Evening Class (11 page)

Soon she would sleep and tomorrow her new life would start.

Brenda always walked through the dining room of Quentin’s at midday. It was a routine. In a nearby church the Angelus rang over a Dublin that rarely paused to acknowledge it by saying prayers these days, as people had done when Brenda was a young girl. She wore a plain coloured dress always, with a crisp clean white collar. Her make-up was freshly applied and she checked each table carefully. The waiters knew they might as well get it right in the beginning because Brenda had such high standards. Mr Quentin who lived abroad always said that his name was good in Dublin entirely due to Brenda and Patrick, and Brenda wanted to keep it that way.

Most of the staff had been there for a while; they knew each other’s ways and worked well as a team. There were regular customers, who all liked to be addressed by name, and Brenda had stressed how important it was to remember small details about the customers. Had they enjoyed their holiday? Were they writing a new book? Glad to see their photograph in the
Irish Times
, nice to hear their horse won at the Curragh.

Although her husband Patrick thought that they came for the food Brenda knew that their clientele came to be welcomed, and to be made much of as well. She had spent too many years being nice to people who were nobodies, watching them turn into somebodies and always remembering the flattering reception they got in Quentin’s. This was the basis of the regular lunch trade, even when economic times were meant to be hard and belts were reported to be in need of tightening.

Brenda adjusted the flowers on a table by the window and heard the door opening. Nobody came to lunch at this time. Dubliners were late lunch eaters anyway, and Quentin’s never saw anyone until well after twelve thirty.

The woman came in hesitantly. She was about fifty or maybe more, long hair streaked in grey but with the remains of red in it, and it was tied back loosely with a coloured scarf. She wore a long brown skirt almost to her ankles and an old-fashioned jacket, like people wore way back in the seventies. She was neither shabby nor smart, she was just totally different. She was about to approach Nell Dunne, already seated in her place at the cash desk, when Brenda realised who she was.

‘Nora O’Donoghue!’ she called out excitedly. It had been a lifetime since she had seen her friend. The young waiters and Mrs Dunne at the desk looked surprised to see Brenda, the impeccable Brenda Brennan, running across to embrace this unlikely looking woman. ‘My God, you actually left that place, you actually got on a plane and came home.’

‘I came back, yes,’ Signora said.

Suddenly Brenda looked worried. ‘It’s not… I mean your father didn’t die or anything?’

‘No, not that I know of.’

‘So you haven’t gone back to them?’

‘Oh no. No, not at all.’

‘Great, I knew you wouldn’t give in. And tell me, how’s the love of your life?’

And then Signora’s face changed. All the colour and life seemed to go out of it. ‘He’s dead, Brenda. Mario died. He was killed on the road, on a corner. He’s in a churchyard in Annunziata now.’

Even saying it had drained her; she looked as if she were about to faint. In forty minutes the place would fill up. Brenda Brennan had to be out there, the face of Quentin’s, not crying with a friend over a lost love. She thought quickly. There was one booth that she usually reserved for lovers, or people having discreet lunches. She would take it for Nora. She led her friend to the table, and called for a large brandy and a glass of iced water. One of them would surely help.

With a practised eye and hand she changed the reservation list, and asked Nell Dunne to photocopy the new version.

Nell was almost too interested in events. ‘Is there anything at all we can do to help… the situation, Ms Brennan?’

‘Yes, thank you, Nell. Photocopy the new seating plan, make sure the waiters have it and that there’s a copy in the kitchen. Thank you.’ She was brisk and barely courteous. Sometimes Nell Dunne annoyed her, although she never knew quite why.

And then Brenda Brennan, who was known as the Ice Maiden by staff and customer alike, went into the booth and cried tears with her friend over the death of this man Mario whose wife had crossed the square to tell Nora to go home to where she belonged.

It was a nightmare and yet it was a love story. Brenda wondered wistfully for a while what it must have been like to have loved like this, so wildly and without care for the consequences, without planning for the future.

