Evening Class (48 page)

He felt it was a lot less disastrous than it might have been. He let himself relax a little and wondered what they would talk about next, now that they had been through the minefield of Marilyn Monroe’s suicide.

Barry ran a list of conversational topics past himself without success. He couldn’t say Fiona worked in the hospital, that would remind everyone of the stomach pumping and the stay there, he couldn’t suddenly start talking about the Italian Class, the supermarket, or his motorbike because they would know he was trying to get on to other less controversial subjects. He was going to tell his mother about Fiona’s tee-shirts but he didn’t think she’d like that, and Fiona had dressed up in her good jacket and nice pink blouse for the meeting so perhaps it would be letting her down.

At that moment the cat came in and fixed his one good eye on Fiona.

‘I’d like to introduce you to Cascarino,’ Barry said, never having loved the big angry cat so much in his life. Please may Cascarino not claw at Fiona’s new skirt, or pause to lick his nether regions in full view of everyone. But the cat laid his head on Fiona’s lap and began a purr that sounded like a light aircraft revving up.

‘Do you have a cat at home yourselves?’ Barry’s mother asked.

‘No, I’d love one but my father says you never know what trouble they lead to.’

‘That’s a pity, I find them a great consolation. Cascarino may not look much but for a male he’s very understanding.’

‘I know,’ Fiona agreed with her. ‘Isn’t it funny the way men are so difficult. I honestly don’t think they mean to be, it’s just the way they’re made.’

‘They’re made without heart,’ Mrs Healy said, her eyes dangerously bright. ‘Oh, they have something in there all right beating away and sending the blood out, but it’s not a heart. Look at Barry’s father, he’s not even here this evening even though he knew Barry was having a friend to supper. He
knew
and he’s still not here.’

This was worse than Barry could have believed possible. He had no idea that his mother would go in at the deep end in the first half an hour.

But to his amazement Fiona seemed to be able to cope with it quite easily.

‘That’s men for you. When I bring Barry home to my house to meet my family, my father will let me down too. Oh, he’ll be there all right, he’s always there. But I bet you within five minutes he’ll tell Barry it’s dangerous to ride a motorbike, it’s dangerous to drive a supermarket van, it’s stupid to follow football. If he can think of anything wrong with learning Italian he’ll say that. He only sees all the things that are wrong with everything, not the things that are right. It’s very depressing.’

‘And what does your mother say to all this?’ Barry’s mother was interested in the situation, her own attack on her husband seemed to be put aside for the moment.

‘Well, I think over the years she started to agree with him. They’re old you see, Mrs Healy, much older than you and Barry’s father. I’m the youngest of a big family. They’re set in their ways, you won’t change them now.’ She looked so eager with her glasses glinting and a big pink bow tying back her nice shiny hair. Any mother would be glad to have a warm girl like this for her son.

Barry saw his mother beginning to relax.

‘Barry, like a good lad will you go into the kitchen and put the pie into the oven, and do what has to be done out there.’

He left them and clattered around, then he crept back to the door to hear what was going on in the sitting room. They were speaking in low voices and he couldn’t make it out. Please God may Fiona not be saying anything stupid. And may his mother not be telling all the fantasies about Dad having another woman. He sighed and went back to the kitchen to set the table for the three of them. He felt annoyed with his father for not being there. It was after all an attempt at restoring the situation to normal. He
could
have made an effort. Did Dad not see he was only giving fuel to Mam’s suspicions by all this?

Why couldn’t he just come in and act the part for an evening? But still, his mother had made a chicken pie and an apple tart for afterwards. This was an advance.

The supper went better than he dared hope. Fiona ate everything that was put in front of her and almost licked the plate. She said she’d love to know how to make pastry. She was no good at cooking, and then suddenly a thought struck her. ‘
That’s
what I could do, go to a cookery class,’ she cried. ‘Barry was asking what I’d really like to learn, and now that I see this spread I know what I’d enjoy.’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Barry said, delighted at the praise for his mother’s cooking.

‘You’d want to make sure that you got someone with a light hand to teach you pastry,’ his mother said.

Finding fault with the idea, of course. Barry fumed inside.

