Evening Class (16 page)

‘Are you the teacher?’ he asked. He hadn’t parted with his money yet. Possibly this was not the week to hand over fees from Lizzie and himself. Suppose it was a cheapskate kind of thing. Wouldn’t that have been typical? Just to throw his money away foolishly without checking.

‘Yes indeed. I am Signora. I lived twenty-six years in Italy, in Sicilia. I still think in Italian and dream in it. I hope that I will be able to share all this with you and the others who come to the class.’

Now it was going to be harder still to back out. Bill wished he wasn’t such a Mister Nice Guy. There were people in the bank who would know exactly how to get out of this situation. The sharks, he and Grania called them.

Thinking of Grania reminded him of her father. ‘Do you have enough numbers to make the class workable?’ he asked. Perhaps this could be his out. Maybe the class would never take place.

But Signora’s face was alive with enthusiasm. ‘
Si si
, we have been so fortunate. People from far and near have heard about it. How did you hear, Signor Burke?’

‘In the bank,’ he said.

‘The bank.’ Signora’s pleasure was so great he didn’t want to puncture it. ‘Imagine, they know of us in the bank.’

‘Will I be able to learn bank terms, do you think?’ He leaned across the table his eyes seeking reassurance in her face.

‘What kind exactly?’

‘You know, the words we use in banking…’ But Bill was vague, he didn’t know the terms he might use in banking in Italy one day.

‘You can write them down for me and I could look them up for you,’ Signora explained. ‘But to be very truthful the course will not concentrate on banking terms. It will be more about the language and the feel of Italy. I want to make you love it and know it a little so that when you go there it will be like going home to a friend.’

‘That will be great,’ Bill said, and handed over the money for Lizzie and himself.

‘
Martedi
,’ Signora said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘
Martedi
, Tuesday. Now you know one word already.’

‘
Martedi
,’ Bill said and walked to the bus stop. He felt that even more than his fine wool, well cut jacket, this was good money being thrown away.

‘What will I wear for the evening class?’ Lizzie asked him on Monday night. Only Lizzie would want to know that. Other people might want to know whether to bring notebooks or dictionaries or name badges.

‘Something that won’t distract everyone from their studies,’ Bill suggested.

It was a pretty vain hope and a foolish suggestion. Lizzie’s wardrobe did not include clothes that would not distract. Even now at the end of summer she would have a short skirt that would show her long tanned legs, she would have a tight top and a jacket loosely around her shoulders.

‘But what exactly?’

He knew it wasn’t a question of style. It was a matter of choosing a colour. ‘I love the red,’ he said.

Her eyes lit up. It was very easy to please Lizzie. ‘I’ll try it on now,’ she said, and got her red skirt and red and white shirt. She looked marvellous, fresh and young, like an advertisement for shampoo with her golden hair.

‘I could wear a red ribbon in my hair?’ She seemed doubtful.

Bill felt a huge protective surge well up in him. Lizzie really did need him. Owlish and obsessed with paying debts as he was, she would be lost without him.

‘Tonight’s the night,’ he told Grania at work next day.

‘You’ll tell me honestly, won’t you? You’ll tell me what it’s like.’ Grania seemed very serious. She was wondering how it would go for her father, whether he might look good or just foolish.

Bill assured her he would tell the truth, but somehow he knew it was unlikely. Even if it was a disaster Bill would not feel able to blow the whistle. He would probably say that it was fine.

Bill did not recognise the dusty school annexe when they arrived. The place had been transformed. Huge posters festooned the walls, pictures of the Trevi Fountain and the Colosseum, images of the Mona Lisa and of Michelangelo’s David, and mixed amongst them mighty vineyards and plates of Italian food. There was a table covered in red, white and green crepe paper which held paper plates covered with cling film.

They seemed to have real food in them, little pieces of salami and cheese. There were paper flowers too, each one with a big label giving its name. Carnations were
garofani
… Somebody had taken immense pains.

Bill hoped that it would all work out well. For the strange woman with the odd-coloured red and grey hair called simply Signora, for the kind, hovering man in the background who must be Grania’s father, for all the people who sat awkwardly, and nervously around waiting for it to start. All of them with some hope or dream like his own. None of them, by the look of it, wanting to make a career in international banking.

