Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

She came at midday and brought some sample fabrics. 'I thought that yellow would be right from what you told me,' she said, holding up a glowing rich colour. Tt costs a little more a metre than the others, but then it's a room for life, isn't it?'

'A room for life,' Aidan repeated.

'Do you want to show it to your wife before I begin?' she asked.

'No, no. Nell will be pleased. I mean, this is my room really.'

'Yes, of course.' She never asked questions.

Nell was not at home that morning, nor were either of his daughters. Aidan hadn't told them of the visit, and he was glad they weren't there. Together he and Signora toasted the success of the Italian class and the Room for Life.

'I wish you could teach in the school itself, you can create such enthusiasm,' he said admiringly.

'Ah, that's only because they want to learn.'

'But that girl Kathy Clarke, they say she's as bright as a button these days, all due to the Italian classes.'

' Caterma … a nice girl.'

'Well, I hear that she has them all entertained in the classroom with stories of your class, they all want to join.'

'Isn't that wonderful?' said Signora.

What Aidan did not report, because he didn't know it, was that Kathy Clarke's description of the Italian class included an account of his playing footsie with the ancient Italian teacher, and that he looked at her with the adoring eyes of a puppy. Kathy's friend Harriet said she had always suspected it. It was the quiet ones that you had to watch. That's where real passion and lust were lurking.

Miss Quinn was taking a history class and was anxious to relate things to the modern day. Something the children might recognise. Telling them the Medicis were patrons of the arts was no use, she called them sponsors. That would mean something.

'Can anyone think of the people that they sponsored?' she asked.

They looked at each other blankly.

'Sponsor?' Harriet asked. 'Like a drinks company or an insurance company?'

'Yes. You must know the names of some of the famous artists of Italy, don't you?' The history teacher was young, she was not yet hardened to how much children had forgotten or what they had never known.

Quietly Kathy Clarke stood up. 'One of the most important was Michelangelo. When one of the Medicis was Pope Sixtus V he asked Michelangelo to do the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and he wanted all the different scenes.' In a calm confident voice she told the class about the scaffolding that was built, the rows and the fallings-out. The problems that there still were keeping the colours alive.

There was no frown, there was just enthusiasm. Since she had obviously gone further than Miss Quinn the young history teacher could have attempted, it was soon time to bring it to an end.

'Thank you for that, Katherine Clarke, now can anyone else name any other artist of the period?'

Kathy's hand went up again. The teacher looked around to see if there was any other taker but there was no one. The boys and girls looked on amazed as Kathy Clarke explained about Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, five thousand pages of them, all in mirror writing maybe because he was left-handed or maybe because he wanted them kept secret. And how he applied to the Duke of Milan for a job saying he could design cannon-proof ships in war time and statues in peace time.

Kathy knew all this and was telling it as if it was a story.

'Jesus Mary and Joseph, those Italian culture classes must be something else,' said Josie Quinn in the staffroom.

'What do you mean?' they asked.

'I've had Kathy Clark standing up giving me a run-down of the Renaissance like nobody's ever heard.'

Across the room Aidan Dunne who had dreamed up the classes stirred his coffee and smiled to himself. A big happy smile.

It brought them even closer together, Kathy and Fran, the hours spent at the Italian class. Matt Clarke came home from England in the autumn to tell them that he was getting married to Tracey from Liverpool but that they weren't having much of a do, they were going to go to the Canaries instead. Everyone was relieved that it didn't mean a trek to England for the wedding. They giggled a bit when they heard that the honeymoon was going to be before, not after, the marriage.

Matt thought it was sensible. 'She wants a suntan for the wedding snaps, and of course if we hate each other out there then we can call it off,' he said cheerfully.

Matt gave his mother money for the slot machines and took his father for a few pints. 'What's all this business about learning Italian?' he asked.

'Search me,' said his father. 'I can't make head nor tail of it. Fran is worn out above in the supermarket early mornings, late nights. The fellow she was going with has gone off to the States. I haven't a notion why she wants to bring all this on herself, specially since they say over in the school that young Kathy works too hard already. But they're mad about it. Planning to go there next year and all. So let them at it.'

'Kathy's turning into a grand little looker, isn't she?' Matt said.

'I suppose she is. Do you know, seeing her every day I never noticed,' his father said with an air of surprise.

Kathy was indeed becoming more attractive. At school her friend Harriet commented on it. 'Do you have a fellow or something at this Italian class? You seem different somehow.'

'No, but there are lots of older men there all right,' Kathy laughed. 'Very old, some of them. We have to pair into couples to do the asking for a date bit. It's a scream. I had this man, he must be about a hundred, called Lorenzo. Well, I think it's Laddy in real life. Anyway Lorenzo says to me " E libera questa sera}" and he rolls his eyes and twirls an imaginary moustache and everyone was sick with laughter.'

'Go on. And does she teach you anything really useful like How's about it and what you'd say?'

'Sort of.' Kathy searched her memory for the phrase. 'There's things like Vive solo or sola , that's do you live alone. And there's one I can't quite remember… Deve rincasare questa notte ? Do you have to go home tonight.'

'And she's the old one y6 see in the libjrary sometimes, with the funny coloured hair?'

'Yes, Signora.'

'Imagine,' said Harriet. Things were getting stranger all the time.

'Do you still go to those classes in Mountainview, Miss Clarke?' Peggy Sullivan was handing in her till's takings.

'They're really terrific, Mrs. Sullivan. Do pass that on to Signora, won't you? Everyone just loves them. Do you know that nobody at all has fallen out of the class. That must be unheard of.'

'Well, she sounds very cheerful about them, I must say. An extraordinarily secretive person, of course, Miss Clarke. Claims she was married to some Italian for twenty-six years in a village out there… never a letter from Italy… not a picture of him in sight. And it turns out she has a whole family living in Dublin, a mother in those expensive flats down by the sea, a father in a home and brothers and sisters all over the place.'

'Yes, well…' Fran didn't want to hear anything even mildly critical or questioning about Signora.

'It just seems odd, doesn't it. What's she living in one room in our estate for if she has all this family dotted all over the place?'

'Maybe she doesn't get on with them. It could be as simple as that.'

'She goes to see her mother every Monday and her father twice a week up in the home. She wheels him out in his chair, one of the nurses told Suzi. She sits and reads to him under a tree and he just sits and stares ahead, even though he makes an effort to talk to the others who only come once in a blue moon.'

'Poor Signora,' said Fran suddenly. 'She deserves better than that.'

'Well she does, now that you say it, Miss Clarke,' said Peggy Sullivan.