Conversations with Friends

by Sally Rooney

  You were always nice, I said. That’s not what I meant.

  You’re feeling sorry for me, are you?

  Nick, I haven’t heard from you in a month, and we’re only talking now because you got my name mixed up with your wife’s. I don’t feel sorry for you.

  Well, I’ve been very strict with myself about not calling you, he said.

  We were quiet then for a few seconds but neither of us hung up.

  Are you still in the supermarket? I said.

  Yeah, where are you? You’re outside now.

  Walking up the street.

  The restaurants and bars all had miniature Christmas trees and fake sprigs of holly in the window. A woman went past holding the hand of a tiny blonde child who was complaining about the cold.

  I waited for you to call me, I said.

  Frances, you told me you didn’t want to see me any more. I wasn’t going to harass you after that.

  I stopped randomly outside an off-licence, looking at the bottles of Cointreau and Disaronno stacked up in the window like jewels.

  How’s Melissa? I said.

  She’s okay. She’s under a lot of pressure with deadlines. You know, which is why I’m calling to make sure I won’t be in trouble for buying the wrong kind of vegetable.

  Groceries seem to play a big role in how she responds to stress.

  I’ve actually tried explaining that to her, he said. How’s Bobbi?

  I turned away from the window and went on walking up toward the top of the street. The hand holding the phone was getting cold, but my ear was hot.

  Bobbi’s good, I said.

  I hear you’re back together now.

  Well, she’s not my girlfriend as such. We’re sleeping together, but I think that’s a way of testing the limits of best friendship. I actually don’t know what we’re doing. It seems to be working okay.

  That’s very anarchist of you, he said.

  Thanks, she’ll be pleased with that.

  I waited at the lights, to cross over to St Stephen’s Green. The headlamps of cars flashed past and at the top of Grafton Street some buskers were singing ‘Fairytale of New York’. An illuminated yellow billboard read THIS CHRISTMAS … EXPERIENCE TRUE LUXURY.

  Can I ask your advice on something? I said.

  Yeah, of course. I think I show consistently poor judgement in my own decision-making, but if you think it would help we can give it a shot.

  You see, there’s something I’m keeping from Bobbi, and I don’t know how to tell her about it. I’m not being coy, it’s nothing to do with you.

  I’ve never suspected you of coyness, he said. Go on.

  I told him I would cross the road first. It was dark then, and everything was gathered around points of light: shop windows, faces flushed with cold, a row of taxis idling along the kerb. I heard a shake of reins and the sound of hooves across the street. Entering the park through a side gate the noise of traffic seemed to turn itself down, like it caught in the bare branches and dissolved in air. My breath laid a white path in front of me.

  Remember I had to go to the hospital for a consultation last month? I said. And I told you it went fine.

  At first Nick said nothing. Then he said: I’m still in the shop now. Maybe I’ll get back in my car and we can talk, okay? It’s kind of noisy here, just give me ten seconds. I said sure. In my left ear I could hear the soft white sound of water, footsteps approaching and receding, and in my right ear I could hear the voice of the automated cashier as Nick walked past the tills. Then the automatic doors, and then the car park. I heard the beep that his car made when he unlocked it remotely, and then I could hear him get inside and shut the door. His breath was louder in the silence.

  You were saying, he said.

  Well, it turns out I have this condition where the cells in my uterus are growing in the wrong places. Endometriosis, you’ve probably heard of it, I hadn’t. It’s not dangerous or anything, but they can’t cure it, so it’s kind of a chronic pain issue. I faint pretty often, which is awkward. And I might not be able to have children. I mean, they don’t know if I will or not. It’s probably a stupid thing to be upset about since they don’t even know yet.

  I walked by a streetlight which cast my shadow long and witchy in front of me, so long that the tips of my body faded into nothing.

  It’s not stupid to be upset about that, he said.

  Is it not?

  No.

