Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'Every night?'

'No, but you know… most nights.'

'But suppose they came looking for you in Dublin, you mightn't be in the pub the night they came. Don't you have any names and addresses?'

'Names and addresses aren't important in something like this,' Barry said.

Fiona hoped he was right. He had set so much store by meeting them all and living through those glory days again. He would be very disappointed if it turned out that nobody ever gathered there any more. Or worse if they had forgotten him.

That was the evening that everyone was at leisure. If things had been different Connie might have gone window-shopping with Fran and Kathy and had coffee at a pavement cafe. But Connie was afraid to go out at night in case somebody really was waiting to push her in front of the cars that sped up and down the Roman streets.

If things had been different Signora and Aidan would have had supper together and planned the visit to the Vatican next day. But he was hurt and lonely and she had to be somewhere quiet until she could think over the turbulent proposal that had been made to her.

They wanted her to go back and help in the hotel, bring them English-speaking visitors, be part of the life she had looked on for so long as an outsider. It would have made sense of all those years she had watched and waited. It would be a future for her now as well as a past. Alfredo had begged her to come back. Even for a visit first, so that she could see how things were. She would realise all that she could contribute and know how much people had admired her. So Signora sat alone in a cafe thinking about what it would be like.

And a few streets away Aidan Dunne sat and tried to think about all the good things that had come out of this trip. He had managed to create a class that had not only stayed together for the year but had travelled in a block to Rome at the end of it. These people would never have done that without him. He had shared his love of Italy with them, nobody had been bored at his lecture today. He had done all he had set out to do. It had in fact been a year of triumph. But of course he had to listen to the other voice, the voice that said it was all Nora's doing. It was she who had created the real enthusiasm, with her silly games and her boxes pretending to be hospitals and railway stations and restaurants. It was Nora who had called them these fancy names and believed that one day they would go on a viaggio . And now that she was back here in Italy its magic had worked too strongly for her.

She had to talk business, she told him. What business could she have with a waiter from Sicily, even if she had known him as a child? He ordered a third beer without even noticing. He looked out at the crowds walking around on the hot Roman night. He had never felt so lonely in his life.

Kathy and Fran said they were going for a walk, they had planned a route and it would end up in the Piazza Navona where they went the first night. Would Laddy like to come?

Laddy looked at the route. It would pass the street where his friends the Garaldis lived. 'We won't go in?' Laddy said. 'But I can point out the house to you.'

When they saw the house Fran and Kathy were dumbfounded.

'We can't possibly be going to a party in a place like that,' Kathy said.

' Giovedì ,' Laddy said proudly. 'Thursday, you'll see. He wants all of us, the whole forty-two. I said to him quarantadue but he said si, si, benissimo .'

It was only one more extraordinary thing about this holiday.

Connie waited for a while in her room for Signora to return; she wanted to give her the information and the surprise. But it got dark and she never came back. From outside the window came the sounds of chatter and people calling to each other as they went along the street, the distant sound of traffic and of cutlery clinking in a nearby restaurant. Connie decided that she would not allow herself to feel imprisoned by this mean, cowardly letter-writer. Whoever it was would not kill her in a public place even if it was someone sent by Harry.

'To hell with him, if I stay in tonight he's won,' she said aloud. She walked around the corner to a pizza parlour and sat down. She didn't notice someone following her from outside the door of the Hotel Francobollo.

Lou and Suzi were across the river in Trastevere. They had walked with Bill and Lizzie around the little Piazza but, as Signora had warned, the restaurants were a bit too pricey for them. Wasn't it wonderful that they had learned all that about the piatto del giorno , and how to think in lire rather than translating it back into Irish money all the time.

'Maybe we should have kept our sandwiches from lunchtime,' Lizzie said sadly.

'We can't go in the door of these places,' Suzi said philosophically.

'It's not fair as a system, you know,' Lou said. 'Most of those people are on the take somehow, they all have an angle, a scene for themselves. Believe me, I know…'

'Sure, Lou, but it doesn't matter.' Suzi didn't want the murky past brought up. It was never discussed but it was hinted at wistfully when Lou might sometimes tell her how the living could have been very easy had she not been so righteous.

'Do you mean like stolen credit cards?' Bill asked, interested.

'No, nothing like that, just doing favours, someone does a favour and they get a dinner, or a big favour and they get many dinners or a car. It's as simple as that.'

'You'd have to do a lot of favours to get a car,' Lizzie said.

'Yes and no. It's not doing a lot, it's just being reliable. I think that's what people want when favours are being exchanged.'

They all nodded, mystified. Sometimes Suzi looked at her huge emerald engagement ring. So many people had claimed it was the real thing that she had begun to believe that it might have been the result of a huge favour Lou had done for somebody. There was a way of finding out, like having it valued. But then she would know one way or the other. Far better to leave it as part of the unknown.

'I wish someone would ask us to do them a favour,' Lizzie said, looking at the restaurant with the musicians going from table to table, and the flower sellers passing amongst the diners selling long-stemmed roses.

'You keep your eyes peeled, Elizabetta,' said Lou with a laugh.

And at that moment a man and woman rose to their feet at a table near the road, the woman slapped the man across the face, the man snatched her handbag and leaped over the little hedge that formed the restaurant wall.

In two seconds Lou had caught him. He held one of the man's arms behind his back in a lock that was obviously extremely painful, he raised the other hand, the one holding the stolen handbag, high for all to see. Then he marched him through all the guests right up to the proprietor.

Huge explanations in Italian were exchanged, leading to the arrival of the carabinieri in a van and enormous excitement all around. They never got to know what had happened. Some Americans nearby said they thought the woman had picked up a gigolo. Some English people said that he was the woman's boyfriend who had been taking a cure for drug addiction. A French couple said that it was just a lovers' tiff but it was good that the man should be taken to a police station.

Lou and his friends were the heroes of the hour. The woman was offering him a reward. Lou was quick to translate it into a meal for four. This seemed entirely suitable to all parties.

' Con vino, se è possibile" ?' Lou added. They drank themselves into a stupor and had to take a taxi home.

'It wash the besht time I ever had,' Lizzie said as she fell twice before getting into the taxi.

'It's all a matter of looking for opportunities,' said Lou.