Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'No, it's not that, I'm not putting a gun to your head. This isn't an ultimatum or anything, it's for our own good.'

'I am putting a gun to yours . Marry me.'

'Why?'

'I love you,' he said.

The wedding was to be in Hayes Hotel. Everyone insisted, Mr. Kane was like part of the family there, and Miss O'Connor was the heartbeat of the place since it had opened.

Connie's mother had nothing to pay for except her outfit. She was able to invite her friends, the ladies with whom she had regained contact. She even invited some of her old enemies. Her twin sons were ushers at the smartest wedding Dublin had seen in years, her daughter was a beauty, the groom was the most eligible man in Ireland. On that day Connie's mother almost forgave the late Richard. If he turned up alive now she might not choke him to death after all. She had become reconciled to the hand that fate had dealt.

She and Connie slept in the same hotel room the night before the wedding. 'I can't tell you how happy I am to see you so happy,' she said to her daughter.

'Thank you, Mother, I know you've always wanted the best for me.' Connie was very calm. She was having a hairdresser and beautician come to the room in the morning to look after her mother and Vera and herself. Vera was the matron of honour, and utterly overawed by the splendour of it all.

'You are happy?' her mother said suddenly.

'Oh, Mother, for goodness' sake.' Connie tried to control her anger. Was there no occasion, no timing, no ceremony, that her mother could not try to spoil? Yet she looked into the kind, concerned face. 'I'm very, very happy. But just afraid I might not be enough for him, you know. He's a very successful man, I might not be able to keep up with him.'

'You've kept up with him so far,' her mother said shrewdly.

'But that's a matter of tactics, I didn't sleep with him like everyone else did from what I hear. I didn't give in easily, it might not be the same when I'm married.'

Her mother lit another cigarette. 'Just remember this one thing I said to you tonight and don't ever talk about it again, but remember it. Make sure he gives you money for yourself. Invest it, have it. Then in the end whatever happens won't be too bad.'

'Oh, Mother.' Her eyes were soft and filled with pity for a mother who had been betrayed. A mother whose whole life had to be rewritten in the light of the fact that her husband had frittered away the future.

'Would money have made that much difference?'

'You'll never know how much, and my prayer for you tonight is that you will never have to know.'

'I'll think about what you say,' Connie said. It was a very useful phrase, she used it a lot at work when she had no intention whatsoever of thinking about what anyone said.

The wedding was a triumph. Harry's two partners and their wives said it was the best wedding they had ever been at, and this was like a seal of approval. Mr. Hayes from the hotel said that since the bride's father was sadly no longer with us, could he say that Richard would be so happy and proud to be here today and see his beautiful daughter so happy and radiant. It was the good fortune of the Hayes Hotel Group that Connie Kane, as she would now be known, had agreed to continue working until something might stop her doing so.

There was a titter of excitement at the thought of such a rich man's wife working as a hotel receptionist until she got pregnant. Which would be in the minimum time it took.

They had a honeymoon in the Bahamas, two weeks that Connie had thought would be the best in her life. She liked talking to Harry and laughing with him. She liked walking along the beach with him, making sand castles in the morning sunshine just by the water edge, hand in hand at sunset before they went to dinner and dance.

She did not enjoy being in bed with him, not even a little bit. It was the last thing she would have expected. He was rough and impatient. He was terribly annoyed with her failure to respond. Even when she realised what he would like and tried to pretend an excitement she did not feel, he saw through it.

'Oh, come off it, Connie, stop all that ludicrous panting and groaning, you'd embarrass a cat.'

She had never felt more hurt or more alone. To give him his due he tried everything. He was gentle and wooing and flattering. He tried just holding her and stroking her. But as soon as penetration seemed likely she tensed up and seemed to resist it, no matter how much she told herself it was what they both wanted.

Sometimes she lay awake in the dark warm night listening to the unfamiliar cicadas and the Caribbean sounds in the distance. She wondered did all women feel like this. Was it perhaps just a giant conspiracy for centuries, women pretending they enjoyed it when all they wanted was children and security? Was this what her mother had meant by telling her to demand that security? In today's world in the 1970s, it didn't automatically exist for women. Men could leave home now without being considered villains, men could lose all their savings in gambling like her father and still be remembered as a good fellow.

In those long, warm, sleepless nights when she dared not stir for fear of wakening him and starting it all over again, Connie wondered too about the words of her friend Vera. 'Go on, Connie, sleep with him now for God's sake. See do you like it. Suppose you don't - imagine a lifetime of it.'

She had said no, it seemed cheating to hold back sex as if it was a prize, and then deliver it in consideration of an engagement ring. He had respected her wish to be a virgin when she married. There had been times in the last few months when she had felt aroused by him. Why had she not gone ahead then instead of waiting for this? A disaster. A disappointment that was going to scar both of them for life.

After eight days and nights of what should have been the best time for two young healthy people but which was actually becoming a nightmare of frustration and misunderstanding, Connie decided to become her old cool self, the woman who had attracted him so much. Wearing her best lemon and white dress, and sitting with the fruit basket and the china coffee pot on their balcony, she called to him: 'Harry, get up and shower will you, you and I need to have a talk.'

'That's all you ever want to do,' he muttered into his pillow.

'Soon, Harry, the coffee won't stay hot for ever.'

To her surprise he obeyed her and came tousled and handsome in his white towelling robe to breakfast. It was a sin, she thought, that she could not please this man and make him please her. But more than that, it was something that had to be dealt with.

After the second cup of coffee she said: 'At home in your work and indeed in my work, if a problem arose we would have a meeting and a discussion, do you agree?'

'What's this?' He didn't sound as if he were going to play along.

'You told me about your partner's wife who drank too much and would talk about your business. How you had to make sure she knew nothing important. It was a strategy… you all told her in deepest secrecy things that never mattered at all. And she was perfectly happy and is perfectly happy to this day. You worked that out by a strategy, all three of you. You sat down and said we don't want to hurt her, we can't talk to her, what do we do? And you solved it.'

'Yes?' He didn't know where this was leading.

'And in my job, we had this problem with Mr. Hayes' nephew. Thick as two short planks… he was there, being groomed for a position of power. A vet with a curry comb couldn't groom him. How do we tell Mr. Hayes? We talked about it; three of us who cared sat down and had a meeting and said what do we do? We found out that the kid wanted to be a musician not a hotel manager. We employed him to play the piano in one of the lounges, he brought in all his rich friends, it worked like a dream.'