He’s just come back from the library. Marianne has had friends over but they’re heading off when he arrives, taking their jackets from the hooks in the hallway. Peggy is the only one still sitting at the table, draining a bottle of rosé into a huge glass. Marianne is wiping down the countertop with a wet cloth. The window over the kitchen sink shows an oblong of sky, denim-blue. Connell sits at the table and Marianne takes a beer out of the fridge and opens it for him. She asks if he’s hungry and he says no. It’s warm out and the cool of the bottle feels good. Their exams are starting soon, and he usually stays in the library now until the man comes around ringing the bell to say it’s closing.
Can I just ask something? says Peggy.
He can tell she’s drunk and that Marianne would like her to leave. He would like her to leave too.
Sure, says Marianne.
You guys are fucking each other, right? Peggy says. Like, you sleep together.
Connell says nothing. He runs his thumb over the label on the beer bottle, feeling for a corner to peel off. He has no idea what Marianne will come up with: something funny, he thinks, something that will make Peggy laugh and forget the question. Instead, unexpectedly, Marianne says: Oh, yeah. He starts smiling to himself. The corner of the beer label comes away from the glass under his thumb.
Peggy laughs. Okay, she says. Good to know. Everyone is speculating, by the way.
Well, yeah, says Marianne. But it’s not a new thing, we used to hook up in school.
Oh really? Peggy says.
Marianne is pouring herself a glass of water. When she turns around, holding the glass, she looks at Connell.
I hope you don’t mind me saying that now, she says.
He shrugs, but he’s smiling at her, and she smiles back. They don’t advertise the relationship, but his friends know about it. He doesn’t like public displays, that’s all. Marianne asked him once if he was ‘ashamed’ of her but she was just joking. That’s funny, he said. Niall thinks I brag about you too much. She loved that. He doesn’t really brag about her as such, though as it happens she is very popular and a lot of other men want to sleep with her. He might brag about her occasionally, but only in a tasteful way.
You actually make a very cute couple, says Peggy. Thanks, Connell says.
I didn’t say couple, says Marianne.
Oh, says Peggy. You mean like, you’re not exclusive? That’s cool. I wanted to try an open-relationship thing with Lorcan but he was really against it.
Marianne drags a chair back from the table and sits down. Men can be possessive, she says.
I know! says Peggy. It’s crazy. You’d think they would jump at the idea of multiple partners.
Generally I find men are a lot more concerned with limiting the freedoms of women than exercising personal freedom for themselves, says Marianne.
Is that true? Peggy says to Connell.
He looks at Marianne with a little nod, preferring her to continue. He has come to know Peggy as the loud friend who interrupts all the time. Marianne has other, preferable friends, but they never stay as late or talk as much.
I mean, when you look at the lives men are really living, it’s sad, Marianne says. They control the whole social system and this is the best they can come up with for themselves? They’re not even having fun.
Peggy laughs. Are you having fun, Connell? she says.
Hm, he says. A reasonable amount, I would say. But I agree with the point.
Would you rather live under a matriarchy? says Peggy. Difficult to know. I’d give it a go anyway, see what it was like.
Peggy keeps laughing, as if Connell is being unbelievably witty.
Don’t you enjoy your male privilege? she says.
It’s like Marianne was saying, he replies. It’s not that enjoyable to have. I mean, it is what it is, I don’t get much fun out of it.
Peggy gives a toothy grin. If I were a man, she says, I would have as many as three girlfriends. If not more.
The last corner of the label peels off Connell’s beer bottle now. It comes off more easily when the bottle is very cold, because the condensation dissolves the glue. He puts the beer on the table and starts to fold the label up into a small square. Peggy goes on talking but it doesn’t seem important to listen to her.
Things are pretty good between him and Marianne at the moment. After the library closes in the evening he walks back to her apartment, maybe picking up some food or a four-euro bottle of wine on the way. When the weather is good, the sky feels miles away, and birds wheel through limitless air and light overhead. When it rains, the city closes in, gathers around with mists; cars move slower, their headlights glowing darkly, and the faces that pass are pink with cold. Marianne cooks dinner, spaghetti or risotto, and then he washes up and tidies the kitchen. He wipes crumbs out from under the toaster and she reads him jokes from Twitter. After that they go to bed. He likes to get very deep inside her, slowly, until her breathing is loud and hard and she clutches at the pillowcase with one hand. Her body feels so small then and so open. Like this? he says. And she’s nodding her head and maybe punching her hand on the pillow, making little gasps whenever he moves.