But Fiona didn’t seem to mind. ‘Yes, I know, and of course it would be the middle of the term and all. Listen… no, I couldn’t ask… but maybe…’ She looked at Barry’s mother eagerly.

‘Go on, what is it?’

‘I don’t suppose on Tuesday or Thursday when Barry’s at his evening class, that
you
would show me, you know give me a few hints?’ The older woman was silent for a moment. Fiona rushed in. ‘I’m sorry, that’s typical of me, open my big mouth before I think what I’m going to say.’

‘I’d be delighted to teach you to cook, Fiona,’ said Barry’s mother ‘We’ll start next Tuesday, with bread and scones.’

Brigid Dunne was very impressed. ‘Getting his mother to teach you cooking, now that’s a clever move,’ she said admiringly.

‘Well, it sort of came out naturally, I just said it.’ Fiona was amazed at her own daring.

‘And you’re the one who says she’s no good with men. When are we going to meet this Barry?’

‘Soon, I don’t want to overpower him with all my friends, particularly sexy, over-confident ones like you.’

‘You have changed, Fiona,’ Brigid said.

‘Grania? It’s Fiona.’

‘Oh great, I thought it was Head Office. How are you? Have you done it yet?’

‘Done what?’

‘You know,’ Grania said.

‘No, not yet, but soon. It’s all on course, I just rang to thank you.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘For saying I was a bit dopey.’

‘I never said that, Fiona.’ Grania was stung.

‘No, but you told me to get my act together and it worked a dream. He’s mad about me, and his mother is. And it couldn’t be better.’

‘Well, I’m glad.’ Grania sounded pleased.

‘I just rang to ask did you do your bit, go back to see your father?’

‘No. I tried, but I lost my nerve at the last moment.’

‘Grania!’ Fiona sounded stern.

‘Hey, you of all people lecturing me.’

‘I know, but we did promise to keep each other up to all the things we said that evening.’

‘I know.’

‘And Brigid hasn’t talked about low cal sweetener since then, and I’ve been as brave as a tiger about things. You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Oh bloody hell, Fiona. I’ll go tonight,’ said Grania.

Grania took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Her father answered. She couldn’t read his face.

‘You still have your key, you don’t have to have the door answered for you,’ he said.

‘I didn’t like to waltz in as if I still lived here,’ she said.

‘Nobody said you couldn’t live here.’

‘I know, Dad.’ They still stood in the hall. An awkward silence all around them. ‘And where’s everyone else? Are they all at home?’

‘I don’t know,’ her father said.

‘Come on, Dad. You must know.’

‘I don’t. Your mother may be in the kitchen reading, and Brigid may be upstairs. I was in my room.’

‘How’s it getting along?’ she asked, to try and cover the loneliness. This wasn’t a big house, not big enough for the man not to know whether his wife and daughter were at home or not. And not to care.

‘It’s fine,’ he said.

‘Will you show it to me?’ Grania wondered was it going to be like this for ever, making conversation with her father like drawing teeth.

‘Certainly.’

He led her into the room and she literally gasped in surprise. The evening sun came through the window, the yellow and gold colours all around the windowseat picked up the light, and the curtains in purple and gold looked as if they were for a stage in a theatre. His shelves were full of books and ornaments, and the little desk shone and glowed in the evening light.

‘Dad, it’s beautiful. I never knew you could make anything like this,’ Grania said.

‘There’s a lot we never knew about each other,’ he said.

‘Please, Dad, let me admire your lovely, lovely room, and look at those frescoes, they’re marvellous.’

‘Yes.’

‘And all those colours, Dad. It’s like a dream.’

Her enthusiasm was so genuine he couldn’t keep cold and stiff. ‘It is a bit of a dream, but then I’ve always been a stupid sort of dreamer, Grania.’

‘I inherited it from you then.’

‘No, I don’t think you did.’

‘Not in this artistic way, I couldn’t make a room like this in a million years. But I do have my dreams, yes.’

‘They’re not proper dreams, Grania. Truly they’re not.’

‘I tell you this, Dad, I never loved anyone before, apart from you and Mam, and to be honest, you more. No, I want to say this because you might not let me talk again. Now I know what love is about. It’s wanting the best for someone else, it’s wanting them to be happier than you are, isn’t that it?’

