Once Peter has left, closing the door behind him, and a few minutes have passed, so that it seems unlikely he will come back, Ivan goes alone into the empty kitchen. His upper lip is still bleeding, trickle of wet blood through his fingers, and with his other hand he tears a piece of kitchen paper from the roll, folds it into a square and presses it to his mouth. His breath is so loud it seems to fill the whole house, swelling and receding. What is he feeling? Shaken, he thinks, okay, yes, with a sort of sick adrenaline sensation, like the time on school tour when they made him get on the mini-rollercoaster, and afterwards his knees were so weak he fell over. Also, and again similarly to that incident, he feels ashamed. What for, in this case? Mostly he thinks for provoking a physical confrontation with someone stronger and more violent than himself. For having in the end to rely on his adversary’s conscience and self-control in order to escape more serious injury, for having implicitly to petition his opponent for mercy, which was granted, making him almost kind of queasily grateful to Peter, in a shameful way, for not murdering him.
Back in the living room, Ivan sits down on the sofa with the dog, holding the folded piece of kitchen paper to his lip. If their father had been here, he thinks, it wouldn’t have happened. Raised voices, yes, but not violence. And why not? Their father’s presence would have made it impossible. Not that he would have intervened, only that the fact of his presence, like a forcefield, would have prevented in itself the outbreak of violent acts. And not just that, Ivan thinks. Before then, what Peter said. Those words, he didn’t want me to be his son. He wanted me to be his protector. In the past, Peter and Ivan might have called each other names, and worse: but to criticise their father in this way, no. That would not have been possible. Not because of any rules, but because of that feeling, the forcefield kind of feeling, which silently prevented certain words from being spoken, certain acts from taking place. What was that forcefield, what did it consist of? It’s difficult for Ivan to say. Even to think about it is confusing: it seems to slip away from him as he tries to handle and examine it. He lifts now the kitchen paper from his lip, blots, finds it’s no longer bleeding. In their mother’s presence, he thinks, there is no similar force. You can shout and scream right at her, and far from cowering, she will shout and scream right back at you. How many times has Ivan witnessed Peter and Christine castigating each other, hurling insults, slamming doors. Fuck off, fuck you, get out of my house. With their father it wasn’t like that. No: he was a gentle person, frightened and upset by the anger of others. He had to be protected, Ivan thinks. There was an element of protecting him, yes. Not telling him certain things, not complaining. Fighting only amongst themselves, never with him. By using such cold critical words, it was as if Peter was intent on proving the absence of their father, in whose presence the words could not have been spoken, and Ivan himself seemed to leap energetically into this absence, shoving Peter against the fireplace. New things are possible now, which were inconceivable before, things like violence and certain forms of cruelty. They have shown, they have demonstrated the possibility of these things, Ivan thinks, and therefore in a way proven to themselves and each other that their father is really gone, not only from the house, but from reality itself. This thought, the logic which has brought him so far as to have this thought, makes Ivan feel sick and hot in the head, as if he has lost, at some point in his reasoning, his grasp on reality, his confidence about what reality actually consists of. Rapidly and it seems illogically with strange disjointed connections, thoughts go on moving through Ivan’s brain: memories of feelings, or feelings about memories. In other words, nothing real. How can it be real to think of these things, this forcefield sensation, this desire to hurt or protect? Things that are real belong to the material world. Feelings, memories, ideas, dreams: these things are outside the realm of objective reality, that perfect self-contained realm, like a snow globe, with everything real inside it. But where is their father now? Inside the realm, or outside? A fact, a reality, or just a memory, a feeling?
At this moment, his phone starts ringing, over on the table where he left it. Right away he thinks: it’s him, it’s Peter. Getting to his feet, he only belatedly remembers that the number is blocked, it couldn’t be, and then he sees anyway that it’s Christine. Picking up, he says cautiously: Hello?
Hello sweetheart, says his mother. How are you?
Promptly Ivan answers: I’m good. Then, feeling that this response may err too far on the side of cheerfulness, he adds: I’m okay. How are you?
You know me, she says. Trucking along. How are you feeling about your event next week?
He sits down at the table, trying to produce a tone of voice that is normal and not in any way alarming. Fine, he says. Good. My online play is good. I’m out of practice with classical. But I think it should be okay.
How do you mean, you’re out of practice? she says.