The guests wouldn’t see Signora in her booth any more than they ever saw the Government Minister and his lady friend who often dined there, or the head-hunters lunching a likely candidate from another company. It was safe to leave her there alone.

Brenda dried her eyes, touched up her make-up, straightened her collar and went to work. Signora, peering around from time to time, saw with amazement her friend Brenda escorting wealthy confident people to tables, asking them about their families, their business deals… And the prices on the menu! It would have kept a family for a whole week in Annunziata.
Where
did these people get the money?

‘Chef has some very fresh brill today which he recommends highly, and there’s a medley of wild mushrooms… but I’ll leave it with you, and Charles will come and take your order when you’re ready.’

How had Brenda learned to talk like this, to refer to Pillow Case as Chef in some kind of awe, to hold herself so straight? To be so confident? While Signora had lived striving to be deferential, to find a background to live in, other people had been putting themselves forward. This is what she would have to learn in her new life. If she were to survive.

Signora blew her nose and straightened herself up. She didn’t hunch over the table any more, looking at the menu with frightened eyes. Instead she ordered a tomato salad followed by beef. It had been
so
long since she had eaten meat. Her budget hadn’t run to it, and probably would not ever run to it again. She closed her eyes, feeling almost faint at the prices on the menu, but Brenda had insisted. Have what she liked, this was her welcome home lunch. Without her asking for it, a bottle of Chianti appeared. Signora steeled herself not to look it up on the price list. It was a gift and she would accept it as such.

Once she began to eat she realised just how hungry she was. She had hardly had anything to eat on the plane, she was too excited, nervous rather. And then last night in the Sullivans’ she had not eaten. The tomato salad was delicious. Fresh basil sprinkled over the plate. When had they heard about things like this in Ireland? The beef was served rare, the vegetables crisp and firm, not soft and swimming in water like she had thought all vegetables used to be before she learned how to cook them properly.

When she had finished she felt much stronger.

‘It’s all right, I won’t cry again,’ she said, when the lunchtime crowd had left and Brenda slid in opposite her.

‘You’re not to go back to your mother, Nora. I don’t want to come between families, but really and truly she was never a mother to you when you needed it, why should you be a daughter to her now when she needs it?’

‘No, no I don’t feel any sense of duty about it at all.’

‘Thank God for that,’ Brenda said, relieved.

‘But I will need to work, to earn a living, to pay my way. Do you need anyone here to peel potatoes, clean up or anything?’

Gently Brenda told her friend that it wouldn’t work out, and they had youngsters, trainees. They had been themselves trainees all those years ago. Before… well, before everything changed.

‘Anyway, Nora, you’re too old to do that, you’re too well trained. You can do all kinds of things, work in an office, teach Italian maybe.’

‘No, I’m too old, that’s the problem. I never used a typewriter, let alone a computer. I don’t have any qualifications to teach.’

‘You’d better sign on to get some money, anyway.’ Brenda was always practical.

‘Sign on?’

‘For the dole, for unemployment benefit.’

‘I can’t do that, I’m not entitled.’

‘Yes, you are. You’re Irish, aren’t you?’

‘But I lived away for so long, I contributed nothing to the country.’ She was adamant.

Brenda looked worried. ‘You can’t start being like Mother Teresa here, you know. This is the real world, you have to look to yourself and take what’s being offered.’

‘Brenda, don’t worry about me, I’m a survivor. Look what I survived for nearly a quarter of a century. Most people would not have done that. I found a place to live within hours of coming back to Dublin. I’ll find a job too.’

Signora was brought into the kitchen to meet Pillow Case, whom she managed to call Patrick with difficulty. He was courteous and grave as he welcomed her back and sympathised formally on the death of her husband. Did he think Mario really had been her husband or was it just for appearances in front of these young people who watched him with reverence?

Signora thanked them for the delicious meal and said she would return to eat there again under her own steam.

‘We are going to have an Italian season of cooking soon. Perhaps you would translate the menus for us?’ Patrick suggested.

‘Oh I’d be delighted.’ Signora’s face lit up. This would go some way towards paying for a meal that would have cost more than she could hope to earn in two weeks.

