Normal People (Page 19)

What are you doing in town anyway? he says. Just visiting your family?

It’s my father’s anniversary Mass.

Oh, he says. He glances over at her, then back out the windshield. Sorry, he adds. I didn’t realise. When is that, tomorrow morning?

She nods. Half ten, she says.

Sorry about that, Marianne. That was stupid of me.

It’s alright. I didn’t really want to come home for it but my mother kind of insists. I’m not a big Mass person.

No, he says. Yeah.

He coughs. She stares out the windshield. They’re at the top of her street now. She and Connell have never spoken much about her father, or about his.

Do you want me to come? Connell says. Obviously if you don’t want me there I won’t go. But I wouldn’t mind going, if you want.

She looks at him, and feels a certain weakening in her body.

Thank you for offering, she says. That’s kind of you.

I don’t mind.

You really don’t have to.

It’s no bother, he says. I’d like to go, to be honest.

He indicates and pulls into her gravel driveway. Her mother’s car isn’t there, she’s not at home. The huge white facade of the house glares down at them. Something about the arrangement of windows gives Marianne’s house a disapproving expression. Connell switches the engine off.

Sorry I was ignoring your messages, says Marianne. It was childish.

It’s alright. Look, if you don’t want to be friends anymore, we don’t have to be.

Of course I want to be friends.

He nods, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. His body is so big and gentle, like a Labrador. She wants to tell him things. But it’s too late now, and anyway it has never done her any good to tell anyone.

Alright, says Connell. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the church, then, will I?

She swallows. Do you want to come inside for a bit? she says. We could have a cup of tea or something.

Oh, I would, but there’s ice cream in the boot.

Marianne looks around, remembering the shopping bags, and feels disorientated suddenly.

Lorraine would kill me, he says.

Sure. Of course.

She gets out of the car then. He waves out the window. And he will come, tomorrow morning, and he will be wearing a navy sweatshirt with a white Oxford shirt underneath, looking innocent as a lamb, and he will stand with her in the vestibule afterwards, not saying very much but catching her eye supportively. Smiles will be exchanged, relieved smiles. And they will be friends again.

Six Weeks Later

(SEPTEMBER 2012)

He’s late to meet her. The bus was caught in traffic because of some rally in town and now he’s eight minutes late and he doesn’t know where the cafe is. He has never met Marianne ‘for coffee’ before. The weather is too warm today, a scratchy and unseasonal heat. He finds the cafe on Capel Street and walks past the cashier towards the door at the back, checking his phone. It’s nine minutes past three. Outside the back door Marianne is sitting in the smoking garden drinking her coffee already. No one else is out there, the place is quiet. She doesn’t get up when she sees him.

Sorry I’m late, he says. There was some protest on so the bus was delayed.

He sits down opposite her. He hasn’t ordered anything yet.

Don’t worry about it, she says. What was the protest? It wasn’t abortion or anything, was it?

He feels ashamed now that he didn’t notice. No, I don’t think so, he says. The household tax or something.

Well, best of luck to them. May the revolution be swift and brutal.

He hasn’t seen her in person since July, when she came home for her father’s Mass. Her lips look pale now and slightly chapped, and she has dark circles under her eyes. Although he takes pleasure in seeing her look good, he feels a special sympathy with her when she looks ill or her skin is bad, like when someone who’s usually very good at sports has a poor game. It makes her seem nicer somehow. She’s wearing a very elegant black blouse, her wrists look slender and white, and her hair is twisted back loosely at her neck.

Yeah, he says. I would have a bit more energy for protesting if it was more on the brutal side, to be honest.

You want to get beaten up by the Gardaí.

There are worse things than getting beaten up.

Marianne is taking a sip of coffee when he says this, and she seems to pause for a moment with the cup at her lips. He can’t tell how he identifies this pause as distinct from the natural motion of her drinking, but he sees it. Then she replaces the cup on the saucer.

I agree, she says.

What does that mean?

I’m agreeing with you.

