by Sally Rooney
She smiles, she squints up at him. Her lipstick is very dark, a wine colour, and she’s wearing make-up on her eyes.
I’ve missed you, she says.
This directness, coming so soon and so unexpectedly, makes him blush. He starts pouring the beer into the glass to divert his attention.
Yeah, you too, he says. I was kind of worried when you left school and all that. You know, I was pretty down about it.
Well, we never hung out much during school hours.
No. Yeah. Obviously.
And what about you and Rachel? says Marianne. Are you still together?
No, we broke up there during the summer.
In a voice just false enough to sound nearly sincere, Marianne says: Oh. I’m sorry.
*
After Marianne left school in April, Connell entered a period of low spirits. Teachers spoke to him about it. The guidance counsellor told Lorraine she was ‘concerned’. People in school were probably talking about it too, he didn’t know. He couldn’t summon up the energy to act normal. At lunch he sat in the same place as always, eating sad mouthfuls of food, not listening to his friends when they spoke. Sometimes he wouldn’t notice even when they called his name, and they would have to throw something at him or clip him on the head to get his attention. Everyone must have known there was something wrong with him. He felt a debilitating shame about the kind of person he’d turned out to be, and he missed the way Marianne had made him feel, and he missed her company. He called her phone all the time, he sent her text messages every day, but she never replied. His mother said he was barred from visiting her house, though he didn’t think he would have tried that anyway.
For a while he tried to get over it by drinking too much and having anxious, upsetting sex with other girls. At a house party in May he slept with Barry Kenny’s sister Sinead, who was twenty-three and had a degree in Speech and Language Therapy. Afterwards he felt so bad he threw up, and he had to tell Sinead he was drunk even though he wasn’t really. There was no one he could talk to about that. He was excruciatingly lonely. He had recurring dreams about being with Marianne again, holding her peacefully the way he used to when they were tired, and speaking with her in low voices. Then he’d remember what had happened, and wake up feeling so depressed he couldn’t move a single muscle in his body.
One night in June he came home drunk and asked Lorraine if she saw Marianne much at work.
Sometimes, said Lorraine. Why?
And is she alright, or what?
I’ve already told you I think she’s upset.
She won’t reply to any of my texts or anything, he said. When I call her, like if she sees it’s me, she won’t pick up.
Because you hurt her feelings.
Yeah, but it’s kind of overreacting, isn’t it?
Lorraine shrugged and looked back at the TV.
Do you think it is? he said.
Do I think what?
Do you think it’s overreacting, what she’s doing?
Lorraine kept looking straight at the TV. Connell was drunk, he doesn’t remember what she was watching. Slowly she said: You know, Marianne is a very vulnerable person. And you did something very exploitative there and you hurt her. So maybe it’s good that you’re feeling bad about it.
I didn’t say I felt bad about it, he said.
He and Rachel started seeing each other in July. Everyone in school had known she liked him, and she seemed to view the attachment between them as a personal achievement on her part. As to the actual relationship, it mostly took place before nights out, when she would put make-up on and complain about her friends and Connell would sit around drinking cans. Sometimes he looked at his phone while she was talking and she would say: You’re not even listening. He hated the way he acted around her, because she was right, he really didn’t listen, but when he did, he didn’t like anything she actually said. He only had sex with her twice, neither time enjoyable, and when they lay in bed together he felt a constricting pain in his chest and throat that made it difficult to breathe. He had thought that being with her would make him feel less lonely, but it only gave his loneliness a new stubborn quality, like it was planted down inside him and impossible to kill.
Eventually the night of the Debs came. Rachel wore an extravagantly expensive dress and Connell stood in her front garden while her mother took their photograph. Rachel kept mentioning that he was going to Trinity, and her father showed him some golf clubs. Then they went to the hotel and ate dinner. Everyone got very drunk and Lisa passed out before dessert. Under the table Rob showed Eric and Connell naked photographs of Lisa on his phone. Eric laughed and tapped parts of Lisa’s body on-screen with his fingers. Connell sat there looking at the phone and then said quietly: Bit fucked-up showing these to people, isn’t it? With a loud sigh Rob locked the phone and put it back in his pocket. You’ve gotten awfully fucking gay about things lately, he said.
At midnight, sloppy drunk but hypocritically disgusted by the drunkenness of everyone around him, Connell wandered out of the ballroom and down a corridor into the smoking garden. He had lit a cigarette and was in the process of shredding some low-hanging leaves from a nearby tree when the door slid open and Eric came out to join him. Eric gave a knowing laugh on seeing him, and then sat on an upturned flowerpot and lit a cigarette himself.
Shame Marianne didn’t come in the end, Eric said.
Connell nodded, hating to hear her name mentioned and unwilling to indulge it with a response.
What was going on there? said Eric.
Connell looked at him silently. A beam of white light was shining down from the bulb above the door and illuminating Eric’s face with a ghostly pallor.
What do you mean? said Connell.
With herself and yourself.
Connell hardly recognised his own voice when he said: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Eric grinned and his teeth glittered wetly in the light.
Do you think we don’t know you were riding her? he said. Sure everyone knows.
