Normal People(64)

You shouldn’t be going over there, he says.

She shrugs. She knows a confrontation is coming now, and she can do nothing to stop it. It’s moving towards her already from every direction, and there’s no special move she can make, no evasive gesture, that can help her escape it.

I thought you liked him, says Marianne. You did when we were in school.

Yeah, how was I supposed to know he was fucked in the head? He’s on medication and everything, did you know that?

He’s doing pretty well at the moment, I think.

What is he hanging around you for, so? says Alan.

I suppose you’d have to ask him.

She tries to move towards the stairs but Alan puts his free hand down on the banister.

I don’t want people going around town saying that knacker is riding my sister, says Alan.

Can I go upstairs now, please?

Alan is gripping his beer bottle very tightly. I don’t want you to go near him again, he says. I’m warning you now. People in town are talking about you.

I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I cared what people thought of me.

Before she’s really aware of what’s happening, Alan lifts his arm and throws the bottle at her. It smashes behind her on the tiles. On some level she knows that he can’t have intended to hit her; they’re only standing a few feet apart and it missed her completely. Still she runs past him, up the stairs. She feels her body racing through the cool interior air. He turns and follows her but she manages to make it into her room, pushing herself hard against the door, before he catches up. He tries the handle and she has to strain to keep it from turning. Then he kicks the outside of the door. Her body is vibrating with adrenaline.

You absolute freak! Alan says. Open the fucking door, I didn’t do anything!

Forehead against the smooth grain of the wood, she calls out: Please just leave me alone. Go to bed, okay? I’ll clean up downstairs, I won’t tell Denise.

Open the door, he says.

Marianne leans the whole weight of her body against the door, her hands firmly grasping the handle, eyes screwed shut. From a young age her life has been abnormal, she knows that. But so much is covered over in time now, the way leaves fall and cover a piece of earth, and eventually mingle with the soil. Things that happened to her then are buried in the earth of her body. She tries to be a good person. But deep down she knows she is a bad person, corrupted, wrong, and all her efforts to be right, to have the right opinions, to say the right things, these efforts only disguise what is buried inside her, the evil part of herself.

Abruptly she feels the handle slip from underneath her hand and before she can step away from the door, it bangs open. She hears a cracking noise when it connects with her face, then a strange feeling inside her head. She steps backwards while Alan enters the room. There’s a ringing, but it’s not so much a sound as a physical sensation, like the friction of two imagined metal plates somewhere in her skull. Her nose is running. She’s aware that Alan is inside the room. Her hand goes to her face. Her nose is running really quite badly. Lifting the hand away now, she sees that her fingers are covered in blood, warm blood, wet. Alan is saying something. The blood must be coming out of her face. Her vision swims diagonally and the sense of ringing increases.

Are you going to blame me for that now? says Alan.

She puts her hand back to her nose. Blood is streaming out of her face so fast that she can’t stem it with her fingers. It runs over her mouth and down her chin, she can feel it. She sees it land in heavy drops on the blue carpet fibres below.





Five Minutes Later


(JULY 2014)



In the kitchen he takes a can of beer out of the fridge and sits at the table to open it. After a minute the front door opens and he hears Lorraine’s keys. Hey, he says, loud enough for her to hear. She comes in and closes the kitchen door. On the lino her shoes sound sticky, like the wet sound of lips parting. He notices a fat moth resting on the lampshade overhead, not moving. Lorraine puts her hand softly on the top of his head.

Is Marianne gone home? says Lorraine.

Yeah.

What happened in the match?

I don’t know, he says. I think it went to penalties.

Lorraine draws a chair back and sits down beside him. She starts taking the pins out of her hair and laying them out on the table. He takes a mouthful of beer and lets it get warm in his mouth before swallowing. The moth shuffles its wings overhead. The blind above the kitchen sink is pulled up, and he can see the faint black outline of trees against the sky outside.

And I had a fine time, thanks for asking, says Lorraine.

Sorry.

You’re looking a bit dejected. Did something happen?

He shakes his head. When he saw Yvonne last week she told him he was ‘making progress’. Mental healthcare professionals are always using this hygienic vocabulary, words wiped clean as whiteboards, free of connotation, sexless. She asked about his sense of ‘belonging’. You used to say you felt trapped between two places, she said, not really belonging at home but not fitting in here either. Do you still feel that way? He just shrugged. The medication is doing its chemical work inside his brain now anyway, no matter what he does or says. He gets up and showers every morning, he turns up for work in the library, he doesn’t really fantasise about jumping off a bridge. He takes the medication, life goes on.

Pins arranged on the table, Lorraine starts teasing her hair out loosely with her fingers.