Normal People(48)

Put that down, says Marianne quietly.

I’m sorry, what? says Jamie.

Put that glass down, please, says Marianne.

Jamie smiles and nods to himself. You want me to put it down? he says. Okay. Okay, look, I’m putting it down.

He drops the glass on the floor and it shatters. Marianne screams, a real scream from her throat, and launches her body at Jamie, drawing her right arm behind her as if to strike him. Connell steps in between them, glass crunches under his shoe, and he grabs Marianne by her upper arms. Behind him Jamie is laughing. Marianne tries to push Connell aside, her whole body shudders, and her face is blotchy and discoloured like she’s been crying. Come here, he says. Marianne. She looks at him. He remembers her in school, so bitter and stubborn with everyone. He knew things about her then. They look at each other and the rigidity leaves her and she goes slack like she’s been shot.

You’re a fucking mental case, you are, says Jamie. You need help.

Connell turns Marianne’s body around and steers her towards the back door. She offers no resistance.

Where are you going? says Jamie.

Connell doesn’t answer. He opens the door and Marianne goes through it without speaking. He closes it behind them. It’s dark now in this part of the garden, with only the mottled window providing any light. The cherries glow dimly on the trees. Over the wall they can hear Peggy’s voice. Together he and Marianne walk down the steps and say nothing. The kitchen light goes out behind them. They can hear Jamie on the other side of the wall then, rejoining the others. Marianne is wiping her nose on the back of her hand. The cherries hang around them gleaming like so many spectral planets. The air is light with scent, green like chlorophyll. They sell chlorophyll chewing gum in Europe, Connell has noticed. Overhead the sky is velvet-blue. Stars flicker and cast no light. They walk down a line of trees together, away from the house, and then stop.

Marianne leans against a slim silver tree trunk and Connell puts his arms around her. She feels thin, he thinks. Was she so thin before. She presses her face into his one remaining clean T-shirt. She’s still wearing the white dress from earlier, with a gold embroidered shawl now. He holds her tightly, his body adjusting itself to hers like the kind of mattress that’s supposedly good for you. She softens into his arms. She starts to seem calmer. Their breathing slows into one rhythm. The kitchen light goes on for a time and then off again, voices rise and recede. Connell feels certain about what he’s doing, but it’s a blank certainty, as if he’s blankly performing a memorised task. He finds that his fingers are in Marianne’s hair and he’s stroking the back of her neck calmly. He doesn’t know how long he has been doing this. She rubs at her eyes with her wrist.

Connell releases her. She feels in her pocket for a packet of cigarettes and a crushed box of matches. She offers him a cigarette and he accepts. She strikes a match and the flare of light illuminates her features in the darkness. Her skin looks dry and inflamed, her eyes are swollen. She breathes in and the cigarette paper hisses in the flame. He lights his own, then drops the match in the grass and compresses it under his foot. They smoke quietly. He walks away from the tree, surveying the bottom of the garden, but it’s too dark to make much out. He returns to Marianne under the branches and absently pulls at a broad, waxy leaf. She hangs the cigarette on her lower lip and lifts her hair into her hands, twisting it into a knot that she secures with an elastic tie from her wrist. Eventually they finish their cigarettes and stub them out in the grass.

Can I stay in your room tonight? she says. I’ll sleep on the floor.

The bed is massive, he says, don’t worry about it.

The house is dark when they get back inside. In Connell’s room they undress down to their underwear. Marianne is wearing a white cotton bra that makes her breasts look small and triangular. They lie side by side under the quilt. He’s aware that he could have sex with her now if he wanted to. She wouldn’t tell anyone. He finds it strangely comforting, and allows himself to think about what it would be like. Hey, he would say quietly. Lie on your back, okay? And she would just obediently lie on her back. So many things pass secretly between people anyway. What kind of person would he be if it happened now? Someone very different? Or exactly the same person, himself, with no difference at all.

After a time he hears her say something he can’t make out. I didn’t hear that, he says.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, says Marianne. I don’t know why I can’t be like normal people.

Her voice sounds oddly cool and distant, like a recording of her voice played after she herself has gone away or departed for somewhere else.

In what way? he says.

I don’t know why I can’t make people love me. I think there was something wrong with me when I was born.

Lots of people love you, Marianne. Okay? Your family and friends love you.

For a few seconds she’s silent and then she says: You don’t know my family.

He had hardly even noticed himself using the word ‘family’; he’d just been reaching for something reassuring and meaningless to say. Now he doesn’t know what to do.

In the same strange unaccented voice she continues: They hate me.

He sits up in bed to see her better. I know you fight with them, he says, but that doesn’t mean they hate you.

Last time I was home my brother told me I should kill myself.

Mechanically Connell sits up straighter, pushing the quilt off his body as if he’s about to get up. He runs his tongue around the inside of his mouth.