  The last time I saw you, I said. When we got into bed together and then you told me you wanted to stop, I thought, you know. I don’t feel good to you any more. Like, you can feel that there’s something wrong with me. Which is crazy since I’ve had this disease the whole time anyway. But that was the first time we were together after you started sleeping with Melissa and maybe I was feeling vulnerable, I don’t know.

  He breathed in and out into the receiver. I didn’t need him to say anything then, to explain what he was feeling. I stopped at a small damp bench beside a bronze bust and sat down.

  And you haven’t told Bobbi about the diagnosis, he said.

  I haven’t told anyone. Just you. I feel like talking about it will make people see me as a sick person.

  A man walking a Yorkshire terrier went past, and the terrier noticed me and strained at its lead to get at my feet. It was wearing a quilted jacket. The man flashed me a quick smile, apologetic, and they moved on. Nick said nothing.

  Well, what do you think? I said.

  About Bobbi? I think you should tell her. You can’t control what she thinks of you anyway. You know, sick or healthy, you’re never going to be able to do that. What you’re doing now is deceiving her just for the illusion of control, which probably isn’t worth it. I don’t rate my own advice very highly, though.

  It’s good advice.

  The cold of the bench had travelled through the wool of my coat and into my skin and bones. I didn’t get up, I stayed sitting. Nick said how sorry he was to hear that I was ill, and I accepted that and thanked him. He asked a couple of questions about how to treat the symptoms and whether they might just get better with time. He knew another woman who had it, his cousin’s wife, and he said they had children, just for whatever it was worth. I said IVF sounded scary to me and he said, yeah, they didn’t use IVF I don’t think. But are those treatments getting less invasive now? They’re definitely improving. I said I didn’t know.

  He coughed. You know the last time we saw one another, he said, I wanted to stop because I was afraid I was hurting you. That’s all.

  Okay, I said. Thanks for telling me that. You weren’t hurting me.

  We paused.

  I can’t tell you how strict I’ve been with myself about not calling you, he said eventually.

  I thought you’d forgotten all about me.

  The idea of forgetting anything about you is kind of horrifying to me.

  I smiled. I said: is it really? My feet were getting cold in their boots then.

  Where are you now? he said. You’re not walking any more, you’re somewhere quiet.

  I’m in Stephen’s Green.

  Oh, really? I’m in town too, I’m like ten minutes away from you. I won’t come see you or anything, don’t worry. It’s just curious to think of you being so close by.

  I imagined him sitting in his car somewhere, smiling to himself on the phone, how aggravatingly handsome he would look. I tucked my free hand up inside my coat to keep it warm.

  When we were in France together, I said, do you remember we were in the sea one day and I asked you to tell me that you wanted me, and you splashed water on my face and told me to fuck off?

  When Nick spoke, I could hear he was still smiling. You’re making me sound like such a prick, he said. I was just kidding with you, I wasn’t seriously telling you to fuck off.

  But you couldn’t just say that you wanted me, I said.

  Well, everyone else was always talking about it. I thought you were being a little gratuitous.

  I should have known it wouldn’
t work out between us.

  Didn’t we always know that? he said.

  I paused for a second. Then I just said: I didn’t.

  Well, but what does it mean for a relationship to ‘work out’? he said. It was never going to be something conventional.

  I got up from the bench. It was too cold to sit outside. I wanted to be warm again. Lit from below, empty branches scratched at the sky.

  I didn’t think it had to be, I said.

  You know, you’re saying that, but you obviously weren’t happy that I loved someone else. It’s okay, it doesn’t make you a bad person.

  But I loved someone else.

  Yeah, I know, he said. But you didn’t want me to.

  I wouldn’t have minded, if …

  I tried to think of a way to finish this sentence without saying: if I were different, if I were the person I wanted to be. Instead I just let it fall off into silence. I was so cold.

  I can’t believe you’re on the phone saying you waited for me to call you, he said quietly. You really don’t know how devastating it is to hear that.

  How do you think I feel? You didn’t even want to speak to me, you just thought I was Melissa.

  Of course I wanted to speak to you. How long have we been on the phone now?