Signora clapped her hands and introduced herself. ‘
Mi chiamo Signora. Come si chiama?’
she asked the man who must be Grania’s father.

‘
Mi chiamo Aidan
,’ he said. And so on around the classroom.

Lizzie loved it. ‘
Mi chiamo Lizzie
,’ she cried and everyone smiled admiringly as if she had achieved a great feat.

‘Let’s try to make our names more Italian. You could say: ’
Mi chiamo Elizabetta
.‘

Lizzie loved that even more and could hardly be stopped from repeating it.

Then they all wrote
Mi chiamo
and their names on huge pieces of paper and pinned them on. And they learned how to ask each other how they were, what time it was, what day it was, what date, where they lived.

‘
Chi è
?’ pointing at Bill.

‘
Guglielmo
,’ the class all shouted back.

Soon they knew everyone’s names in Italian and the class had visibly relaxed. Signora handed out pieces of paper. There were all the phrases they had been using, familiar to the sound, but they would never have been able to pronounce them had they seen them written first.

They went through them over and over, what day, what time, what is your name, and they answered them. People’s faces were taking on a look of near smugness.

‘
Bene
,’ said Signora. ‘Now we have ten minutes more.’ There was a gasp. The two hours could not truly be over. ‘You have all worked so hard there is a little treat, but we have to pronounce the salami before we eat it, and the
formaggio
.’

Like children, the thirty adults fell on the sausage and cheese and pronounced the words.

‘
Giovedi
,’ Signora was saying.

‘
Giovedi
,’ they were all chorusing. Bill began to put the chairs away neatly by the wall in a stack. Signora seemed to look at Grania’s father as if to know whether this was what was needed. He nodded quietly. Then the others helped. In minutes the classroom was tidy. The porter would have little to do in terms of clearing up.

Bill and Lizzie went out to the bus stop.

‘
Ti amo
,’ she said to him suddenly.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘Oh go on, you’re the one with the brains,’ Lizzie said. She was smiling fit to break his heart. ‘Go on guess.
Ti
… what’s that?’

‘It’s “you”, I think,’ said Bill.

‘And what’s “
amo”
?’

‘Is it love?’

‘It means
I love you
!’

‘How do you know?’ He was amazed.

‘I asked her just before we left. She said they were the most beautiful two words in the world.’

‘They are, they are,’ said Bill.

Perhaps the Italian classes might work after all.

‘It was really and truly great,’ Bill told Grania next day.

‘My father came home high as a kite, thank God,’ Grania said.

‘And she’s really good, you know, she makes you think you can speak the language in five minutes.’

‘So you’re off to run the Italian section then,’ Grania teased.

‘Even Lizzie liked it, she was really interested. She kept saying the sentences over and over on the bus, everyone was joining in.’

‘I’m sure they were.’ Grania was clipped.

‘No, stop being like that. She took much more notice of it than I thought she would. She calls herself Elizabetta now.’ Bill was proud.

‘I bet she does,’ Grania said grimly. ‘I’d also like to bet she’ll have dropped out by lesson three.’

As it happened Grania was right, but not because Lizzie wasn’t interested. It was because her mother came to Dublin.

‘She hasn’t been for ages and I have to meet her off the train,’ she said to Bill apologetically.

‘But can’t you tell her you’ll be back at half past nine?’ Bill begged. He felt sure that if Signorina Elizabetta were to miss out on one lesson that would be it. She would claim that she was far too far behind to catch up.

‘No honestly Bill, she doesn’t come to Dublin very often. I have to be there.’ He was silent. ‘You care about your mother enough to
live
with her for heaven’s sake, why shouldn’t I meet mine at Heuston Station? It’s not much to ask.’

Bill was very reasonable. ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It’s not.’

‘And Bill, could you lend me the money for a taxi? My mother hates travelling on a bus.’

‘Won’t she pay for the taxi?’

‘Oh don’t be so mean, you’re mean and tight-fisted and penny-pinching.’

‘That’s not fair, Lizzie. It’s not true and it’s not fair.’

‘Okay,’ she shrugged.

‘What do you mean, “Okay”?’

‘Just that. Enjoy the lesson, give my love to Signora.’

‘Have the money for the taxi.’

