Evening Class (17 page)

The afternoon seemed long and tedious. After work he began to worry. A whole day never passed like this without any contact. Should he go round to her flat? But then if she were entertaining her mother, might she not regard this as intrusive? She had said she hoped they would meet. He mustn’t force it.

Grania was working late too. ‘Waiting for Lizzie?’ she asked.

‘No, her mother’s in town, she’s probably tied up. Just wondering what to do.’

‘I was wondering what to do too. Great fun being in the bank, isn’t it? When the day ends you’re such a zombie you can’t think what to do next.’ Grania laughed at the whole notion of it.

‘You’re always rushing here and there, Grania.’ He sounded envious.

‘Well, not tonight. I haven’t a notion of going home. My mother will be on her way out to the restaurant, my father disappeared into his study and Brigid like some kind of wild animal because she’s put on weight again. She’s kicking the scales and saying that the house is full of the smell of frying, and she talks about food for about five hours each evening. She’d make your hair go white overnight listening to her.’

‘Is she really worried about it?’ Bill was always so kind and interested in people’s problems.

‘I don’t know whether she is or not. She’s always looked the same to me, a bit squarish but fine. When she has her hair done and she’s smiling she’s as good as anyone, but there’s this dreary litany of a pound here or a kilo there or a zip that broke or tights that split. Jesus, she’d drive you insane. I’m not going home to listen to that, I tell you.’

There was a pause. Bill was on the point of asking her to have a drink when he remembered his finances. This would be a good excuse to go home on his season ticket and spend not a single penny.

At that moment Grania said: ‘Why don’t I take you to the pictures and chips, my treat?’

‘I can’t do that, Grania.’

‘Yes you can. I owe you for signing up for those classes, it was a great favour.’ She made it sound reasonable.

They went through the film listings in the evening paper and argued good naturedly about what might be good and what might be rubbish. It would have been so easy to be with someone like this all the time, Bill thought yet again. And he felt sure that Grania was thinking the same thing. But when it wasn’t there it wasn’t there. She would remain loving this awkward older man and endure the problems that lay ahead when her father found out. He would stay with Lizzie who had his heart broken morning, noon and night. That’s what happened to people.

When he got back home his mother had an anxious face. ‘That Lizzie’s been here,’ she said. ‘Whatever time you came in you were to go to her flat.’

‘Is anything wrong?’ He was alarmed. It wasn’t like Lizzie to come to the house, not after her uncertain welcome on her one official visit.

‘Oh, I’d say there’s plenty wrong, she’s a troubled girl,’ his mother said.

‘But was she sick, had anything happened?’

‘Troubled in herself, I mean,’ his mother repeated.

He knew he would get nothing but a general mood of disapproval, so he went down the road and caught a bus in the other direction.

She was sitting there in the warm September night outside the house where she had her bedsitter. There were big stone steps leading up to the door, and Lizzie sat hugging her knees swaying backwards and forwards. To his relief she wasn’t crying and didn’t seem upset or in a state.

‘Where were you?’ she asked accusingly.

‘Where were
you
?’ Bill said. ‘
You
are the one who says I’m not to call you, not to turn up.’

‘I was here.’

‘Yes, well I was out.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘To the pictures,’ he said.

‘I thought we had no money, we weren’t meant to be doing anything normal like going to the pictures.’

‘I didn’t pay. Grania Dunne took me as a treat.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes. What’s wrong, Lizzie?’

‘Everything,’ she said.

‘Why did you come to my house?’

‘I wanted to see you, to make things right.’

‘Well, you succeeded in frightening the life out of my mother and out of me. Why didn’t you ring me at work?’

‘I was confused.’

‘Did your mother arrive?’

‘Yes, she did.’

‘And did you meet her?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was very flat.

‘And take the taxi?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, what’s wrong?’

‘She laughed at my flat.’

‘Oh Lizzie. Come
on
. You didn’t drag me all the way here, twenty-four hours later, to tell me that, did you?’

‘Of course,’ she laughed.

‘It’s her way, it’s your way… people like you and your mother laugh all the time, it’s what you do.’

‘No, not that kind of laughing.’

‘Well, what kind?’

