Normal People (Page 27)

Helen arrived then. He only noticed her when she called out to him. She was wearing her leggings and trainers, gym bag slung over one shoulder, a damp sheen on her forehead visible under the street light. He felt a vast rush of love for her, love and compassion, almost sympathy. He knew that he belonged with her. What they had together was normal, a good relationship. The life they were living was the right life. He took the bag off her shoulder and lifted a hand to wave Marianne goodbye. She didn’t wave back, she just nodded. Have fun! Helen said. Then they went to get the bus. He was sad for Marianne after that, sad that nothing in her life had ever truly seemed healthy, and sad that he’d had to turn away from her. He knew that it had caused her pain. In a way he was even sad for himself. Sitting on the bus he continued to picture her standing in the doorway with the light behind her: how exquisite she looked, and what a glamorous, formidable person she was, and that subtle expression that came over her face when she looked at him. But he couldn’t be what she wanted. After a time he realised Helen was speaking, and he stopped thinking about all that and started listening.

*

For dinner Peggy cooks pasta and they eat at the round garden table. The sky is a thrilling chlorine-blue, stretched taut and featureless like silk. Marianne brings a cold bottle of sparkling wine out from the house, with condensation running down the glass like sweat, and asks Niall to open it. Connell finds this decision judicious. Marianne is very smooth and sociable on these occasions, like a diplomat’s wife. Connell is seated between her and Peggy. The cork sails over the garden wall and lands somewhere no one can see it. A crest of white spills over the lip of the bottle and Niall pours the wine into Elaine’s glass. The glasses are broad and shallow like saucers. Jamie turns his empty one upside down and says: Do we not have proper champagne glasses?

These are champagne glasses, says Peggy.

No, I mean the tall ones, Jamie says.

You’re thinking of flutes, says Peggy. These are coupes.

Helen would laugh at this conversation, and thinking of how much she would laugh, Connell smiles. Marianne says: It’s not a matter of life and death, is it? Peggy fills her glass and passes the bottle to Connell.

I’m just saying, these aren’t for champagne, says Jamie.

You’re such a philistine, Peggy says.

I’m a philistine? he says. We’re drinking champagne out of gravy boats.

Niall and Elaine start laughing, and Jamie smiles under the mistaken impression that they are laughing at his witticism. Marianne touches a fingertip to her eyelid lightly, as if removing a piece of dust or grit. Connell hands her the bottle and she accepts it.

It’s an old style of champagne glass, says Marianne. They belonged to my dad. Go inside and get yourself a flute if you prefer, they’re in the press over the sink.

Jamie makes wide ironic eyes and says: I didn’t realise it was such an emotional issue for you. Marianne puts the bottle in the centre of the table and says nothing. Connell has never heard Marianne mention her father like that in casual conversation. Nobody else at the table seems aware of this; Elaine may not even know Marianne’s father is dead. Connell tries to catch Marianne’s eye, but he can’t.

The pasta is delicious, says Elaine.

Oh, says Peggy. It’s very al dente, isn’t it? Maybe too al dente.

I think it’s nice, Marianne says.

Connell takes a mouthful of wine, which foams cold in his mouth and then disappears like air. Jamie starts telling an anecdote about one of his friends, who is on a summer internship at Goldman Sachs. Connell finishes his wine and unobtrusively Marianne refills his glass. Thanks, he says quietly. Her hand hovers for a second as if she’s going to touch him, and then she doesn’t. She says nothing.

*

The morning after the scholarships were announced, he and Marianne went to the swearing-in ceremony together. She’d been out the night before and looked hungover, which pleased him, because the ceremony was so formal and they had to wear gowns and recite things in Latin. Afterwards they went for breakfast together in a cafe near college. They sat outside, at a table on the street, and people walked by carrying paper shopping bags and having loud conversations on the phone. Marianne drank a single cup of black coffee and ordered a croissant which she didn’t finish. Connell had a large ham-and-cheese omelette with two slices of buttered toast, and tea with milk in it.

Marianne said she was worried about Peggy, who was the only one of the three of them not to get the scholarship. She said it would be hard on her. Connell inhaled and said nothing. Peggy didn’t need subsidised tuition or free on-campus accommodation, because she lived at home in Blackrock and her parents were both doctors, but Marianne was intent on seeing the scholarships as a matter of personal feeling rather than economic fact.

