Normal People (Page 41)

On New Year’s Eve they saw Marianne’s mother in the supermarket. She was wearing a dark suit with a yellow silk blouse. She always looked so ‘put together’. Lorraine said hello politely and Denise just walked past, not speaking, eyes ahead. No one knew what she believed her grievance was. In the car after the supermarket Lorraine reached back from the passenger seat to squeeze Marianne’s hand. Connell started the car. What do people in town think of her? Marianne said.

Who, your mother? said Lorraine.

I mean, how do people see her?

With a sympathetic expression Lorraine said gently: I suppose she’d be considered a bit odd.

It was the first time Marianne had heard that, or even thought about it. Connell didn’t engage in the conversation. That night he wanted to go out to Kelleher’s for New Year’s. He said everyone from school was going. Marianne suggested she might just stay in and he appeared to consider this for a moment before saying: No, you should come out. She lay face down on the bed while he changed out of one shirt into another one. Far be it from me to disobey an order, she said. He looked in the mirror and caught her eye. Yeah, exactly, he said.

Kelleher’s was packed that night and damp with heat. Connell was right, everyone from school was there. They kept having to wave at people from a distance and mouth greetings. Karen saw them at the bar and threw her arms around Marianne, smelling of some faint but very pleasant perfume. I’m so glad to see you, Marianne said. Come and dance with us, said Karen. Connell carried their drinks down the steps to the dance floor, where Rachel and Eric were standing, and Lisa and Jack, and Ciara Heffernan who had been in the year below. Eric gave them a mock-bow for some reason. Probably he was drunk. It was too loud to have an ordinary conversation. Connell held Marianne’s drink while she took her coat off and stowed it under a table. No one was really dancing, just standing around shouting in each other’s ears. Karen occasionally made a cute boxing motion, as if punching the air. Other people joined them, including some people Marianne had never seen before, and everyone embraced and yelled things.

At midnight when they all cheered Happy New Year, Connell took Marianne into his arms and kissed her. She could feel, like a physical pressure on her skin, that the others were watching them. Maybe people hadn’t really believed it until then, or else a morbid fascination still lingered over something that had once been scandalous. Maybe they were just curious to observe the chemistry between two people who, over the course of several years, apparently could not leave one another alone. Marianne had to admit that she, also, probably would have glanced. When they drew apart Connell looked her in the eyes and said: I love you. She was laughing then, and her face was red. She was in his power, he had chosen to redeem her, she was redeemed. It was so unlike him to behave that way in public that he must have been doing it on purpose, to please her. How strange to feel herself so completely under the control of another person, but also how ordinary. No one can be independent of other people completely, so why not give up the attempt, she thought, go running in the other direction, depend on people for everything, allow them to depend on you, why not. She knows he loves her, she doesn’t wonder about that anymore.

*

She climbs out of the shower now and wraps herself in the blue bath towel. The mirror is steamed over. She opens the door and from the bed Connell looks back at her. Hello, she says. The stale air in the room feels cool on her skin. He’s sitting up in bed with her laptop on his lap. She goes to her chest of drawers, finds some clean underwear, starts to get dressed. He’s watching her. She hangs the towel on the wardrobe door and puts her arms through the sleeves of a shirt.

Is something up? she says.

I just got this email.

Oh? From who?

He looks dumbly at the laptop and then back at her. His eyes look red and sleepy. She’s doing the shirt buttons. He’s sitting with his knees propped up under the duvet, the laptop glowing into his face.

Connell, from who? she says.

From this university in New York. It looks like they’re offering me a place on the MFA. You know, the creative writing programme.

She stands there. Her hair is still wet, soaking slowly through the cloth of her blouse.

You didn’t tell me you applied for that, she says.

He just looks at her.

I mean, congratulations, she says. I’m not surprised they would accept you, I’m just surprised you didn’t mention it.

He nods, his face inexpressive, and then looks back at the laptop.

I don’t know, he says. I should have told you but I honestly thought it was such a long shot.

Well, that’s no reason not to tell me.

It doesn’t matter, he adds. It’s not like I’m going to go. I don’t even know why I applied.

Marianne lifts the towel off the wardrobe door and starts using it to massage the ends of her hair slowly. She sits down at the desk chair.

Did Sadie know you were applying? she says.

What? Why do you ask that?

Did she?

Well, yeah, he says. I don’t see the relevance, though.

Why did you tell her and not me?

He sighs, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips, and then shrugs.

I don’t know, he says. She’s the one who told me to apply. I thought it was a stupid idea honestly, hence why I didn’t tell you.

Are you in love with her?

Connell stares across the room at Marianne, not moving or breaking eye contact for several seconds. It’s hard to tell what his face is expressing. Eventually she looks away to rearrange the towel.

Are you joking? he says.

Why don’t you answer the question?

You’re getting a lot of stuff messed up here, Marianne. I don’t even like Sadie as a friend, okay, frankly I find her annoying. I don’t know how many times I have to say that to you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the application thing but like, how does that make you jump to the conclusion that I’m in love with someone else?

Marianne keeps rubbing the towel into the ends of her hair.

I don’t know, she says eventually. Sometimes I feel like you want to be around people who understand you.

Yeah, which is you. If I had to make a list of people who severely don’t understand me, Sadie would be right up there.

Marianne goes quiet again. Connell has closed the laptop now.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, okay? he says. Sometimes I feel embarrassed telling you stuff like that because it just seems stupid. To be honest, I still look up to you a lot, I don’t want you to think of me as, I don’t know. Deluded.

She squeezes her hair through the towel, feeling the coarse, grainy texture of the individual strands.

You should go, she says. To New York, I mean. You should accept the offer, you should go.

He says nothing. She looks up. The wall behind him is yellow like a slab of butter.

No, he says.

I’m sure you could get funding.

Why are you saying this? I thought you wanted to stay here next year.

I can stay, and you can go, she says. It’s just a year. I think you should do it.

He makes a strange, confused noise, almost like a laugh. He touches his neck. She puts the towel down and starts brushing the knots out of her hair slowly.

That’s ridiculous, he says. I’m not going to New York without you. I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.

It’s true, she thinks, he wouldn’t be. He would be somewhere else entirely, living a different kind of life. He would be different with women even, and his aspirations for love would be different. And Marianne herself, she would be another person completely. Would she ever have been happy? And what kind of happiness might it have been? All these years they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions. But in the end she has done something for him, she’s made a new life possible, and she can always feel good about that.

I’d miss you too much, he says. I’d be sick, honestly.

At first. But it would get better.

They sit in silence now, Marianne moving the brush methodically through her hair, feeling for knots and slowly, patiently untangling them. There’s no point in being impatient anymore.

You know I love you, says Connell. I’m never going to feel the same way for someone else.

She nods, okay. He’s telling the truth.

To be honest, I don’t know what to do, he says. Say you want me to stay and I will.

She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.

You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.