She’s in her apartment with friends. The scholarship exams finished this week and term is about to start again on Monday. She feels drained, like a vessel turned out onto its rim. She’s smoking her fourth cigarette of the evening, which gives her a curious acidic sensation in her chest, and she also hasn’t eaten dinner. For lunch she had a tangerine and a piece of unbuttered toast. Peggy is on the sofa telling a story about interrailing in Europe, and for some reason she insists on explaining the difference between West and East Berlin. Marianne exhales and says absently: Yes, I’ve been there.
Peggy turns to her, eyes widened. You’ve been to Berlin? she says. I didn’t think they let people from Connacht travel that far.
Some of their friends laugh politely. Marianne taps the ash off her cigarette into the ceramic tray on the arm of the sofa. Extremely hilarious, she says.
They must have given you time off from the farm, says Peggy.
Quite, says Marianne.
Peggy continues telling her story then. She has lately taken to sleeping over in Marianne’s apartment when Jamie’s not there, eating breakfast in her bed, and even following her to the bathroom when she showers, clipping her toenails blithely and complaining about men. Marianne likes to be singled out as her special friend, even when this expresses itself as a tendency to take up vast amounts of her leisure time. But at certain parties lately, Peggy has also started to make fun of her in front of others. For the sake of their friends, Marianne tries to laugh along, but the effort contorts her face, which only gives Peggy another chance to tease her. When everyone else has gone home she snuggles into Marianne’s shoulder and says: Don’t be mad with me. And Marianne says in a thin, defensive voice: I’m not mad at you. They are right now shaping up to have this exact exchange, yet again, in just a few short hours.
After the Berlin story concludes, Marianne gets another bottle of wine from the kitchen and refills people’s glasses.
How did the exams go, by the way? Sophie asks her.
Marianne gives a humorous shrug and is rewarded with a little laughter. Her friends sometimes seem uncertain about her dynamic with Peggy, volunteering extra laughter when Marianne tries to be funny, but in a way that can seem sympathetic or even pitying rather than amused.
Tell the truth, says Peggy. You fucked them up, didn’t you?
Marianne smiles, makes a face, puts the cap back on the wine bottle. The scholarship exams finished two days ago; Peggy and Marianne sat them together.
Well, they could have gone better, Marianne says diplomatically.
This is one hundred per cent typical you, says Peggy. You’re the smartest person in the world but when it comes down to it, you’re a bottler.
You can sit them again next year, says Sophie.
I doubt they went that badly, Joanna says.
Marianne avoids Joanna’s eyes and puts the wine back in the fridge. The scholarships offer five years of paid tuition, free accommodation on campus, and meals in the Dining Hall every evening with the other scholars. For Marianne, who doesn’t pay her own rent or tuition and has no real concept of how much these things cost, it’s just a matter of reputation. She would like her superior intellect to be affirmed in public by the transfer of large amounts of money. That way she could affect modesty without having anyone actually believe her. The fact is, the exams didn’t go badly. They went fine.
My Stats professor was on at me to sit them, says Jamie. But I just couldn’t be fucked studying over Christmas.
Marianne produces another vacant smile. Jamie didn’t sit the exams because he knew he wouldn’t pass them if he did. Everyone in the room knows this also. He’s trying to brag, but he lacks the self-awareness to understand that what he’s saying is legible as bragging, and that no one believes the brag anyway. There’s something reassuring in how transparent he is to her.
Early in their relationship, without any apparent forethought, she told him she was ‘a submissive’. She was surprised even hearing herself say it: maybe she did it to shock him. What do you mean? he asked. Feeling worldly, she replied: You know, I like guys to hurt me. After that he started to tie her up and beat her with various objects. When she thinks about how little she respects him, she feels disgusting and begins to hate herself, and these feelings trigger in her an overwhelming desire to be subjugated and in a way broken. When it happens her brain simply goes empty, like a room with the light turned off, and she shudders into orgasm without any perceptible joy. Then it begins again. When she thinks about breaking up with him, which she frequently does, it’s not his reaction but Peggy’s she finds herself thinking about most.
Peggy likes Jamie, which is to say that she thinks he’s kind of a fascist, but a fascist with no essential power over Marianne. Marianne complains about him sometimes and Peggy just says things like: Well, he’s a chauvinist pig, what do you expect? Peggy thinks men are disgusting animals with no impulse control, and that women should avoid relying on them for emotional support. It took a long time for it to dawn on Marianne that Peggy was using the guise of her general critique of men to defend Jamie whenever Marianne complained about him. What did you expect? Peggy would say. Or: You think that’s bad? By male standards he’s a prince. Marianne has no idea why she does this. Any time Marianne makes the suggestion, however tentative, that things might be coming to an end with Jamie, Peggy’s temper flares up. They’ve even fought about it, fights that end with Peggy curiously declaring that she doesn’t care whether they break up or not anyway, and Marianne, by then exhausted and confused, saying they probably won’t.
