Evening Class (52 page)

‘I wasn’t asked on his trip to Italy,’ Nell Dunne said in a tight hard voice.

‘Can everyone come on this holiday to Rome and Florence?’ Bernie Duffy asked her daughter Lizzie.

‘No, Mother. I’m sorry, but it’s restricted to the people in the class,’ Lizzie apologised.

‘Wouldn’t they want more people to swell the numbers?’ Bernie had enjoyed herself boisterously at the
festa
. She thought the
viaggio
might be more of the same.

‘What will we do, she’s at me all the time?’ Lizzie asked Bill later.

‘We’ll take her to Galway to see your father instead,’ Bill said suddenly.

‘We can’t do that, can we?’

‘Wouldn’t it sort a lot of things out? It would distract her, and one way or the other it would take up her time and she wouldn’t feel she was being left out of any fun if she was in the thick of all that drama.’

‘That’s a great idea.’ Lizzie was full of admiration.

‘And anyway, I should meet him, shouldn’t I?’

‘Why? We’re not getting married till we’re twenty-five.’

‘I don’t know. Luigi’s getting married and Mr Dunne’s daughter is getting married… I think we should get married sooner, don’t you?’

‘
Perché non?’
said Lizzie with a huge smile all over her face.

‘I’ve asked Signora to write the letter to the Garaldis for me,’ Laddy said. ‘She said she’d explain everything.’

Maggie and Gus exchanged glances. Surely Signora would realise how casual the invitation had been to Laddy, the exuberance and gratitude of a warm-hearted family touched at the honesty of an Irish porter. They’d never expect him to take it so seriously, to go to Italian classes and to expect a huge welcome.

Signora was a mature woman who would understand the situation, wasn’t she? Yet there was something childlike about the woman in the coffee and lilac dress, the woman at the
festa
that night who was so innocently thrilled with the success of the lessons and the support that had been given to her evening class. She was an unworldly sort of person, perhaps she would be like Laddy and think that these Garaldis were waiting with open arms for someone they must have well forgotten by now.

But nothing would let Gus and Maggie take from Laddy’s excitement. He had his passport in the hotel safe and he had changed money into
lire
already. This trip meant everything to him, not a shadow must be allowed to fall on it. It will all be fine, Gus and Maggie told each other, willing it to be so.

‘I’ve never been abroad in my life and imagine, I’m going twice this summer,’ Fran told Connie.

‘Twice?’

‘Yes, as well as the
viaggio
Kathy won two tickets to America. You wouldn’t believe it, she entered a competition in some business magazine that her friend Harriet brought into the school, and she won two tickets to New York, so we’re both going.’

‘Isn’t that great. And have you anywhere to stay when you get there?’

‘Yes. I have a friend, a fellow I used to go out with, he’s going to drive to meet us. It’s over four hundred miles, but they think nothing of that over there.’

‘He must like you still if he’s going to drive that distance.’

Fran smiled. ‘I hope so, I still like him,’ she said. ‘Wasn’t it a miracle that Kathy won the tickets?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know, when she told me I thought her father had given them to her. But no, when they came they were paid for by this magazine and all, so it’s all above board.’

‘Why would her father have given them and not told you?’

‘Well, I don’t see him now, and he’s married to one of the richest women in Ireland, but I wouldn’t take them from him as a pat on the head.’

‘No, of course not. And do you still have feelings for Kathy’s father?’

‘Not at all, it was all years and years ago. No, I wish him well, for all that he’s married to Marianne Hayes and owns a quarter of Dublin.’

‘Bartolomeo, will you and Fiona be able to share a room, do you think?’ Signora asked.

‘
Si, grazie
, Signora, that’s all sorted out.’ Barry blushed a bit at the memory of how very pleasurably it had been sorted out.

‘Good, that makes it all easier, single rooms are a big problem.’

Signora was going to share with Constanza and Aidan Dunne with Lorenzo. Everyone else had partners of some sort.

The travel agency had been marvellous, it was the place where Brigid Dunne worked. They had given the best price when it had all been analysed down to the bone. Brigid Dunne said she almost wished she was going herself.

‘Why don’t you and the Old Man of the Sea go?’ she asked Grania.

Grania just laughed at her now when she made these remarks. ‘Tony and I don’t want to crowd Dad out on this, and anyway we’re getting ready for the geriatric wedding of the century.’