‘It would be all done officially, for a fee and everything,’ Patrick insisted. How had the Brennans become so smooth and sophisticated? Offering her money without being seen to give her a handout.

Signora’s will strengthened even further. ‘Well, we’ll discuss that when the time comes. I won’t delay you, and I’ll be in touch next week to tell you my progress.’ She left swiftly without protracted goodbyes. That was something she had learned over the years in her village. People liked you more if you didn’t stay on interminably, if they realised that a conversation was going to have an end.

She bought teabags and biscuits, and as a luxury a cake of nice soap.

She asked several restaurants for kitchen work and was politely refused everywhere. She tried a supermarket for shelf stacking and newsagents for a job as an assistant or someone to open the piles of papers and magazines for them. She felt that they looked at her puzzled. Sometimes they asked her why she wasn’t going through the Job Centre and she looked at them with vague eyes which confirm their view that she might be a bit simple.

But she did not give in. Until five o’clock she sought work. Then she took a bus to where her mother lived. The flats were in their own grounds, raised flower beds with little bushes and ground cover provided the landscaping, as it was called. A lot of the doors had ramps as well as steps. This was a development, purpose built for the needs of the elderly. With mature trees and bushes around it and built in red brick it looked solid and safe, something that would appeal to those who had sold their family homes to end their days here.

Signora sat quietly hidden by a large tree. She held her paper bag of possessions on her lap and watched the doorway of number 23 for what must have been a long time. She was so used to being still she never noticed time pass. She never wore a watch so time and its passing were not important to her. She would watch until she saw her mother, if not today then another day, and once she saw her then she would know what to do. She could make no decision until she had seen her mother’s face. Perhaps pity would be uppermost in her heart, or love from the old days, or forgiveness. Perhaps she might see her mother only as another stranger and one who had spurned love and friendship in the past.

Signora trusted feelings. She knew she would know.

Nobody went in or out of number 23 that evening. At ten o’clock Signora gave up her post and took a bus back to the Sullivans‘. She let herself in quietly and went upstairs, calling goodnight into the room where the television blared. The boy Jerry sat with them watching. No wonder the child didn’t pay much attention at school if he was up till all hours watching Westerns.

They had found her an electric ring and an old kettle. She made herself tea and looked out at the mountains.

Already in thirty-six hours there was a little veil in her mind over the memory of Annunziata and the walk out to Vista del Monte. She wondered would Gabriella ever be sorry that she had sent Signora away. Would Paolo and Gianna miss her? Would Signora Leone wonder how her friend the Irishwoman was faring far across the sea? Then she washed with the nice soap that smelled of sandalwood, and slept. She didn’t hear the sound of the gunfights in the saloons or the flight of the covered wagons. She slept long and deeply.

When she got up the house was empty. Peggy gone to her supermarket, Jimmy out on a driving job and Jerry putting in the day at his school. She set out on her journey. This time she would target her mother’s home for a morning stake-out. She would look for jobs later on. Again she sat behind her familiar tree, and this time she didn’t have long to wait. A small car drew up outside number 23 and a matronly woman, thickset, with very tightly permed red hair, got out. With a gasp she realised this was her younger sister Rita. She looked so settled in her ways, so middle-aged even though she must only be forty-six. She had been a girl when Signora left, and of course there had been no photograph, any more than there had been warm family letters in the meantime. She must remember that. They only wrote when they needed her, when the comfort of their own lives seemed bigger than the effort of getting in touch with the madwoman who had disgraced herself by fleeing to Sicily to follow a married man.

Rita looked stiff and tense.

She reminded Signora of Gabriella’s mother, a small angry woman whose eyes darted around her seeing faults everywhere but not being able to define them. She was meant to suffer with her nerves, they said. Could this really be Rita her little sister, this woman with shoulders hunched, with feet squashed into shoes that were too tight, taking a dozen short fussy steps when four would have done? Signora watched aghast from behind her tree. The door of the car was open, she must be going in to collect Mother. She braced herself for the shock. If Rita looked old, what must mother be like now?