Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'No, no. I rented a room from your parents, I want them to like having me here in the house not living on top of them.'

'What are you doing, Mrs. Signora?'

'I'm making little baby dresses for a boutique. They told me they would take four. They have to be good because I spent some of my savings on the material so I can't afford for them not to take them.'

'Are you poor, Mrs. Signora?'

'Not really, but I don't have much money.' It seemed quite a natural, reasonable answer. It satisfied Jerry totally. 'Why don't you bring your homework up here, Jerry?' she suggested. 'Then you could be company for me and I could give you a hand if you needed it.'

They sat together all through the month of May, chatting easily. Jerry advised her to make five baby dresses and pretend she thought they ordered five. It had been great advice, they took all five and wanted more.

Signora showed huge interest in Jerry's homework. 'Read me that poem again, let's see what does it mean?'

'It's only an old poem, Mrs. Signora.'

'I know but it must mean something . Let's think.' Together they would recite: 'Nine bean rows will I have there'. 'I wonder why he wanted nine?'

'He was only an old poet, Mrs. Signora. I don't suppose he knew what he wanted.'

'"And live alone in the bee loud glade." Imagine that, Jerry. He only wanted to hear the sound of the bees around him, he didn't want the noise of the city.'

'He was old, of course,' Jerry explained.

'Who was?'

'Yeats, you know, who wrote the poem.'

Little by little she made him interested in everything.

She pretended her own memory was bad. As she sewed she asked him to say it to her over and over. So Jerry Sullivan learned his poetry, wrote his essays, attempted his maths. The only thing he was remotely interested in was Geography. It had to do with a teacher, Mr. O'Brien. He was a great fellow apparently. Mr. O'Brien used to teach about river beds and soil strata and erosion and a rake of things, but he always expected you to know it. The other teachers didn't expect you to, that was the difference.

'He's going to be the Head, you know, next year,' Jerry explained.

'Oh. And are people in Mountainview school pleased about that?'

'Yeah, I think so. Old Walsh was a terrible bollocks.'

She looked at him vaguely, as if she didn't understand the word. It worked every time.

'Mr. Walsh, the old fellow who's Head at the moment, he's not good at all.'

'Ah, I see.'

Jerry's language had improved beyond all recognition, Suzi reported to Signora. And what was more some teacher at school had said that his work had taken a turn for the better as well. 'It's they should be paying you,' Suzi said. 'You're like a private governess. Isn't it a pity you couldn't get a job teaching.'

'Your mother's asking me to tea on Thursday so that I can meet you,' Signora said. 'I think Jerry's teacher is calling then too. She probably wanted a bit of support.'

'He's a real ladies' man, Tony O'Brien is. I've heard a tale or two about him, you'd want to watch yourself there, Signora. With your smart new hairdo and all, he could have his way with you.'

'I'm not ever going to be interested in a man again.' She spoke simply.

'Oh, I said that after the second-last fellow, but suddenly the interest came back.'

The tea party began awkwardly.

Peggy Sullivan was not a natural hostess, so Signora took over the conversation, gently, almost dreamily talking about all the changes in Ireland she noticed and most of them were for the better. 'The schools are all so bright and cheerful nowadays, and Jerry tells me of the great projects you do in Geography class. We had nothing like that when I was at school.'

And after that everything thawed. Peggy Sullivan had seen the visit of the schoolteacher as a possible list of complaints against her son. She hadn't hoped that her daughter and Signora would get on so well. Or that Jerry would actually tell Mr. O'Brien that he was doing a project on place names, trying to find out why all the streets around here were called what they were. Jimmy came home in the middle of it all, and Signora explained that Jerry was lucky to have a father who knew the city so well, he was better than any map.

They talked like a normal family. More polite than many Tony O'Brien had visited. He had always thought young Jerry Sullivan was part of the group for whom there was no hope. But this odd, unsettling woman who seemed to have taken over the household obviously had a good effect on the kid too.

'You must have loved Italy to stay there so long.'

'I did, very, very much.'

'I've never been there myself, but a colleague of mine above in the school, Aidan Dunne, now he'd live, sleep and breathe Italy to you if you let him.'

'Mr. Dunne, he teaches Latin,' Jerry said in a glum voice.

'Latin? You could learn Latin, Jerry.' Signora's eyes lit up.

'Oh it's only for brainy people, ones going on to University to be lawyers and doctors and things.'

'No, it's not.' Signora and Tony O'Brien spoke at the same time.

'Please…' he motioned her to speak.

'Well, I wish I had learned Latin because it's sort of the root of all other languages, like French and Italian and Spanish. If you know the Latin word you know where everything comes from.' She spoke enthusiastically.

Tony O'Brien said: 'God, you really should meet Aidan Dunne, that's what he's been saying for years. I like kids to learn it because it's logical. Like doing a crossword, trains them to think, and there's no problem with an accent.'

When the teacher had gone they all talked together eagerly. Signora knew that Suzi would come home a little more regularly now, and wouldn't have to avoid her father. Somehow fences had been mended.

Signora met Brenda for a walk in St Stephen's Green. Brenda brought stale bread for the ducks and they fed them together, peaceable in the sunshine.

'I go to see your mother every month, will I tell her you're home?' Brenda asked.

'What do you think?'

'I think no, but then that's just because I'm still afraid you'll go and live with her.'

'You don't know me at all. I am as hard as hell. Do you like her as a person? Truthfully now?'

'No, not very much. I went to please you in the beginning and then I got sucked into it because she seems so miserable, complaining about Rita and Helen and the awful daughters-in-law, as she calls them.'

'I'll go and see her. I won't have you trying to cover over for me.'

'Don't go, you'll give in.'

'Believe me, that will not happen.'

She called on her mother that afternoon. Just went and rang on the bell of number 23.

Her mother looked at her, confused. 'Yes?' she said.

'I'm Nora, Mother. I've come to visit you.'

No smile, no arms outstretched, no welcome. Just hostility in the small brown eyes that looked back at her. They stood almost frozen in the doorway. Her mother had not moved back to let her enter, and Nora would not ask could she come in.

But she did speak again. 'I came to see how you are and to ask whether Daddy would like me to go and see him in the home or not. I want to do what's best for everyone.'

Her mothers lip curled. 'When did you ever want to do what was best for anyone except yourself?' she said. Signora stood calm in the doorway. It was at times like this that her habit of stillness came into its own. Eventually her mother moved back into the apartment. 'Come in as you're here,' she said ungraciously.

Signora recognised a few, but not many, pieces from her home.

There was a cabinet, where the good china and the few small bits of silver were kept. You could hardly see into it years ago, any more than you could see now. There were no pictures on the wall, or books on the bookshelf. A big television set dominated the room, a bottle with orange squash stood on a tin tray on the dining table. There were no flowers, no sign at all of any enjoyment of life. Her mother did not offer her a seat so Signora sat at the dining table. She wondered had it known many meals served on it, but then she was not in a position to criticise. For twenty-six years she had lived in rooms where nobody was entertained to a dinner. Maybe it ran in the family