Evening Class (37 page)

She couldn’t really remember the day. It was like trying to put together the pieces of a horror movie that you have covered your eyes for, or a nightmare that won’t go away. There was some of it set in the lawyer’s office, where the terms of the trust she had set up for her children’s education were explained to him. The money had been well invested. There was plenty. The rest had been equally well placed for her. Constance Kane was a very wealthy woman. She could see the scorn that the solicitor had for her husband. He hardly bothered to disguise it. Her father’s old friend T. P. Murphy was there, silent and more silver-haired than ever. His face was set in a grim line. There was an accountant and an investment manager. They spoke in front of the great Harry Kane as they would before a common swindler. In their eyes this is what he was. This time yesterday morning, Connie reflected, those people would have treated her husband with respect. How quickly things changed in business.

Then they went to the bank. Never were bankers more surprised to see funds appear from nowhere. Connie and Harry sat silently while their advisers told the bank that not one penny of this
need
be recovered, and that it was being given only if the bank promised a package to rescue the investors.

By midday they had a deal. Harry’s partners were summoned and ordered to remain silent during the press conference at Hayes Hotel. It was agreed that neither of the partners’ wives would attend. They watched it together on a television set in one of the hotel bedrooms. Connie’s name was not mentioned. It was just stated that emergency funds had been put aside against just such a contingency.

By the one o’clock news the morning papers’ headlines were obsolete. One of the journalists asked Harry Kane about the wound on his face. Was it a creditor?

‘It was someone who didn’t understand what was happening, who didn’t realise we would do everything under the sun to safeguard the people who had trust in us,’ Harry said, straight to camera.

And Connie felt a little sick, a wave of nausea sweeping over her. If he could lie like that, what else could he not do? As part of the audience Connie saw Siobhan Casey at the back of the big hotel room where the press conference was being held. She wondered how much Siobhan had known, and whether money would be taken from Connie’s fund to provide for her. But she would never find out. She had assured the bank that since the whole thing would be administered by them, there would be no need for a policing operation from her side. She knew the money would be fairly and wisely distributed. It wasn’t up to her to say that Siobhan Casey’s shares should not be honoured because she was sleeping with the boss.

They were able to go back to their house. In a week they were all beginning to breathe again. In three months things were almost back to normal.

Veronica asked him from time to time about his poor face. ‘Oh that will always be there to remind your father what a foolish man he was,’ he would say, and Connie saw the look of affection pass between them.

Richard seemed to have nothing but admiration for his father as well. Both children thought he had grown from the whole experience.

‘He spends much more time at home now, doesn’t he, Mum?’ Veronica said, as if asking for Connie’s approval and blessing on something.

‘Indeed he does,’ Connie said. Harry spent one night away each week and came home late to his bedroom two or three nights. This was going to be the pattern of their future.

Something in Connie wanted to change it but she was tired. She was weary from the years of pretence, she knew no other life.

She telephoned Jacko one day at work.

‘I suppose I’m meant to go down on my knees to thank her ladyship for the fact that I got my own money back.’

‘No, Jacko, I just thought you might want to meet or something.’

‘For what?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, to talk, go to the pictures. Did you ever learn Italian?’

‘No, I was too busy earning a living.’ She was silent. She must have made him feel guilty. ‘Did you?’ he asked.

‘No, I was too busy not earning a living.’

He laughed. ‘Jesus, Connie, there’d be no point in our meeting. I’d only fall for you all over again, and start pestering you to come to bed with me as I was doing all those years back.’

‘Not
still
, Jacko, are you still into all that sort of thing?’

‘By God I am, and why not? Aren’t I only in my prime?’

‘True, true.’

‘Connie?’

‘Yes?’

‘Just, you know. Thank you. You know.’

‘I know, Jacko.’

The months went by. Nothing had changed very much but if you looked closely you would know that a lot of the life had gone out of Connie Kane.

Kevin and Vera talked about it. They were among the few who knew how she had rescued her husband. They felt strongly that he was not showing any serious gratitude. Everyone knew that he was seen publicly with his one-time personal assistant, the enigmatic Siobhan Casey, who was now a director of the company.

