Evening Class (25 page)

‘I am meeting a Mr Paul Malone. He said he’d book a table for one o’clock, I’m a little early.’

‘Let me show you to Mr Malone’s table. A drink while you’re waiting?’

Kathy ordered a Diet Coke. It came in a Waterford Crystal glass with ice and slices of lemon. She must remember every moment of it for Harriet.

He came in nodding to this table and smiling at that one. A man stood up to shake his hand. By the time he got to her he had greeted half the place.

‘You look different, lovely,’ he said.

‘Well, at least I’m not wearing my friend’s mother’s jacket and a ton of make-up to get past reception,’ she laughed.

‘Should we order quickly? Do you have to rush back?’

‘No, I’m at the dentist, it can take ages. Do you have to rush back?’

‘No, not at all.’

They got the menus and Ms Brennan came to explain the dishes of the day. ‘We have a nice
insalata di mare
,’ she began.

‘
Gamberi, calamari
?’ Kathy asked before she could stop herself. Only last night they had been doing all the sea food… ‘
Gamberi
, prawns,
calamari
, squid…’

Both Paul and Brenda Brennan looked at her in surprise.

‘I’m showing off. I go to Italian evening classes.’

‘I’d show off if I knew all that off the top of my head,’ Ms Brennan said. ‘I had to learn them from my friend Nora who helps us write the menus when we have Italian dishes.’ They seemed to look at her admiringly, or maybe she was just getting big-headed.

Paul had his usual, which was a glass of wine mixed with mineral water.

‘You didn’t have to bring me to somewhere as smart as this,’ she said.

‘I’m proud of you, I wanted to show you off.’

‘Well, it’s just Fran thinks… I suppose she’s jealous that I can go to somewhere like this with you. I’d never go anywhere except Colonel Sanders or MacDonalds with her.’

‘She’d understand. I just wanted to bring you somewhere nice to celebrate.’

‘She says it’s my right and she said I was to enjoy it all. That’s what she said this morning, but I think in her heart she’s a bit upset.’

‘Does she have anyone else, any boyfriend or anything?’ he asked. Kathy looked up surprised. ‘What I’m trying to say… it’s none of my business but I hope she has. I’d hoped she would have married and given you sisters and brothers. But if you don’t want to tell me then don’t, because as I say I don’t have any right to ask.’

‘There was Ken.’

‘And was it serious?’

‘You’d never know. Or at least I’d never know, because I see nothing, understand nothing. But they went out a lot, and she used to laugh when he came to the house in the car to collect her.’

‘And where is he now?’

‘He went to America,’ Kathy said.

‘Was she sorry, do you think?’

‘Again I don’t know. He writes from time to time. Not so much lately but he did a lot in the summer.’

‘Could she have gone?’

‘It’s funny you should say that… she asked me once if I’d like to go and live in some small town in the backwoods of America. It’s not New York City or anywhere. And I said Lord no, give me Dublin any day, at least it’s a capital city.’

‘Do you think she didn’t go with Ken because of you?’

‘I never thought of that. But then all that time I thought she was my sister. Perhaps that could have had something to do with it.’ She looked troubled now and guilty.

‘Stop worrying about it, if it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine.’ He had read her thoughts.

‘I asked her to ring you but she won’t.’

‘Why? Did she give a reason?’

‘She said because of the deal… she was going to keep her part of the bargain, you kept yours.’

‘She was always straight as a die,’ he said.

‘So it looks as if you two will never talk.’

‘We’ll never get together and walk into the sunset, that’s for sure, because we’re both different people now. I love Marianne and she may or may not love Ken, or she’ll love someone else. But we will talk, I’ll see to that. Now you and I are going to have a real lunch as well as solving the problems of the world.’

He was right, there wasn’t much more to be said. They talked of school and show business, and the marvellous Italian classes, and his two children who were seven and six.

As they paid the bill the woman at the cash desk looked at her with interest. ‘Excuse me, but is that a Mountainview blazer you’re wearing?’ Kathy looked guilty. ‘It’s just that my husband teaches there, that’s how I recognise it,’ she continued.

‘Oh really, what’s his name?’

‘Aidan Dunne.’

‘Oh, Mr Dunne’s very nice, he teaches Latin and he set up the Italian classes,’ she told Paul.