Remembering too late that he has been lying to his mother for weeks or months on end about his supposed attendance at various fictitious chess competitions, he says quickly: I mean, I’ve been doing a lot of rapid tournaments. You know, and blitz. But this is my first classical event.
After a pause, she says: I never remember there being so many competitions on the Irish circuit before.
There didn’t used to be, he says. It’s from the pandemic. The boost from that. There are a lot more events now.
In a light kind of twinkling tone of voice, she says: And how about the gender balance, has that improved at all?
A little bit, he replies. But it’s pretty imbalanced, still.
I was just wondering if you might have met a nice female chess player lately.
Instantly he answers: Oh no. No, I haven’t, no.
Or even a nice girl who isn’t a chess player?
For a time he pauses, waiting, feeling inside himself a certain unexplained intuition. At last he says: Well, maybe. It’s possible, but I’m not going to talk to you about it right now.
That’s okay, says Christine smoothly. You don’t have to tell your mother everything. Or in your case, maybe I should say, you don’t have to tell your mother anything.
He feels himself awkwardly smiling. Hm, he says. Alright, thank you.
Any thoughts on Christmas? she asks.
With his free hand he picks up one of the captured bishops, turning it between his fingers. Nothing concrete, he says. I guess, what with not flying, I don’t think it will be Scotland for me. But I don’t want to hold you back from going.
But petal, she says, if I go over and you don’t, what will you do?
I don’t know.
I’m sure your girlfriend will be at home with her own family.
It gives him a sad tender feeling to hear his mother speak these words, your girlfriend, the nice sort of way she says it, how sad that is. Maybe, he says. I don’t know her plans yet.
And you’re hardly going to have Christmas dinner with your brother, she says.
He swallows, wanting to say nothing, and then saying only: Yeah. No.
She waits, as if for him to say more, but he doesn’t. Finally she says: Well, keep in touch. I’m at your disposal, but I think I should let Pauline know sometime soon. Okay?
Sure. I understand. I’ll get back to you.
Before I let you go, she says, how’s the little hellhound keeping?
Ivan looks over at the dog, who looks back at him with deep dark attentive eyes. If you could see him right now, he replies. Literally, he’s angelic. I can’t believe you don’t love him.
I’m a monster, she says. But I’m happy if you’re happy. Take care now.
They hang up. Ivan puts down the captured bishop and looks again unseeing at the chessboard, remembering what took place just minutes ago, the open hand striking his head, and the hard sudden slam of the floorboards into the side of his body. Taste of blood in his mouth like chewing on a zip fastener, and he thought maybe he had bitten his tongue. Humiliating to think of himself cowering there on the ground, unspeaking, terrified. And Peter just turned away, walked away a few steps, and left the room. As if to say, I could kill you at any time, it would be like killing an insect, but the idea bores me. I hate him, Ivan thinks. It’s cathartic even to formulate these special words, I hate him. And yet in the moment of catharsis, Ivan senses there is something else beneath, moving in the opposite direction. As in fluid dynamics when the undertow moves counter to the surface current. What is that contrary direction, away from hatred of his brother? Hatred of himself, maybe. To remember himself pushing Peter, petulantly, weakly, like a child. And then afterwards scrambling up awkwardly from the floor, tears in his eyes, clutching at his lip. The shame of that, the mortification, which is also bright and hot, like hatred. Rapid again and disjointed, his thoughts. Remembering their father in the ICU, in terrible pain then, and they had to give him morphine. Ivan sometimes wished it would happen. Yes, because he thought of death as an event, something that would happen and then be over. And indeed, when it came to be over, there was relief, there was a certain freedom with that, to be free of the anxiety of waiting. In the months since, Ivan has embraced this sense of freedom, he can see that now. He has made impulsive decisions, he has fallen in love, his life has been transformed, in an uncontrolled rush of energy and feeling. To live, he has needed to live, to overcome the terrible event, yes, it was needed. But now that the event has come and gone, the funeral, the various rituals, only the loss remains, which can never be recuperated. The event is over, the event has been overcome, and yet the loss is only beginning. Every day, it grows deeper, more and more is forgotten, less and less really known for certain. And nothing will ever bring his father back from the realm of memory into the reassuringly concrete world of material fact, tangible and specific fact: and how, how is it possible to accept this, or even to understand what it means?
Ivan looks down at the screen of his phone now and impulsively without further forethought picks it up again and calls Margaret’s number. She answers on the third ring and says hello.
Hey, Ivan says. It’s me.