Connie’s mother knew that her daughter had lost a lot of her spirit. She tried to cheer her up. ‘It wasn’t permanent, the damage he did to you, not like in my case, and he did have that emergency fund ready. Your father never had that.’ Connie never told her. A sort of loyalty to Harry was one reason, but mainly she didn’t want to admit that her mother had been right all those years ago about demanding her own money and getting independence from it.

Her children didn’t notice. Mother was just Mother, marvellous and always here when you wanted her. She seemed happy in herself and meeting her friends.

Richard qualified as an accountant and Mr Hayes got him a splendid position with his son-in-law’s firm. The beloved only daughter Marianne had married a handsome and very charming man called Paul Malone. The Hayes money and his own personality had helped him high up a ladder. Richard was happy there.

Veronica was racing through her medical studies. She was thinking of specialising in psychiatry, she said, most of people’s troubles were in the heads and in their past.

The twins had finally separated in identity, one to go to Art College, one to join the Civil Service. Their big house was still in Connie’s name. It had not been necessary to sell it when the money was being raised for the rescue package. Connie’s solicitors kept pressurising her to draw up another formal document with similar provisions to the original arrangement, guaranteeing her part of the profits, but she was loath to do it.

‘That was all years ago when I needed to assure the children’s future,’ she said.

‘Strictly speaking it should be done again. If there was a problem a court would almost certainly decide for you within the spirit of the law, but…’

‘What sort of problem could there be now?’ Connie had asked.

The solicitor, who had often seen Mr Kane dining in Quentin’s with a woman who was not Mrs Kane, was tight-lipped. ‘I would much prefer it done,’ he said.

‘All right, but not with big dramas and humiliating him. The past is the past.’

‘It will be done with the minimum of drama, Mrs Kane,’ the solicitor said.

And it was. Papers were sent to Harry’s office to be signed. There were no confrontations. His face was hard the day he signed them. She knew him so well and could read his moods. He wouldn’t tell her straight out, he would somehow try to punish her for it.

‘I’ll be away for a few days,’ he said that evening. No explanation, no pretence. She was preparing their supper but she knew he wasn’t going to stay and share it. Still, old habits die hard. Connie was used to pretending everything was fine even when it was not. She went on tossing the tomato and fennel salad carefully, as if it were something that required a huge amount of care and concentration.

‘Will that be tiring?’ she asked, careful not to ask where and why and with whom.

‘Not really,’ his voice was brittle. ‘I decided to combine it with a few days’ rest as well.’

‘That will be good,’ she said.

‘It’s in the Bahamas,’ he said. The silence hung between them.

‘Oh,’ she said.

‘No objection? I mean you don’t consider it our special place or anything?’ She didn’t answer but went to take the warm bacon flan from the oven. ‘Still, of course you’ll have all your investments, your handcuffs, your share of everything, your rights, to console you when I’m away.’ He was so angry he could hardly speak.

Only a few short years ago he had cried to her on his knees with gratitude, said that he didn’t deserve her, sworn that she would never know another lonely hour. Now he was white-lipped with rage that she continued to protect her investment after it had been shown to be only too necessary.

‘You know that’s only a formality,’ she said.

His face had turned to a sneer. ‘As this business trip I’m going on is a formality,’ he said. He went upstairs to pack.

She realised he was going to Siobhan’s flat tonight, they would leave tomorrow. She sat down and ate her supper. She was used to eating supper alone. It was a late summer evening, she could hear the birds in the garden, the muffled sound of cars out on the road beyond their high garden walls. There were a dozen places she could go this evening if she wanted to.

What she would like to do was meet Jacko and go to the pictures. Just stand in O’Connell Street looking at what was on and arguing with him over which film they would choose. But it was such a ludicrous notion. He had been right, there was nothing left to say now. It would be playing games, going up to the working-class estate where he lived and hooting the horn of the BMW outside his house. Only fools thought they might have been happier if they had taken a different turning and wasted a lifetime regretting it. She might not have been at all happier if she had married Jacko, she would possibly have hated being in bed with him too. But somehow it might have been less lonely.

