Evening Class (21 page)

‘What can I do?’ Fran shrugged at him. ‘Tell her not to go and she feels a victim. I think I’m lucky that I can have you to act as an excuse to get her home.’ Barry was a great kid, mad for overtime since he wanted to buy a motorbike. He said he had saved enough for one third of it, as soon as he had half the price he’d go and choose it, and then when he had two-thirds he would buy it and pay the rest later.

‘And what do you want it for, Barry?’ Fran asked.

‘For freedom, Miss Clarke,’ he said. ‘You know, freedom, all that air rushing past and everything.’

Fran felt very old. ‘My sister and I are going to learn Italian,’ she told him one night as they waited outside the disco, edging the advent of his motorbike nearer.

‘Oh that’s great, Miss Clarke. I’d like to do that myself. I went to the World Cup, I made the greatest of friends, the nicest people you’d meet in a day’s walk, Miss Clarke, much the way we’d be, I often think, if we had the weather.’

‘Maybe you’ll learn Italian too.’ She spoke absently. She was watching tough-looking people come out of the disco. Why did Kathy and her friends want to go there? Imagine the freedom they had at sixteen, to go to such places, compared to her day.

‘I might if I have the bike paid for, because one of the first places I’m going to take it is Italy,’ Barry said.

‘Well, it’s up in Mountainview School and it begins in September.’ She spoke in a slightly distracted tone because she had just seen Kathy, Harriet and their friends come out. She leaned over and hooted the horn. Immediately they looked over. The regular Saturday lift home was becoming part of the scene. What about the parents of all these girls, she thought? Did any of them care? Was she just a fusspot herself? Lord, but it would be such a relief when the term started again and all these outings were over.

The Italian classes began on a Tuesday at seven o’clock. There had been a letter from Ken that morning. He was settled in his little apartment; a flat didn’t mean a flat, it meant a flat tyre over there. The stock control was totally different. There were no deals with suppliers; you paid what was asked. People were very friendly, they invited him around to their homes. Soon it would be Labour Day and they would have a picnic to define that the summer was over. He missed her. Did she miss him?

There were thirty people in the class. Everyone got a huge piece of cardboard to put their names on but this marvellous woman said they should be called by the Italian version. So Fran became
Francesca
, and Kathy
Caterina
. They had great games of shaking hands and asking people what their names were. Kathy seemed to be enjoying it hugely. It would be worth it in the end, Fran said, putting the memory of Ken going to Labour Day picnics out of her mind.

‘Hey, Fran, do you see that guy who says
Mi chiamo Bartolomeo
? Isn’t that Barry from your supermarket?’ It was indeed. Fran was pleased, the overtime must have been good enough to sort out the bike. They waved at each other across the room.

What an extraordinary assortment of people. There was that elegant woman, surely she was the one who gave those huge lunches at her house. What on earth could she be doing at a place like this? And the beautiful girl with the golden curls
Mi chiamo Elizabetta
and her nice staid boyfriend in his good suit. And the dark, violent-looking
Luigi
and the older man called
Lorenzo
. What an amazing mixture.

Signora was delightful. ‘I know your landlady,’ Fran said to her when they were having little snacks of salami and cheese.

‘Yes, well Mrs Sullivan is a relation, I am a relation,’ Signora said nervously.

‘Of course. How stupid, yes, I know she is.’ Fran was reassuring. It was her own father’s lifestyle, she knew it well. ‘She said you were very helpful to her son.’

Signora’s face broke into a wide smile. She was very beautiful when she smiled. Fran didn’t think she could be a nun. She was sure Peggy Sullivan had got it wrong.

They loved the lessons, Fran and Kathy. They went together on the bus laughing like children at their mispronunciations and at the stories Signora told them. Kathy told the girls at school and they could hardly believe it.

There was an extraordinary bond amongst the people in the class. It was as if they were on a desert island and their only hope of rescue was to learn the language, and remember everything they were taught. Possibly because Signora believed that they were all capable of great feats they began to believe it too. She begged them to use the Italian words for everything, even if they couldn’t form the whole sentence. They found themselves saying that they had to get back to the
casa
or that the
camera
was very warm or that they were
stanca
instead of tired.

