by Sally Rooney
I should go to bed anyway, I said. I’m exhausted.
He touched his hand against my back, which felt like an uncharacteristically tender gesture. I didn’t move at all.
Why haven’t you had any affairs before? I said.
Oh. I guess because I didn’t really meet anyone.
What does that mean?
For a second I really thought he would say: I never met anyone I desired, the way I desire you. Instead he said: yeah, I don’t know. We were pretty happy together for a long time, so I never really thought about it then. You know, you’re in love, you don’t really think about these things.
When did you stop being in love?
He lifted his hand away then, so no parts of our bodies were touching any more.
I don’t think I did stop as such, he said.
So you’re saying you still love her.
Well, yeah.
I stared at the light fixture on the ceiling. It was switched off. We had put the table lamp on instead, before the game started, and it cast elongated shadows toward the window.
I’m sorry if that hurts you, he said.
No, of course not. But so, is this like a game you’re playing with her? Like you’re trying to get her to notice you by having an affair with a college student.
Wow. Okay. To get her to notice me?
Well? It’s not like she hasn’t seen you looking at me. She asked me earlier if you were making me uncomfortable.
Jesus, he said. Okay. Am I?
I didn’t feel in the mood to tell him no, so I rolled my eyes instead and got off the sofa, smoothing down my shirt.
You’re going to bed then, he said.
I said yes. I put my phone into my handbag to bring it downstairs and didn’t look up at him.
You know, that was hurtful, he said. What you said just now.
I picked up my cardigan from the floor and draped it over my bag. My sandals were lined up beside the fireplace.
You think I would do this just for attention, he said. What makes you feel that way about me?
Maybe the fact that you’re still in love with your wife even though she’s not interested in you any more.
He laughed but I didn’t look at him. I glanced in the mirror over the fireplace, and my face looked awful, so bad it shocked me. My cheeks were blotched like someone had slapped me, and my lips were dry and almost white.
You’re not jealous, Frances, are you? he said.
Do you think I have feelings for you? Don’t be embarrassing.
I went downstairs then. When I got into my own bed I felt terrible, not so much from sadness as from shock and a strange kind of exhaustion. I felt like someone had gripped my shoulders and shaken me firmly back and forth, even while I pleaded with them to stop. I knew it was my own fault: I had gone out of my way to provoke Nick into fighting with me. Now, lying on my own in the silent house, I felt I’d lost control of everything. All I could decide was whether or not to have sex with Nick; I couldn’t decide how to feel about it, or what it meant. And although I could decide to fight with him, and what we would fight about, I couldn’t decide what he would say, or how much it would hurt me. Curled up in bed with my arms folded I thought bitterly: he has all the power and I have none. This wasn’t exactly true, but that night it was clear to me for the first time how badly I’d underestimated my vulnerability. I’d lied to everyone, to Melissa, even to Bobbi, just so I could be with Nick. I had left myself no one to confide in, no one who would feel any sympathy for what I’d done. And after all that, he was in love with someone else. I screwed my eyes shut and pressed my head down hard into the pillow. I thought of the night before, when he told me that he wanted me, how it felt then. Just admit it, I thought. He doesn’t love you. That’s what hurts.
16
The next morning at breakfast, the day before Bobbi and I flew home, Melissa told us that Valerie was coming to visit. There was some discussion of which room should be made up, while I watched a metallic-looking red ladybird cross the table valiantly toward the sugar cubes. The insect looked like a miniature robot with robotic legs.
And we’ll have to get dinner things, Melissa was saying. A few of you can go to the supermarket, can’t you? I’ll make a list.
I don’t mind going, Evelyn said.
Melissa was slathering salted butter on a splayed-open croissant and then waving her knife around vaguely while she spoke.
Nick can take you in the car, she said. We’ll need to get a dessert, one of the nice fresh ones. And flowers. Take someone else in the car to help you. Take Frances. You won’t mind, will you?
