Evening Class (33 page)

‘I don’t want their pity.’

‘What pity would there be if you invited them to a nice lunch? Come on, try it. Maybe
they’ll
suggest it another time. You can take the day excursion ticket.’

Grudgingly her mother agreed.

They were placed near Mr Kane’s party, which included a newspaper owner and two cabinet ministers. The ladies thoroughly enjoyed their lunch, and the fact that they seemed to be even more feted than the amazingly important people nearby.

As Connie had hoped it would be, the lunch was pronounced a huge success and one of the others said that next time it must be her treat. It would also be a Wednesday, in a month’s time. And so it went on, her mother becoming more confident and cheerful since nobody mentioned her late husband apart from saying ‘Poor Richard’, as they would to any widow about the deceased.

Connie always arranged to pass their table and offer them a glass of port with her compliments. Very publicly she would sign the docket for it so that everyone knew it was accountable for. She would flash a smile at the Kane table too.

After the fourth time she realised that he really
did
notice her. ‘You’re very kind to those older women, Miss O’Connor,’ he said.

‘That’s my mother and some of her friends. They do enjoy their lunch here, and it’s a pleasure to see her, she lives in the country, you see.’

‘Ah, and where do
you
live?’ he asked, his eyes alert waiting for her reply.

It was her cue to say: ‘I have my own flat,’ or ‘by myself. But Connie was prepared. ’Well, I live in Dublin of course, Mr Kane, but I do hope to travel sometime, I would love to see other cities.‘ She was giving nothing away. She saw further interest in his face.

‘And so you should, Miss O’Connor. Have you been to Paris?’

‘Sadly not yet.’

‘I’m going next weekend, would you like to come with me?’

She laughed pleasantly, as if she were laughing with him not at him. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice! But out of the question, I’m afraid. I hope you have a good time.’

‘Perhaps I could take you to dinner when I come back and tell you about it?’

‘I’d like that very much indeed.’

And so it began, the courtship of Connie O’Connor and Harry Kane. And throughout it all she knew that Siobhan Casey, his faithful secretary, hated her. They kept the relationship as private as they could, but it wasn’t easy. If he were invited to the opera he wanted to take her, he didn’t want to go with a crowd of singles hand-picked for him. It wasn’t long before their names were linked. She was described by one columnist as his blonde companion.

‘I don’t like this,’ she said when she saw it in a Sunday paper. ‘It makes me look flashy, trash almost.’

‘To be my companion?’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘You know what I mean, the word companion and all it suggests.’

‘Well, it’s not my fault that they’re not right about that.’ He had been urging her to bed and she had been refusing for some time now.

‘I think we should stop seeing each other, Harry.’

‘You can’t mean it.’

‘I don’t want it but I think it’s best. Look, I’m not just going to have a fling with you, and then be thrown aside. Seriously, Harry, I like you too much. I more than like you, I think of you all the time.’

‘And I of you.’ He sounded as if he meant it.

‘So isn’t it better if we stop now?’

‘I don’t know what the phrase is…?’

‘Get out in time,’ she smiled at him.

‘I don’t want to get out,’ he said.

‘Neither do I, but it will be harder later.’

‘Will you marry me?’ he asked.

‘No, it’s not that, I’m not putting a gun to your head. This isn’t an ultimatum or anything, it’s for our own good.’

‘I am putting a gun to
yours
. Marry me.’

‘Why?’

‘I love you,’ he said.

The wedding was to be in Hayes Hotel. Everyone insisted, Mr Kane was like part of the family there, and Miss O’Connor was the heartbeat of the place since it had opened.

Connie’s mother had nothing to pay for except her outfit. She was able to invite her friends, the ladies with whom she had regained contact. She even invited some of her old enemies. Her twin sons were ushers at the smartest wedding Dublin had seen in years, her daughter was a beauty, the groom was the most eligible man in Ireland. On that day Connie’s mother almost forgave the late Richard. If he turned up alive now she might not choke him to death after all. She had become reconciled to the hand that fate had dealt.