The conversations that follow are gratifying for Connell, often taking unexpected turns and prompting him to express ideas he had never consciously formulated before. They talk about the novels he’s reading, the research she studies, the precise historical moment that they are currently living in, the difficulty of observing such a moment in process. At times he has the sensation that he and Marianne are like figure- skaters, improvising their discussions so adeptly and in such perfect synchronisation that it surprises them both. She tosses herself gracefully into the air, and each time, without knowing how he’s going to do it, he catches her. Knowing that they’ll probably have sex again before they sleep probably makes the talking more pleasurable, and he suspects that the intimacy of their discussions, often moving back and forth from the conceptual to the personal, also makes the sex feel better. Last Friday, when they were lying there afterwards, she said: That was intense, wasn’t
it? He told her he always found it pretty intense. But I mean practically romantic, said Marianne. I think I was starting to have feelings for you there at one point. He smiled at the ceiling. You just have to repress all that stuff, Marianne, he said. That’s what I do.
Marianne knows how he feels about her really. Just because he gets shy in front of her friends doesn’t mean it’s not serious between them – it is. Occasionally he worries he hasn’t been sufficiently clear on this point, and after letting this worry build up for a day or so, wondering how he can approach the issue, he’ll finally say something sheepish like: You know I really like you, don’t you? And his tone will sound almost annoyed for some reason, and she’ll just laugh. Marianne has a lot of other romantic options, as everyone knows. Politics students who turn up to her parties with bottles of Moët and anecdotes about their summers in India. Committee members of college clubs, who are dressed up in black tie very frequently, and who inexplicably believe that the internal workings of student societies are interesting to normal people. Guys who make a habit of touching Marianne casually during conversation, fixing her hair or placing a hand on her back. Once, when foolishly drunk, Connell asked Marianne why these people had to be so tactile with her, and she said: You won’t touch me, but no one else is allowed to either? That put him in a terrible mood.
He doesn’t go home at the weekends anymore because their friend Sophie got him a new job in her dad’s restaurant. Connell just sits in an upstairs office at the weekends answering emails and writing bookings down in a big leather appointment book. Sometimes minor celebrities call in, like people from RTÉ and that kind of thing, but most weeknights the place is dead. It’s obvious to Connell that the business is haemorrhaging money and will have to close down, but the job was so easy to come by that he can’t work up any real anxiety about this prospect. If and when he’s out of work, one of Marianne’s other rich friends will just come up with another job for him to do. Rich people look out for each other, and being Marianne’s best friend and suspected sexual partner has elevated Connell to the status of rich-adjacent: someone for whom surprise birthday parties are thrown and cushy jobs are procured out of nowhere.
Before term ended he had to give a class presentation on the Morte Darthur, and while he spoke his hands were shaking and he couldn’t look
up from the printouts to see if anyone was actually listening to him. His voice wavered several times and he had the sense that if he hadn’t been seated, he would have fallen to the ground. Only later did he find out that this presentation was considered very impressive. One of his classmates actually called him ‘a genius’ to his face afterwards, in a dismissive tone of voice, like geniuses were slightly despicable people. It is generally known in their year group that Connell has received the highest grade in all but one module, and he finds he likes to be thought of as intelligent, if only because it makes his interactions with other people more legible. He likes when someone is struggling to remember the name of a book or an author, and he can provide it for them readily, not showing off, just remembering it. He likes when Marianne tells her friends – people whose fathers are judges and government ministers, people who went to inordinately expensive schools – that Connell is the smartest person they will ‘ever meet’.
What about you, Connell? says Peggy.
He has not been listening, and all he can say in response is: What? Tempted by the idea of multiple partners? she says.
He looks at her. She has an arch expression on her face. Uh, he says. I don’t know. What do you mean?
Do you not fantasise about having your own harem? says Peggy. I thought that was a universal thing for men.
Oh, right. No, not really.
Maybe just two, then, Peggy says. Two what, two women?
Peggy looks at Marianne and makes a mischievous kind of giggling noise. Marianne sips her water calmly.
We can if you want to, says Peggy. Wait, sorry, Connell says. We can what?
