Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'And have you no family here?'

'I do have some relations. I will look them up in time,' said

Signora, who had a mother, a father, two sisters and two brothers living in this city.

They told her that times were hard and that Jimmy worked as a driver, freelance sort of, hackney cabs, vans, whatever was going, and that Peggy worked in the supermarket at the checkout.

And then the conversation came back to the room upstairs.

'The room belonged to someone else in the family?' Signora enquired politely.

They told her of a daughter who preferred to live nearer the city. Then they talked of money, and she showed them her wallet. She had five weeks' rent. Would they like a month in advance? she wondered.

They looked at each other, the Sullivans, faces anxious. They were suspicious of unworldly people like this who showed you their entire wallet.

'Is that all you have in the world?'

'It's all I have now but I will have more when I get some work.' Signora seemed unruffled by the thought of it. They were still uneasy. 'Perhaps I could step outside while you talk it over,' she said, and went out to the back garden where she looked at the distant, faraway mountains that some people called hills. They weren't rugged and sharp and blue like her mountains were back in Sicily.

People would be going about their business there in Annunziata. Would any of them wonder about Signora and where she was going to lay her head tonight?

The Sullivans came to the door, their decision made.

'I suppose, being a bit short and everything, you'll want to stay immediately, if you are going to be here, that is?' said Jimmy Sullivan.

'Oh, tonight would be great,' Signora said.

'Well, you can come for a week and if you like us and we like you we can talk about it being for a bit longer,' Peggy said.

Signora's eyes lit up. ' Grazie, grazie ,' she said before she could help herself. 'I lived there so long, you see,' she said apologetically.

They didn't mind, she was obviously a harmless eccentric.

'Come on up and help me make the bed,' Peggy said.

Young Jerry's eyes followed them wordlessly.

'I'll be no trouble, Jerry,' Signora said.

'How did you know I was called Jerry?' he asked.

Surely his parents must have spoken to him. This was a slip-up, but Signora was used to covering her tracks. 'Because it's your name,' she said simply.

And it seemed to satisfy him.

Peggy got out sheets and blankets. 'Suzi had one of those candlewick bedspreads but she took it with her when she went,' Peggy said.

'Do you miss her?'

'She comes round once a week, but usually when her father's out. They never saw eye to eye, not since she was about ten years of age. It's a pity but that's the way it is. Better for her to live on her own rather than all the barneys they had here.'

Signora unpacked the coverlet with all the Italian place names embroidered on it. She had wrapped it in tissue paper and had used it to keep her jug safe. She had brought few possessions with her; she was happy to unpack them so that Peggy Sullivan could see how blameless and innocent was her lifestyle.

Peggy's eyes were round with amazement.

'Where on earth did you get that, it's beautiful?' she gaped.

'I made it myself over the years, adding names here and there. Look there's Rome, and that's Annunziata, the place I lived.'

Peggy's eyes had tears in them. 'And you and he lay under this… how sad that he died.'

'Yes, yes it was.'

'Was he sick for a long time?'

'No, killed in an accident.'

'Do you have a picture of him, to put up here maybe?' Peggy patted the top of the chest of drawers.

'No, I have no pictures of Mario, only in my heart and mind.'

The words hung there between them.

Peggy Sullivan decided to talk of something else. 'I tell you if you can do sewing like that it won't be long till you get a job. Anyone would take you on.'

'I never thought of earning my living by sewing.' Signora's face was far away.

'Well what were you going to take up?'

'Teaching maybe, being a guide. I used to sell little embroidered things, fine detailed work^ior tourists in Sicily. But I didn't think they'd want them here.'

'You could do shamrocks and harps, I suppose,' Peggy said. But neither of them liked the thought of it very much. They finished the room. Signora hung up her few garments and seemed well pleased with it all.

'Thank you for giving me a new home so quickly. I was just saying to your son I'll be no trouble.'

'Don't mind him, he's trouble enough for us all, bone idle lazy. He has our hearts broken. At least Suzi's bright, that fellow will end in the gutter.'

'I'm sure it's just a phase.' Signora had talked like this to Mario about his sons, soothing, optimistic. It was what parents wanted to hear.

'It's a long phase if that's what it is. Listen, will you come down and have a drink with us before you go to bed?'

'No, thank you. I'll start as I mean to go on. I'm tired now. I'll sleep.'

'But you don't even have a kettle to make yourself a cup of tea.'

'Thank you, truly I am fine.'

Peggy left her and went downstairs. Jimmy had a sports programme on television. 'Turn it down a bit, Jimmy. The woman's tired, she's been travelling all day.'

'God almighty, is it going to be like when those two were babies, shush this and shush that?'

'No it's not, and you're as anxious for her money as I am.'

'She's as odd as two left shoes. Did you get anything out of her at all?'

'She says she was married and her husband was killed in an accident. That's what she says.'

'And you don't believe her obviously?'

'Well, she has no picture of him. She doesn't look married. And she's got this thing on the bed. It's like a priest's vestment, a quilt. You'd never have time to do that if you were married.'

'You read too many books and see too many films, that's your trouble.'

'She is a bit mad though, Jimmy, not the full shilling.'

'She's hardly an axe murderer, is she?'

'No, but she might have been a nun, she has that sort of still way

?

about her. I'd say that's what she was. Is, even. You never know these days.'

'It could be.' Jimmy was thoughtful. 'Well in case she is a nun, don't be too free with telling her all that Suzi gets up to. She'd be out of here in a flash if she knew how that young rossie that we reared carries on.'

Signora stood at her window and looked across the wasteground at the mountains.

Could this place ever be her home?

Would she give in when she saw a mother and father more frail and dependent than when she had left? Would she forgive their slights and their coldness, the lack of response once they knew she was not going to run home obediently and do the single daughter's duty for them?

Or would she stay in this small shabby house with noisy people banging around downstairs, a sullen boy, a disaffected daughter? Signora knew she would be kind to this family, the Sullivans whom she had never met before this day.

She would try to bring about a reconciliation between Suzi and her father. She would find some way to interest the sullen child in his work. In time she would hem the curtains, she would mend the frayed cushions in the sitting room, and put ribbon on the edges of the towels in the bathroom. But she would do it slowly. Her years in Annunziata had taught her patience.

She would not go tomorrow and look at her mother's house or visit the home where her father lived.

She would however go to see Brenda and Pillow Case, and she would remember to refer to him as Patrick. They would be even more pleased to see her once they realised she had found herself accommodation and was about to look for work. Maybe they might even have something in their restaurant. She could wash up and prepare vegetables in the kitchen like the boy who had married Mario's daughter.