Evening Class (51 page)

Still, she might well go. Dan wasn’t free that night, he had to go to something with his son he said, and her own children would be annoyed with her if she didn’t make the effort.

It would be dreary, like everything always had been in that school. But at least it wasn’t the kind of outing that you’d bother dressing up for. Five pounds for a bit of pizza and a band that would deafen you belting out Italian songs. God almighty, what she did for her family!

Grania and Brigid were getting dressed for the
festa
.

‘I hope it goes well, for Dad’s sake,’ Grania said.

‘Dad can take anything if he accepts that you go to bed with his boss. Nothing’s going to knock him off his perch now.’ Brigid was back combing her hair in front of the sitting room mirror.

Grania was annoyed. ‘I wish you’d stop dwelling on the going to bed bit. There’s a lot more to it than that.’

‘At his age would he not get exhausted?’ Brigid giggled.

‘If I were into talking about it I’d have you green with jealousy,’ Grania said, putting on her eyeshadow. Their mother came in. ‘Hey, Mam, get a move on, we’re going in a few minutes,’ Grania said.

‘I’m ready.’

They looked at their mother, hair barely combed, no make-up, an ordinary dress with a loose cardigan over her shoulders. There was no point in saying anything. The sisters exchanged a glance and made no comment.

‘Right then,’ said Grania. ‘Off we go.’

This was Nessa Healy’s first outing since she had been in hospital. The woman who had done her colours had given her very good advice.

Barry thought he hadn’t seen his mother looking so well in years. There was no doubt but that Fiona had been a wonderful influence on her. He wondered should he ask Fiona to go on the
viaggio
with him. It was implying a lot, like they would share a room, and that side of things had not progressed very far in the weeks they had been together. He wanted to, but there was never the opportunity or the place or the right occasion.

His father looked uneasy. ‘What kind of people will be there, son?’

‘All the people who go to the class, Dad, and whoever they could drag like I’m dragging you. It’ll be great, honestly.’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’

‘And, Dad, Miss Clarke says I can drive the supermarket van even though it’s a social outing. So I can take you home or Mam home if you get bored or tired or anything.’

He looked so eager and grateful that his father felt ashamed. ‘When did Dan Healy ever leave a party while there was still drink on the table?’ he asked.

‘And Fiona’s meeting us there?’ Mrs Healy would have liked the moral support of this lively young girl she had grown so fond of. Fiona had made her promise to hold off about confronting everyone with Nell. Just for a week. One week. And reluctantly Nessa Healy had agreed.

‘Yes, she was very insistent She wanted to go on her own,’ said Barry. ‘Right, are we off?’ They were off.

Signora was there in the hall.

She had looked at herself in the long mirror before she left the Sullivan’s house. Truly she hardly recognised herself as the woman who had come to Ireland a year ago. The widow, as she saw herself, weeping for her dead Mario, her long hair trailing behind her, her long skirt hanging unevenly. Timid, unable to ask for work or a place to live, frightened of her family.

Today she stood tall and elegant, her coffee and lilac dress somehow perfect with her odd-coloured hair. Suzi had said that this dress might have cost £300. Imagine. She had let Suzi make up her face.

‘Nobody will see me,’ she had protested.

‘It’s your night, Signora,’ Peggy Sullivan had insisted.

And it was. She stood there in a hall with flashing coloured lights, with pictures and posters all over it, with the sound system playing a loop tape of Italian songs and music until the live band would arrive with a flourish. They had decided that
Nessun Dorma, Volare
and
Arrivederci Roma
should be played often on the tape. Nothing too unfamiliar.

Aidan Dunne came in. ‘I’ll never be able to thank you,’ he said.

‘It’s I who have to thank you, Aidan,’ He was the only person around them who had not been given an Italianised form of his name. It made him more special.

‘Are you nervous?’ he asked.

‘A little. But then, we are surrounded by friends, why should I be nervous? Everyone is for us, there’s nobody against us.’ She smiled. She was putting out of her mind the fact that not one of her family, her own family, would come to support her tonight. She had asked them gently but had not begged. It would have been so nice, just once, to have said to people, this is my sister, this is my mother. But no.

‘You look really terrific, Nora. Yourself, I mean, not just the whole place.’

