Normal People

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?
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