‘She just said it was too funny and asked could she go now that she’d seen it. She said I’d never let the taxi go and marooned her in this neck of the woods, had I?’

Bill was sad. Lizzie had obviously been very upset. What a thoughtless bloody woman. She hardly ever saw her daughter, couldn’t she have been nice for the few hours she
was
in Dublin?

‘I know, I know,’ he said soothingly. ‘But people always say the wrong thing, they’re known for it. Come on, let’s not worry about it, let’s go upstairs. Hey, come on.’

‘No, we can’t.’

She was going to need a bit of persuading.

‘Lizzie, I have people in the bank all day from nine o’clock in the morning saying the wrong thing, they’re not evil people, they just upset others. The trick is not to let them. And then when I go home my mother tells me she’s worn out pouring tinned sauce over the frozen chicken, and my father tells me of all the chances he never had as a boy and Olive tells anyone who will listen that I am the head of the bank. And sometimes it’s a bit hard to take, but you just put up with it, that’s what it’s all about.’

‘For you yes, but not for me.’ Again her voice was very dead.

‘So did you have a row? Is that it? It’ll pass, family rows always do. Honestly Lizzie.’

‘No, we didn’t exactly have a row.’

‘Well?’

‘I had her supper ready. It was chicken livers and a miniature of sherry, and I had the rice all ready too. I showed it to her and she laughed again.’

‘Yes well, as I said…’

‘She wasn’t going to stay, Bill, not for supper. She said she had only called in to keep me quiet. She was going to some art gallery, some opening, some exhibition. She’d be late. She tried to push past me.’

‘Um… yes…?’ Bill didn’t like this at all.

‘So, I couldn’t take it any more.’

‘What did you do, Lizzie’? He was amazed that he could keep so calm.

‘I locked the door and threw the key out the window.’

‘You
what
?’

‘I said now you
have
to stay and sit and talk to your daughter. I said, now you can’t get out and run away as you’ve run away from us all, all your life, from Daddy and from the rest of us.’

‘And what did she do?’

‘Oh, she got into a terrible temper and kept screaming and beating the door and saying I was cracked and like my father and you know, the usual.’

‘No I don’t know. What else?’

‘Oh, what you’d expect.’

‘And what happened then?’

‘Well she wore herself out, and eventually she did have supper.’

‘And was she still shouting then?’

‘No, she was just worried in case the house went on fire and we’d be burned to a crisp. That’s what she kept saying, burned to a crisp.’

Bill’s mind was working slowly but surely. ‘You
did
let her out eventually.’

‘No, I didn’t. Not at all.’

‘But she’s not still there?’

‘Yes she is.’

‘You can’t be serious, Lizzie.’

She nodded several times. ‘I’m afraid I am.’

‘How did you get out?’

‘The window. When she was in the bathroom.’

‘She slept there?’

‘She had to. I slept in the chair. She had the whole bed.’ Lizzie sounded defensive.

‘Let me get this straight. She came here yesterday, Tuesday, at seven o’clock and it’s now eleven o’clock at night on Wednesday and she’s
still here
, locked in against her will?’

‘Yes.’

‘But God almighty, why?’

‘So that I could talk to her. She never makes time to talk to me. Never, not once.’

‘And
has
she talked to you? I mean now that she’s locked in?’

‘Not really, not in a satisfactory way, she just keeps giving out and saying I’m unreasonable, unstable, whatever.’

‘I don’t believe this, Lizzie, I don’t. She’s been there not only all night but all day and all tonight?’ His head was reeling.

‘What else could I do? She never has a moment, always in a rush… to go somewhere else, to meet other people.’

‘But you can’t do this. You can’t lock people in and expect them to talk.’

‘I know it mightn’t have been the right thing to do. Listen, I was wondering could you come and talk to her… She doesn’t seem very reasonable.’

‘Me, talk to her?
Me
?’

‘Well, you did say you wanted to meet her, Bill. You asked several times.’

He looked into the beautiful troubled face of the woman he loved. Of course he had wanted to meet his future mother-in-law. But not when she was locked into a bedsitter. Not when she had been kidnapped for over thirty hours and was about to call the Guards. This was going to be a meeting which called for diplomacy like Bill Burke had never known to exist.

