Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

cOh, I don't know. Weak mainly, in shock a bit. Watches the door of the ward all the time waiting for the husband to come in.'

'And does he?'

'Not so far, her son does but that's not what she's looking for, she wants to see the husband's face. That's why she did it.'

'How do you know?'

'That's why they all do it,' Kitty said sagely.

In the Dunnes' kitchen they sat around the kitchen table. There was a macaroni cheese on it but hardly anyone was eating. Mrs. Dunne had her paperback folded back on itself as she so often had. She gave the impression of someone waiting in an airport rather than being in the centre of her own home.

Brigid as usual was eating nothing officially but pulling little bits off the edge of the dish and taking bread and butter to mop up a bit of juice that spilled, and in the end eating more than if she had been able to take a sensible portion. Grania looked pale, and Mr. Dunne was about to head off to his room that he loved so much.

'Dad, wait a minute,' Grania said. Her voice sounded strangulated. 'I want to tell you something, all of you in fact.'

Crania's mother looked up from her book. Brigid looked down at the table. Fiona felt herself go red and look guilty. Only Crania's father seemed unaware that anything of moment was to be said.

'Yes, of course.' He sat down, almost pleased that there was to be general conversation.

'You'll all find this very hard to take, I know, so I'll try to explain it as simply as I can. I love somebody and I want to get married.'

'Well, isn't that great,' her father said.

'Married?' her mother said, as if it was the most unexpected thing that anyone who loved anyone might consider.

Brigid and Fiona said nothing, but gave little grunts and sounds of surprise and pleasure that anyone would have known were not a serious reaction to the news.

Before her father could ask who she loved Grania told him. 'Now, you're not going to like this in the beginning, you're going to say he's too old for me, and a lot of other things, but it's Tony O'Brien.'

The silence was worse than even Grania could have believed.

*

cls this a joke?' her father said eventually.

'No, Dad,'

'Tony O'Brien! The wife of the Principal, no less.' Her mother gave a snort of laughter.

Fiona couldn't bear the tension. 'I hear he's very nice,' she said pleadingly.

'And who do you hear that from, Fiona?' Mr. Dunne spoke like a typical schoolteacher.

'Well, just around,' Fiona said feebly.

'He's not that bad, Dad. And she's got to marry someone,' Brigid said, thinking this was helping somehow.

'Well, if you think Tony O'Brien will marry you, you have another think coming.' Aidan Dunne's face was in a hard, bitter line.

'We wanted you to know about it first, and then we thought we might get married next month.' Grania tried to keep the shake out of her voice.

'Grania, that man tells at least three girls a year that he's going to marry them. Then he takes them back to his bordello and he does what he likes with them. Well, you probably know that, you've been there often enough when you're telling us that you stay with Fiona.'

Fiona cowered at the lie being unmasked.

'It's not like that. It's been going on for ages, well, it's been in the air for ages. I didn't see him any more after he became Principal because I thought he had sort of cheated us both, you and me, but he says he didn't and that things are fine now.'

'Does he, by God?'

'Yes, he does. He cares about you and he has great admiration for you and the way the evening class is going.'

'I know a boy who goes to it, he says it's just great,' squeaked Fiona. She gathered from the looks she got that the interruption had not been hugely helpful.

Tt took him a long time to persuade me, Dad. I was on your side and I didn't want to have anything to do with him. And he explained that there were no sides… you were all in it for the same reason…'

'I'm sure it took him a long time to persuade you. Usually about three days, he boasts. He boasts, you know, about how he gets

H

young girls to bed with him. That's the kind of man we have running Mountainview.'

'Not nowadays, Dad. Not now. I bet he hasn't. Think about it.'

'Only because he's not in the staffroom, because he's in his little God Almighty tinpot throne room, the Principal's Office as he calls it.'

'But Dad, wasn't it always the Principal's Office, even when Mr. Walsh was there?'

'That was different. He was a man worthy of the post.'

'And hasn't Tony been worthy of it? Hasn't he painted the school, got it all smartened up? Started new things everywhere, given you money for your wild garden, set up the Italian class, got the parents to campaign for a better bus service…?'

'Oh, he has you well indoctrinated.'

'What do you think, Mam?' Grania turned to her mother.

'What do I think? What does it matter what I think? You're going to do whatever you want to anyway.'

'I wish you would understand it's not easy for him either. He wanted to tell you a long time ago, he didn't like it being all secret, but I wasn't ready.'

'Oh, yes.' Her father was very scornful.

'Truly, Dad. He said he didn't feel good seeing you and knowing that sooner or later he would have to face you, knowing he had been keeping something from you.'

'Oh dear me, the poor man, the poor worried soul.' They had never seen their father as sarcastic and bitter as this. His face was literally twisted in a sneer.

Grania straightened her shoulders. 'As Mam said, I am of course over twenty-one and I can and will do what I like, but I had hoped to do it with your… well, your encouragement.'

'And where is he, the great Sir Galahad, who didn't dare to come and tell us himself?'

'He's outside, Dad, in his car. I told him that I'd ask him to come in if it were appropriate.' Grania was biting her lip. She knew he would not be asked in.

'It's not appropriate. And no, Grania, I will not give you the blessing or encouragement you ask for. As your mother says, you'll go your own way and what can we do about it?' Angry and upset, he got up and left the table. They heard the door of his room bang behind him.

Grania looked at her mother. Nell Dunne shrugged. 'What did you expect?' she said.

'Tony does love me,' Grania protested.

'Oh, he may or he may not. But do you think that matters to your father? It's just that you picked on the one person out of all the billions in the world that he will never get reconciled to. Never.'

'But you, you understand?' Grania was dying for someone to support her.

'I understand that he's what you want at the moment. Sure. What else is there to understand?'

Crania's face was stony. 'Thanks, that's a lot of help,' she said. Then she looked at her sister and her friend. 'And thank you too, what a great support you were.'

'God, what could we do, go down on our knees and say we always knew you were made for him?' Brigid was stung with the unfairness of the accusation.

'I did try to say he was well thought of,' poor Fiona bleated.

'You did.' Grania was grim. She stood up from the table with her face still hard.

'Where are you going? Don't go after Dad, he won't change,' Brigid said.

'No, I'm going to pack some things and go to Tony's house.'

'If he's so mad for you he'll still be there tomorrow,' her mother said.

'I don't want to stay here any more,' Grania said. 'I didn't realise it until five minutes ago, but I haven't ever been really happy here.'

'What's happy?' Nell Dunne said.

And they were silent as they heard Crania's footsteps going upstairs and into her room to pack a case.

Outside in a car a man strained to see if he could get any indication of what was going on in the house, and wondered whether movement back and forth in the side bedroom was a good sign or a bad sign.