The ladybird made it to the sugar bowl and started to ascend the glazed white rim. I looked up with what I hoped was a polite expression and said: of course not.
And Derek, you can set up the bigger dining table in the garden for us, Melissa said. And Bobbi and I will tidy the house.
Having arranged the itinerary, we finished breakfast and brought our plates inside. Nick went to find the car keys and Evelyn sat on the front steps with her elbows on her knees, looking adolescent behind her spectacles. Melissa was leaning on the kitchen windowsill writing the list, while Nick lifted up couch cushions and said: has anyone else seen them? I stood in the hallway with my back pressed flat against the wall, trying not to be in the way. They’re on the hook, I said, but so quietly that he didn’t hear me. Maybe I left them in a pocket or something, said Nick. Melissa was opening cupboards to see if they had some ingredient or other. Did you see them? he said, but she ignored him.
Eventually I lifted the keys off the hook silently and put them into Nick’s hand as he went past. Oh, aha, he said. Well, thank you. He was avoiding my eye, but not in a personal way. He seemed to be avoiding everyone’s eyes. Did you get them? Melissa said from the kitchen. Did you look on the hook?
Evelyn and Nick and I went down to the car then. It was a foggy morning but Melissa had said it would clear up later. Bobbi appeared in her bedroom window just as I turned around to look for her. She was opening up the shutters. That’s right, she said. Abandon me. Go have fun with your new friends in the supermarket.
Maybe I’ll never come back, I said.
Don’t, said Bobbi.
I got into the back of the car and put my seat belt on. Evelyn and Nick got in and closed the doors behind them, sealing us into a shared privacy where I felt I didn’t belong. Evelyn gave an expressively weary sigh and Nick started the engine.
Did you ever get that thing with the car sorted? Nick said to Evelyn.
No, Derek won’t let me call the dealership, she said. He’s ‘taking care of it’.
We pulled out of the driveway onto the road down toward the beach. Evelyn was rubbing her eyes behind her glasses and shaking her head. The mist was grey like a veil. I fantasised about punching myself in the stomach.
Oh, taking care of it, okay, said Nick.
You know what he’s like.
Nick made a suggestive noise like: hm. We were driving along by the harbour, where the ships implied themselves as concepts behind the fog. I touched my nose to the car window.
She’s been behaving herself quite well, Evelyn said. I thought. Until today.
Well, that’s the Valerie production, he said.
But until all that started, said Evelyn. She’s been relatively relaxed, hasn’t she?
No, you’re right. She has.
Nick hit the indicator to turn left and I said nothing. It was clear they were talking about Melissa. Evelyn had taken her glasses off and was cleaning the lenses on the soft cotton of her skirt. Then she put them back on and looked at herself in the mirror. She noticed my reflection and made a kind of wry face.
Never get married, Frances, she said.
Nick laughed and said: Frances would never lower herself to such a bourgeois institution. He was working the steering wheel around to take the car through a corner, and he didn’t look up from the road. Evelyn smiled and gazed out the window at the boats.
I didn�
��t realise Valerie was coming, I said.
Did I not tell you? said Nick. I meant to say last night. She’s only coming for dinner, she may not even stay. But she always gets the royal baby treatment.
Melissa has this little hang-up about her, Evelyn said.
Nick glanced over his shoulder out the back window, but he didn’t look at me. I liked that he was busy driving because it meant we could talk without the intensity of having to acknowledge each other. Of course, he hadn’t mentioned Valerie the night before because instead, he’d been telling me that he still loved his wife and that I meant nothing to him. The exchange about Valerie which he had been planning to have instead implied a kind of personal intimacy which I now felt we had lost for ever.
I’m sure it’ll all be fine, said Evelyn.
Nick said nothing, and neither did I. His silence was significant and mine was not because his opinion on whether things would be fine, unlike mine, was important.
It won’t be totally insufferable at least, she said. Frances and Bobbi will be there to defuse the tension.
Is that what they do? he said. I’ve been wondering.