Connell paused and took another drag on his cigarette. This was probably the most horrifying thing Eric could have said to him, not because it ended his life, but because it didn’t. He knew then that the secret for which he had sacrificed his own happiness and the happiness of another person had been trivial all along, and worthless. He and Marianne could have walked down the school corridors hand in hand, and with what consequence? Nothing really. No one cared.
Fair enough, said Connell.
How long was that going on for?
I don’t know. A while.
And what’s the story there? said Eric. You were just doing it for the laugh, or what?
You know me.
He stubbed out his cigarette and went back inside to collect his jacket. After that he left without saying goodbye to anyone, including Rachel, who broke up with him shortly afterwards. That was it, people moved away, he moved away. Their life in Carricklea, which they had imbued with such drama and significance, just ended like that with no conclusion, and it would never be picked back up again, never in the same way.
*
Yeah, well, he says to Marianne. I wasn’t that compatible with Rachel, I don’t think.
Marianne smiles now, a coy little smile. Hm, she says.
What?
I probably could have told you that.
Yeah, you should have, he says. You weren’t really replying to my texts at the time.
Well, I felt somewhat abandoned.
I felt a bit abandoned myself, didn’t I? says Connell. You disappeared. And I never had anything to do with Rachel until ages after that, by the way. Not that it matters now or anything, but I didn’t.
Marianne sighs and moves her head from side to side, ambivalently.
That wasn’t really why I left school, she says.
Right. I suppose you were better off out of it.
It was more of a last-straw thing.
Yeah, he says. I wondered if that was wh
at it was.
She smiles again, a lopsided smile like she’s flirting. Really? she says. Maybe you’re telepathic.
I did used to think I could read your mind at times, Connell says.
In bed, you mean.
He takes a sip from his glass now. The beer is cold but the glass is room temperature. Before this evening he didn’t know how Marianne would act if he ever met her in college, but now it seems inevitable, of course it would be like this. Of course she would talk drolly about their sex life, like it’s a cute joke between them and not awkward. And in a way he likes it, he likes knowing how to act around her.
Yeah, Connell says. And afterwards. But maybe that’s normal.
It’s not.
They both smile, a half-repressed smile of amusement. Connell puts the empty bottle on the countertop and looks at Marianne. She smooths down her dress.
You look really well, he says.
I know. It’s classic me, I came to college and got pretty.
He starts laughing. He doesn’t even want to laugh but something about the weird dynamic between them is making him do it. ‘Classic me’ is a very Marianne thing to say, a little self-mocking, and at the same time gesturing to some mutual understanding between them, an understanding that she is special. Her dress is cut low at the front, showing her pale collarbones like two white hyphens.
You were always pretty, he says. I should know, I’m a shallow guy. You’re very pretty, you’re beautiful.
She’s not laughing now. She makes a kind of funny expression with her face and pushes her hair back off her forehead.
Oh well, she says. I haven’t heard that one in a while.
Does Gareth not tell you you’re beautiful? Or he’s too busy with like, amateur drama or something.
Debating. And you’re being very cruel.
Debating? says Connell. Jesus, don’t tell me he’s involved in this Nazi thing, is he?
Marianne’s lips become a thin line. Connell doesn’t read the campus papers much, but he has still managed to hear about the debating society inviting a neo-Nazi to give a speech. It’s all over social media. There was even an article in The Irish Times. Connell hasn’t commented on any of the Facebook threads, but he has liked several comments calling for the invite to be rescinded, which is probably the most strident political action he has ever taken in his life.
Well, we don’t see eye to eye on everything, she says.
Connell laughs, happy for some reason to find her being so uncharacteristically weak and unscrupulous.
I thought I was bad going out with Rachel Moran, he says. Your boyfriend’s a Holocaust denier.
Oh, he’s just into free speech.
Yeah, that’s good. Thank god for white moderates. As I believe Dr King once wrote.
She laughs then, sincerely. Her little teeth flash again and she lifts a hand to cover her mouth. He swallows some more of the drink and takes in her sweet expression, which he has missed, and it feels like a nice scene between them, although later on he’ll probably hate everything he said to her. Okay, she says, we’ve both failed on ideological purity. Connell considers saying: I hope he’s really good in bed, Marianne. She would definitely find it funny. For some reason, probably shyness, he doesn’t say it. She looks at him with narrowed eyes and says: Are you seeing anyone problematic at the moment?
No, he says. Not even anyone good.
Marianne gives a curious smile. Finding it hard to meet people? she says.
He shrugs and then, vaguely, nods his head. Bit different from home, isn’t it? he says.
I have some girlfriends I could introduce you to.
Oh yeah?
Yeah, I have those now, she says.
Not sure I’d be their type.
They look at one another. She’s a little flushed, and her lipstick is smudged just slightly on her lower lip. Her gaze unsettles him like it used to, like looking into a mirror, seeing something that has no secrets from you.
What does that mean? she says.
I don’t know.
What’s not to like about you?