With the beloved smile in her voice she says: I know. How are things?
He exhales, deeply, feeling that he has not exhaled once, or not completely, since Peter walked through the door earlier: and the feeling is soothing, the release of a confined breath. Okay, he says. How about you?
Oh, alright, she says. I’ve just been talking to my mother. She’s heard the story. That we’re seeing each other, I mean.
He gives a little silence to let Margaret continue, and when she doesn’t, he asks: What did she say?
Well, she’s not happy. But it’s nothing unexpected. We can talk about it when I see you.
He has the sense of thoughts gathering inside his brain, too many, crowding. Are you okay? he asks.
Yeah, she says. I mean, I will be. The whole thing is so ridiculous, really. When you think about it. Or I hope it is, anyway. My sense is that it probably is ridiculous, but then I worry, maybe it isn’t. I’ll be alright, though.
Abruptly he says: Honest answer, Margaret. Am I ruining your life?
With something like a smiling frown in her voice now, she replies: No, of course not. Why would you ask that? Just because my mother has been giving out to me?
I don’t know, he says.
She falls silent for a moment, as if listening to his breathing. Ivan, are you okay? she asks.
Yeah, he says. Or I don’t know, actually. I had a fight with my brother.
Oh no, says Margaret. What happened?
All at once now, and seemingly from nowhere, Ivan starts to cry. The feeling comes down over him like a nosebleed, inescapable, and it’s not only tears running out from his eyes, but his shoulders are heaving, and he holds the phone away from his face so Margaret can’t hear his short constricted breaths. From the small earpiece speaker he hears her voice saying: Ivan? Are you there, are you alright? He tries to calm himself, feeling guilty and ashamed, and with his free hand he wipes at his face. In a feeble crying voice he answers: I’m here. I’m alright, I’m just a little bit upset. I shouldn’t have called you, I’m sorry.
Don’t worry about that, she says. What happened with your brother?
Tears go on running freely down his face, hot at first and then cooling as they stream down to his jaw. Trying again to slow his breathing, he says: Nothing really. It was stupid. We were just arguing at first and then it kind of escalated. I pushed him, and he hit me back. But it was nothing serious, no one got hurt.
Jesus, she says. Oh God, Ivan.
To hear his name in her voice, he closes his eyes. The name has become so precious to him, his own name, from the way it sounds in her mouth. He tries to swallow and a little sob rises and catches in his throat, painful. Yeah, he was being critical about our dad, he says. And I guess I lost my temper, and then so did he. I don’t want to hear criticisms about our dad just now, to be honest.
Oh, Ivan, she repeats in a tender voice. Where are you, you’re in Kildare?
With his hand he wipes at his nose, his eyes. At the house, yeah, he says.
And you’re sure you’re not hurt?
He hears his breath brittle and rasping in the receiver. My lip was bleeding before, he says, but it’s not now. It was nothing that bad. I pushed him, and he kind of shoved me onto the ground, that’s all. I don’t know. For a second I was scared of what else he would do, but he didn’t do anything else, he just left.
Ivan, I’m so sorry, she says. People aren’t themselves when they’re grieving. I’m just glad you didn’t really hurt each other.
Another sob rises and he wipes his face with his sleeve. Yeah, he says. You’re making me feel calmer. I’m upset, I guess I was upset, to be honest, but I’m feeling calmer now.
It’s okay, she says. I’m getting upset listening to you, to tell the truth. But I’m trying to be calm.
Painfully he feels himself trying to smile. No, he says. Don’t worry. Everything’s alright. Shaking his head he seems to hear himself saying aloud: I feel like maybe I still don’t accept it. The idea that my dad is gone. I don’t really get how it could be the case, if you see what I mean.
I think I do, she says.
Like he just sort of exited from time, and we all have to keep going, within time. Do you know what I mean?
Quietly she says: In a way.
He wipes at his nose, his eyes, and tries to swallow. I just feel like there were certain things left unfinished, he says. You know, that we didn’t talk about, or that I didn’t understand. It is young actually, for your parent to die, if you’re twenty-two. I didn’t really think that before, but I do now. Because I didn’t understand certain things. Another few years, honestly, would have been better. Is that a bad thing to say?
No, it’s not bad, she says, of course not.
Just a few more years to think things over, it would have helped me. When I look back, I can’t believe how much things I never discussed with him. And even when we did talk, nothing got written down. It’s all just memory, and what if the memories fade?
