Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

no

I

'You're always rushing here and there, Grania.' He sounded envious.

'Well, not tonight. I haven't a notion of going home. My mother will be on her way out to the restaurant, my father disappeared into his study and Brigid like some kind of wild animal because she's put on weight again. She's kicking the scales and saying that the house is full of the smell of frying, and she talks about food for about five hours each evening. She'd make your hair go white overnight listening to her.'

'Is she really worried about it?' Bill was always so kind and interested in people's problems.

'I don't know whether she is or not. She's always looked the same to me, a bit squarish but fine. When she has her hair done and she's smiling she's as good as anyone, but there's this dreary litany of a pound here or a kilo there or a zip that broke or tights that split. Jesus, she'd drive you insane. I'm not going home to listen to that, I tell you.'

There was a pause. Bill was on the point of asking her to have a drink when he remembered his finances. This would be a good excuse to go home on his season ticket and spend not a single penny.

At that moment Grania said: 'Why don't I take you to the pictures and chips, my treat?'

'I can't do that, Grania.'

'Yes you can. I owe you for signing up for those classes, it was a great favour.' She made it sound reasonable.

They went through the film listings in the evening paper and argued good naturedly about what might be good and what might be rubbish. It would have been so easy to be with someone like this all the time, Bill thought yet again. And he felt sure that Grania was thinking the same thing. But when it wasn't there it wasn't there. She would remain loving this awkward older man and endure the problems that lay ahead when her father found out. He would stay with Lizzie who had his heart broken morning, noon and night. That's what happened to people.

When he got back home his mother had an anxious face. 'That Lizzie's been here,' she said. 'Whatever time you came in you were to go to her flat.'

'Is anything wrong?' He was alarmed. It wasn't like Lizzie to in come to the house, not after her uncertain welcome on her one official visit.

'Oh, I'd say there's plenty wrong, she's a troubled girl,' his mother said.

'But was she sick, had anything happened?'

'Troubled in herself, I mean,' his mother repeated.

He knew he would get nothing but a general mood of disapproval, so he went down the road and caught a bus in the other direction.

She was sitting there in the warm September night outside the house where she had her bedsitter. There were big stone steps leading up to the door, and Lizzie sat hugging her knees swaying backwards and forwards. To his relief she wasn't crying and didn't seem upset or in a state.

'Where were you?' she asked accusingly.

'Where were you ? Bill said. ' You are the one who says I'm not to call you, not to turn up.'

'I was here.'

'Yes, well I was out.'

'Where did you go?' <

'To the pictures,' he said.

'I thought we had no money, we weren't meant to be doing anything normal like going to the pictures.'

'I didn't pay. Grania Dunne took me as a treat.'

'Oh yes?'

'Yes. What's wrong, Lizzie?'

'Everything,' she said.

'Why did you come to my house?'

'I wanted to see you, to make things right.'

'Well, you succeeded in frightening the life out of my mother and out of me. Why didn't you ring me at work?'

'I was confused.'

'Did your mother arrive?'

'Yes, she did.'

'And did you meet her?'

'Yes.' Her voice was very flat.

'And take the taxi?'

'Yes.'

'So, what's wrong?'

'She laughed at my flat.'

'Oh Lizzie . Come on . You didn't drag me all the way here, twenty-four hours later, to tell me that, did you?'

'Of course,' she laughed.

'It's her way, it's your way… people like you and your mother laugh all the time, it's what you do.'

'No, not that kind of laughing.'

'Well, what kind?'

'She just said it was too funny and asked could she go now that she'd seen it. She said I'd never let the taxi go and marooned her in this neck of the woods, had I?'

Bill was sad. Lizzie had obviously been very upset. What a thoughtless bloody woman. She hardly ever saw her daughter, couldn't she have been nice for the few hours she was in Dublin?

'I know, I know,' he said soothingly. 'But people always say the wrong thing, they're known for it. Come on, let's not worry about it, let's go upstairs. Hey, come on.'

'No, we can't.'

She was going to need a bit of persuading.

'Lizzie, I have people in the bank all day from nine o'clock in the morning saying the wrong thing, they're not evil people, they just upset others. The trick is not to let them. And then when I go home my mother tells me she's worn out pouring tinned sauce over the frozen chicken, and my father tells me of all the chances he never had as a boy and Olive tells anyone who will listen that I am the head of the bank. And sometimes it's a bit hard to take, but you just put up with it, that's what it's all about.'

'For you yes, but not for me.' Again her voice was very dead.

'So did you have a row? Is that it? It'll pass, family rows always do. Honestly Lizzie .'

'No, we didn't exactly have a row.'

'Well?'

'I had her supper ready. It was chicken livers and a miniature of sherry, and I had the rice all ready too. I showed it to her and she laughed again.'

'Yes well, as I said…'

'She wasn't going to stay, Bill, not for supper. She said she had only called in to keep me quiet. She was going to some art gallery, some opening, some exhibition. She'd be late. She tried to push past me.'

'Urn… yes…?' Bill didn't like this at all.

'

'So, I couldn't take it any more.'

'What did you do, Lizzie?' He was amazed that he could keep so calm.

'I locked the door and threw the key out the window.'

'You what' ?'

'I said now you have to stay and sit and talk to your daughter. I said, now you can't get out and run away as you've run away from us all, all your life, from Daddy and from the rest of us.'

'And what did she do?'

'Oh, she got into a terrible temper and kept screaming and beating the door and saying I was cracked and like my father and you know, the usual.'

'No I don't know. What else?'

'Oh, what you'd expect.'

'And what happened then?'

'Well she wore herself out, and eventually she did have supper.'

'And was she still shouting then?'

'No, she was just worried in case the house went on fire and we'd be burned to a crisp. That's what she kept saying, burned to a crisp.'

Bill's mind was working slowly but surely. 'You did let her out eventually.'

'No, I didn't. Not at all.'

'But she's not still there?'

'Yes she is.'

'You can't be serious, Lizzie.'

She nodded several times. 'I'm afraid I am.'

'How did you get out?'

'The window. When she was in the bathroom.'

'She slept there?'

'She had to. I slept in the chair. She had the whole bed.' Lizzie sounded defensive.

'Let me get this straight. She came here yesterday, Tuesday, at seven o'clock and it's now eleven o'clock at night on Wednesday and she's still here, locked in against her will?'

'Yes.'

'But God almighty, why?'

'So that I could talk to her. She never makes time to talk to me. Never, not once.'

'And has she talked to you? I mean now that she's locked in?'

'Not really, not in a satisfactory way, she just keeps giving out and saying I'm unreasonable, unstable, whatever.'

'I don't believe this, Lizzie , I don't. She's been there not only all night but all day and all tonight?' His head was reeling.