Maeve Binchy - Evening Class

'Simple,' Fiona said. 'He had my mother too. Used to come up in the van and collect her outside work and take her off. She was besotted over him. It was awful.'

'Why are you telling me this?' Her eyes were wild, her voice was hushed. She was looking to the right and left of her.

Fiona realised that Mrs. Dunne was greatly rattled. 'Well, he delivers vegetables and flowers to where I work you see, and he's always talking about his women, even you, and how you're just mad for it. "Posh lady from Quentin's", he calls you. And then I realised it was Brigid and Crania's mum he was talking about, just like it was once my mum… and I felt sick.'

'I don't believe a word of this. You're a very dangerous and mad girl,' Mrs. Dunne said, her eyes narrow as slits.

Luigi was dancing up a storm with Caterina from the class. Caterina and her friend Harriet had been released from cloakroom duty now and were making up for lost time.

'Excuse me.' Fiona dragged Luigi off the dance floor.

'What is it? Suzi doesn't mind, she likes me to dance.' He looked indignant.

'Do me one big favour,' Fiona begged. "On? tiring without asking any questions at all.'

'That's me,' Luigi said.

'Could you go over to that dark man over there near the door, and tell him that if he knows what's good for him, he'll leave his Wednesday night lady alone.'

'But…?'

'You said you wouldn't ask why!'

'I'm not asking why, I'm only asking would he hit me?'

'No, he won't. And Luigi?'

'Yeah?'

'Two things. Could you not say anything at all about this to Suzi or Bartolomeo?'

'That's done.'

And could you try and look a bit ferocious when you're talking to him?'

'I'll try,' said Luigi, who thought it was something he might have to work at.

Nell Dunne was about to approach Dan. He was talking to a thickset, j owlish man with a very angry expression. She thought she would walk by and speak to him out of the corner of her mouth. Say she needed a word. Jerk her head to the corridor outside.

Why hadn't he told her he was coming to this anyway? So secretive. So hidden. There could be a lot more she didn't know. But just before she approached him he looked up and saw her, and a look of fear came into his eyes. He started to move away from her. She saw him grab his wife's arm and ask her to dance.

The band was playing Ciao Ciao Bambino. They hated it but a job was a job. They were going to appear in tomorrow's evening paper.

And Fiona stood on a chair so that she could observe it all. And remember it for ever. Barry had just asked her if she would come on the viaggio with him and she had said yes. Her future mother-and father-in-law were dancing with each other.

Grania and Brigid's mother was struggling to get out and look for her coat. She was demanding that Caterina and her friend Harriet open up the cloakroom for her. Only Fiona saw her go. Barry certainly didn't notice her. Maybe he might never have to know about her any more than anyone ever had to know about the freesias.

'Will you dance with me?' he said. It was Three Coins in the Fountain . Sugary and sentimental.

Barry held her very tight. ' Ti amo, Fiona, carissima Fiona .'

' Anch'io ,' she said.

'WHAT?' He could hardly believe it.

' Anch'io . It means me too. I love you too. Ti amo da morire .'

'God, how did you learn that?' he asked, impressed as he never had been.

'I asked Signora. I practised it. Just in case.'

'In case?'

'In case you said it, so that I'd know what to say.'

Around them people danced and sang the silly words of the song. Grania and Brigid's father hadn't gone hunting for his wife, he was talking to Signora. They looked like people who might dance at any moment if it occurred to one of them. Barry's father wasn't looking around anxiously, he was talking to his wife as if she were a real person again. Brigid wasn't laced into some tight skirt tugging at it, she wore a scarlet, loose dress and had her arms around the neck of a man who would not escape. Grania was leaning on the arm of Tony, the old man. They didn't dance but they were getting married. Fiona had been invited to the wedding.

Fiona thought it was wonderful to be grown up at last. She hadn't made all this happen, but she had made a very important part of it happen.

VIAGGIO

^^C'VTThy are we asking Mr. Dunne to our wedding?' Lou 't ' t I wanted to know.

V V 'Because it would be nice for Signora, she won't have anyone.'

'Won't she have everyone else? Doesn't she live with your family, for God's sake?'

'You know what I mean.' Suzi was adamant.

'Do we have to have his wife as well? The list is getting longer every minute. You do know it's seventeen pounds a head and that's before a drink passes their lips?'

'Of course we're not asking his wife. Are you soft in the head?' Suzi said, and the look came over her face that Lou didn't like, the look that said she wondered was she marrying someone as thick as the wall.

'Certainly not his wife,' Lou said hastily. 'I must have been dreaming, that's all.'

'Is there anyone else from your side that you'd like?' Suzi asked.

'No, no. In a way they're my side as well, and aren't they coming on the honeymoon with us?' Lou said brightening up.

'Together with half of Dublin,' said Suzi, rolling her eyes.

'A Register office, I see' said Nell Dunne when Grania told her the date.

'Well, it would be hypocritical to get the job done in a church, neither of us ever going into one.' Nell shrugged. 'You will be there, Mam, won't you?' Grania sounded concerned.

'Of course I will, why do you ask?'

'It's just… it's just…'

'What is it, Grania? I've said I'll be there.'

'Well, you left that party up in the school before it even got going, and it was Dad's big night. And you're not going on his trip to Italy or anything.'

'I wasn't asked on his trip to Italy,' Nell Dunne said in a tight hard voice.

'Can everyone come on this holiday to Rome and Florence?' Bernie Duffy asked her daughter Lizzie .

'No, Mother. I'm sorry, but it's restricted to the people in the class,' Lizzie apologised.

'Wouldn't they want more people to swell the numbers?' Bernie had enjoyed herself boisterously at the festa . She thought the viaggio might be more of the same.

'What will we do, she's at me all the time?' Lizzie asked Bill later.

'We'll take her to Galway to see your father instead,' Bill said suddenly.

'We can't do that, can we?'

'Wouldn't it sort a lot of things out? It would distract her, and one way or the other it would take up her time and she wouldn't feel she was being left out of any fun if she was in the thick of all that drama.'

'That's a great idea.' Lizzie was full of admiration.

'And anyway, I should meet him, shouldn't I?'

'Why? We're not getting married till we're twenty-five.'

'I don't know. Luigi's getting married and Mr. Dunne's daughter is getting married… I think we should get married sooner, don't you?'

' Perché non ?' said Lizzie with a huge smile all over her face.

'I've asked Signora to write the letter to the Garaldis for me,' Laddy said. 'She said she'd explain everything.'

Maggie and Gus exchanged glances. Surely Signora would realise how casual the invitation had been to Laddy, the exuberance and gratitude of a warm-hearted family touched at the honesty of an Irish porter. They'd never expect him to take it so seriously, to go to Italian classes and to expect a huge welcome.

Signora was a mature woman who would understand the situation, wasn't she? Yet there was something childlike about the woman in the coffee and lilac dress, the woman at the festa that night who was so innocently thrilled with the success of the lessons and the support that had been given to her evening class. She was an unworldly sort of person, perhaps she would be like Laddy and think that these Garaldis were waiting with open arms for someone they must have well forgotten by now.