You’re never going to forget about him, Ivan.
He hears his voice in the phone now sounding uncontrolled, sounding manic. I practically am already, he says. I can tell you. Sometimes an hour will go by and he won’t even come into my head. The honest truth. The hour is gone before I even think about him.
But that’s normal, she says. When someone you love is still alive, you don’t think about that person every hour of the day either.
Because a living person has their own reality, he says. The person who’s gone has no reality anymore, except in thoughts. And once they’re gone from thoughts, they actually are completely gone. If I don’t think about him, literally, I’m ending his existence.
Low and insistent her voice answering: No, you’re really not.
His head and hands feel terribly hot, his scalp is hot all over. I feel like, honestly, I might have done a lot of things wrong in my life, he says. Maybe a lot, a lot of things I’ve done wrong. In the past, which I can never go back on. Because I didn’t understand anything. You know, I feel like my brother really hates me now. And maybe he should. Maybe we both should hate each other, I don’t even know. We have actually been pretty bad to each other, both. When I think about it, neither has been that good. And I feel scared of him sometimes, because he’s angry at me, or we’re angry at each other. If our dad was here it would be different, but he’s not here anymore. Do you get what I mean?
For a moment she says nothing, and in the silence Ivan becomes aware of how loudly he has been speaking, the echoing ring of his voice off the ceiling and walls. Into the phone her voice says: I think so. I’m trying to understand, I’m doing my best.
He can hear himself catching his breath now, low white noise repeating. Can I see you? he asks. I mean like, if I get in the car right now, can I come over? I think I could be there by nine, a little bit after nine. What do you think?
And in her low beautiful voice she answers: Yes, of course. Come over, of course you should.
Helplessly, frantically, he laughs, relieved. Okay, thank you, he says. I’m happy.
They exchange a few more words and then he hangs up the phone. Inside his body the sense of decision feels invigorating and exuberant. Once more he wipes his eyes with his sleeve, wipes his whole face, and then getting to his feet he lifts the dog off the sofa and kisses him repeatedly on the head and neck. After putting him down again, he starts packing his things into his bag. With the invigorated feeling propelling him around the house he packs up in a fast but very inefficient way, going up and down the stairs too many times, and then he stands gazing at his chessboard absently, trying to remember what he was thinking before. Naomi: he should leave a note explaining, since he doesn’t have her number. From his backpack he retrieves a notebook and tears out one of the perforated pages, smoothing it down on the table. Carefully he writes in clear large script: Hi Naomi. I’m going to stay with my girlfriend for a bit, not sure when I’ll be back. Make yourself at home. Ivan. He looks down at the message for a time, and then lapses again into absentmindedness, when what he really wants is to be in the car already, driving out of town, on his way. Something is in his mind, he thinks, wriggling there under the soil, something forgotten. The open hand colliding with the side of his face, catching his lip against his braces, taste of blood. Yes. Bending over the table he adds to the end of the message: PS. Peter was here earlier. I think he was looking for you. This task completed, Ivan clips on Alexei’s leash and goes out to the car, starts the engine. Glances with a feeling of calm certainty in the rear-view mirror while he reverses onto the road.