He smiles and looks into his glass. If Niall could see Marianne, he would say: Don’t tell me. You like her. It’s true she is Connell’s type, maybe even the originary model of the type: elegant, bored-looking, with an impression of perfect self-assurance. And he’s attracted to her, he can admit that. After these months away from home, life seems much larger, and his personal dramas less significant. He’s not the same anxious, repressed person he was in school, when his attraction to her felt terrifying, like an oncoming train, and he threw her under it. He knows she’s acting funny and coy because she wants to show him that she’s not bitter. He could say: I’m really sorry for what I did to you, Marianne. He always thought, if he did see her again, that’s what he would say. Somehow she doesn’t seem to admit that possibility, or maybe he’s being cowardly, or both.
I don’t know, he says. Good question, I don’t know.
Three Months Later
(FEBRUARY 2012)
Marianne gets in the front seat of Connell’s car and closes the door. Her hair is unwashed and she pulls her feet up onto the seat to tie her shoelaces. She smells like fruit liqueur, not in a bad way but not in a fully good way either. Connell gets in and starts the engine. She glances at him.
Is your seatbelt on? he says.
He’s looking in the rear-view mirror like it’s a normal day. Actually it’s the morning after a house party in Swords and Connell wasn’t drinking and Marianne was, so nothing is normal. She puts her seatbelt on obediently, to show that they’re still friends.
Sorry about last night, she says.
She tries to pronounce this in a way that communicates several things: apology, painful embarrassment, some additional feigned embarrassment that serves to ironise and dilute the painful kind, a sense that she knows she will be forgiven or is already, a desire not to ‘make a big deal’.
Forget about it, he says.
Well, I’m sorry.
It’s alright.
Connell is pulling out of the driveway now. He has seemingly dismissed the incident, but for some reason this doesn’t satisfy her. She wants him to acknowledge what happened before he lets her move on, or maybe she just wants to make herself suffer unduly.
It wasn’t appropriate, she says.
Look, you were pretty drunk.
That’s not an excuse.
And high out of your mind, he says, which I only found out later.
Yeah. I felt like an attacker.
Now he laughs. She pulls her knees against her chest and holds her elbows in her hands.
You didn’t attack me, he says. These things happen.
*
This is the thing that happened. Connell drove Marianne to a mutual friend’s house for a birthday party. They had arranged to stay the night there and Connell would drive her back the next morning. On the way they listened to Vampire Weekend and Marianne drank from a silver flask of gin and talked about the Reagan administration. You’re getting drunk, Connell told her in the car. You know, you have a very nice face, she said. Other people have actually said that to me, about your face.
By midnight Connell had wandered off somewhere at the party and Marianne had found her friends Peggy and Joanna in the shed. They were drinking a bottle of Cointreau together and smoking. Peggy was wearing a beaten-up leather jacket and striped linen trousers. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and she was constantly throwing it to one side and raking a hand through it. Joanna was sitting on top of the freezer unit in her socks. She was wearing a long shapeless garment like a maternity dress, with a shirt underneath. Marianne leaned against the washing machine and retrieved her gin flask from her pocket. Peggy and Joanna had been talking about men’s fashion, and in particular the fashion sense of their own male friends. Marianne was content just to stand there, allowing the washing machine to support most of her body weight, swishing gin around the inside of her mouth, and listening to her frien
ds speaking.
Both Peggy and Joanna are studying History and Politics with Marianne. Joanna is already planning her final-year thesis on James Connolly and the Irish Trades Union Congress. She’s always recommending books and articles, which Marianne reads or half-reads or reads summaries of. People see Joanna as a serious person, which she is, but she can also be very funny. Peggy doesn’t really ‘get’ Joanna’s humour, because Peggy’s form of charisma is more terrifying and sexy than it is comic. At a party before Christmas, Peggy cut Marianne a line of cocaine in their friend Declan’s bathroom, and Marianne actually took it, or most of it anyway. It had no appreciable effect on her mood, except that for days afterwards she felt alternately amused at the idea that she had done it and guilty. She hasn’t told Joanna about that. She knows Joanna would disapprove, because Marianne herself also disapproves, but when Joanna disapproves of things she doesn’t go ahead and do them anyway.
Joanna wants to work in journalism, while Peggy doesn’t seem to want to work at all. So far this hasn’t been an issue for her, because she meets a lot of men who like to fund her lifestyle by buying her handbags and expensive drugs. She favours slightly older men who work for investment banks or accounting agencies, twenty-seven-year-olds with lots of money and sensible lawyer girlfriends at home. Joanna once asked Peggy if she ever thought she herself might one day be a twenty-seven-year-old whose boyfriend would stay out all night taking cocaine with a teenager. Peggy wasn’t remotely insulted, she thought it was really funny. She said she would be married to a Russian oligarch by then anyway and she didn’t care how many girlfriends he had. It makes Marianne wonder what she herself is going to do after college. Almost no paths seem definitively closed to her, not even the path of marrying an oligarch. When she goes out at night, men shout the most outrageously vulgar things at her on the street, so obviously they’re not ashamed to desire her, quite the contrary. And in college she often feels there’s no limit to what her brain can do, it can synthesise everything she puts into it, it’s like having a powerful machine inside her head. Really she has everything going for her. She has no idea what she’s going to do with her life.