Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

A van driver he knew called Jimmy Sullivan said there was a great woman altogether called Signora who had come to live with them, and she was starting Italian lessons up in Mountainview school.

Laddy went up to the school one evening and booked. 'I'm not very well educated, do you think I'd be able to keep up with the lessons?' he asked the woman called Signora when he was paying his money.

'Oh, there'll be no problem about that. If you love the whole idea of it we'll have you speaking it in no time,' she said.

'It'll only be two hours off on Tuesday and Thursday evening,' Laddy said in a pleading tone to Gus and Maggie.

'Take all the time you like, for God's sake, Laddy. Don't you work a hundred hours a week as it is?'

'You were quite right that I shouldn't go out there like a fool. Signora says she'll have me speaking it in no time.'

Maggie closed her eyes. What had made her open her mouth and get him to go to Italian lessons? The notion of poor Laddy keeping up with an evening class was ludicrous.

He was very nervous on the first evening so Maggie went with him.

They looked a decent crowd going in to the rather bleak-looking school yard. The classroom was all decorated with pictures and posters and there even seemed to be plates of cheese and meat that they would eat later. The woman in charge was giving them big cardboard labels with their names on, translating them into an Italian form as she went along.

'Laddy,' she said. 'Now that's a hard one. Do you have any other name?'

'I don't think so.' Laddy sounded fearful and apologetic.

'No, that's fine. Let's think of a nice Italian name that sounds a bit like it. Lorenzo! How about that?' Laddy looked doubtful, but Signora liked it. 'Lorenzo,' she said again and again, rolling the word. 'I think that's the right name. We don't have any other Lorenzos in the class.'

'Is that what all the people called Laddy in Italy call themselves?' he asked eagerly.

Maggie waited, biting her lip.

'That's it, Lorenzo,' said the woman with the strange hair and the huge smile.

Maggie went back to the hotel. 'She was a nice person,' she told Gus. 'There'd be no way she'd make poor Laddy feel a fool or anything. But I'd give it three lessons before he has to give it up.'

Gus sighed. It was just one more thing to sigh about these days.

They couldn't have been more wrong about the class. Laddy loved it. He learned the phrases that they got as homework each week as if his very life depended on it. When any Italians came to the hotel he greeted them warmly in Italian, adding mi chiamo Lorenzo with a sense of pride, as if they should have expected the porter at a small

Irish hotel to be called something like that. The weeks went on and often on nights when it rained they saw Laddy being driven home to the door in a sleek BMW.

'You should ask your lady friend in, Laddy.' Maggie had peered out a few times and just seen the profile of a handsome woman driving the car.

'Ah no, Constanza has to get back. She has a long drive home,' he said.

Constanza! How had this ridiculous teacher hypnotised the whole class into her game-playing. She was like some pied piper. Laddy missed a snooker competition which he would definitely have won because he couldn't let down the Italian class. It was parts of the body that week and he and Francesca would have to point out to the class things like their throats and elbows and ankles. He had them all learned: la gola he had his hand on his neck, i gomiti one hand on each elbow and he bent down to touch la caviglia on each foot. Francesca would never forgive him if he didn't turn up. He'd miss the snooker competition, there'd be another. There wouldn't be another day with parts of the body. He would be furious if Francesca didn't turn up because she was in some sort of competition or other.

Gus and Maggie looked at each other, amazed. They decided that it was good for him. They had to believe that, other things were so grim at the moment. There were improvements that were now pressing and they just couldn't afford to make them. They had told Laddy that things were difficult but he didn't appear to have taken it on board. They were trying to live one day at a time. At least Laddy was happy for the moment. At least Rose had died thinking all was well.

Sometimes Laddy found it hard to remember all the vocabulary. He hadn't been used to it at school where the Brothers hadn't seemed to need too much studying from him. But in this class he was expected to keep up.

Sometimes he sat, fingers in ears on the wall of the school yard, learning the words. Trying to remember the emphasis. Dov'è il dolore , you must say that in a questioning way. It was the thing the doctor would say to you when you ended up in hospital. You wouldn't want to be an eejit and not know where you were hurting, so remember what he would ask. Dov'è il dolore , he said over and over.

Mr. O'Brien who was the Principal of the whole school came and sat beside him. 'How are you?' he asked.

' Bene, benissimo .' Signora had told them to answer every question in Italian.

'Great stuff… And do you like the classes? What's your name again?'

'Mi chiamo Lorenzo.'

'Of course you do. Well, Lorenzo, is it worth the money?'

'I'm not sure how much it costs, Signor. My nephew's wife pays it for me.'

Tony O'Brien looked at the big simple man with the beginnings of a lump in his throat. Aidan Dunne had been right to fight for these classes. And they seemed to be going like a dream. All kinds of people coming there. Harry Kane's wife of all people, and gangsters like the fellow with the low brow.

He had said as much to Grania but she still thought that he was patronising her, patting her father on the head for his efforts. Maybe he should learn something specific so that he could prove to Grania that he was interested.

'What are you doing today, Lorenzo?'

'Well, all this week it's parts of the body for when we get heart attacks or have accidents in Italy. The first thing the doctor will say when you're wheeled in is Dov'è il dolore ? Do you know what that means?'

'No, I don't. I'm not in the class. The doctor would say to you Dov'è il dolore ?'

'Yes, it means: where is the pain? And you tell him.'

' Dov'è is where, is that it?'

'Yes, it must be, because you have Dov'è il banco; Dov'è l'albergo . So you're right, Dov'è must be where is?' Laddy seemed pleased, as if he hadn't made the connection before.

'Are you married, Lorenzo?'

'No, Signor, I wouldn't be much good at it. My sister said I should concentrate on snooker.'

'Well, it doesn't have to be one or the other, man. You could have had both.'

'That's all right if you're very clever, and run a school like you do. But I wouldn't be able to do too many things at the one time.'

'I'm not either, Lorenzo,' Mr. O'Brien looked sad.

'And are you not married, then? I'd have thought you'd have big grown-up children by now,' Laddy said.

'No, I'm not married.'

'Maybe teaching's a job where people don't get married,' Laddy speculated. 'Mr. Dunne in the class, he's not married either.'

'Oh, is that so?' Tony O'Brien was alert to this piece of news.

'No, but I think he's having a romance with Signora!' Laddy looked around him as he spoke in case he was overheard. It was so daring to say such a thing aloud.

'I'm not sure that's the situation.' Tony O'Brien was astounded.

' We all think it is. Francesca and Guglielmo and Bartolomeo and I were talking about it. They laugh a lot together and go home along the road after class.'

'Well, now,' said Tony O'Brien.

Tt would be nice for them, wouldn't it?' Laddy liked everyone pleased about things.