She was reading the evening paper when Harry came back downstairs with two suitcases. It was going to be a serious holiday in the Bahamas. He seemed to be both relieved and piqued at the same time that there was going to be no scene about his leaving.

She looked up and smiled at him over her glasses. ‘When will I say you’ll be back?’ she asked.

‘Say? Who do you need to say it to?’

‘Well, your children for one thing, but I’m sure you’ll tell them you’re going, and friends or anyone from the office or the bank.’

‘The office will know,’ he said.

‘That’s fine, then I can refer them to Siobhan?’ Her face was innocent.

‘Siobhan’s going to the Bahamas too, as you very well know.’

‘So, to someone else then?’

‘I wouldn’t have gone at all, Connie, if you’d behaved reasonably, not like some kind of tax inspector, hedging me here and confining me there.’

‘But if it’s a business trip you have to go, don’t you?’ she said, and he went out, slamming the door. She tried to go on reading the paper. There had been too many scenes like this, where he left and she cried. It was no way to live a life.

She read an interview with a schoolmaster who was setting up an evening class in Italian up in Mountainview school, a big community school or college in a tough area. It was Jacko’s area. Mr Aidan Dunne said he thought people from the neighbourhood would be interested in learning about the life and culture of Italy as well as the language. Since the World Cup there had been a huge interest in Italy among ordinary Dubliners. They would offer a very varied programme. Connie read the piece again. It was quite possible that Jacko might enrol. And if not, she would be in his part of the forest two nights a week. There was a telephone number, she would book now before she changed her mind.

Of course Jacko hadn’t signed on for the class. That kind of thing only happened in fantasy. But Connie enjoyed it. This wonderful woman, Signora, not much older than she was, had all the gifts of a born teacher. She never raised her voice, yet she had everyone’s attention. She never criticised but she expected people to learn what she marked out for them.

‘
Constanza
… I’m afraid you don’t know the clock properly, you only know
sono le due, sono le tre
… that would be fine if it was always something o’clock but you have to learn half past and a quarter to.’

‘I’m sorry, Signora,’ Mrs Constance Kane would say, abashed. ‘I was a bit busy, I didn’t get it learned.’

‘Next week you will know it perfectly,’ Signora would cry and Connie found herself with her fingers in her ears saying
sono le sei e venti
. How had it come about that she was going up to this barracks of a school miles away and sitting in a classroom with thirty strangers chanting and singing and identifying great paintings and statues and buildings, tasting Italian food and listening to Italian operas? And what’s more, loving it.

She tried to tell Harry about it when he returned tanned and less acerbic from the West Indies. But he didn’t show much interest.

‘What’s taking you up to that bloody place, you want to watch your hubcaps up there,’ he said. His only comment on the whole undertaking.

Vera didn’t like it either. ‘It’s a tough place, you’re tempting fate bringing your good car up there, and God, Connie, take off that gold watch.’

‘I’m not going to regard it as a ghetto, that would be patronising.’

‘I don’t know what has you there at all, aren’t there plenty of places nearer to you where you could learn Italian if you want to?’

‘I like this one, I’m always half hoping I’ll meet Jacko at one of the classes,’ Connie smiled mischievously.

‘God Almighty, haven’t you had enough trouble in one lifetime without inviting more in?’ Vera said, raising her eyes to heaven. Vera had her hands full, she was still running the office for Kevin and minding her grandson as well. Deirdre had produced an enormous and gorgeous baby but had said that she didn’t want to be shackled by outdated concepts of marriage and slavery.

Connie liked the other people in the class, the serious Bill Burke, Guglielmo, and his dramatic girl friend Elizabetta. He worked in the bank which had put together the rescue package for Harry and his partners, but he was too young to have known about it. And even if he had, how would he have recognised her as Constanza? The gutsy young couple of women Caterina and Francesca, hard to know if they were sisters or mother and daughter, they were good company.