Brigid giggled. Grania was so happy that you couldn’t offend her.

They were both thinking how odd it was that no mention at all of their mother had been made in the planning of this famous
viaggio
. But it was something they didn’t speak of. It was somehow too trivial and too serious at the same time. Did it mean that Mam and Dad were over? Things like that didn’t happen to families like theirs.

Fiona brought Barry home to supper in her house shortly before the
viaggio
.

‘You practically live in my house,’ he complained, ‘and I’m never allowed into yours.’

‘I didn’t want you to meet my parents until it was too late.’

‘What do you mean too late?’

‘Too late for you to abandon me. I wanted you to be consumed with physical lust for me, as well as liking me and admiring me as a person.’

She spoke so seriously and earnestly Barry found it hard to keep a straight face. ‘It’s just as well then that the physical lust bit has taken over so strongly,’ he said. ‘I’ll be able to put up with them however awful they are.’

And they were fairly awful. Fiona’s mother said that Ireland was very nice for a holiday because you wouldn’t get yourself sunburned or people wouldn’t snatch your handbag.

‘They do here just as much as anywhere else.’

‘But at least they speak English here,’ her father said.

Barry said he had been learning Italian in readiness, he would be able to order food and deal with police stations, hospitals and breakdowns of the bus.

‘See what I mean?’ Fiona’s father was triumphant. ‘Must be a very dangerous place if that is what they taught you.’

‘How much is the supplement for a single room?’ her mother asked.

‘Five pounds a night,’ Fiona said.

‘Nine pounds a night,’ Barry said at exactly the same time. They looked at each other wildly. ‘It’s… um… more for the men you see,’ poor Barry said in desperation.

‘Why is that?’ Fiona’s father was suspicious.

‘Something to do with the Italian character, really. They insist men have bigger rooms for all their clothes and things.’

‘Wouldn’t you think women would have more clothes?’ Fiona’s mother was now suspicious. What kind of a peacock was her daughter involved with, needing a huge room for all his wardrobe?

‘I know, that’s what my mother was saying… By the way, she’s very much looking forward to meeting you, getting to know you.’

‘Why?’ asked Fiona’s mother.

Barry couldn’t think why so he said: ‘She’s like that, she just loves people.’

‘Lucky for her,’ said Fiona’s father.

‘What’s the Italian for “Good luck, Dad”?’ Grania asked her father the night before the
viaggio
.

‘
In bocca al lupo, Papa
.’ She repeated it. They sat in his study. He had all his maps and guidebooks out. He would bring a small suitcase which he would carry with him containing all this. It didn’t really matter, he said, if his clothes got lost, but this was what counted.

‘Mam working tonight?’ Grania said casually.

‘I suppose so, love.’

‘And you’ll have a suntan for the wedding?’ She was determined to keep the mood cheerful.

‘Yes, and you know we’d have it here for you, you know that.’

‘We’d prefer it in a pub, really, Dad.’

‘I always thought you’d marry from here and I’d pay for it all.’

‘You’re paying for a big cake and champagne, isn’t that enough?’

‘I hope so.’

‘It’s plenty. And listen, are you nervous about this trip?’

‘A little, in case it’s not as good as we all promised, hoped, and remembered even. The class went so well, I’d hate this to be an anticlimax.’

‘It can’t be, Dad, it will be great. I wish I were going in many ways.’

‘In many ways I wish you were too.’ And neither of them said a word about the fact that Aidan’s wife of twenty-five years was not going, and according to herself had not been invited to go.

Jimmy Sullivan had a driving job on the Northside, so he drove Signora to the airport.

‘You’re miles too early,’ he said.

‘I’m too excited. I couldn’t stay at home, I want to be on my way.’

‘Will you go at all to see your husband’s people in that village you lived in?’

‘No, no, Jimmy, there won’t be time.’

‘It’s a pity to go all the way to Italy and not visit them though. The class would let you off for a day or two.’

‘No, it’s too far away, right at the far end of Italy on the island of Sicily.’

‘So they won’t hear you’re there and take a poor view?’

‘No, no they won’t hear I’m there.’

‘Well, that’s all right then, so long as there’s no offence.’

‘No, nothing like that. And Suzi and I will tell you every detail when we get back.’

‘God, the wedding was something else, wasn’t it Signora?’

‘I did enjoy it, and I know everyone else did too.’