And all the time Signora watched and listened, pleased but not surprised. She had never thought that anyone faced with the Italian language would feel anything but delight and enthusiasm for it. With her was Mr Dunne, whose special project all this was. They seemed to get on together very well.

‘Maybe they were friends from way back,’ Fran wondered.

‘No, he’s got a wife and grown-up children,’ Kathy explained.

‘He could still have a wife and be her friend,’ Fran said.

‘Yes, but I think he could be having it off with her, they’re always giving special little smiles. Harriet says that’s a dead giveaway.’ Harriet was Kathy’s friend at school who was very interested in sex.

Aidan Dunne watched the flowering of the Italian class with a pleasure that he had not known possible. Week after week they came to the school, bicycles, motorbikes, vans and bus, even the amazing woman in the BMW. And he loved planning the various surprises for them too. The paper flags they made, she would give everyone a blank flag then call out colours that they were to fill in. Each person would hold up a flag and the rest of the class had to call out the colours. They were like children, eager enthusiastic pupils. And when the class was over that tough-looking fellow, called Lou or Luigi or whatever, used to help tidy up, tough type, the last one you’d ever think would be hanging around to tidy up, put away boxes and stack chairs.

But that was Signora for you. She had this simple way of expecting the best and getting it. She had asked him if she could make cushion covers for him.

‘Come and see the room,’ Aidan suggested suddenly.

‘That’s a good idea. When will I come?’

‘Saturday morning. I’ve no school, would you be free?’

‘I can be free any time,’ she said.

He spent all Friday evening cleaning and polishing his room. He took out the tray with the two little red glasses that came from Murano, beside Venice. He had bought a bottle of Marsala. They would toast the success of the room and the classes.

She came at midday and brought some sample fabrics. ‘I thought that yellow would be right from what you told me,’ she said, holding up a glowing rich colour. ‘It costs a little more a metre than the others, but then it’s a room for life, isn’t it?’

‘A room for life,’ Aidan repeated.

‘Do you want to show it to your wife before I begin?’ she asked. ‘No, no. Nell will be pleased. I mean, this is
my
room really.’

‘Yes, of course.’ She never asked questions. Nell was not at home that morning, nor were either of his daughters. Aidan hadn’t told them of the visit, and he was glad they weren’t there. Together he and Signora toasted the success of the Italian class and the Room for Life.

‘I wish you could teach in the school itself, you can create such enthusiasm,’ he said admiringly.

‘Ah, that’s only because they want to learn.’

‘But that girl Kathy Clarke, they say she’s as bright as a button these days, all due to the Italian classes.’

‘
Caterina
… a nice girl.’

‘Well, I hear that she has them all entertained in the classroom with stories of your class, they all want to join.’

‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ said Signora.

What Aidan did not report, because he didn’t know it, was that Kathy Clarke’s description of the Italian class included an account of his playing footsie with the ancient Italian teacher, and that he looked at her with the adoring eyes of a puppy. Kathy’s friend Harriet said she had always suspected it. It was the quiet ones that you had to watch. That’s where real passion and lust were lurking.

Miss Quinn was taking a history class and was anxious to relate things to the modern day. Something the children might recognise. Telling them the Medicis were patrons of the arts was no use, she called them sponsors. That would mean something.

‘Can anyone think of the people that they sponsored?’ she asked.

They looked at each other blankly.

‘Sponsor?’ Harriet asked. ‘Like a drinks company or an insurance company?’

‘Yes. You must know the names of some of the famous artists of Italy, don’t you?’ The history teacher was young, she was not yet hardened to how much children had forgotten or what they had never known.

Quietly Kathy Clarke stood up. ‘One of the most important was Michelangelo. When one of the Medicis was Pope Sixtus V he asked Michelangelo to do the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and he wanted all the different scenes.’ In a calm confident voice she told the class about the scaffolding that was built, the rows and the fallings-out. The problems that there still were keeping the colours alive.

