Normal People (Page 28)

At the table they’re talking about their day trip to Venice: which trains they should take, which galleries are worth seeing. Marianne tells Connell he would like the Guggenheim, and Connell is pleased that she has spoken to him, pleased to be singled out as an appreciator of modern art.

I don’t know why we’re bothering with Venice, says Jamie. It’s just full of Asians taking pictures of everything.

God forbid you might have to encounter an Asian person, Niall says.

There’s a stillness at the table. Jamie says: What? It’s clear from his voice and from the delayed pace of his response that he’s now drunk.

It’s kind of racist, what you just said about Asian people, Niall says. I’m not making a big thing of it.

Oh, because all the Asians at the table are going to get offended, are they? says Jamie.

Marianne stands up abruptly and says: I’ll go get dessert. Connell is disappointed by this display of spinelessness, but he says nothing either. Peggy follows Marianne into the house and everyone at the table is silent. A huge moth circles in the dark air and Jamie bats at it with his napkin. After a minute or two Peggy and Marianne bring dessert out from the kitchen: a gigantic glass bowl of halved strawberries with a stack of white china dishes and silver spoons. Two more bottles of wine. The dishes are passed around and people fill them with fruit.

She spent all afternoon halving these little bastards, Peggy says.

I feel so spoilt, says Elaine.

Where’s the cream? Jamie says.

It’s inside, says Marianne.

Why didn’t you bring it out? he says.

Marianne pulls her chair back from the table coldly and stands up to go inside. It’s almost dark out now. Jamie ranges his eyes around the table, trying to find someone who will look back at him and agree that he was right to ask for the cream, or that Marianne was overreacting to an innocent query. Instead people seem to avoid looking at him, and with a loud sigh he knocks his chair back and follows her. The chair tips over noiselessly onto the grass. He goes in the side door to the kitchen and slams it behind him. There’s a back door too, which leads down into the other part of the garden, where the trees are. It’s walled off from here, so only the tops of the trees are visible.

By the time Connell turns his attention back to the table Niall is staring at him. He doesn’t know what Niall’s stare means. He tries squinting his eyes to show Niall he’s confused. Niall casts a significant look at the house and then back at him. Connell looks over his right shoulder. The light is on in the kitchen, leaking a yellowish glow through the garden doors. He only has a sidelong view so he can’t see what’s going on inside. Elaine and Peggy are complimenting the strawberries. When they stop, Connell hears a raised voice coming from the house, almost a shriek. Everyone freezes. He stands up from the table to go to the house, and feels his blood pressure drop. He’s had a bottle of wine to drink by now, or more.

When he reaches the garden doors he sees Jamie and Marianne are standing at the counter, having some kind of argument. They don’t see Connell through the glass right away. He pauses with his hand on the door handle. Marianne is all flushed, maybe from too much sun, or maybe she’s angry. Jamie is unsteadily refilling his champagne glass with red wine. Connell turns the handle and comes inside. Alright? he says. They both look at him, they both stop talking. He notices Marianne is shivering as if she’s cold. Jamie lifts his glass sarcastically in Connell’s direction, sloshing wine over the rim and onto the floor.

Put that down, says Marianne quietly.

I’m sorry, what? says Jamie.

Put that glass down, please, says Marianne.

Jamie smiles and nods to himself. You want me to put it down? he says. Okay. Okay, look, I’m putting it down.

He drops the glass on the floor and it shatters. Marianne screams, a real scream from her throat, and launches her body at Jamie, drawing her right arm behind her as if to strike him. Connell steps in between them, glass crunches under his shoe, and he grabs Marianne by her upper arms. Behind him Jamie is laughing. Marianne tries to push Connell aside, her whole body shudders, and her face is blotchy and discoloured like she’s been crying. Come here, he says. Marianne. She looks at him. He remembers her in school, so bitter and stubborn with everyone. He knew things about her then. They look at each other and the rigidity leaves her and she goes slack like she’s been shot.

You’re a fucking mental case, you are, says Jamie. You need help.

