Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'As of today he says he is,' said Bartolomeo, Italian speaker, pleased and happy that he was able to field a good team.

The night of the festa in Mountainview school was eagerly awaited.

Signora had been going to buy a new dress but she decided at the last moment to spend the money on coloured lights for the school hall.

'Aw, come on Signora,' said Suzi Sullivan. 'I have a great dress picked out for you in the Good as New shop. Let them have whatever old lights are there, up in the school.'

'I want them to remember this evening always. If there are nice coloured lights it will add to the romance of it… What will anyone care if I spend forty pounds on a dress? Nobody will notice.'

'If I can get you the lights will you get the dress?' Suzi asked.

'You're not going to suggest that Luigi…' Signora looked very doubtful about it indeed.

'No, I swear I won't let him get in touch with the underworld again. It took me long enough to get him out of it. No, I really do know someone in the electrical business, a fellow called Jacko. I needed someone to re-wire the flat and Lou asked in the Italian class and Laddy knew this guy who did up the hotel where he works. He'd know what you want, will I send him up to you?'

'Well, Suzi…'

'And if he's cheap, as he will be, then you'll buy the dress?' She looked so eager.

'Of course, Suzi,' Signora said, wondering why people set such a store by clothes.

Jacko came up to look at the school hall. 'Built like a bloody barn, of course,' he said.

'I know, but I thought if we had three or four rows of coloured lights, you know, a bit like Christmas lights…'

'It would look pathetic,' Jacko said.

'Well, we don't have enough money to buy anything else.' Signora looked distressed now.

'Who said anything about buying? I'll light the place properly for you. Bring proper gear up, do it like a disco. Install it for the night, take it away after.'

'But you can't do that. It would cost a fortune. There'd have to be someone to operate it.'

'I'll come and see it doesn't blow up. And it's only for a night, I won't charge you.'

'But we couldn't expect you to do all that.'

'Just a nice big board advertising my electrical business,' Jacfco said, grinning from ear to ear.

'Could I give you a couple of tickets, in case you would like to bring a partner or anything?' Signora was desperate to return his kindness.

'No, I travel alone these days, Signora,' he said with his crooked smile. 'But you never know what I might pick up at the party. Minding the lights won't take up all my time.'

Bill Burke and Lizzie Duffy had to get ten people between them and Bill found it hard to sell tickets at the bank because Grania Dunne had got in first. As it happened, Lizzie's mother was going to be in Dublin for the night.

'Do you think we dare?' Bill said. Mrs. Duffy was very much a loose cannon, the dangers might be greater than the rewards.

Lizzie thought about it seriously. 'What's the very worst she could do?' she wondered.

Bill gave it serious thought. 'She could get drunk and sing with the band?' he suggested.

'No, when she gets drunk she tells everyone what a bastard my father is.'

'The music will be very loud, no one will hear her. Let's ask her,' said Bill.

Constanza could have bought every ticket and not noticed the dip in her bank balance, but that wasn't the point. She had to invite people, that's what it was about.

Veronica would come, of course, and bring a friend from work. Daughters were marvellous. More diffidently she asked her son, Richard, would he like to take his girlfriend, and to her surprise he sounded eager. The children had been a huge support to her after the trial and sentence. Harry was serving a minimum prison sentence, as she had foretold. Every week in her small seaside apartment she got phone calls and visits from her four children. She must have done something right.

'You won't believe this.' Richard rang her a couple of days later. 'But you know your Italian festa thing up in Mountainview school? Mr. Malone, my boss, is going. He was just talking to me about it today.'

'What a small world,' said Connie. 'Maybe I'll ask his father-in-law, then. Is Paul bringing his wife?'

'I imagine so,' said Richard. 'Older people always do.' Connie wondered who on earth at their Italian class could have invited Paul

Malone.

Gus and Maggie told Laddy that of course they would come to the festa . Nothing would keep them away. They would ask their friend who ran the chip shop to come too, to thank him for all his interpreting, and they would give prizes of free dinners in the hotel with wine for the raffle.

Jerry Sullivan in the house where Signora stayed wanted to know what was the lower age limit.

'Sixteen, Jerry. I keep telling you that,' Signora said. She knew there was an inordinate interest in the school in a dance in their school hall which would have disco lights and real liquor.

Mr. O'Brien, the Principal, had discouraged even the older children from attending. 'Don't you all spend enough time on these premises?' he had said. 'Why don't you go to your horrible smoke-filled basements listening to ear-injuring music as usual?'

Tony O'Brien was like a devil these days. In order to please Grania Dunne, the love of his life, he had given up smoking and it didn't suit him. But Grania had worked a miracle for him so in fairness he had to trade the smoking business. She had gone to visit her father and got him on their side.

He never knew how she had managed it, but the following day Aidan Dunne had strode into his office and offered his hand.

'I've been behaving like a father in a Victorian melodrama,' he had said. 'My daughter is old enough to know her own mind and if you make her happy then that's a good thing.'

Tony had nearly fallen out of his chair with the shock. 'I've lived a rackety old life, Aidan, and you know this. But honestly, Grania is the turning point for me. Your daughter makes me feel good and young and full of hope and happiness. I'll never let her down. If you believe anything you must believe that.'

And they had shaken hands with such vigour that both of their arms were sore for days.

It made everything much simpler both at school and at home. She had stopped taking her contraceptive pill. He knew it had taken a lot for Aidan to make that gesture. He was an odd man… If he hadn't known him better Tony O'Brien would have believed that the Latin master really did have a thing going with Signora. But there wasn't a chance of that.

Signora's friends Brenda and Patrick Brennan were both coming to the party. What was the point of being successful, they said, if they could not delegate? There was an under chef, there was another greeter, the place could survive one evening without them or it wasn't run properly in the first place. And of course Nell Dunne from the cash desk -would be there too, so Quentin's would be really running on the B team, they laughed to each other.

'I don't know why we're all going at all, we must be touched in the head,' Nell Dunne said.

'For solidarity and support of course, what else?' Ms Brennan said, looking at Nell oddly.

Nell felt, as she so often felt, that Ms Brennan didn't really like her. It was after all a reasonable question. Smart people like the Brennans and yes, even herself, Nell Dunne, a person who mattered in Dublin in her black dress and yellow scarf sitting like a queen in Quentin's, and all of them traipsing up to that barracks of school Mountainview, where Aidan had soldiered on so long and for nothing.

But she wished she hadn't spoken. The Brennans thought less of her for it somehow.

Still, she might well go. Dan wasn't free that night, he had to go to something with his son he said, and her own children would be annoyed with her if she didn't make the effort.