Well, whatever you call it, she says. A threesome or whatever.
Oh, he says. And he laughs at his own stupidity. Right, he says. Right, sorry. He folds the label over again, not knowing what else to say. I missed that, he adds. He can’t do it. He’s not indecisive on the question of whether he’d like to do it or not, he actually can’t do it. For some reason, and he can’t explain it to himself, he thinks maybe he could fuck Peggy in front of Marianne, although it would be awkward, and not necessarily enjoyable. But he could not, he’s immediately certain, ever do
anything to Marianne with Peggy watching, or any of her friends watching, or anyone at all. He feels shameful and confused even to think about it. It’s something he doesn’t understand in himself. For the privacy between himself and Marianne to be invaded by Peggy, or by another person, would destroy something inside him, a part of his selfhood, which doesn’t seem to have a name and which he has never tried to identify before. He folds the damp beer label up one more time so it’s very small and tightly folded now. Hm, he says.
Oh no, says Marianne. I’m much too self-conscious. I’d die.
Peggy says: Really? She says this in a pleasant, interested tone of voice, like she’s just as happy discussing Marianne’s self-consciousness as she would be engaging in group sex. Connell tries not to display any outward relief.
I have all kinds of hang-ups, says Marianne. Very neurotic.
Peggy compliments Marianne’s appearance in a routine, effeminate way and asks what her hang-ups are about.
Marianne pinches her lower lip and then says: Well, I don’t feel lovable. I think I have an unlovable sort of … I have a coldness about me, I’m difficult to like. She gestures one of her long, thin hands in the air, like she’s only approximating what she means rather than really nailing it.
I don’t believe that, says Peggy. Is she cold with you? Connell coughs and says: No.
She and Marianne continue talking and he rolls the folded label between his fingers, feeling anxious.
*
Marianne went home for a couple of days this week, and when she came back to Dublin last night she seemed quiet. They watched The Umbrellas of Cherbourg together in her apartment. At the end Marianne cried, but she turned her face away so it looked like she wasn’t crying. This unsettled Connell. The film had a pretty sad ending but he didn’t really see what there was to cry about. Are you okay? he said. She nodded, with her face turned, so he could see a white tendon in her neck pressing outwards.
Hey, he said. Is something upsetting you?
She shook her head but didn’t turn around. He went to make her a cup of tea and by the time he brought it to her she had stopped crying. He touched her hair and she smiled, weakly. The character in the film had become pregnant unexpectedly, and Connell was trying to remember when Marianne had last had her period. The longer he thought about it, the longer ago it seemed to have been. Eventually, in a panic, he said: Hey, you’re not pregnant or anything, are you? Marianne laughed. That settled his nerves.
No, she said. I got my period this morning. Okay. Well, that’s good.
What would you do if I was?
He smiled, he inhaled through his mouth. Kind of depends on what you would want to do, he said.
I admit I would have a slight temptation to keep it. But I wouldn’t do that to you, don’t worry.
Really? What would the temptation be? Sorry if that’s insensitive to say.
I don’t know, she said. In a way I like the idea of something so dramatic happening to me. I would like to upset people’s expectations. Do you think I’d be a bad mother?
No, you’d be great, obviously. You’re great at everything you do. She smiled. You wouldn’t have to be involved, she said.
Well, I would support you, whatever you decided.
He didn’t know why he was saying he would support her, since he had virtually no spare income and no prospect of having any. It felt like the thing to say, that was all. Really he had never considered it. Marianne seemed like the kind of straightforward person who would arrange the whole procedure herself, and at most maybe he would go with her on the plane.
Imagine what they’d say in Carricklea, she said. Oh, yeah. Lorraine would never forgive me.
Marianne looked up quickly and said: Why, she doesn’t like me?
No, she loves you. I mean she wouldn’t forgive me for doing that to you. She loves you, don’t worry. You know that. She thinks you’re much too good for me.
Marianne smiled again then, and touched his face with her hand. He liked that, so he moved towards her a little and stroked the pale underside
of her wrist.
What about your family? he said. I guess they’d never forgive me either.
She shrugged, she dropped her hand back into her lap. Do they know we’re seeing each other now? he said.
She shook her head. She looked away, she held her hand against her cheek.
Not that you have to tell them, he said. Maybe they’d disapprove of me anyway. They probably want you going out with a doctor or a lawyer or something, do they?