The next morning, Margaret unlocks the double doors of the town hall and lets herself inside. The building is always cold in the morning, with the tiled floors, and old single-glazed windows they can’t have changed because the facade is listed. Downstairs in the lobby she disables the alarm, puts a copy of yesterday’s paper in the recycling bin, moves a chair back against the wall. Ten to nine. She climbs the staircase, turns on the office lights, boots up the old computer, and then stands leaning against the radiator, getting warm. At ten o’clock, the coffee shop will open, she’ll have her usual cup of tea, and then she’ll unlock the community arts room to let Tina set up for the morning workshop. When her fingers and hands start throbbing with the heat of the radiator Margaret sits down finally at her desk. Answers some emails, does a little work on next month’s programme layout, posts a reminder online about the Beckett next week, pulling quotes from the newspaper reviews. A dazzlingly fresh take on a twentieth-century classic … This sly and intelligent drama still has the power to shock … It’s always a battle with David about these ‘difficult’ productions. Margaret will come to the meeting with sheaves of press clippings and audience statistics and pieties about bringing the arts to rural areas, reassuring, ingratiating, and David will frown and take his glasses on and off before finally, grimly, giving in. On your own head be it. Beckett as you’ve never seen him before …
Yesterday at her mother’s house, Margaret said it was all true. She has been seeing someone, for a month or two now, and he is a little younger, a lot younger. The unpleasantness she expected. After you spent how many years giving out to that poor man. Getting on your high horse. Holier than thou. Yes, and that too was true. She did spend years giving out, acting the part of the long-suffering wife, the persecuted saint. Years of her life. Forced now to confess herself after all another humble sinner. Motivated not by conscience but by her own selfishness: and the worst, most vulgar form of selfishness at that, which is desire. A shameful thing, the sexual motive. In a woman, especially. I thought I could at least hold my head up and say I had raised decent children, her mother said. I could at least. Is that your way of saying, I may not like you very much, but even I didn’t think you would sink this low. You know, that pretty well sums it up. Afterwards alone at the cottage Margaret swept the floor, tidied the bathroom. Wiping down in a pair of yellow gloves the surfaces and fittings, she felt and allowed herself to feel the heat of fury she otherwise tried all the time to suppress. Yes, her elderly mother, tutting and wheedling on behalf of a son-in-law she never even liked. Blaming Margaret for everything. Her sister Louise, happy to borrow money when she needed it, happy to call Margaret up complaining about her office, her flatmates, even about Bridget. But when Ricky went into hospital, suddenly Louise stopped calling. In person, the blank politeness of impartiality. Don’t try to get me involved. Even Anna, panicked, flustered, indecisive, trying to see the best in everyone. He doesn’t mean any harm, Margaret. It’s an illness. He can’t help it. What about the time he fell down the staircase in Walsh’s and the girl behind the bar had to call an ambulance. Half the town out on the street watching him carried away on a stretcher, all of them knowing full well that Margaret was just around the corner, in the town hall, checking tickets for the cinema club, while her husband was being carted off to the accident and emergency. Where was Anna then with her talk of common sense and good judgement? She was fretting and fawning over him like the rest. Poor man. Poor Ricky. Nothing was ever his fault, the blameless lamb. Not a word for the shame he brought on Margaret in the eyes of everyone they knew. No, Margaret didn’t need anyone’s sympathy, she could look after herself. It was weak people who needed compassion, weak men especially, like Ricky, the unfortunate soul. Margaret was strong, everyone always said so, a fine strong woman. For that alone, how many people hated her. And would relish her humiliation now at last it had come. Indecent, sordid, making a show of herself. No wonder that husband of hers took to the drink. Who would defend her now, speak up for her, take her side? Of all those who had relied on her, complained to her about their own sorrows and received her sympathy in return, her family, her friends, who among them now would come to her defence? What loyalty had she purchased with her lifetime of good behaviour and self-sacrifice? None, nothing. There would be no one to speak out, no one to take her part, nobody. Stripping off then finally her rubber gloves into the sink she pushed the heels of her hands into her closed eyes, remembering her mother’s words, her blotched face, nobody, nobody to defend her, never anyone, and felt down inside her body a desire to scream out at the top of her lungs, to release from the depths of her body a cry of incandescent rage at the disloyalty of others, and no one would help, no one, not one. Deeply she breathed, pressing firmly with the heels of her hands, and watched behind her eyelids the irruption of strange visual forms, shapes of light blooming and disintegrating, blue-green, yellow.
That was when she got the call from Ivan. About his brother, his father, and he said he wanted to see her, he wanted to get in the car. What could she do or say. It was upsetting, to hear him so upset, and to feel that it was somehow all her fault. Ivan had seemed at first, she thought, like a way for her to leave the bad feelings behind, an open gate leading out into another kind of life, free of all the remorse and unhappiness she had accumulated before. Now she was beginning to see that he could also be a source of these same bad feelings, unhappiness, remorse, that he was not going to retain always the new fresh unencumbered quality he had presented to her when first they met. His life also was littered with difficulty, just as hers was, and these difficulties did not dissolve on contact, but rather seemed to coagulate and harden. Around nine o’clock he arrived, with the dog, with a suitcase, and he had a cut on his lip where his brother had hit him, a small dark groove on his lip almost black from which Margaret had to avert her eyes. In the kitchen he asked about her mother, and she was at the sink, distractedly washing up a few pieces of cutlery. Her head felt hot. She spoke a little about her mother, the conflict between them, and then she said she didn’t feel like talking about it anymore. The dog was standing at the back door quietly whining and Ivan went to let him out. When the door was closed again Ivan said: I feel like you’re angry with me.
