Connell doesn’t know anyone at the party. The person who invited him isn’t the same person who answered the door and, with an indifferent shrug, let him inside. He still hasn’t seen the person who invited him, a person called Gareth, who’s in his Critical Theory seminar. Connell knew going to a party on his own would be a bad idea, but on the phone Lorraine said it would be a good idea. I won’t know anyone, he told her. And she said patiently: You won’t get to know anyone if you don’t go out and meet people. Now he’s here, standing on his own in a crowded room not knowing whether to take his jacket off. It feels practically scandalous to be lingering here in solitude. He feels as if everyone around him is disturbed by his presence, and trying not to stare.
Finally, just as he decides to leave, Gareth comes in. Connell’s intense relief at seeing Gareth triggers another wave of self-loathing, since he doesn’t even know Gareth very well or particularly like him. Gareth puts his hand out and desperately, bizarrely, Connell finds himself shaking it. It’s a low moment in his adult life. People are watching them shake hands, Connell is certain of this. Good to see you, man, says Gareth. Good to see you. I like the backpack, very nineties. Connell is wearing a completely plain navy backpack with no features to distinguish it from any of the other numerous backpacks at the party.
Uh, he says. Yeah, thanks.
Gareth is one of these popular people who’s involved in college societies. He went to one of the big private schools in Dublin and people are always greeting him on campus, like: Hey, Gareth! Gareth, hey! They’ll greet him from all the way across Front Square, just to get him to wave hello. Connell has seen it. People used to like me, he feels like saying as a joke. I used to be on my school football team. No one would laugh at that joke here.
Can I get you a drink? says Gareth.
Connell has a six-pack of cider with him, but he’s reluctant to do anything that would draw attention to his backpack, in case Gareth might feel prompted to comment on it further. Cheers, he says. Gareth navigates over to the table at the side of the room and returns with a bottle of Corona. This okay? says Gareth. Connell looks at him for a second, wondering if the question is ironic or genuinely servile. Unable to decide, Connell says: Yeah, it’ll do, thanks. People in college are like this, unpleasantly smug one minute and then abasing themselves to show off their good manners the next. He sips the beer while Gareth watches him. Without any apparent sarcasm Gareth grins and says: Enjoy.
This is what it’s like in Dublin. All Connell’s classmates have identical accents and carry the same size MacBook under their arms. In seminars they express their opinions passionately and conduct impromptu debates. Unable to form such straightforward views or express them with any force, Connell initially felt a sense of crushing inferiority to his fellow students, as if he had upgraded himself accidentally to an intellectual level far above his own, where he had to strain to make sense of the most basic premises. He did gradually start to wonder why all their classroom discussions were so abstract and lacking in textual detail, and eventually he realised that most people were not actually doing the reading. They were coming into college every day to have heated debates about books they had not read. He understands now that his classmates are not like him. It’s easy for them to have opinions, and to express them with confidence. They don’t worry about appearing ignorant or conceited. They are not stupid people, but they’re not so much smarter than him either. They just move through the world in a different way, and he’ll probably never really understand them, and he knows they will never understand him, or even try.
He only has a few classes every week anyway, so he fills the rest of the time by reading. In the evenings he stays late in the library, reading assigned texts, novels, works of literary criticism. Not having friends to eat with, he reads over lunch. At the weekends when there’s football on, he checks the team news and then goes back to reading instead of watching the build-up. One night the library started closing just as he reached the passage in Emma when it seems like Mr Knightley is going to marry Harriet, and he had to close the book and walk home in a state of strange emotional agitation. He’s amused at himself, getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that. It feels intellectually unserious to concern himself with fictional people marrying one another. But there it is: literature moves him. One of his professors calls it ‘the pleasure of being touched by great art’. In those words it almost sounds sexual. And in a way, the feeling provoked in Connell when Mr Knightley kisses Emma’s hand is not completely asexual, though its relation to sexuality is indirect. It suggests to Connell that the same imagination he uses as a reader is necessary to understand real people also, and to be intimate with them.
You’re not from Dublin, are you? says Gareth.
No. Sligo.
Oh yeah? My girlfriend’s from Sligo.
Connell isn’t sure what Gareth expects him to say to this.
Oh, he replies weakly. Well, there you go.
People in Dublin often mention the west of Ireland in this strange tone of voice, as if it’s a foreign country, but one they consider themselves very knowledgeable about. In the Workmans the other night, Connell told a girl he was from Sligo and she made a funny face and said: Yeah, you look like it. Increasingly it seems as if Connell is actually drawn towards this supercilious type of person. Sometimes on a night out, among a crowd of smiling women in tight dresses and perfectly applied lipstick, his flatmate Niall will point out one person and say: I bet you think she’s attractive. And it will always be some flat-chested girl wearing ugly shoes and disdainfully smoking a cigarette. And Connell has to admit, yes, he does find her attractive, and he may even try to talk to her, and he will go home feeling even worse than before.
Awkwardly he looks around the room and says: You live here, do you?
Yeah, says Gareth. Not bad for campus accommodation, is it?