‘And your name…?’ the woman behind the desk asked.

‘Will be for ever a mystery. Girls who take time off for lunch don’t want tales brought back to their teachers.’ Paul Malone’s smile was charming but his voice was steely. Nell Dunne at the cash desk knew she was being criticised for taking too much interest. She just hoped that Ms Brennan hadn’t overheard.

‘Don’t tell me about it,’ Harriet yawned. ‘You had oysters and caviar!’

‘No. I had
cardofi
and lamb. Mr Dunne’s wife was on the cash desk, she recognised the blazer.’

‘Now you’re done for,’ said Harriet with a smirk.

‘Not a bit of it, I didn’t tell her who I was.’

‘She’ll know. You’ll be caught.’

‘Stop saying that, you don’t want me to be caught, you want me to go on having these adventures.’

‘Kathy Clarke, I tell you if I had been burned at the stake I’d have said you were the last person on earth to have adventures.’

‘That’s the way it goes,’ said Kathy cheerfully.

‘Personal call for Miss Clarke on line three,’ went the tannoy. Fran looked up in surprise. She moved into the surveillance room, a place where they could see shoppers without being seen themselves.

She pressed the button and got line three. ‘Miss Clarke, Supervisor,’ she said.

‘Paul Malone,’ said the voice.

‘Yes?’

‘I’d love to talk. I don’t suppose you’d like to meet?’

‘You’re right, Paul. No bitterness, just no point.’

‘Fran, can I talk to you a little on the phone?’

‘It’s a busy time.’

‘It’s always a busy time for busy people.’

‘Well, you’ve said it.’

‘But what’s more important than Kathy?’

‘To me, nothing.’

‘And she is hugely important to me too, but…’

‘But you don’t want to get too involved.’

‘Absolutely wrong. I would love to get as involved as I can, but you brought her up, you made her what she is, you are the person who cares for her most in the world. I don’t want to muscle in suddenly. I want you to tell me what would be best for her.’

‘Do you think I know? How could I know? I want everything in the world for her, but I can’t get it. If you can get more, then do it, get it, give it to her.’

‘She thinks the world of you, Fran.’

‘She’s pretty taken with you too.’

‘She’s only known about me a week or two, she’s known you all her life.’

‘Don’t break her heart, Paul. She’s a great girl, she’s had such a shock. I thought she sort of knew, guessed, absorbed it or something. It’s not such an unusual situation around here. But apparently not.’

‘No, but she’s coped with it. She’s got your genes. She can cope with things, fair or unfair.’

‘And yours too, lots of courage.’

‘So what will we do, Fran?’

‘We have to leave it to her.’

‘She can have as much of me as she wants, but I promise you I won’t try to take her away from you.’

‘I know.’ There was a silence.

‘And are things… well, all right?’

‘Yeah, they’re, well, all right.’

‘She tells me you’re both learning Italian, she spoke Italian in the restaurant today.’

‘Good for her,’ Fran sounded pleased.

‘Didn’t we do well in a way, Fran?’

‘We sure did,’ she said, and hung up before she burst into tears.

‘What are
cardofi
, Signora?’ Kathy asked at Italian class.

‘Artichokes, Caterina. Why do you ask?’

‘I went to a restaurant and they had them on the menu.’

‘I wrote that menu for my friend Brenda Brennan,’ Signora said proudly. ‘Was it Quentin’s?’

‘That’s right, but don’t tell Mr Dunne. His wife works there, a bit of a prune, I think.’

‘I believe so,’ said Signora.

‘Oh, by the way, Signora, you know the way you said you thought Fran was my mother and I said she was my sister?’

‘Yes, yes…’ Signora was ready to apologise.

‘You were quite right, I hadn’t understood,’ Kathy said, as if it were the most natural mistake in the world anyone could have made, mistaking a mother for a sister.

‘Well, it’s good to have it all sorted out.’

‘I think it
is
good,’ Kathy said.

‘It must be.’ Signora was serious. ‘She’s so young, and so nice and you’ll have her around for years and years, much longer than if she were an older mother.’

‘Yes. I wish she’d get married, then I wouldn’t feel so responsible for her.’

‘She may in time.’

‘But I think she missed her chance. He went to America. I think she stayed because of me.’

‘You could write to him,’ said Signora.