When Marianne sits back down now, her phone starts ringing, a number she doesn’t recognise. She stands up to get it, gesturing for the others to continue talking, and wanders back into the kitchen.
Hello? she says.
Hi, it’s Connell. This is a bit awkward, but I’ve just had some of my things stolen. Like my wallet and my phone and stuff.
Jesus, how awful. What happened?
I’m just wondering— See, I’m all the way out in Dun Laoghaire now and I don’t have money to get in a taxi or anything. I wonder if there’s any way I could meet up with you and maybe borrow some cash or something.
All her friends are looking at her now and she waves them back to their conversation. From the armchair Jamie continues to watch her on the phone.
Of course, don’t worry about that, she says. I’m at home, so do you want to get a taxi over here? I’ll come outside and pay the driver, does that suit you? You can ring the bell when you’re here.
Yeah. Alright, thanks. Thanks, Marianne. I’m borrowing this phone so I’d better give it back now. See you in a bit.
He hangs up. Her friends look at her expectantly as she holds the phone in one hand and turns to face them. She explains what’s happened, and they all express sympathy for Connell. He still comes to her parties occasionally, just for a quick drink before heading on somewhere else. He told Marianne in September what had happened with Paula Neary, and it made Marianne feel unearthly, possessed of a violence she had never known before. I know I’m being dramatic, Connell said. It’s not like she did anything that bad. But I feel fucked up about it. Marianne heard herself in a voice like hard ice saying: I would like to slit her throat. Connell looked up and laughed, just from shock. Jesus, Marianne, he said. But he was laughing. I would, she insisted. He shook his head. You have to tone down these violent impulses, he said. You can’t be going around slashing people’s throats, they’ll put you in prison. Marianne let him laugh it off, but quietly she said: If she ever lays a hand on you again I will do it, I don’t care.
She has only spare change in her purse, but in a drawer in her bedside cabinet she has three hundred euro in cash. She goes in there now, without switching the light on, and she can hear the voices of her friends murmur through the wall. The cash is there, six fifties. She takes three and folds them into her purse quietly. Then she sits on the side of the bed, not wanting to go back out right away.
*
Things at home were tense over Christmas. Alan gets anxious and highly strung whenever they have guests in the house. One night, after their aunt and uncle left, Alan followed Marianne down to the kitchen, where she had taken their empty cups of tea.
State of you, he said. Bragging about your exam results.
Marianne turned on the hot tap and measured the temperature with her fingers. Alan stood inside the doorway, arms folded.
I didn’t bring it up, she said. They did.
If that’s all you have to brag about in your life I feel sorry for you, said Alan.
The water from the tap got warmer and Marianne put the plug in the sink and squeezed a little dish soap onto a sponge.
Are you listening to me? said Alan.
Yes, you feel sorry for me, I’m listening.
You’re fucking pathetic, so you are.
Message received, she said.
She placed one of the cups on the draining board to dry and dipped another into the hot water.
Do you think you’re smarter than me? he said.
She ran the wet sponge around the inside of the teacup. That’s a strange question, she said. I don’t know, I’ve never thought about it.
Well, you’re not, he said.
Okay, fair enough.
Okay, fair enough, he repeated in a cringing, girlish voice. No wonder you have no friends, you can’t even have a normal conversation.
Right.
You should hear what people in town say about you.
Involuntarily, because this idea was so ridiculous to her, she laughed. Enraged now, Alan wrenched her back from the sink by her upper arm and, seemingly spontaneously, spat at her. Then he released her arm. A visible drop of spit had landed on the cloth of her skirt. Wow, she said, that’s disgusting. Alan turned and left the room, and Marianne went back to rinsing the dishes. Lifting the fourth teacup onto the draining board she noticed a mild but perceptible tremor in her right hand.
On Christmas Day her mother gave her an envelope with five hundred euro in it. There was no card; it was one of the small brown-paper envelopes she used for Lorraine’s wages. Marianne thanked her, and Denise said airily: I’m a bit concerned about you. Marianne fingered the envelope and tried to arrange her face into a suitable expression. What about me? she said.
Well, said Denise, what are you going to do with your life?
I don’t know. I think I still have a lot of options open. I’m just focusing on college at the moment.
And then what?
Marianne pressed her thumb on the envelope and smudged it until a faint dark smear appeared on the paper. As I said, she repeated, I don’t know.
I’m worried the real world will come as a bit of a shock to you, said Denise.
In what way?