She and Connie slept in the same hotel room the night before the wedding. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you so happy,’ she said to her daughter.

‘Thank you, Mother, I know you’ve always wanted the best for me.’ Connie was very calm. She was having a hairdresser and beautician come to the room in the morning to look after her mother and Vera and herself. Vera was the matron of honour, and utterly overawed by the splendour of it all.

‘You
are
happy?’ her mother said suddenly.

‘Oh, Mother, for goodness’ sake.’ Connie tried to control her anger. Was there no occasion, no timing, no ceremony, that her mother could not try to spoil? Yet she looked into the kind, concerned face. ‘Im very, very happy. But just afraid I might not be enough for him, you know. He’s a very successful man, I might not be able to keep up with him.’

‘You’ve kept up with him so far,’ her mother said shrewdly.

‘But that’s a matter of tactics, I didn’t sleep with him like everyone else did from what I hear. I didn’t give in easily, it might not be the same when I’m married.’

Her mother lit another cigarette. ‘Just remember this one thing I said to you tonight and don’t ever talk about it again, but remember it. Make sure he gives you money for yourself. Invest it, have it. Then in the end whatever happens won’t be too bad.’

‘Oh, Mother.’ Her eyes were soft and filled with pity for a mother who had been betrayed. A mother whose whole life had to be rewritten in the light of the fact that her husband had frittered away the future.

‘Would money have made that much difference?’

‘You’ll never know how much, and my prayer for you tonight is that you will never have to know.’

‘I’ll think about what you say,’ Connie said. It was a very useful phrase, she used it a lot at work when she had no intention whatsoever of thinking about what anyone said.

The wedding was a triumph. Harry’s two partners and their wives said it was the best wedding they had ever been at, and this was like a seal of approval. Mr Hayes from the hotel said that since the bride’s father was sadly no longer with us, could he say that Richard would be so happy and proud to be here today and see his beautiful daughter so happy and radiant. It was the good fortune of the Hayes Hotel Group that Connie Kane, as she would now be known, had agreed to continue working until something might stop her doing so.

There was a titter of excitement at the thought of such a rich man’s wife working as a hotel receptionist until she got pregnant. Which would be in the minimum time it took.

They had a honeymoon in the Bahamas, two weeks that Connie had thought would be the best in her life. She liked talking to Harry and laughing with him. She liked walking along the beach with him, making sand castles in the morning sunshine just by the water edge, hand in hand at sunset before they went to dinner and dance.

She did not enjoy being in bed with him, not even a little bit. It was the last thing she would have expected. He was rough and impatient. He was terribly annoyed with her failure to respond. Even when she realised what he would like and tried to pretend an excitement she did not feel, he saw through it.

‘Oh, come off it, Connie, stop all that ludicrous panting and groaning, you’d embarrass a cat.’

She had never felt more hurt or more alone. To give him his due he tried everything. He was gentle and wooing and flattering. He tried just holding her and stroking her. But as soon as penetration seemed likely she tensed up and seemed to resist it, no matter how much she told herself it was what they both wanted.

Sometimes she lay awake in the dark warm night listening to the unfamiliar cicadas and the Caribbean sounds in the distance. She wondered did all women feel like this. Was it perhaps just a giant conspiracy for centuries, women pretending they enjoyed it when all they wanted was children and security? Was this what her mother had meant by telling her to demand that security? In today’s world in the 1970s, it didn’t automatically exist for women. Men could leave home now without being considered villains, men could lose all their savings in gambling like her father and still be remembered as a good fellow.

In those long, warm, sleepless nights when she dared not stir for fear of wakening him and starting it all over again, Connie wondered too about the words of her friend Vera. ‘Go on, Connie, sleep with him now for God’s sake. See do you like it. Suppose you don’t — imagine a lifetime of it.’

She had said no, it seemed cheating to hold back sex as if it was a prize, and then deliver it in consideration of an engagement ring. He had respected her wish to be a virgin when she married. There had been times in the last few months when she had felt aroused by him. Why had she not gone ahead then instead of waiting for this? A disaster. A disappointment that was going to scar both of them for life.