Have you recently been attacked by the guards or have I missed something? he says.

She taps a little extra sugar from a sachet into her cup and then stirs it. Finally she glances up at him as if remembering he’s sitting there.

Aren’t you going to have coffee? she says.

He nods. He’s still feeling a little breathless after the walk from the bus, a little too warm under his clothes. He gets up from the table and goes back into the main room. It’s cool in there and much dimmer. A woman in red lipstick takes his order and says she’ll bring it right out.

*

Until April, Connell had been planning to work in Dublin for the summer and cover the rent with his wages, but a week before the exams his boss told him they were cutting back his hours. He could just about make rent that way but he’d have nothing left to live on. He’d always known that the place was going to go out of business, and he was furious with himself for not applying anywhere else. He thought about it constantly for weeks. In the end he decided he would have to move out for the summer. Niall was very nice about it, said the room would still be there for him in September and all of that. What about yourself and Marianne? Niall asked. And Connell said: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. I haven’t told her yet.

The reality was that he stayed in Marianne’s apartment most nights anyway. He could just tell her about the situation and ask if he could stay in her place until September. He knew she would say yes. He thought she would say yes, it was hard to imagine her not saying yes. But he found himself putting off the conversation, putting off Niall’s enquiries about it, planning to bring it up with her and then at the last minute failing to. It just felt too much like asking her for money. He and Marianne never talked about money. They had never talked, for example, about the fact that her mother paid his mother money to scrub their floors and hang their laundry, or about the fact that this money circulated indirectly to Connell, who spent it, as often as not, on Marianne. He hated having to think about things like that. He knew Marianne never thought that way. She bought him things all the time, dinner, theatre tickets, things she would pay for and then instantly, permanently, forget about.

They went to a party in Sophie Whelan’s house one night as the exams were ending. He knew he would finally have to tell Marianne that he was moving out of Niall’s place, and he would have to ask her, outright, if he could stay with her instead. Most of the evening they spent by the swimming pool, immersed in the bewitching gravity of warm water. He watched Marianne splashing around in her strapless red swimsuit. A lock of wet hair had come loose from the knot at her neck and was sealed flat and shining against her skin. Everyone was laughing and drinking. It felt nothing like his real life. He didn’t know these people at all, he hardly even believed in them, or in himself. At the side of the pool he kissed Marianne’s shoulder impulsively and she smiled at him, delighted. No one looked at them. He thought he would tell her about the rent situation that night in bed. He felt very afraid of losing her. When they got to bed she wanted to have sex and afterwards she fell asleep. He thought of waking her up but he couldn’t. He decided he would wait until after his last exam to talk to her about moving home.

Two days later, directly after his paper on Medieval and Renaissance Romance, he went over to Marianne’s apartment and they sat at the table drinking coffee. He half-listened to her talking about some complicated relationship between Teresa and Lorcan, waiting for her to finish, and eventually he said: Hey, listen. By the way. It looks like I won’t be able to pay rent up here this summer. Marianne looked up from her coffee and said flatly: What?

Yeah, he said. I’m going to have to move out of Niall’s place.

When? said Marianne.

Pretty soon. Next week maybe.

Her face hardened, without displaying any particular emotion. Oh, she said. You’ll be going home, then.

He rubbed at his breastbone then, feeling short of breath. Looks like it, yeah, he said.

She nodded, raised her eyebrows briefly and then lowered them again, and stared down into her cup of coffee. Well, she said. You’ll be back in September, I assume.

His eyes were hurting and he closed them. He couldn’t understand how this had happened, how he had let the discussion slip away like this. It was too late to say he wanted to stay with her, that was clear, but when had it become too late? It seemed to have happened immediately. He contemplated putting his face down on the table and just crying like a child. Instead he opened his eyes again.

Yeah, he said. I’m not dropping out, don’t worry.

So you’ll only be gone three months.

Yeah.

There was a long pause.

I don’t know, he said. I guess you’ll want to see other people, then, will you?