Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'MARIO, MARIO…'

The sound went up into the mountains around Annunziata and down into the valleys.

And the sound went into Signora's bedroom, and chilled her heart as she watched them lift the body out of the car.

She didn't know how long she stood there, like stone. But soon, as the square filled up in the moonlight with his family and neighbours and friends, she found herself amongst them, the tears flowing unchecked. She saw his face with the bloodstains and the bruising. He had been driving home from a village not far away. He had missed a corner. The car had turned over many times.

She knew she must touch his face. Nothing would ever settle down in the world unless she touched him, kissed him even as his sisters and children and wife were doing. She moved towards him unaware of anyone looking at her, forgetful entirely of the years of secrecy and covering up.

When she was quite near him she felt hands reaching out to her, and keen bodies in the crowd pulled her back. Signora Leone, her friends the pottery makers, Paolo and Gianna and, strange as it seemed ever afterwards, two of the brothers of Gabriella. They just moved her away, back from where the eyes of Annunziata would see her naked grief and the memories of the village would store yet one more amazing happening, the night when the Signora irlandese broke down and admitted in public her love for the man who ran the hotel.

She was in houses that night where she had never been before, and people gave her strong brandy to drink and someone stroked her hand. Outside the walls of these houses she could hear the wailing and the prayers, and sometimes she stood to go and stand at her rightful place by his body but always gentle hands held her back.

On the day of his funeral, she sat pale and calm at her window, her head bowed as they carried his coffin out from the hotel and across the square to the church with the frescoes and ceramics. The bell was one lonely mournful sound. Nobody looked up at her window. Nobody saw the tears fall down her face and splash on to the embroidery that lay in her lap.

And after that they all assumed that she should now be leaving, that it was time for her to go home.

Little by little she realised it. Signora Leone would say: 'Before you go back you must come once with me to the great passion procession in my home town Trapani… you will be able to tell the people back in Ireland about it all.'

And Paolo and Gianna gave her a big plate they had made specially for her return. 'You can put on it all the fruits that are grown in Ireland and the plate will remind you of your time in Annunziata.' They seemed to think that this is what she would do.

But Signora had no home to go to, she didn't want to move. She was in her fifties, she had lived here since before she was thirty. This was where she would die. One day the church bell here would ring for her funeral too, she had money to pay for it all ready in a little carved wooden box.

So she took no notice of the hints that were getting heavier, and the advice that was trembling on lips waiting to be given.

Not until Gabriella came to see her.

Gabriella crossed the square in her dark mourning clothes. Her face looked old, as if it were set in lines of grief and sorrow. She had never come to Signora's rooms before. She knocked on the door as if she had been expected. Signora fussed to make her guest welcome, offering her a little fruit juice and water, a biscuit from the tin. Then she sat and waited.

Gabriella walked around the two small rooms. She fingered the coverlet on the bed with all its intricately woven place names.

'It's exquisite, Signora,' she said.

'You are too kind, Signora Gabriella.'

Then there was a long silence.

'Will you go back soon to your country?' Gabriella asked eventually.

'There is nobody for me to go back to,' Signora said simply.

'But there is nobody here, nobody that you should want to stay for. Not now.' Gabriella was equally direct.

Signora nodded as if to agree. 'But in Ireland, Signora Gabriella, there is nobody at all. I came here when I was a young girl, now I

am a woman, middle-aged, about to approach the beginning of old age. I thought I would stay here.' Their eyes met.

'You do not have friends here, not a real life, Signora.'

'I have more than I have in Ireland.'

'You could pick up a life again in Ireland. Your friends there, your family, would be happy to see you return.'

'Do you want me to go away from here, Signora Gabriella?' The question was very straight. She just wanted to know.

'He always said you would go if he were to die. He said you would go back to your people and leave me here with my people to mourn my husband.'

Signora looked at her in amazement. Mario had made this promise on her behalf, without any guarantee. 'Did he say that I had agreed to do this?'

'He said it was what would happen. And that if I, Gabriella, were to die, he told me that he would not marry you, because it would cause a . scandal, and my name would be lessened. They would think that always he had wanted to marry you.3

'And did this please you?'

'No, these things didn't please me, Signora. I didn't want to think of Mario dead, or of my being dead. But I suppose it gave me the dignity that I need. I didn't need to fear you. You would not stay on here against the tradition of the place and share in the mourning for the man who was gone.'

The sounds of the square went on outside, meat deliveries to the hotel, a van of clay supplies being carried into the pottery shop, children coming home from school laughing and calling to each other. Dogs barking, and somewhere birds singing too. Mario had told her about dignity and tradition and how important they were to him and his family.

It was as if he were speaking to her now from the grave. He was sending her a message, asking her to go home.

She spoke very slowly. 'I think at the end of the month, Signora Gabriella. That is when I will go back to Ireland.'

The other woman's eyes were full with gratitude and relief. She reached out both her hands and took Signora's. 'I am sure you will be much happier, much more at peace,' she said.

'Yes, yes,' Signora said slowly, letting the words hang there in the warm afternoon air.

'Si si… veramente.'

She only barely had the money for the fare. Somehow her friends knew this.

Signora Leone came and pressed the bundles of lire into her hand. 'Please, Signora. Please. It's thanks to you I have such a good living, please take it.'

It was the same with Paolo and Gianna. Their pottery business would not have got started if it had not been for Signora. 'Regard it as a tiny commission,'

And the old couple who owned the room where she had lived most of her adult life. They said she had improved the property so well she deserved some compensation.

On the day that the bus came to take her with her belongings to the town with the airport, Gabriella came out on her steps. She didn't speak and nor did Signora, but they bowed to each other. Their faces were grave and respectful. Some of those who watched the little scene knew what was being said. They knew that one woman was thanking the other with all her heart in a way that could never be put into words, and wishing her good fortune in whatever lay ahead.

It was loud and crowded in the city, and the airport was full of noise and bustle, not the happy, easy bustle of Annunziata but people rushing without meeting each other's gaze. It would be like this in Dublin too, when she got back there, but Signora decided not to think about it.

She had made no plans, she would just do what seemed the right thing to do when she got there. No point in wasting her journey planning what could not be planned. She had told no one that she was coming. Not her family, not even Brenda. She would find a room and look after herself as she had always done, and then she would work out what to do next.