Of course not, said Margaret. You haven’t done anything wrong. I’m the one who should feel bad.
And what have you done wrong, he said, other than liking me?
She shrugged her shoulders, dropping onto the draining rack a clean teaspoon. Maybe I’m interfering too much in your life, she said. Preventing you from meeting someone your own age. I don’t know. As much as we like seeing each other, it’s not as if it’s going to last forever.
Behind her, she could hear that he had been pacing the floor, and then he stopped. Why are you saying this? he asked. Telling me it’s not going to last. Your mother put this in your head, or what? Because I thought you loved me.
Flushed, flustered, the tips of her ears painfully hot, she turned from the sink, saying: I do love you. Of course I do. That’s why I’m trying to tell you it can’t go on forever. Jesus, Ivan, by the time you’re my age, I’ll be in my fifties.
Throwing his hands up in frustration he cried: Again the age thing. Oh my God. What do you think, if you bring it up one more time then I’ll get to care about it?
She looked at him, feeling something flashing in her own eyes. You will get to care about it sooner or later, she said. Whether you want to or not. I’m just advising you not to leave it too late.
Angrily now he retorted: Don’t talk to me like that. Don’t condescend to me.
After speaking, Ivan turned away, as if ashamed, and rubbed at his face with his hands. What happens in the long run, if we keep seeing each other? Margaret asked him. We’ll be girlfriend and boyfriend? You’re going to introduce me to your family, is that the idea?
Outside the door, the dog gave another gentle whine and Ivan went over and let him in. The dog trotted back inside and shook himself briefly, paws clicking on the tiles, tiny droplets raining outward from his glossy coat. Finally, without looking back at Margaret, Ivan answered tersely: I don’t get the relevance.
What do you think your mother would say? Margaret said.
I don’t care, he replied. It’s not her business, it’s my life.
And what about your brother? How do you think he would feel about the fact that I’m older than he is?
For a few seconds Ivan did nothing. Then she watched in strange stillness as he sank down onto the floor, sank with his head in his hands until he was sitting on the floor by the radiator, hiding his face. The dog padded over and snuffled at him curiously, probing at his neck, his ear, tail loosely wagging.
Quietly Margaret said: You’ve told him already.
With an elbow Ivan tried in vain to push the dog away, saying nothing.
Many things began to make sense to her then. And without speaking, she walked away. Inside her bedroom she clicked the door closed, sat down on the bed, pressed the palms of her hands to her chest. This was how things went, this was what her mother had tried to warn her about. To know herself the object of disgust and vilification, not only imagined but real, and not only by her own family but Ivan’s. To see herself as the brother must see her, a middle-aged woman taking advantage of a naive grieving boy, and for what, for her own gratification, her own pleasure. Distractedly with fluttering hands she prepared for bed, she lay down alone on her side. Listening to the sounds in the house around her, Ivan’s footsteps, and the neat delicate sound of the dog’s paws. Inside her a sick feeling, poisonous. Deep down, Ivan had probably come to hate her, she thought: and she could even sense in herself the potential to hate him, for the selfishness he had brought out in her, for the life of decency he had interrupted. In the darkness, the door of her bedroom came open, and she lay on her side silently watching. From the doorway Ivan asked: Is it okay if I come in? She said yes, and he entered, closing the door behind him. For a moment he stood there inside the closed door doing nothing. Do you mind if I sleep here? he asked. Or I can sleep in the other room if you prefer. She said she didn’t mind. He waited, hoping perhaps that she would say something else, something affectionate, and then, with defeated gestures, he started to undress for bed. Her eyes having adjusted to the darkness she could watch him lifting off his dark sweater and t-shirt, revealing the soft bluish luminescence of his body beneath. Like pared fruit, she thought. His back to her, leaving his clothes on the chair. He undressed to his underwear and then plugged his phone into the wall. In his dejection, his unhappiness, of which she was the conscious cause, she found him more than ever beautiful and dignified. She wanted him, yes, with a terrible desire that threatened to destroy everything it touched. Their friendships, families, both their lives. He lifted the coverlet and climbed into bed beside her. The weight, closeness, radiant heat of his body. Just to be touched by him, she thought. For a time in stillness he lay there on his back. Are you looking at me? he asked. She answered yes. Hm, he said. In what way? At that she let out a little breath, nervous, and he turned over on his side to face her. His hand was cool and heavy at her hip, and she drew closer. He kissed her on the mouth. Nothing else needed