‘No, not like that, not with a bad grace.’

‘I’d love you and your mother to travel by taxi, I’d love it. It would make you feel happy and generous and welcoming. Please take it, Lizzie, please.’

‘Well, if you’re sure.’

He kissed her on the forehead. ‘Will I meet your mother this time?’

‘I hope so, Bill, you know we wanted you to last time but she had so many friends around. They took all her time. She knows so many people, you see.’

Bill thought to himself that Lizzie’s mother might know a lot of people but none of them well enough to meet her at the railway station with a car or taxi. But he didn’t say it.

‘
Dov’è la bella Elizabetta‘
?’ Signora asked.

‘
La bella Elizabetta è andata alia stazione
,’ Bill heard himself say. ‘
La madre di Elizabetta arriva stasera
.’

Signora was overwhelmed. ‘
Benissimo, Guglielmo. Bravo, bravo
.’

‘You’ve been cramming, you little sneak,’ said an angry-faced thickset fellow with Luigi on his blue name tag. His real name was Lou.

‘We did
andato
last week, it was on the list, and we did
stasera
the first day. They’re all words we know. I
didn’t
cram.’

‘Oh Jesus, keep your shirt on,’ said Lou, who frowned more than ever and joined with the class shouting that in this
piazza
there were many beautiful buildings. ‘There’s a lie for a start,’ he muttered, looking out the window at the barrack-like school yard.

‘It’s getting better, they are painting it up,’ Bill said.

‘You’re a real cheerful Charlie, aren’t you?’ Lou said. ‘Everything’s always bloody marvellous as far as you’re concerned.’

Bill longed to tell him that everything was far from cheerful, he was trapped in a house where everyone depended on him, he had a girlfriend who didn’t love him enough to introduce him to her mother, he had no idea how he was going to pay his term loan next month.

But of course he said none of these things. Instead he joined in the chorus chanting that
in questa piazza ci sono molti belli edifici
. He wondered where Lizzie and her mother had gone. He hoped beyond reason that she hadn’t taken her mother to a restaurant and cashed a cheque. This time there would be real trouble in the bank.

They had little bits of bread with topping of some sort on them. Signora said they were
crostini
. ‘What about the
vino?’
someone asked.

‘I wanted to have
vino, vino rosso, vino bianco
. But it’s a school you see, they don’t want any alcohol on the premises. Not to give a bad example to the children.’

‘A bit late for that round here,’ Lou said.

Bill looked at him with interest. It was impossible to know why a man like that was learning Italian. Although it was difficult to see why any of them were there, and he felt sure that a lot of them must puzzle about Lizzie, there seemed to be no reason that anyone could fathom why Lou, now transformed to Luigi, should come to something that he obviously despised, two nights a week, and glower at everyone from beginning to end. Bill decided he would have to regard it as part of the rich tapestry of life.

One of the paper flowers was broken and on the floor.

‘Can I have this, Signora?’ Bill asked.

‘
Certo, Guglielmo
, is it for
la bellissima Elizabetta
?’

‘No, it’s for my sister.’

‘
Mia sorella, mia sorella
, my sister,’ Signora said. ‘You are a kind, good man, Guglielmo.’

‘Yeah, but where does that get you these days?’ Bill asked as he went out to the bus stop.

Olive was waiting for him at the door. ‘Speak in Italian,’ she cried. ‘
Ciao, sorella
,’ he said. ‘Have a
garofano
. I brought it for you.’ The look of pleasure on her face made him feel worse than he had been feeling already, which had been pretty bad.

Bill was taking sandwiches to work this week. There was no way he could afford even the canteen.

‘Are you okay?’ Grania asked him concerned. ‘You look tired.’

‘Oh, we international linguists have to learn to take the strain,’ he said with a weak smile.

Grania looked as if she were about to ask him about Lizzie but changed her mind. Lizzie? Where was she today? With her mother’s friends maybe, having cocktails in one of the big hotels. Or somewhere down in Temple Bar discovering some new place that she would tell him about, eyes shining. He wished she would ring and speak to him, ask about last night at the class. He would tell her how she had been missed and called beautiful. He would tell her about the sentence he had made up, saying she had gone to the station to meet her mother. She would tell him what she did. Why this silence?