remain so normal and calm when faced with someone dangerous enough to follow her and make death threats, but Connie didn’t know how much more she could take. She longed for the safety of the Hotel Francobollo.

  “I won’t do anything to you,” Siobhan said in a small voice.

  “Well, it would sure be a pity for you to have to go in one door of the jail as Harry is coming out another,” Connie said, as casually as if they were talking about shopping for souvenirs.

  “How did you get to be so cool?” Siobhan asked.

  “Years and bloody years of loneliness,” Connie said. She wiped an unexpected tear of self-pity from her eye and walked purposefully toward the waiter. She gave him lire that would cover the bill.