  I got to the gate I had come through, but it was locked. My eyes were starting to sting with cold. Outside the railing a line of people queued for the 145. I walked toward the main gate, where I could see the lights of the shopping centre. I thought of Nick and Melissa singing ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ in their warm kitchen with all their friends around them.

  You said it yourself, I said. It never would have worked.

  Well, is it working now? If I come and pick you up and we drive around talking and I say, oh, sorry for not calling you, I’ve been a fool, is that working then?

  If two people make each other happy then it’s working.

  You could smile at a stranger on the street and make them happy, he said. We’re talking about something more complicated.

  As I got closer to the gate I heard the bell ringing. The noise of traffic opened up again, like a light getting brighter and brighter.

  Does it have to be complicated? I said.

  Yeah, I think so.

  There’s the thing with Bobbi, which is important to me.

  You’re telling me, he said. I’m married.

  It’s always going to be fucked up like this, isn’t it?

  But I’ll compliment you more this time.

  I was at the gate. I wanted to tell him about the church. That was a different conversation. I wanted things from him that would make everything else complicated.

  Like what kind of compliment? I said.

  I have one that’s not really a compliment but I think you’ll like it.

  Okay, tell me.

  Remember the first time we kissed? he said. At the party. And I said I didn’t think the utility room was a good place to be kissing and we left. You know I went up to my room and waited for you, right? I mean for hours. And at first I really thought you would come. It was probably the most wretched I ever felt in my life, this kind of ecstatic wretchedness that in a way I was practically enjoying. Because even if you did come upstairs, what then? The house was full of people, it’s not like anything was going to happen. But every time I thought of going back down again I would imagine hearing you on the stairs, and I couldn’t leave, I mean I physically couldn’t. Anyway, how I felt then, knowing that you were close by and feeling completely paralysed by it, this phone call is very similar. If I told you where my car is right now, I don’t think I’d be able to leave, I think I would have to stay here just in case you changed your mind about everything. You know, I still have that impulse to be available to you. You’ll notice I didn’t buy anything in the supermarket.

  I closed my eyes. Things and people moved around me, taking positions in obscure hierarchies, participating in systems I didn’t know about and never would. A complex network of objects and concepts. You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.

  Come and get me, I said.

  Acknowledgements

  In writing this book I drew a great deal from conversations with my own friends, in particular Kate Oliver and Aoife Comey; I’d like to thank them both very much. Thanks also to the friends who read early drafts of the manuscript: Michael Barton, Michael Nolan, Katie Rooney, Nicole Flattery, and most especially John Patrick McHugh, whose excellent feedback contributed so substantially to the book’s development.

  Special thanks to Thomas Morris for his early and unwavering advocacy of my work, and for many years of rewarding friendship. Thank you, Tom, sincerely.

  I’m very grateful to Chris Rooke, in whose apartment much of this book was written, and to Joseph and Gisele Farrell, whose hospitality gave me the chance to work on parts of the novel in Brittany. Thanks are also due to the Arts Council of Ireland for their financial assistance in finishing this project.

  Many, many thanks to my agent, Tracy Bohan, and to my editor, Mitzi Angel; their insight and help has been truly invaluable. Thanks also to the whole team at Faber, who have looked after me so well, and to Alexis Washam at Hogarth.

  As ever, I’m immensely grateful to my parents.

  Above all, at every stage in the writing and editing of this novel, I relied on John Prasifka for guidance, advice and support. Without him, there would be no book; all that’s best in it is his.

  About the Author

  Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin, where she graduated from Trinity College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Dublin Review, The White Review, The Stinging Fly, and the Winter Pages anthology.

  Copyright

  First published in the UK in 2017

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2017

  All rights reserved

  © Sally Rooney, 2017

  Cover design by Faber

  Cover painting: Sharon and Vivien, 2009 © Alex Katz, DACS, London / VAGA, New York, 2016. Image courtesy of the Timothy Taylor Gallery

  Excerpts from Meditations in an Emergency, copyright © 1957 by Frank O’Hara. Used by permission of Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Any third party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited.

  The right of Sally Rooney to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–33314–1