Evening Class Read Online Free PDF

the windows to be cleaned three times a year, the carpet to be steamed every two years, and the house painted on the outside every three years.
    Stop thinking in this ridiculous petty-clerk way, Aidan warned himself, and forcing a smile on his face began his exit. ‘Nice evening last night, Grania?’ he asked.
    ‘Yeah, OK.’ There was no sign of the hesitant confidences of last night. No wondering about whether people were sincere or not. ‘Good, good,’ he nodded. ‘Was it busy in the restaurant?’ he asked Nell.
    ‘Fair for a Monday night, you know, nothing spectacular,’ she said. She spoke perfectly pleasantly but as if to a stranger she had met on a bus.
    Aidan took up his briefcase and left for school. His mistress, Mountainview College. What a fanciful idea. She certainly didn’t have the allures of a lover to him this morning.
    He stood for a moment at the gates of the school yard, scene of the disgraceful and brutal fight between Tony O’Brien and that boy whose ribs were broken and who needed stitches over his eye and in his lower lip. The yard was untidy, with litter blowing in the early morning breezes. The bicycle shed needed to be painted, the bikes were not properly stacked. Outside the gates the bus stop was open and exposed to the winds. If Bus Eireann would not provide a proper bus shelter for the children who waited there after school, then the Vocational Education Committee should do so, and if they refused a parents’ committee would raise the funds. These were the kind of things Aidan Dunne had intended to do when he was Principal. Things that would never be done now.
    He nodded gruffly to the children who saluted him, instead of addressing them all by name which was his usual way, and he walked into the staffroom to find no one there except Tony O’Brien mixing a headache seltzer in a glass.
    ‘I’m getting too old for these nights,’ he confided to Aidan. Aidan longed to ask him why he didn’t just cut them out, but that would be counterproductive. He must make no false stupid moves, in fact no moves at all until he had worked out what his plan was to be. He must continue in his bland, good-natured way. ‘I suppose all work and no play…’ he began. But Tony O’Brien was in no mood to hear platitudes. ‘I think forty-five is a sort of watershed. It’s half of ninety after all, it’s telling you something. Not that some of us listen.’ He drained the glass and smacked his lips.
    ‘Was it worth it, I mean the late night?’
    ‘Who knows if it’s ever worth it, Aidan. I met a nice little girl, but what’s the good of that when you have to face the Fourth Years.’ He shook his head like a dog coming out of the sea trying to get rid of the water. And this man was going to run Mountainview College for the next twenty years while poor old Mr Dunne was expected to sit by and let it happen. Tony O’Brien gave him a heavy clap on the shoulder. ‘Still, ave atque vale as you Latinists say. I have to be getting on, only four hours and three minutes before I stand with that healing pint in my hand.’
    Aidan would not have thought that Tony O’Brien would have known the Latin words for hallo and goodbye. He himself had never used any Latin phrases in the staffroom, aware that many of his colleagues might not have studied it and fearing to show off in front of them. It just showed you must never underestimate the enemy.
    The day passed as days always pass, whether you have a hangover like Tony O’Brien, or a heavy heart like Aidan Dunne, and the next passed, and the next. Aidan had still settled on no definite plan of action. He could never find the right moment to tell them at home that his hopes of being Principal had been misplaced. In fact, he thought it would be easier to say nothing until the decision was announced, let it appear a surprise to everyone.
    And he had not forgotten his plans to make himself a room. He sold the dining table and chairs and bought the little desk.