Evelyn gave me another little smile in the mirror and said: well, they’re also very decorative.
Now that I object to, he said. Strenuously.
The supermarket was a large, glassy building outside town, with a lot of air conditioning. Nick took a trolley and we walked behind him, through the little one-way entry gates, into the section with the paperback books and men’s watches displayed inside security-tagged plastic cases. Nick said the only things that really needed to be carried by hand were the dessert and the flowers, everything else could go in the trolley. He and Evelyn discussed what kind of dessert would be least likely to cause an argument and decided on something expensive with a lot of glazed strawberries. She went off to the dessert aisle and Nick and I walked along on our own.
I’ll come and get the flowers with you on our way out, he said.
You don’t have to.
Well, if we end up getting the wrong ones, I’d rather say it was my fault.
We were standing in the coffee aisle and Nick had stopped to examine various kinds of ground coffee, in different-sized packages.
You needn’t be so chivalrous, I said.
No, I just think you and Melissa fighting might be more than I could handle today.
I put my hands down into the pockets of my skirt while he loaded various black-wrapped packages of coffee into the trolley.
At least we know whose side you’d be on, I said.
He looked up, with a bag of Ethiopian coffee in his left hand and a faintly humorous expression.
Who? he said. The one who isn’t interested in me any more, or the one who’s just using me for sex?
I felt my whole face wash over in a forceful blush. Nick put the bag of coffee down, but before he could say anything I had already walked away. I walked all the way to the deli counter and the tank of live crustaceans at the back of the supermarket. The crustaceans looked ancient, like mythological ruins. They batted their claws uselessly against the glass sides of the tank and stared at me with accusatory eyes. I held the cold side of my hand against my face and glared back at them malevolently.
Evelyn came back along the deli, holding a large box of thin bluish plastic with a strawberry tart inside.
Don’t tell me lobsters are on the list, she said.
Not that I know of, no.
She looked at me and gave me another encouraging smile. Encouragement seemed to be Evelyn’s primary mode of relating to me for some reason.
Everyone’s just a little highly strung today, she said.
We saw Nick exiting another aisle with the trolley, but he turned without seeing us. He had Melissa’s handwritten list in his right hand and he was directing the trolley with his left.
There was a bit of an incident last year, she said. With Valerie.
Oh.
We walked after Nick’s trolley together while I waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. The supermarket had an in-house florist near the tills, with fresh potted plants and buckets of cut carnations and chrysanthemums. Nick chose two bouquets of pink roses and one mixed bouquet. The roses had huge, sensuous petals and tight, unrevealing centres, like some kind of sexual nightmare. I didn’t look at him as he handed me the bouquets. I carried them to the checkout in silence.
We left the supermarket together, not saying a great deal. Rain beaded our skin and hair and parked cars looked like dead insects. Evelyn started to tell a story about a time she and Derek had brought their car on the ferry and punctured a tyre on the way over to Étables and Nick had had to come in his car to change the tyre for them. I gathered that the story was intended, obliquely and perhaps not even consciously, to cheer Nick up by recalling nice things he had done in the past. I’ve never been so happy to see you in my life, Evelyn said. You could have changed that tyre yourself, said Nick. If you weren’t married to an autocrat.
When we parked up back at the house, Bobbi ran outside with the dog at her ankles. It was still foggy, though nearly noon by then. Bobbi was wearing linen shorts, and her legs looked long and tanned. The dog yelped twice. Let me help with the things, Bobbi said. Nick handed her a bag of groceries obligingly and she looked at him as if trying to communicate something.
Everything all right while we were gone? he said.
Tensions have been running high, said Bobbi.
Oh God, Nick said.
He handed her another bag, which she carried up against her stomach. He took the remaining groceries in his arms while Evelyn and I walked inside carefully, carrying the flowers and dessert like two sombre Edwardian servant women.