Signora’s friend Brenda Brennan was thrilled to hear how well the classes were going. ‘I had one of your little pupils in the other day, well, she was wearing a Mountainview blazer and said that she was learning Italian.’

‘Did she have artichokes?’

‘How do you know these things, you must be psychic!’

‘That’s Kathy Clarke… She’s the only child, the rest of them are grown ups. She said that Aidan Dunne’s wife works there. Is that right?’

‘Oh, this is the Aidan you talk about so much. Yes, Nell is the cashier. Odd sort of woman, I don’t know what she’s at, to be honest.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, highly efficient, honest, quick. Nice mechanical smile at the customers, remembers their names. But she’s miles away.’

‘Miles away where?’

‘I think she’s having an affair,’ Brenda said eventually.

‘Never. Who with?’

‘I don’t know, she’s so secretive and she meets someone after work often.’

‘Well, well.’

Brenda shrugged it off. ‘So if you’re thinking of making a play for her husband, go ahead, the wife isn’t going to be able to cast any stones at you.’

‘Heavens, Brenda, what an idea. At my age. But tell me, who was Kathy Clarke having lunch with in your elegant restaurant?’

‘It’s funny… she was with Paul Malone, you know, or maybe you wouldn’t, very trendy accountant married to all that Hayes money. Buckets of charm.’

‘And Kathy was with him?’

‘I know. She could have been his daughter,’ Brenda said. ‘But honestly, the longer I work in this business the less surprised I am about anything.’

‘Paul?’

‘Kathy, it’s been ages.’

‘Will you come to have lunch with me, my treat? Not Quentin’s.’

‘Sure, where do you suggest?’

‘I won a voucher at Italian class to this place, lunch for two including wine.’

‘I can’t have you missing school like this.’

‘Well, I was going to suggest a Saturday, unless that’s a problem.’

‘It’s never a problem, I told you that.’

She showed him the prize she had won at the Italian class. Paul Malone said he was very pleased to have been chosen as her guest.

‘I want to put something to you. It’s got a bit to do with money but it’s not begging.’

‘You put it to me,’ he said.

She told him about this flight to New York for Christmas. Ken would pay most of it but he literally didn’t have all of it and he couldn’t borrow out there; it wasn’t like here where people sort of lived on credit.

‘Tell me about it,’ said Paul Malone the accountant.

‘He was so pleased when I wrote and told him that I knew about everything now, and I was so sorry if I had stood in their way. He wrote back and said that he loved Fran to bits and that he had been thinking of coming back to Ireland for her but he felt he would have messed it up all ways if he did that. Honestly, Paul, I couldn’t let you see the letter because it’s private but you’d love it, you really would, you’d be pleased for her.’

‘I know I would.’

‘So I’ll tell you exactly how much it is. It’s about three hundred pounds. I know it’s enormous. And I know all that’s in this building society account Fran has for me, so you see it’s only a loan. When we get them together I can give it straight back to you.’

‘How will we give it so that it doesn’t look the way it is?’

‘You’ll do it.’

‘I’d give you anything, Kathy, and your mother too. But you can’t take away people’s pride.’

‘Could we send it to Ken?’

‘That might be taking away his pride.’

There was a silence. The waiter came to ask were they enjoying the meal.

‘
Benissimo
,’ Kathy said.

‘My… my young friend has taken me here on a voucher she won at Italian class,’ Paul Malone said.

‘You must be clever,’ said the waiter.

‘No, I’m just good at winning things,’ Kathy said.

Paul looked as if an idea had just struck him. ‘That’s it, you could win a couple of air tickets,’ he suggested.

‘How could I do that?’

‘Well, you won us two lunches here.’

‘That’s because Signora organised it that someone in the class should get a prize.’

‘Well, maybe I could organise it that someone could win two air tickets.’

‘It would be cheating.’

‘It would be better than being patronising.’

‘Can I think about it?’

‘Don’t think too long, we have to set up this imaginary competition.’

‘And should we tell Ken?’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Paul. ‘What do you think?’

‘I don’t think he has any need to know the whole scenario,’ Kathy said. It was a phrase Harriet used a lot.

LOU

When Lou was fifteen, three men with sticks had come into his parents’ shop, taken all the cigarettes, the contents of the till and, as the family cowered behind the counter, there came the noise of a Garda car.