After eight days and nights of what should have been the best time for two young healthy people but which was actually becoming a nightmare of frustration and misunderstanding, Connie decided to become her old cool self, the woman who had attracted him so much. Wearing her best lemon and white dress, and sitting with the fruit basket and the china coffee pot on their balcony, she called to him: ‘Harry, get up and shower will you, you and I need to have a talk.’

‘That’s all you ever want to do,’ he muttered into his pillow.

‘Soon, Harry, the coffee won’t stay hot for ever.’

To her surprise he obeyed her and came tousled and handsome in his white towelling robe to breakfast. It was a sin, she thought, that she could not please this man and make him please her. But more than that, it was something that had to be dealt with.

After the second cup of coffee she said: ‘At home in your work and indeed in my work, if a problem arose we would have a meeting and a discussion, do you agree?’

‘What’s this?’ He didn’t sound as if he were going to play along.

‘You told me about your partner’s wife who drank too much and would talk about your business. How you had to make sure she knew nothing important. It was a strategy… you all told her in deepest secrecy things that never mattered at all. And she was perfectly happy and is perfectly happy to this day. You worked that out by a strategy, all three of you. You sat down and said we don’t want to hurt her, we can’t talk to her, what do we do? And you solved it.’

‘Yes?’ He didn’t know where this was leading.

‘And in my job, we had this problem with Mr Hayes’ nephew. Thick as two short planks… he was there, being groomed for a position of power. A vet with a curry comb couldn’t groom him. How do we tell Mr Hayes? We talked about it; three of us who cared sat down and had a meeting and said what do we do? We found out that the kid wanted to be a musician not a hotel manager. We employed him to play the piano in one of the lounges, he brought in all his rich friends, it worked like a dream.’

‘So what’s all this about, Connie?’

‘You and I have a problem. I can’t understand it. You’re gorgeous, you’re an experienced lover, I love you. It must be my fault, I may need to see a doctor or a shrink or something. But I want to sort it out. Can we talk about it without fighting or sulking or getting upset?’ She looked so lovely there, so eager, explaining things that were hard and distasteful to articulate, he struggled to reply.

‘Say
something
, Harry, say that after eight days and eight nights we will not give up. It’s a happiness that’s there waiting to happen for me, tell me that you know it will be all right.’ Still the silence. Not accusing, just bewildered. ‘Say anything,’ she begged. ‘Just tell me what you want.’

‘I want a honeymoon baby, Connie. I am thirty years of age, I want a son who can take over my business by the time I’m fifty-five. I want a family there over the next years; when I need them I come home to them. But you
know
all this. You and I have talked of aims and dreams for so long, night after night before I knew…’ he stopped.

‘No, go on,’ she said, her voice quiet.

‘Well then, before I knew you were frigid,’ he said. There was a silence. ‘Now, you
made
me say it. I don’t see the point of talking about these things.’ He looked upset.

She was still calm. ‘You’re right, I did make you say it. And is that what I am, do you think?’

‘Well, you said yourself you might need a shrink, a doctor, something. Maybe it’s in your past. Jesus, I don’t know. And I’m as sorry as hell because you’re absolutely beautiful and I couldn’t be more upset that it’s no good for you.’

She was determined not to cry, scream, run away, all the things she wanted to do. She had got by by being calm, she must continue like this.

‘So in many ways we want the same thing. I too want a honeymoon baby,’ she said. ‘Come on, it’s not that difficult. Lots of people do it, let’s keep trying.’ And she gave him the most insincere smile she had ever given anyone and led him back to the bedroom.

When they got back to Dublin she assured him she would get it sorted out. Still smiling bravely she said it made sense, she would consult the experts. First she made an appointment with a leading gynaecologist. He was a very courteous and charming man, he showed her a diagram of the female reproductive area pointing out where there might be blockages or obstructions. Connie studied the drawings with interest. They might have been plans for a new air-conditioning system in the hotel, for all the relevance they had to what she felt in her own body. She nodded at his explanations, reassured by his easy manner and discreet way of implying that almost everyone in the world had similar problems.