Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

Connie spoke thoughtfully. 'I suppose that's true, it would have been humiliating to think he was running around with everyone… but even though I didn't like it… I knew that what you and he had was something special. As I said, he should have been married to you from the start.'

Siobhan listened to this. And thought it over. Her eyes were narrow and very mad when she finally spoke. 'And when you realised that I had followed you here and written that note, why were you not afraid?'

Connie was very afraid still. 'I suppose I thought you realised that whatever the difficulties were or maybe are, you were the only one who ever counted in Harry's life.3 Siobhan listened. Connie continued. 'And of course I left a sort of insurance policy, so that you'd be punished if you did do me any harm.'

'You what?'

'I wrote a letter to my solicitor to be opened in case I died suddenly in Rome, or indeed anywhere, enclosing a copy of your note, and I said I had reason to suspect that it might have come from you.'

Siobhan nodded almost in admiration. It would have been marvellous to think that she saw reason. But the woman was still too distraught for that. It was not the time to give her a woman to woman talk about smartening herself, setting her appearance to rights, and providing a home for him in England to await his release. Connie was very sure that there was still money that had escaped any detection. But she wasn't going to run Siobhan's life for her. In fact her legs were still weak. She had managed to remain so normal and calm when faced with someone dangerous enough to follow her and make death threats, but Connie didn't know how much more she could take. She longed for the safety of the Hotel Francobollo.

'I won't do anything to you,' Siobhan said in a small voice.

'Well, it would sure be a pity for you to have to go in one door of the gaol as Harry is coming out another,' Connie said, as casually as if they were talking about shopping for souvenirs.

'How did you get to be so cool?' Siobhan asked.

'Years and bloody years of loneliness,' Connie said. She wiped an unexpected tear of self-pity from her eye and walked purposefully towards the waiter. She gave him lire that would cover the bill.

' Grazie, tante grazie, Signora ,' he said.

Signora! She would be back now surely, and Connie wanted to give her the surprise. It all seemed much more real to her than the sad woman sitting in this pizza house, the woman who had been her husband's mistress for most of her life, who had come to Rome to kill Connie. She glanced at Siobhan Casey briefly, but she didn't say goodbye. There was nothing more to say.

It was very noisy in the bar where Barry and Fiona were looking for the friends from the World Cup.

'This is the corner we sat in,' Barry said.

Great crowds of young people were gathered and the giant television set was being moved into a position of even greater prominence. There was a match, and everyone was against Juventus. It didn't matter who they were for, Juventus was the enemy. The game began and Barry got drawn into it in spite of his quest. Fiona too was interested, and howled with rage at a decision that went against everyone's wishes.

'You like the football?' a man said to her.

Barry immediately put his arm around her shoulder. 'She understands a little, but I was here, here in this very bar for the World Cup. Irlanda.'

Trlanda!' the man cried with delight. Barry produced the pictures, great happy shouting throngs then as now, but more bedecked. The man said his name was Gino, and he showed the pictures to other people and they came and clapped Barry on the back. Names were exchanged. Paul McGrath, Cascarino, Houghton, Charlton. A.C. Milan was mentioned tentatively and proved to have been a good way to go. These were good guys. More and more beer kept flowing.

Fiona lost all track of the conversation. And she was getting a headache. 'If you love me, Barry, let me go back to the hotel. It's only a straight line along the Via Giovanni and I know where to turn left.'

'I don't know.'

'Please, Barry. I don't ask much.'

'Barry, Barry,' his friends were calling.

'Take great care,' he said.

'I'll leave the key in the door,' she said, and blew him a kiss.

It was as safe as the streets in her own part of Dublin. Fiona walked happily back to the hotel, rejoicing that Barry had found his friends. They seemed to be fairly casual in their great reunion, none of them remembering anyone's names at first. But still, maybe that's the way men were. Fiona looked at the window boxes with the geraniums and busy lizzies in them, clustered in little pots. They looked so much more colourful than at home. Of course it was the weather. You could do anything if you had all this sunshine.

Then passing a bar she saw Mr. Dunne sitting on his own, a glass of beer in front of him, his face sad and a million miles away. On an impulse Fiona suddenly turned in the door to join him. 'Well, Mr. Dunne… the two of us on our own.'

'Fiona!' he seemed to drag himself back. 'And where's Bartolo-meo?'

'With his football friends. I got a headache so he let me go home.'

'Oh, he found them. Isn't that marvellous!' Mr. Dunne had a kind, tired smile.

'Yes, and he's delighted with himself. Are you enjoying it all, Mr. Dunne?'

'Yes, very much.' But his voice sounded a bit hollow.

'You shouldn't be out here on your own, you organised it with Signora. Where is she, by the way?'

'She met some friends from Sicily, that's where she used to live, you see.' His voice sounded bitter and sad.

'Oh, that's nice.'

'Nice for her, she's spending the evening with them.'

'It's only one evening, Mr. Dunne.'

'As far as we know.' He was mutinous, like a twelve-year-old.

Fiona looked at him, wondering. She knew so much. She knew for example all about Mr. Dunne's wife Nell, who had been having an affair with Barry's father. It was over now, but apparently there were still bewildered letters and phone calls from Mrs. Dunne, who had no idea that Fiona had been responsible for breaking everything up. Fiona knew from Grania and Brigid Dunne that their father was not happy, that he withdrew into his own little Italian sitting room all the time and hardly ever came out. She knew like everyone on the maggio knew that he was in love with Signora. Fiona remembered that divorce was now possible in Ireland.

She recalled that the old Fiona, the timid Fiona, would have left things as they were, would not interfere. But the new Fiona, the happy version, went in there fighting. She took a deep breath. 'Signora was telling me the other day that you had made the dream of her life come true. She said she never felt of any importance until you gave her this job.'

Mr. Dunne didn't respond, not as she would have liked. That was before she met all these Sicilians.'

'She said it again today at lunchtime,' Fiona lied.

'She did?' He was like a .child.

'Mr. Dunne, could I speak to you frankly and in total secrecy?'

'Of course you can, Fiona.'

'And will you never tell anyone what I said, particularly not Grania or Brigid?'

'Sure.'

Fiona felt weak. 'Maybe I need a drink,' she said.

'A coffee, a glass of water?'

'A brandy, I think.'

'If it's as bad as that FU have a brandy myself,' Aidan Dunne said, and they ordered it flawlessly from the waiter.

'Mr. Dunne, you know that Mrs. Dunne isn't here with you.'

'I had noticed,' Aidan said.

'Well, there's been a bit of unfortunate behaviour. You see, she's friendly, rather over-friendly actually, with Barry's father. And Barry's mother, she took it badly. Well, very badly. She tried to kill herself over it all.'

' What" ?' Aidan Dunne looked utterly shocked.

'Anyway, it's all over now, it was over on the night of the festa up in Mountainview. If you remember, Mrs. Dunne went home in » bit of a hurry, and now Barry's mother is all cheered up and his father isn't, well, unsuitably friendly, with Mrs. Dunne any more.'