Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

She told him how Mario had died first and Gabriella then, how their children wanted her to go back and help with the hotel. Alfredo had said the words she had ached to hear, that they had always thought of her as a kind of mother anyway.

He told her that he knew now Nell had been having an affair. That he had neither been shocked or hurt by this, but just surprised. It did seem a very male response, he thought, a little arrogant and very insensitive, but that's the way it was.

She said that she would have to meet Alfredo again and talk to him. She didn't know yet what she was going to say.

He told her that when they got home he would tell Nell that they would sell their house and give her half the proceeds. He didn't know yet where he was going to live.

They went slowly back to the Hotel Francobollo. They were too old to have the where-do-we-go problem of youngsters. Yet that was exactly what they had. They couldn't lock Laddy out of his room for the night. Nor Constanza. They looked at each other.

' Buona sera , Signor Buona Sera,' began Nora O'Donoghue. ' C'e un piccolo problema …'

It wasn't a problem for long. Signor Buona Sera was a man of the world. He found them a room with no delays and no questions asked.

The days flew by in Rome, and then it was just a short walk across to Termini and the train to Florence.

' Firenze ,' they all chorused when they saw the name come up on the noticeboard at the station. They didn't mind leaving because they knew they were coming back. Hadn't they all put their coins in the Trevi Fountain? And there would be so much more to see and do once they had mastered Intermediate or Improvers' Italian. They hadn't decided what to call it, but everyone was signing on.

They settled in the train, their picnics packed. The Buona Seras had left out plenty of supplies. This group had been no trouble. And imagine the unexpected romance between the two leaders! Far too old for it, of course, and it would never last when they went back to their own spouses, but still, part of the madness of a holiday.

Next year's viaggio they would go south from Rome, not north. Signora said they must see Naples, and then they would go to Sicily to a hotel she had known when she lived there. She and Aidan Dunne had promised Alfredo. They had also agreed to tell him that Aidan's daughter Brigid or one of her colleagues would come out and see if they could set up package holidays to his hotel.

At Signora's insistence Aidan had telephoned his home. The conversation with Nell had been easier and shorter than he could ever have believed.

'You had to know sometime,' Nell said curtly.

'So we'll put the house on the market when I get home and split it down the middle.'

'Right,' she said.

'Don't you care, Nell? Doesn't it mean anything to you, all these years?'

'They're over, isn't this what you're saying?'

'I was saying we should discuss the fact that they will be over.'

'What's there to discuss, Aidan?'

'It's just that I didn't want you to be getting ready for my coming home and preparing for it… and then this being a bombshell.' He was always too courteous, and possibly too self-centred, he realised.

'I don't want to upset you, but truly I don't even know what day you are coming back,' Nell said.

They sat apart from the others on the train, Aidan Dunne and Signora, in a world of their own with a future to plan.

'We won't have much money,' he said.

'I never had any money at all to speak of, it won't bother me.' Signora spoke from the heart.

'I'll take all the things from the Italian room. You know, the desk, the books, and the curtains and sofa.'

'Yes, better to put back a dining room table in there, for the sale, even just borrow one.' Signora was practical.

'We could get a small flat, I'm sure, as soon as we get back.' He was anxious to show her that she wasn't going to lose out by refusing to go back to Sicily, her only real home.

'A room would do,' Signora said.

'No, no, we must have more than a room,' he protested.

'I love you, Aidan,' she said.

And for some reason, the others were all quiet and the train wasn't making any of its noises so everyone heard. For a second they exchanged glances. But the decision was made. To hell with discretion. Celebration was more important. And the other passengers on the train would never know why forty people wearing badges saying Vista del Monte cheered and cheered and sang a variety of songs in English including 'This Is Our Lovely Day', and eventually ended up in a tuneless version of 'Arnvederci Roma'.

And they would never understand why so many of them were wiping tears quickly away from their eyes.