Connell turns Marianne’s body around and steers her towards the back door. She offers no resistance.

Where are you going? says Jamie.

Connell doesn’t answer. He opens the door and Marianne goes through it without speaking. He closes it behind them. It’s dark now in this part of the garden, with only the mottled window providing any light. The cherries glow dimly on the trees. Over the wall they can hear Peggy’s voice. Together he and Marianne walk down the steps and say nothing. The kitchen light goes out behind them. They can hear Jamie on the other side of the wall then, rejoining the others. Marianne is wiping her nose on the back of her hand. The cherries hang around them gleaming like so many spectral planets. The air is light with scent, green like chlorophyll. They sell chlorophyll chewing gum in Europe, Connell has noticed. Overhead the sky is velvet-blue. Stars flicker and cast no light. They walk down a line of trees together, away from the house, and then stop.

Marianne leans against a slim silver tree trunk and Connell puts his arms around her. She feels thin, he thinks. Was she so thin before. She presses her face into his one remaining clean T-shirt. She’s still wearing the white dress from earlier, with a gold embroidered shawl now. He holds her tightly, his body adjusting itself to hers like the kind of mattress that’s supposedly good for you. She softens into his arms. She starts to seem calmer. Their breathing slows into one rhythm. The kitchen light goes on for a time and then off again, voices rise and recede. Connell feels certain about what he’s doing, but it’s a blank certainty, as if he’s blankly performing a memorised task. He finds that his fingers are in Marianne’s hair and he’s stroking the back of her neck calmly. He doesn’t know how long he has been doing this. She rubs at her eyes with her wrist.

Connell releases her. She feels in her pocket for a packet of cigarettes and a crushed box of matches. She offers him a cigarette and he accepts. She strikes a match and the flare of light illuminates her features in the darkness. Her skin looks dry and inflamed, her eyes are swollen. She breathes in and the cigarette paper hisses in the flame. He lights his own, then drops the match in the grass and compresses it under his foot. They smoke quietly. He walks away from the tree, surveying the bottom of the garden, but it’s too dark to make much out. He returns to Marianne under the branches and absently pulls at a broad, waxy leaf. She hangs the cigarette on her lower lip and lifts her hair into her hands, twisting it into a knot that she secures with an elastic tie from her wrist. Eventually they finish their cigarettes and stub them out in the grass.

Can I stay in your room tonight? she says. I’ll sleep on the floor.

The bed is massive, he says, don’t worry about it.

The house is dark when they get back inside. In Connell’s room they undress down to their underwear. Marianne is wearing a white cotton bra that makes her breasts look small and triangular. They lie side by side under the quilt. He’s aware that he could have sex with her now if he wanted to. She wouldn’t tell anyone. He finds it strangely comforting, and allows himself to think about what it would be like. Hey, he would say quietly. Lie on your back, okay? And she would just obediently lie on her back. So many things pass secretly between people anyway. What kind of person would he be if it happened now? Someone very different? Or exactly the same person, himself, with no difference at all.

After a time he hears her say something he can’t make out. I didn’t hear that, he says.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, says Marianne. I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people.

Her voice sounds oddly cool and distant, like a recording of her voice played after she herself has gone away or departed for somewhere else.

In what way? he says.

I don’t know why I can’t make people love me. I think there was something wrong with me when I was born.

Lots of people love you, Marianne. Okay? Your family and friends love you.

For a few seconds she’s silent and then she says: You don’t know my family.

He had hardly even noticed himself using the word ‘family’; he’d just been reaching for something reassuring and meaningless to say. Now he doesn’t know what to do.

In the same strange unaccented voice she continues: They hate me.

He sits up in bed to see her better. I know you fight with them, he says, but that doesn’t mean they hate you.

Last time I was home my brother told me I should kill myself.

Mechanically Connell sits up straighter, pushing the quilt off his body as if he’s about to get up. He runs his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

What did he say that for? he says.

I don’t know. He said no one would miss me if I was dead because I have no friends.

Would you not tell your mother if he talked to you like that?

She was there, says Marianne.