He had never called her Nora before. She hadn’t time to take it in because people were arriving. At the door a friend of Constanza, an extremely efficient woman called Vera, was taking the tickets.

In the cloakrooms, young Caterina from the Italian class and her friend, a bright girl called Harriet, were busy giving people cloakroom tickets and telling them not to lose them. Strangers were coming in and marvelling over the place.

The Principal, Tony O’Brien, was busy passing all compliments their way. ‘Nothing to do with me, I’m afraid, all down to Mr Dunne whose project this is, and to Signora.’

They stood there like a bride and groom accepting compliments.

Fiona saw Grania and Brigid come in with their mother. She gasped. She had met Mrs Dunne many times before, but tonight she hardly recognised her. The woman looked a complete wreck. She had barely bothered to wash her face.

Good, thought Fiona grimly. She felt a horrible sensation in her chest, as if she’d swallowed a lump of something that would not go up or down, like a piece of very hard potato or a piece of raw celery. She knew it was fear. Fiona, the mouse in spectacles, was going to interfere in everyone else’s life. She was going to tell a whole lot of people a pack of lies and frighten them to death. Would she be able for it, or would she fall on the floor in a swoon and make everything worse?

Of course she would be able for it. Remember that night around in the townhouse when the old man had gone out and Grania had bought the Chinese takeaway. Fiona had changed her whole style then, and look how much good had come out of it. She had single-handedly persuaded Nessa Healy to dress up and come to this party. That wasn’t the action of a mouse in spectacles. She had gone so far she must get over this last fence. She must end the affair that was breaking everyone’s heart. As soon as she had done this then she could get on with her own life and begin her own affair properly.

Fiona looked around her, trying to fasten a confident smile on her face. She would just wait until it began to warm up a bit.

It took no time at all for it all to warm up. There was the roar of conversation, the clink of glasses and then the band arrived. The dancing started to serious sixties music which suited every age group.

Fiona went up to Nell Dunne, who was standing on her own looking very scornful. ‘Do you remember me, Mrs Dunne?’

‘Oh, Fiona?’ she seemed to drag up the name with difficulty and not great interest.

‘Yes, you were always nice to me when I was young, Mrs Donne, I remember that.’

‘Was I?’

‘Yes, when I’d come to tea. I wouldn’t want you to be made a fool of.’

‘Why would I be made a fool of?’

‘Dan, the man over there.’

‘WHAT?’ Nell looked to where Fiona was pointing.

‘You know he goes round telling everyone he has this frump of a wife, and that she’s always committing suicide and he can’t wait to leave her. But he has a string of women, and he tells them all the same story.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘And you’re probably, let me see, Wednesday’s woman and one other day. That’s the way he works it.’

Nell Dunne looked at the smart woman with Dan Healy, laughing easily. This couldn’t be the wife he had spoken of. ‘And what makes
you
think you know anything about him?’ she asked Fiona.

‘Simple,’ Fiona said. ‘He had my mother too. Used to come up in the van and collect her outside work and take her off. She was besotted over him. It was awful.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ Her eyes were wild, her voice was hushed. She was looking to the right and left of her.

Fiona realised that Mrs Dunne was greatly rattled. ‘Well, he delivers vegetables and flowers to where I work you see, and he’s always talking about his women, even you, and how you’re just mad for it. “Posh lady from Quentin’s”, he calls you. And then I realised it was Brigid and Grania’s mum he was talking about, just like it was once my mum… and I felt sick.’

‘I don’t believe a word of this. You’re a very dangerous and mad girl,’ Mrs Dunne said, her eyes narrow as slits.

Luigi was dancing up a storm with Caterina from the class. Caterina and her friend Harriet had been released from cloakroom duty now and were making up for lost time.

‘Excuse me.’ Fiona dragged Luigi off the dance floor.

‘What is it? Suzi doesn’t mind, she
likes
me to dance.’ He looked indignant.

‘Do me one big favour,’ Fiona begged. ‘One thing without asking any questions at all.’

‘That’s me,’ Luigi said.

‘Could you go over to that dark man over there near the door, and tell him that if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll leave his Wednesday night lady alone.’

‘But…?’