‘I’ll be paying for it for the rest of my life.’

‘Nonsense, Jimmy, you loved it. You’ve only one daughter and it was a real feast. People will talk about it for years.’

‘Well, they were days getting over their hangovers all right,’ he said, brightening at the thought of his legendary hospitality. ‘I hope that Suzi and Lou will get themselves out of that bed and make it to the airport.’

‘Oh, you know newly-weds,’ Signora said diplomatically.

‘They were in that bed for many a month before they were newly-weds,’ Jimmy Sullivan said, brow darkening with disapproval. It always annoyed him that Suzi was so utterly uncontrite about her bad behaviour.

When she was alone at the airport Signora found a seat and took out the badges she had made. Each one had Vista del Monte—the Italian for Mountainview—on it, and the person’s name. Surely nobody could get lost. Surely if there was a God he would be delighted that all these people were visiting the Holy City and he wouldn’t let them get lost or killed or into fights. Forty-two people including herself and Aidan Dunne, just enough to fill the coach they had arranged to meet them. She wondered who would be the first to arrive. Maybe Lorenzo? Could be Aidan. He said he would help her distribute the badges.

But it was Constanza. ‘My room mate,’ Constanza said eagerly and pinned on her badge.

‘You could easily have afforded the single room, Constanza,’ Signora said, something that had not been mentioned before.

‘Yes, but who would I have talked to… isn’t that half the fun of a holiday?’

Before she could answer Signora saw the others arriving. A lot of them had come on the airport bus. They came to collect their badges and seemed pleased to see that they were from such an elegant-sounding place.

‘No one will know in Italy what kind of a dump Mountainview really is,’ Lou said.

‘Hey, Luigi be fair, it’s improved in leaps and bounds this year.’ Aidan was referring to the rebuilding, the paint job, the new bicycle sheds. Tony O’Brien had delivered all he had promised.

‘Sorry, Aidan, I didn’t realise you were in earshot,’ Lou grinned. Aidan had been good company at the wedding. He had sung
La donna e mobile
and knew all the words.

Brenda Brennan had come to the airport to wave them off. Signora was very touched. ‘You’re so good, everyone else has a normal family.’

‘No, they don’t.’ Brenda Brennan jerked her head towards where Aidan was talking to Luigi. ‘He doesn’t for one thing. I asked his pill of a wife why she wasn’t going to Rome with the rest of you, and she shrugged and said that she hadn’t been asked, wouldn’t push herself where she wasn’t wanted and wouldn’t have enjoyed it anyway. So how’s that for normal?’

‘Poor Aidan,’ Signora was sympathetic.

Then the flight was called.

The sister of Guglielmo was waving like mad to everyone. For Olive just going to the airport was a treat. ‘My brother is a bank manager, he’s going to see the Pope,’ she said to strangers.

‘Well, if he lays his hands on some of that money they’ll be pleased with him,’ said a passer-by. Bill just smiled, and he and Lizzie waved to Olive while they could still see her.

‘Forty-two people, we’ll have to lose one of them,’ Aidan said as they counted the flock into the departure lounge.

‘Aren’t you optimistic! I keep thinking we’ll lose all of them,’ Signora smiled.

‘Still, the counting system should work.’ Aidan tried to sound more convinced than he felt. He had divided them into four groups of ten and appointed a leader of each. When they arrived anywhere or left anywhere the leader had to report that all were present. It worked for children, but adults might resent it.

They didn’t seem at all put out by it, in fact some of them positively welcomed it.

‘Imagine, Lou is a leader,’ Suzi said in admiration to Signora.

‘Well, a responsible married man like Luigi, who better?’ Signora asked. The truth was of course that she and Aidan had chosen him because of his fierce scowl. Nobody in his team would be late if they were reporting to Luigi.

He marched them on to the plane as if he were taking them into war. ‘Can you raise your passports?’ he asked them. Obediently they did. ‘Now, put them away very carefully. Zip them away, I won’t want to see them unzipped until we get to Roma.’

The announcements were made in Italian on the plane as well as in English. Signora had prepared all this with them so it was familiar. When the air stewardess began to speak the evening class all nodded at each other, pleased to hear familiar words and phrases. The girl pointed out the emergency doors on the right and the left, the class repeated them all happily,
destra, sinistra
. Even though they had heard it all in English already.