Free Evening Class by Maeve Binchy, Kate Binchy

had a mystery frailty in Annunziata it often meant one thing. Like that she was pregnant.
    The same thought had crossed Mario’s mind. But he met their glances levelly. ‘Can’t be that, she’s nearly forty,’ he said.
    Still they waited for the doctor, hoping he would let fall some information over a glass of sambucca, which was his little weakness.
    ‘It’s all in the head,’ the doctor said confidentially. ‘Strange woman, nothing physical wrong with her, just a great sadness.’
    ‘Why does she not go home to where she comes from then?’ asked the eldest brother of Gabriella. He was the head of the family since his father had died. He had heard the odd troublesome rumour about his brother-in-law and Signora. But he knew it couldn’t possibly be true. The man could not be so stupid as to do something like that right on his doorstep.
    The people of the village watched as Signora’s shoulders drooped and not even the Leone family were able to throw any light on it. Poor Signora. She just sat there, her eyes far away.
    One night when his family slept Mario crept in and up the stairs to her bed.
    ‘What has happened? Everyone says that you have an illness and that you are losing your mind,’ he said, as he put his arms around her and pulled up the quilt that she had embroidered with the names of Italian cities, Firenze, Napoli, Milano, Venezia, Genova. All in different colours and with little flowers around them. It was a labour of love, she told Mario. When she did the stitching she thought how lucky she was to have come to this land and to live near the man she loved; not everyone was as lucky as she was.
    That night she didn’t sound like one of the luckiest women in the world. She sighed heavily and lay like lead on the bed instead of turning to welcome Mario joyfully. She said nothing at all.
    ‘Signora.’ He called her that too, like everyone else. It would have marked him out if he had known her real name. ‘Dear, dear Signora, many many times I have told you to go away from here, that there is no life for you in Annunziata. But you insist that you stay and it is your decision. People here have begun to know and like you. They tell me you had the doctor. I don’t want you to be sad, tell me what has happened.’
    ‘You know what has happened.’ Her voice was very dead.
    ‘No, what is it?’
    ‘You asked the doctor. I saw him go into the hotel after he left me. He told you I am sick in the mind, that’s all.’
    ‘But why? Why now? You have been here so long when you couldn’t speak Italian, when you knew nobody. That was the time to be sick in the mind, not now when you have been ten years as a part of this town.’
    ‘Over eleven years, Mario. Nearly twelve.’
    ‘Yes, well whatever.’
    ‘I am sad because I thought my family missed me and loved me, and now I realise that they just want me to be a nursemaid to my old mother.’ She never turned to look at him. She lay cold and dead without response to his touches.
    ‘You don’t want to be with me, happy like it always is and so good?’ He was very surprised.
    ‘No, Mario, not now. Thank you very very much but not tonight.’
    He got out of bed and came around to look at her. He lit the candle in the pottery holder; her room did not run to a bedside light. She lay there white-faced, her long red hair on the pillow under the absurd coverlet with all the cities’ names on it. He was at a loss for words. ‘Soon you must do the places of Sicily,’ he said. ‘Catania, Palermo, Cefalu, Agrigento…’ She sighed again.
    He left troubled. But the hills around Annunziata, with their daily carpet of new flowers, had healing powers. Signora walked among them until the colour came back to her face.
    The Leone family sometimes packed her a little basket with bread and cheese and olives, and Gabriella the stony-faced wife of Mario gave her a bottle of Marsala, saying that some people drank it as a tonic. The Leone family invited her to lunch on a