Melissa was in the kitchen, which looked empty without the chairs and table. Bobbi went upstairs to finish sweeping Valerie’s bedroom. Nick put the shopping bags on the windowsill wordlessly and started to put away the groceries, while Evelyn placed the dessert box on top of the fridge. I wasn’t sure what to do with the flowers, so I just kept holding them. They smelled fresh and suspicious. Melissa wiped her lips with the back of her hand and said: oh, you’ve decided to come back after all.
We weren’t gone that long, were we? Nick said.
Apparently it’s going to rain, said Melissa, so we’ve had to move the table and chairs into the front dining room. It looks terrible, the chairs don’t even match.
They’re Valerie’s chairs, he said. I’m sure she knows whether they match or not.
It didn’t seem to me that Nick was making the best possible effort at assuaging Melissa’s temper. I stood there gripping the flowers and waiting to say something like: did you want me to leave these somewhere? But the words didn’t arrive. Evelyn was now helping Nick to unpack the groceries, while Melissa was inspecting the fruit we had purchased.
And you remembered lemons, didn’t you? said Melissa.
No, Nick said. Were they on the list?
Melissa dropped her hand from the nectarines and then lifted it to her forehead, as if she were about to faint.
I don’t believe this, she said. I told you as you were going out the door, I specifically said don’t forget lemons.
Well, I didn’t hear you, he said.
There was a pause. I realised that the soft pad of skin at the base of my thumb was held against a thorn and beginning to turn purple. I tried to rearrange the flowers so that they weren’t injuring me but without calling attention to my continued presence in the room.
I’ll go get some in the corner shop, Nick said eventually. It’s not the end of the world.
I don’t believe this, said Melissa again.
Should I leave these somewhere? I said. I mean, can I put them in a vase, or?
Everyone in the room turned to look at me. Melissa took one bouquet out of my arms and looked into it. These stems need to be cut, she said.
I’ll do that, I said.
Fine, said Melissa. Nick will show you where we keep the vases. I’ll go and help Derek fix
the dining room up. Thank you all very much for your hard work this morning.
She left the room and shut the door hard behind her. I thought: this woman? This is the woman you love? Nick took the flowers out of my arms and left them on the countertop. The vases were in a cupboard under the sink. Evelyn was watching Nick anxiously.
I’m sorry, Evelyn said.
Don’t you apologise, said Nick.
Maybe I should go and help.
Sure, you may as well.
Nick was cutting the bouquets out of their plastic with a scissors when Evelyn left. I can do all this, I said. You go get the lemons. He didn’t look at me. She likes the stems cut diagonally, he said. You know what I mean, diagonally? Like this. And he clipped one of the ends off at a slant. I didn’t hear her say anything about lemons either, I said. He smiled then, and Bobbi came into the room behind us. You’re going to take my side now, are you? he said.
I knew you were making friends without me, said Bobbi.
I thought you were tidying the bedroom, Nick said.
It’s one room, said Bobbi. It can only get so tidy. Are you trying to get rid of me?
What happened while we were gone? he said.
Bobbi hopped up on the windowsill and swung her legs to and fro while I clipped the flowers stem by stem, letting the cut ends fall into the sink.
I think your wife is a little on edge today, said Bobbi. She was not impressed with my linen-folding technique earlier. Also, she told me she didn’t want me ‘making any snide remarks about rich people’ when Valerie gets here. Quote.
Nick laughed a lot at that. Bobbi always amused and delighted him, whereas I could see I had on balance probably caused him more distress than joy.
For the rest of the afternoon Melissa sent us around to do various menial tasks. She didn’t think the glasses were quite clean, so I rewashed them in the sink. Derek brought one vase of flowers up to Valerie’s room, along with a bottle of sparkling water and a clean glass for her bedside table. Bobbi and Evelyn ironed some pillowcases together in the living room. Nick went out for lemons and went out again later for sugar cubes. Early in the evening, while Melissa was cooking and Derek was polishing silverware, Nick and Evelyn and Bobbi and I sat in Nick’s room looking around vacantly and not saying much. Like bold children, Evelyn said.