There was no frown, there was just enthusiasm. Since she had obviously gone further than Miss Quinn the young history teacher could have attempted, it was soon time to bring it to an end.

‘Thank you for that, Katherine Clarke, now can anyone else name any other artist of the period?’

Kathy’s hand went up again. The teacher looked around to see if there was any other taker but there was no one. The boys and girls looked on amazed as Kathy Clarke explained about Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, five thousand pages of them, all in mirror writing maybe because he was left-handed or maybe because he wanted them kept secret. And how he applied to the Duke of Milan for a job saying he could design cannon-proof ships in war time and statues in peace time.

Kathy knew all this and was telling it as if it was a story.

‘Jesus Mary and Joseph, those Italian culture classes must be something else,’ said Josie Quinn in the staffroom.

‘What do you mean?’ they asked.

‘I’ve had Kathy Clark standing up giving me a run-down of the Renaissance like nobody’s ever heard.’

Across the room Aidan Dunne who had dreamed up the classes stirred his coffee and smiled to himself. A big happy smile.

It brought them even closer together, Kathy and Fran, the hours spent at the Italian class. Matt Clarke came home from England in the autumn to tell them that he was getting married to Tracey from Liverpool but that they weren’t having much of a do, they were going to go to the Canaries instead. Everyone was relieved that it didn’t mean a trek to England for the wedding. They giggled a bit when they heard that the honeymoon was going to be before, not after, the marriage.

Matt thought it was sensible. ‘She wants a suntan for the wedding snaps, and of course if we hate each other out there then we can call it off,’ he said cheerfully.

Matt gave his mother money for the slot machines and took his father for a few pints. ‘What’s all this business about learning Italian?’ he asked.

‘Search me,’ said his father. ‘I can’t make head nor tail of it. Fran is worn out above in the supermarket early mornings, late nights. The fellow she was going with has gone off to the States. I haven’t a notion why she wants to bring all this on herself, specially since they say over in the school that young Kathy works too hard already. But they’re mad about it. Planning to go there next year and all. So let them at it.’

‘Kathy’s turning into a grand little looker, isn’t she?’ Matt said.

‘I suppose she is. Do you know, seeing her every day I never noticed,’ his father said with an air of surprise.

Kathy was indeed becoming more attractive. At school her friend Harriet commented on it. ‘Do you have a fellow or something at this Italian class? You seem different somehow.’

‘No, but there are lots of older men there all right,’ Kathy laughed. ‘Very old, some of them. We have to pair into couples to do the asking for a date bit. It’s a scream. I had this man, he must be about a hundred, called Lorenzo. Well, I think it’s Laddy in real life. Anyway Lorenzo says to me “
E libera questa sera
?” and he rolls his eyes and twirls an imaginary moustache and everyone was sick with laughter.’

‘Go on. And does she teach you anything really useful like How’s about it and what you’d say?’

‘Sort of.’ Kathy searched her memory for the phrase. ‘There’s things like
Vive solo
or
sola
, that’s do you live alone. And there’s one I can’t quite remember…
Deve rincasare questa notte
? Do you have to go home tonight.’

‘And she’s the old one you see in the library sometimes, with the funny coloured hair?’

‘Yes, Signora.’

‘Imagine,’ said Harriet. Things were getting stranger all the time.

‘Do you still go to those classes in Mountainview, Miss Clarke?’ Peggy Sullivan was handing in her till’s takings.

‘They’re really terrific, Mrs Sullivan. Do pass that on to Signora, won’t you? Everyone just loves them. Do you know that nobody at all has fallen out of the class. That must be unheard of.’

‘Well, she sounds very cheerful about them, I must say. An extraordinarily secretive person, of course, Miss Clarke. Claims she was married to some Italian for twenty-six years in a village out there… never a letter from Italy… not a picture of him in sight.
And
it turns out she has a whole family living in Dublin, a mother in those expensive flats down by the sea, a father in a home and brothers and sisters all over the place.’

‘Yes, well…’ Fran didn’t want to hear anything even mildly critical or questioning about Signora.

‘It just seems odd, doesn’t it. What’s she living in one room in our estate for if she has all this family dotted all over the place?’