He wondered how his heroes in fiction would have handled it and knew with a great certainty that nobody would ever have put them in a position where they might have to.

They walked up the stairs to Lizzie’s flat. No noise came from inside.

‘Could she have got out?’ Bill whispered.

‘No. There’s a sort of bar under the window. She couldn’t have opened it.’

‘Would she have broken the glass?’

‘No, you don’t know my mother.’

True, Bill thought, but he was about to get to know her under very strange circumstances indeed. ‘Will she be violent, rush at me or anything?’

‘No, of course not.’ Lizzie was scornful of his fears.

‘Well, speak to her or something, tell her who it is.’

‘No, she’s cross with me, she’d be better with someone new.’ Lizzie’s eyes were huge with fear.

Bill squared his shoulders. ‘Um, Mrs Duffy, my name is Bill Burke, I work in the bank,’ he said. It produced no response. ‘Mrs Duffy, are you all right? Can I have your assurance that you are calm and in good health?’

‘Why should I be either calm or in good health? My certifiably insane daughter has imprisoned me in here and this is something she will regret every day, every hour, from now until the end of her life.’ The voice sounded very angry, but strong.

‘Well, Mrs Duffy, if you just stand back from the door I will come in and explain this to you.’

‘Are you a friend of Elizabeth’s?’

‘Yes, a very good friend. In fact I am very fond of her.’

‘Then you must be insane too,’ said the voice.

Lizzie raised her eyes. ‘See what I mean,’ she whispered.

‘Mrs Duffy, I think we can discuss this much better face to face. I am coming in now, so please stand well away.’

‘You are not coming in. I have put a chair under the door handle in case she was going to bring back some other drug addicts or criminals like you. I am staying here until somebody comes to rescue me.’

‘I have come to rescue you,’ Bill said desperately.

‘You can turn the key all you like, you won’t get in.’

It was true, Bill found. She had indeed barricaded herself in.

‘The window?’ he asked Lizzie.

‘It’s a bit of a climb but I’ll show you.’

Bill looked alarmed. ‘I meant
you
to go in the window.’

‘I can’t, Bill, you’ve heard her. She’s like a raging bull. She’d kill me.’

‘Well, what will she do to me, suppose I did get in? She thinks I’m a drug addict.’

Lizzie’s lip trembled. ‘You said you’d help me,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Show me the window,’ said Bill.

It was a bit of a climb and when he got there he saw the pole that Lizzie had wedged under the top part of the window. He eased it out, opened the window, and pulled the curtain back. A blonde woman in her forties, with a mascara-stained face, saw him just as he got in and ran at him with a chair.

‘Stay away from me, get off, you useless little thug,’ she cried.

‘Mummy, Mummy,’ Lizzie shouted from outside the door.

‘Mrs Duffy, please, please.’ Bill took up the lid of the bread bin to defend himself. ‘Mrs Duffy, I’ve come to let you out. Look, here’s the key. Please, please put the chair down.’

He did indeed seem to be offering her a key; her eyes appeared to relax slightly. She put down the chair, and watched him warily.

‘Just let me open the door, and Lizzie can come in and we can all discuss this calmly,’ he said, moving towards the door.

But Lizzie’s mother had picked up the kitchen chair again. ‘Get away from that door. Who knows what kind of a gang there is? I’ve told Lizzie I have no money, I have no credit cards… it’s useless kidnapping
me
. No one will pay a ransom. You’ve really picked the wrong woman.’ Her lip was trembling; she looked so like her daughter that Bill felt the familiar protective attitude sweeping over him.

‘It’s only Lizzie outside, there’s no gang. It’s all a misunderstanding.’ His voice was calming.

‘You can say that again. Locked in here with that lunatic girl since last night and then she goes off and leaves me here, all on my own, wondering what’s next in the door, and you come in the window with a bread bin coming at me.’

‘No, no, I just picked that up when you picked up the chair. Look, I’ll put it down now.’ His voice was having a great effect. She seemed ready to talk reason. She put the red kitchen chair down and sat on it, exhausted, frightened and unsure what to do next.

Bill began to breathe normally. He decided to let the moment last rather than introducing any new elements into it like opening the door. They looked at each other warily.