I don’t think they care very much what I do.
She covered her face using her flattened hands for a moment, and then she rubbed her nose briskly and sniffed. Connell knew she had a strained relationship with her family. He first came to realise this when they were still in school, and it didn’t strike him as unusual, because Marianne had strained relationships with everyone then. Her brother Alan was a few years older, and had what Lorraine called a ‘weak personality’. Honestly it was hard to imagine him standing his ground in a conflict with Marianne. But now they’re both grown up and still she almost never goes home, or she goes and then comes back like this, distracted and sullen, saying she had a fight with her family again, and not wanting to talk about it.
You had another falling-out with them, did you? Connell said. She nodded. They don’t like me very much, she said.
I know it probably feels like they don’t, he said. But at the end of the day they’re your family, they love you.
Marianne said nothing. She didn’t nod or shake her head, she just sat there. Soon after that they went to bed. She was having cramps and she said it might hurt to have sex, so he just touched her until she came. Then she was in a good mood and making luxurious moaning noises and saying: God, that was so nice. He got out of bed and went to wash his hands in the en suite, a small pink-tiled room with a potted plant in the corner and little jars of face cream and perfume everywhere. Rinsing his hands under the tap, he asked Marianne if she was feeling better. And from bed she said: I feel wonderful, thank you. In the mirror he noticed he had a little blood on his lower lip. He must have brushed it with his hand by accident. He rubbed at it with the wet part of his knuckle, and
from the other room Marianne said: Imagine how bitter I’m going to be when you meet someone else and fall in love. She often makes little jokes like this. He dried his hands and switched off the bathroom light.
I don’t know, he said. This is a pretty good arrangement, from my point of view.
Well, I do my best.
He got back into bed beside her and kissed her face. She had been sad before, after the film, but now she was happy. It was in Connell’s power to make her happy. It was something he could just give to her, like money or sex. With other people she seemed so independent and remote, but with Connell she was different, a different person. He was the only one who knew her like that.
*
Eventually Peggy finishes her wine and leaves. Connell sits at the table while Marianne sees her out. The outside door closes and Marianne re- enters the kitchen. She rinses her water glass and leaves it upside down on the draining board. He’s waiting for her to look at him.
You saved my life, he says.
She turns around, smiling, rolling her sleeves back down.
I wouldn’t have enjoyed it either, she says. I would have done it if you wanted, but I could see you didn’t.
He looks at her. He keeps looking at her until she says: What? You shouldn’t do things you don’t want to do, he says.
Oh, I didn’t mean that.
She throws her hands up, like the issue is irrelevant. In a direct sense he understands that it is. He tries to soften his manner since anyway it’s not like he’s annoyed at her.
Well, it was a good intervention on your part, he says. Very attentive to my preferences.
I try to be.
Yeah, you are. Come here.
She comes to sit down with him and he touches her cheek. He has a terrible sense all of a sudden that he could hit her face, very hard even, and she would just sit there and let him. The idea frightens him so badly that he pulls his chair back and stands up. His hands are shaking. He
doesn’t know why he thought about it. Maybe he wants to do it. But it makes him feel sick.
What’s wrong? she says.
He feels a kind of tingling in his fingers now and he can’t breathe right.
Oh, I don’t know, he says. I don’t know, sorry. Did I do something?
No, no. Sorry. I had a weird … I feel weird. I don’t know.
She doesn’t get up. But she would, wouldn’t she, if he told her to get up. His heart is pounding now and he feels dizzy.
Do you feel sick? she says. You’ve gone kind of white.
Here, Marianne. You’re not cold, you know. You’re not like that, not at all.
She gives him a strange look, screwing her face up. Well, maybe cold was the wrong word, she says. It doesn’t really matter.
But you’re not hard to like. You know? Everyone likes you. I didn’t explain it well. Forget about it.
He nods. He still can’t breathe normally. Well, what did you mean? he says. She’s looking at him now, and finally she does stand up. You look morbidly pale, she says. Are you feeling faint? He says no. She takes his hand and tells him it feels damp. He nods, he’s breathing hard. Quietly Marianne says: If I’ve done something to upset you, I’m really sorry. He forces a laugh and takes his hand away. No, a weird feeling came over me, he says. I don’t know what it was. I’m okay now.