No, yeah. It’s really nice actually.
Whereabouts are you living yourself?
Connell tells him. It’s a flat near college, just off Brunswick Place. He and Niall have one box room between them, with two single beds pushed up against opposite walls. They share a kitchen with two Portuguese students who are never home. The flat has some problems with damp and often gets so cold at night that Connell can see his own breath in the dark, but Niall is a decent person at least. He’s from Belfast, and he also thinks people in Trinity are weird, which is reassuring. Connell half-knows some of Niall’s friends by now, and he’s acquainted with most of his own classmates, but no one he would have a proper conversation with.
Back home, Connell’s shyness never seemed like much of an obstacle to his social life, because everyone knew who he was already, and there was never any need to introduce himself or create impressions about his personality. If anything, his personality seemed like something external to himself, managed by the opinions of others, rather than anything he individually did or produced. Now he has a sense of invisibility, nothingness, with no reputation to recommend him to anyone. Though his physical appearance has not changed, he feels objectively worse-looking than he used to be. He has become self-conscious about his clothes. All the guys in his class wear the same waxed hunting jackets and plum-coloured chinos, not that Connell has a problem with people dressing how they want, but he would feel like a complete prick wearing that stuff. At the same time, it forces him to acknowledge that his own clothes are cheap and unfashionable. His only shoes are an ancient pair of Adidas trainers, which he wears everywhere, even to the gym.
He still goes home at the weekends, because he works in the garage Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. Most people from school have left town now, for college or for work. Karen is living down in Castlebar with her sister, Connell hasn’t seen her since the Leaving Cert. Rob and Eric are both studying Business in Galway and never seem to be in town. Some weekends Connell doesn’t see anyone from school at all. He sits at home in the evening watching television with his mother. What’s it like living on your own? he asked her last week. She smiled. Oh, it’s fantastic, she said. No one leaving towels on the couch. No dirty dishes in the sink, it’s great. He nodded, humourless. She gave him a playful little shove. What do you want me to say? she says. I’m crying myself to sleep at night? He rolled his eyes. Obviously not, he muttered. She told him she was glad he had moved away, she thought it would be good for him. What’s good about moving away? he said. You’ve lived here all your life and you turned out fine. She gawked at him. Oh, and you’re planning to bury me here, are you? she said. Jesus, I’m only thirty-five. He tried not to smile, but he did find it funny. I could move away tomorrow, thanks very much, she added. It would save me looking at your miserable face every weekend. He had to laugh then, he couldn’t help it.
Gareth is saying something Connell can’t hear now. Watch the Throne is playing very loudly over a tinny pair of speakers. Connell leans forward a little, towards Gareth, and says: What?
My girlfriend, you should meet her, says Gareth. I’ll introduce you.
Glad of a break in the conversation, Connell follows Gareth out the main door and onto the front steps. The building faces the tennis courts, which are locked now for the night and look eerily cool in the emptiness, reddish under the street lights. Down the steps some people are smoking and talking.
Hey, Marianne, says Gareth.
She looks up from her cigarette, mid-sentence. She’s wearing a corduroy jacket over a dress, and her hair is pinned back. Her hand, holding the cigarette, looks long and ethereal in the light.
Oh, right, says Connell. Hi.
Instantly, unbelievably, Marianne’s face breaks into a gigantic smile, exposing her crooked front teeth. She’s wearing lipstick. Everyone is watching her now. She had been speaking, but she’s stopped to stare at him.
Jesus Christ, she says. Connell Waldron! From beyond the grave.
He coughs and, in a panic to appear normal, says: When did you take up smoking?
To Gareth, to her friends, she adds: We went to school together. Fixing her gaze on Connell again, looking radiantly pleased, she says: Well, how are you? He shrugs and mumbles: Yeah, alright, good. She looks at him as if her eyes have a message in them. Would you like a drink? she says. He holds up the bottle Gareth gave him. I’ll get you a glass, she says. Come on inside. She goes up the steps to him. Over her shoulder she says: Back in a second. From this remark, and from the way she was standing on the steps, he can tell that all these people at the party are her friends, she has a lot of friends, and she’s happy. Then the front door shuts behind them and they’re in the hallway, alone.
He follows her to the kitchen, which is empty and hygienically quiet. Matching teal surfaces and labelled appliances. The closed window reflects the lighted interior, blue and white. He doesn’t need a glass but she takes one from the cupboard and he doesn’t protest. Taking her jacket off, she asks him how he knows Gareth. Connell says they have classes together. She hangs her jacket on the back of a chair. She’s wearing a longish grey dress, in which her body looks narrow and delicate.
Everyone seems to know him, she says. He’s extroverted.
He’s one of these campus celebrities, says Connell.
That makes her laugh, and it’s like everything is fine between them, like they live in a slightly different universe where nothing bad has happened but Marianne suddenly has a cool boyfriend and Connell is the lonely, unpopular one.
He’d love that, says Marianne.
He seems to be on a lot of like, committees for things.
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?
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 what 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.