Anyway, I’m happy for you, Marianne said.

I’m happy for you too.

But you deserve it more.

He looked up at her. He wiped his mouth with the napkin. You mean in terms of the financial stuff? he said.

Oh, she replied. Well, I meant that you’re a better student.

She looked down critically at her croissant. He watched her.

Though in terms of financial circumstances too, obviously, she said. I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous they don’t means-test these things.

I guess we’re from very different backgrounds, class-wise.

I don’t think about it much, she said. Quickly she added: Sorry, that’s an ignorant thing to say. Maybe I should think about it more.

You don’t consider me your working-class friend?

She gave a smile that was more like a grimace and said: I’m conscious of the fact that we got to know each other because your mother works for my family. I also don’t think my mother is a good employer, I don’t think she pays Lorraine very well.

No, she pays her fuck all.

He cut a thin slice of omelette with his knife. The egg was more rubbery than he would have liked.

I’m surprised this hasn’t come up before, she said. I think it’s totally fair if you resent me.

No, I don’t resent you. Why would I?

He put his knife and fork down and looked at her. She had an anxious little expression on her face.

I just feel weird about all this, he said. I feel weird wearing black tie and saying things in Latin. You know at the dinner last night, those people serving us, they were students. They’re working to put themselves through college while we sit there eating the free food they put in front of us. Is that not horrible?

Of course it is. The whole idea of ‘meritocracy’ or whatever, it’s evil, you know I think that. But what are we supposed to do, give back the scholarship money? I don’t see what that achieves.

Well, it’s always easy to think of reasons not to do something.

You know you’re not going to do it either, so don’t guilttrip me, she said.

They continued eating then, as if they were acting out an argument in which both sides were equally compelling, and they had chosen their positions more or less at random, only in order to have the discussion out. A large seagull landed at the base of a nearby street light, its plumage magnificently clean and soft-looking.

You need to get it straight in your mind what you think a good society would look like, said Marianne. And if you think people should be able to go to college and get English degrees, you shouldn’t feel guilty for doing that yourself, because you have every right to.

That’s okay for you, you don’t feel guilty about anything.

She started rooting around in her handbag looking for something. Offhandedly she said: Is that how you see me?

No, he said. Then, uncertain of how guilty he thought Marianne felt about anything, he added: I don’t know. I should have known coming to Trinity that it would be like this. I’m just looking at all this scholarship stuff thinking, Jesus, what would people in school say?

For a second Marianne said nothing. He felt in some obscure sense that he had expressed himself incorrectly, but he didn’t know how. To be fair, she said, you were always very concerned with what people in school would say. He remembered then, about how people had treated her at that time, and how he himself had treated her, and he felt bad. It wasn’t the conclusion he was hoping the conversation would have, but he smiled and said: Ouch. She smiled back at him and then lifted her coffee cup. At that moment he thought: just as their relationship in school had been on his terms, their relationship now was on hers. But she’s more generous, he thought. She’s a better person.

*

When Jamie’s story is finished, Marianne goes inside and comes back out again with another bottle of sparkling wine, and one bottle of red. Niall starts unwrapping the wire on the first bottle and Marianne hands Connell a corkscrew. Peggy starts clearing away people’s plates. Connell unpeels the foil from the top of the bottle as Jamie leans over and says something to Marianne. He sinks the screw into the cork and twists it downwards. Peggy takes his plate away and stacks it with the others. He folds down the arms of the corkscrew and lifts the cork from the neck of the bottle with the sound of lips smacking.

The sky has dimmed into a cooler blue now, with silver clouds on the rim of the horizon. Connell’s face feels flushed and he wonders if he’s sunburned. He likes imagining Marianne older sometimes, with children. He imagines they’re all here in Italy together and she’s making a salad or something and complaining to Connell about her husband, who is older, probably an intellectual, and Marianne finds him dull. Why didn’t I marry you? she would say. He can see Marianne very clearly in this dream, he sees her face, and he feels that she has spent years as a journalist, maybe living in Lebanon. He doesn’t see himself so well or know what he’s been doing. But he knows what he would say to her. Money, he would say. And she would laugh without looking up from the salad.