‘You said you wouldn’t ask why!’

‘I’m not asking why, I’m only asking would he hit me?’

‘No, he won’t. And Luigi?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Two things. Could you not say anything at all about this to Suzi or Bartolomeo?’

‘That’s done.’

And could you try and look a bit ferocious when you’re talking to him?‘

‘I’ll try,’ said Luigi, who thought it was something he might have to work at.

Nell Dunne was about to approach Dan. He was talking to a thickset, jowlish man with a very angry expression. She thought she would walk by and speak to him out of the corner of her mouth. Say she needed a word. Jerk her head to the corridor outside.

Why hadn’t he told her he was coming to this anyway? So secretive. So hidden. There could be a lot more she didn’t know. But just before she approached him he looked up and saw her, and a look of fear came into his eyes. He started to move away from her. She saw him grab his wife’s arm and ask her to dance.

The band was playing
Ciao Ciao Bambino. They
hated it but a job was a job. They were going to appear in tomorrow’s evening paper.

And Fiona stood on a chair so that she could observe it all. And remember it for ever. Barry had just asked her if she would come on the
viaggio
with him and she had said yes. Her future mother-and father-in-law were dancing with each other.

Grania and Brigid’s mother was struggling to get out and look for her coat. She was demanding that Caterina and her friend Harriet open up the cloakroom for her. Only Fiona saw her go. Barry certainly didn’t notice her. Maybe he might never have to know about her any more than anyone ever had to know about the freesias.

‘Will you dance with me?’ he said. It was
Three Coins in the Fountain
. Sugary and sentimental.

Barry held her very tight. ‘
Ti amo, Fiona, carissima Fiona
.’

‘
Anch’io
,’ she said.

‘WHAT?’ He could hardly believe it.

‘
Anch’io
. It means me too. I love you too.
Ti amo da morire
.’

‘God, how did you learn that?’ he asked, impressed as he never had been.

‘I asked Signora. I practised it. Just in case.’

‘In case?’

‘In case you said it, so that I’d know what to say.’

Around them people danced and sang the silly words of the song. Grania and Brigid’s father hadn’t gone hunting for his wife, he was talking to Signora. They looked like people who might dance at any moment if it occurred to one of them. Barry’s father wasn’t looking around anxiously, he was talking to his wife as if she were a real person again. Brigid wasn’t laced into some tight skirt tugging at it, she wore a scarlet, loose dress and had her arms around the neck of a man who would not escape. Grania was leaning on the arm of Tony, the old man. They didn’t dance but they were getting married. Fiona had been invited to the wedding.

Fiona thought it was wonderful to be grown up at last. She hadn’t made
all
this happen, but she had made a very important part of it happen.

VIAGGIO

‘Why are we asking Mr Dunne to our wedding?’ Lou wanted to know.

‘Because it would be nice for Signora, she won’t have anyone.’

‘Won’t she have everyone else? Doesn’t she live with your family, for God’s sake?’

‘You know what I mean.’ Suzi was adamant.

‘Do we have to have his wife as well? The list is getting longer every minute. You
do
know it’s seventeen pounds a head and that’s before a drink passes their lips?’

‘Of course we’re not asking his wife. Are you soft in the head?’ Suzi said, and the look came over her face that Lou didn’t like, the look that said she wondered was she marrying someone as thick as the wall.

‘Certainly not his wife,’ Lou said hastily. ‘I must have been dreaming, that’s all.’

‘Is there anyone else from your side that you’d like?’ Suzi asked.

‘No, no. In a way they’re my side as well, and aren’t they coming on the honeymoon with us?’ Lou said brightening up.

‘Together with half of Dublin,’ said Suzi, rolling her eyes.

‘A Register office, I see’ said Nell Dunne when Grania told her the date.

‘Well, it would be hypocritical to get the job done in a church, neither of us ever going into one.’

Nell shrugged.

‘You will be there, Mam, won’t you?’ Grania sounded concerned.

‘Of course I will, why do you ask?’

‘It’s just… it’s just…’

‘What is it, Grania? I’ve said I’ll be there.’

‘Well, you left that party up in the school before it even got going, and it was Dad’s big night. And you’re not going on his trip to Italy or anything.’