‘Yes.’ He spoke in a very dead voice.

‘You felt that for Mam once, didn’t you? I mean, you probably still do.’

‘I think it changes as you get older.’

‘But I won’t have much time for it to get older. You and Mam have had nearly twenty-five years, Tony’ll be dead and buried in twenty-five years’ time. He smokes and drinks and is hopeless. You know that. If I get a good ten years I’ll be lucky.’

‘Grania, you could do so much better.’

‘You couldn’t do better than to be loved by the person you love, Dad. I know that, you know that.’

‘He’s not reliable.’

‘I rely on him absolutely, Dad. I would trust him with my life.’

‘Wait until he leaves you with a fatherless child. You’ll remember these words then.’

‘More than anything else on earth I would love to have his child.’

‘Well, go ahead. Nothing’s going to stop you.’

Grania bent and examined the flowers on the little table. ‘You buy these for yourself, Dad?’

‘Who else do you think would buy them for me?’

There were tears in her eyes. ‘I’d buy them for you if you’d let me, I’d come here and sit with you, and if I had your grandchild I would bring him or her here.’

‘You’re telling me you’re pregnant, is that it?’

‘No, that’s not it. I’m in control of whether I will be or not, and I won’t until I know the child would be welcomed by everyone.’

‘That could be a long wait,’ he said. But she noticed that this time there were tears in his eyes too.

‘Dad,’ she said, and it was hard to say which of them moved first towards the other until their arms were around each other and their tears were lost in each other’s shoulders.

Brigid and Fiona went to the pictures.

‘Have you been to bed with him yet?’

‘No, but there’s no rush, it’s all going according to plan,’ Fiona said.

‘Longest plan since time began,’ Brigid grumbled.

‘No, believe me, I know what I’m doing.’

‘I’m glad someone does,’ Brigid said. ‘Dad and Grania have gone all emotional on us. Grania’s sitting in Dad’s room talking to him as if a cross word had never been said between them.’

‘Isn’t that good?’

‘Yes, it’s good, of course it’s good, but it’s a mystery,’ Brigid complained.

‘And what does your mother say about it?’

‘Nothing. That’s another mystery. I used to think that we were the dullest, most ordinary family in the western world. Now I think I live in a madhouse. I used to think that you were the odd one, Fiona. But there you are, the little pet of the house, learning to be a gourmet chef from the mother and planning to bed the son. How did it all happen?’

Brigid hated mysteries and being confused by things. She sounded very disgruntled indeed.

The cookery classes were a great success. Sometimes Barry’s father was there. Tall and dark and watchful, he looked a lot younger than his wife, but then his mind was not so troubled. He worked in a big nurseries and vegetable farm, delivering produce and flowers to restaurants and hotels around the city. He was perfectly pleasant to Fiona but not enthusiastic. He was not curious about her and he gave the impression of someone passing through rather than someone who lived there.

Sometimes Barry came back from his own Italian class and ate the results of their cooking, but Fiona said he shouldn’t hurry back specially. It was too late for eating anyway, and he liked talking to the people afterwards. She would take the bus home herself. After all, they would meet on other nights.

Bit by bit she began to hear the story of the Great Infidelity. She tried not to listen at first. ‘Don’t tell me all this, Mrs Healy please, you’ll wish you hadn’t when you’re all nice and friendly with Mr Healy again and then you’ll be sorry.’

‘No, I won’t, you’re my friend. Chop those a lot finer, Fiona. You don’t want great lumps in it. You have to hear. You have to know what Barry’s father is like.’

Everything had been fine until two years ago. Well, you know, fine in a manner of speaking. His hours had always been difficult, she had lived with that. Sometimes up for the four-thirty run in the morning, sometimes working late at night. But there had been time off. Grand time in the middle of the day sometimes. She could remember when they had gone to the cinema for the two o’clock show, and then had tea and buns afterwards and she was the envy of every other woman around. None of them ever went to the pictures in the daylight with their husbands. And he had never wanted her to work in the old days. He had said that he brought in plenty for the two of them and the child. She should keep the home nice and cook for them and be there when he got time off. That way they could have a good life.

But two years ago it had all changed. He had met someone and started having an affair.