Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

Or perhaps it would, but he felt like talking to her for a while. She had once said to him that at the end of the road where she lived there was a wall where she sat sometimes and looked across at the mountains, and thought how different her life had become, and how vista del monte meant the school to her now. Perhaps she might be there tonight.

Aidan Dunne walked up through the busy estate. There were Christmas lights in the windows, cartons of beer being delivered at houses. It must be so different to Signora from last year, when she had spent Christmas with all those Italians in the village in Sicily.

She was sitting there, very still. She didn't seem a bit surprised. He sat down beside her.

'I brought your Christmas present,' he said.

'And I brought yours,' she said, holding a big parcel.

'Will we open them now?' He was eager.

'Why not?'

They unwrapped the locket and the big coloured Italian plate with yellow and gold and a dash of purple, perfect for his room. They thanked each other and praised the gifts. They sat like teenagers with nowhere to go.

It got cold and somehow they both stood up at the same time.

' Buon natale , Signora.' He kissed her on the cheek.

' Buon natale , Aidan, caro mio ,' she said.

Christmas Eve they worked long hard hours in the electrical store. Why did people wait until then to decide on the electric carving knife, the video, the electric kettle? Lou toiled all day and it was at closing time that Robin came in to the warehouse with a docket. Lou had somehow expected him.

'Happy Christmas, Lou.'

' Buon natale , Robin.'

'What do you mean?'

'It's the Italian you made me learn, I can hardly think in English any more.'

'Well I came to tell you that you can give it up any time you like,' Robin said.

'What*'

'Sure. Another premises has been located, but the people have been very grateful indeed for the smooth way your premises were organised.'

'But the last one?' Lou's face was white.

'What about the last one?'

'It's still in there,' Lou said.

'You are joking me in this matter.'

'Would I joke about a thing like this? Nobody ever came on the Thursday. Nothing was picked up.'

'Hurry along there, get the man his appliance.' The foreman wanted to close up.

'Give me your docket,' hissed Lou.

'It's a television for you and Suzi.'

'I can't take it,' Lou said. 'She'd know it was nicked.'

'It's not nicked, haven't I just paid for it?' Robin was hurt.

'No, but you know what I mean. I'll go and put it into your car.'

'I was going to drive you back to her flat with the surprise Christmas present.'

It was , as Lou would have guessed, the most expensive in the whole store. The top of the range. Suzi Sullivan would never have accepted any explanation for something like that being carried up the stairs into her bedsitter.

'Listen, we've much bigger problems than the telly, wait till I get my wages and then we'll see what were going to do about the school.5

'I presume you have taken some steps.'

'Some, but they mightn't be the right ones.'

Lou went in and stood with the lads. They got their money, a drink and a bonus; after what seemed forever he came to where the big man sat in his station wagon, the huge television set in the back.

'I have the key to the school, but God knows what kind of lunatics they employ to walk round and test doors at odd times. The Principal there is some kind of maniac apparently.'

He produced the key which he carried with him at all times since the day he took it from Signora's key ring.

'You're a bright boy, Lou.'

'Brighter than those who didn't tell me what to do if a bloody man in an anorak doesn't turn up.' He was angry and aggrieved and frightened now. He was sitting with a criminal in the car park of his workplace with a giant television set that he could not accept. He had stolen a key, left a shipment of drugs in a school. He didn't feel like a bright man, he felt like a fool.

'Well, of course there are always problems with people,' Robin said. 'People let you down. Somebody has let us down. He will not work again.'

'What will happen to him?' Lou asked fearfully. He had visions of the offending anorak who hadn't turned up ending up dead, weighed down with cement blocks in the River Liffey

'As I said, he will never work again for people.'

'Maybe he had a car crash, or maybe his child went to hospital.' Why was Lou defending him? This was the man who had broken all their hearts.

He could have been off the hook if it hadn't been for this. Robin's people had found new premises. Oddly, he thought he might have continued with the lessons. He enjoyed them anyway. He might even have gone on the trip that Signora was planning to Italy next summer. There would have been no need to have stayed on as a cover. Nothing had been proved. It had been a successful resting place. No accusation of an inside job would have been made because nothing had been discovered, apart from this fool who had not turned up on the last Thursday.

'His punishment will be that he never works again,' Robin shook his head in sorrow.

Lou saw a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. That was what you had to do to get uninvolved. Just screw up on a deal. Just do one job badly and you were never called again. If only he had known it would be so simple. But this job wasn't his to falter on.

The anorak man was already suffering for this, and Lou had got the key and probably saved the day. It would have to be the next one.

'Robin, is this your car?'

'No, of course it isn't. You know that. I got it off a friend just so that I could transport the television to you and Suzi. But there you are.' He looked sulky, like a child.

'The Guards won't be watching for you in this car,' Lou said. 'I have an idea. It might not work but it's all I can think of.'

Tell it to me.'

And Lou told him.

It was almost midnight when Lou drove up to the school. He reversed the station wagon up to the door of the annexe, and looking left and right to see was he being watched he let himself into the school annexe.

Almost afraid to breathe, he went to the store cupboard and there they were, four boxes. Just like they always were, looking indeed as if they held a dozen bottles of wine each but there was no sign saying this way up. Nothing saying handle with care. Tenderly he lifted them one by one outside the door. Then, straining and panting he carried the huge television in to the classroom. It had a built in video, it was state of the art. He had written the note already in coloured pencils which he had bought in a late night shop.

' Buon natale a Lei, Signora, e a tutti ,' it said.

The school would have a television. The boxes had been rescued. He would drive them in Robin's car to a place where a different man in a different van would meet him and take them silently.

Lou wondered about the lifestyle of people who were suddenly available on Christmas Eve. He hoped he would never be one of them.

He wondered what Signora would say when she saw it. Would she be the first in? Perhaps that madman Tony O'Brien, who seemed to prowl the place night and day, would find it first. They would wonder about it for ever. The number had been filed off it. It could have been bought in any of two dozen stores.

The box revealed nothing of its origin. They would realise it had not been stolen when they began to enquire. They would guess for ever and not be able to come up with a solution. The mystery of how the place had been entered would fade in time. After all, nothing had been stolen. There had been no vandalism.

Even tetchy Mr. O'Brien would have to give up eventually.