Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

His mind was racing with foolish plans. He could resign from the school as a protest. Surely he could get work in a private college, Sixth Year Colleges, for example, where they did intensive work. Aidan as a Latin teacher would be useful there, there were so many careers where students still needed Latin. He could appeal to the Board of Management, list the ways in which he had helped the school, the hours he had put in to see that it got its rightful place in the community, his liaising with Third Level education so that they would come and give the children talks and pointers about the future, his environmental studies backed up by the wildlife garden.

Without appearing to do so, he could let it be known that Tony O'Brien was a destructive element, that the very fact of using violence against an ex-pupil on the school premises sent the worst possible signal to those who were meant to follow his leadership. Or could he write an anonymous letter to the religious members of the Board, to the pleasant open-faced priest and the rather serious nun, who might have no idea of Tony O'Brien's loose moral code? Or could he get some of the parents to set up an action group? There were many, many things he could do.

Or else he would accept Mr. Walsh's view of him and become a man with a life outside the school, do up the dining room, make it his last-ditch stand against all the disappointments that life had thrown at him. His head felt as if someone had attached a lead weight to it during the night, but since he hadn't closed his eyes he knew that this could not have happened.

He shaved very carefully; he would not appear at school with little bits of Elastoplast on his face. He looked around his bathroom as if he had never seen it before. On every inch of available wall were prints of Venice, big shiny reproductions of Turners that he had bought when he went to the Tate Gallery. When the children were young they used to talk of going to the Venice Room not the bathroom; now they probably didn't see them at all, they were literally the wallpaper that they almost obscured.

He touched them and wondered would he ever go there again. He had been there twice as a young man, and then they had spent their honeymoon in Italy, where he had shown Nell his Venice, his Rome, his Florence, his Siena. It had been a wonderful time, but they had never gone back. When the children were young there hadn't been the money or the time, and then lately… well… who would have come with him? And it would have been a statement to have gone alone. Still, in the future there might have to be statements, and surely his soul was not so dead that it would not respond to the beauty of Italy?

Somewhere along the line they had all agreed not to talk at breakfast. And as a ceremony somehow it worked well for them. The coffee percolator was ready at eight, and the radio news switched on. A brightly coloured Italian dish of grapefruit was on the table. Everyone helped themselves and prepared their own. A basket of bread was there and an electric toaster sat on a tray with a picture of the Trevi Fountain on it. It had been a gift from Nell on his fortieth birthday. By twenty past eight Aidan and the girls had gone, each of them leaving their mug and plates in the dishwasher to minimise the clearing up.

He didn't give his wife a bad life, Aidan thought to himself. He had lived up to the promises he had made. It wasn't an elegant house but it had radiators and appliances and he paid for the windows to be cleaned three times a year, the carpet to be steamed every two years, and the house painted on the outside every three years.

Stop thinking in this ridiculous petty-clerk way, Aidan warned himself, and forcing a smile on his face began his exit.

'Nice evening last night, Crania?' he asked.

'Yeah, OK.' There was no sign of the hesitant confidences of last night. No wondering about whether people were sincere or not.

'Good, good,' he nodded. 'Was it busy in the restaurant?' he asked Nell.

'Fair for a Monday night, you know, nothing spectacular,' she said. She spoke perfectly pleasantly but as if to a stranger she had met on a bus.

Aidan took up his briefcase and left for school. His mistress, Mountainview College. What a fanciful idea. She certainly didn't have the allures of a lover to him this morning.

He stood for a moment at the gates of the school yard, scene of the disgraceful and brutal fight between Tony O'Brien and that boy whose ribs were broken and who needed stitches over his eye and in his lower lip. The yard was untidy, with litter blowing in the early morning breezes. The bicycle shed needed to be painted, the bikes were not properly stacked. Outside the gates the bus stop was open and exposed to the winds. If Bus Eireann would not provide a proper bus shelter for the children who waited there after school, then the Vocational Education Committee should do so, and if they refused a parents' committee would raise the funds. These were the kind of things Aidan Dunne had intended to do when he was Principal. Things that would never be done now.

He nodded gruffly to the children who saluted him, instead of addressing them all by name which was his usual way, and he walked into the staffroom to find no one there except Tony O'Brien mixing a headache seltzer in a glass.

'I'm getting too old for these nights,' he confided to Aidan.

Aidan longed to ask him why he didn't just cut them out, but that would be counterproductive. He must make no false stupid moves, in fact no moves at all until he had worked out what his plan was to be. He must continue in his bland, good-natured way.

'I suppose all work and no play…' he began.

But Tony O'Brien was in no mood to hear platitudes. 'I think forty-five is a sort of watershed. It's half of ninety after all, it's telling you something. Not that some of us listen.' He drained the glass and smacked his lips.

'Was it worth it, I mean the late night?'

'Who knows if it's ever worth it, Aidan. I met a nice little girl, but what's the good of that when you have to face the Fourth Years.' He shook his head like a dog coming out of the sea trying to get rid of the water. And this man was going to run Mountainview College for the next twenty years while poor old Mr. Dunne was expected to sit by and let it happen. Tony O'Brien gave him a heavy clap on the shoulder. 'Still, ave atque vale as you Latinists say. I have to be getting on, only four hours and three minutes before I stand with that healing pint in my hand.'

Aidan would not have thought that Tony O'Brien would have known the Latin words for hallo and goodbye. He himself had never used any Latin phrases in the staffroom, aware that many of his colleagues might not have studied it and fearing to show off in front of them. It just showed you must never underestimate the enemy.

The day passed as days always pass, whether you have a hangover like Tony O'Brien, or a heavy heart like Aidan Dunne, and the next passed, and the next. Aidan had still settled on no definite plan of action. He could never find the right moment to tell them at home that his hopes of being Principal had been misplaced. In fact, he thought it would be easier to say nothing until the decision was announced, let it appear a surprise to everyone.

And he had not forgotten his plans to make himself a room. He sold the dining table and chairs and bought the little desk. When his wife worked in Quentin's restaurant and his daughters went out on their dates, he sat and planned it for himself. Gradually he assembled little bits of his dream: second-hand picture frames, a low table for near the window, a big cheap sofa that fitted the space exactly. And one day he would get loose covers, something in gold or yellow, a sunny colour, and he would get a square of carpet that would be a splash of some other colour, orange, purple, something with life and vigour.