to be said. He could feel her wanting to be kissed, she thought, could feel that she had been lying there only waiting for him to come to her, to erase from her mind the feverish bad thoughts, all this he must have felt and known at once. He turned her over on her back, gently, easily, and lying down on top of her he smoothed her hair from her face, and they kissed again. Feeling of his braces briefly hard against her mouth. And the taste of the cut on his lip, unseen. As if in a dream, she thought. Falling descending sort of feeling, slow, and yet not at all controlled. His hand between her legs, opening her. Okay? he asked. She was nodding her head. Pressed against her hip, through the cotton of his boxer shorts, she could feel his erection. Her body, in his hands, was differently capable, something different, she was not the same. To lose now this new capacity, this new body she inhabited in his arms, unthinkable. Slowly he touched her, his fingers inside her, saying: Is that alright? Her eyes closed, she made some garbled sound in her throat, wanting, and nothing mattered, her ideas, values, thin little scaffold of respectability she had called a life, no, not even the guilt, shame, only the feeling, wanting so much, wet, her nose running, eyes stinging at the force of it, the depth, deeper. With her hand she fumbled at his waistband, and he took off his underwear. Lay back down on top of her again, the tip of his cock just touching, pressing, opening her a little, and further. Please, she murmured, yes. He said nothing, only moved inside her more deeply, more completely, and she could feel his breath on her lips. Ah, he said quietly. Fuck. Her fingers in his hair, at the back of his neck, clutching at him. Still deeper until she was full, entirely. Just to lie there she thought and let him take her in that way. To let him fill her like that, however much he wanted to, again and again, and what else could matter. This, enclosed in ordinary existence, the desire from which all human life derived, the origin of everything. With an intense rich glowing feeling she lay in his arms and let him move inside her. In her ear, he said: I really love you. And she answered without thinking: Oh, I need that. Mint scent of his toothpaste, and he was looking down at her, his lips parted. You need that, he repeated. You need me to love you? Inside her an opening unfurling sensation, hot, tender, and she was nodding her head. Cool, he said. Well, I do, very much. Yeah. I like that feeling, actually, to give you what you need. Her eyes fluttered closed. Deep pressing almost hurting and she felt him throbbing, wanting to, and she wanted that also, wet inside, image of silver behind her closed eyelids, jetting, emptying inside her, slowly even somehow, as in her mouth last weekend, on the sofa, slow, the taste of it she liked, and afterwards he was so sweet, thanking her, laughing bashfully, yes, she wanted that again more deeply, to be held down by him like that and feel it, the way he wanted to give it to her, completely, she could tell, and even to think of it then she was coming, a hard gasping sound she heard in her throat, shuddering, trying to breathe. Inside her a hot wet sensation, and Ivan was saying: Jesus Christ, oh my God. Oh God. Damp, sweating, he rested against her, both breathing hard, saying nothing more for a moment. Gradually her heartbeat slowed again, sense of a haze lifting away, leaving her calm, tired. She understood what had happened, something stupid, but also ordinary, a simple mistake. Ivan’s back wet and cooling under her arm. His face in the pillow beside her. Fuck, he murmured. I’m sorry. Is it okay? Again she was nodding her head. These things happen, she said. Don’t worry. I’ll go to the chemist in the morning. He sat up slightly, leaning on his arm, looking down at her. Deep and dark his eyes in the unlit room, knowing more than he said, knowing and understanding completely. Okay, he answered. I’m sorry. I really wanted that. She lowered her eyes. So did I, she said. At that Ivan let out a sudden hard exhalation, and for a moment he said nothing. Then he said in her ear: I love you. She felt herself flushed, her nose still running, and she tried to smile. I love you too, she said. I’d better go out of town to find a chemist, though. I’ve made enough of a scandal already without turning up in O’Donnell’s tomorrow looking for the morning-after pill.
Ivan kissed her once more on the mouth and then drew away, lifted his weight from her body, rolled over on his back. The current of air over Margaret’s skin felt cool, even cold, and she pulled the quilt up to her chin. You know, it was true what my mother was saying, she said aloud. That I was self-righteous. With my husband, I was. Because he had all these problems. And maybe that was the way I dealt with it, getting angry and self-righteous. I can’t believe you’re doing this to me, sort of thing. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself very well. I suppose I got attached to being in the right all the time. Which in a way I was. But maybe it’s not good to be too attached to that.
Ivan in stillness beside her breathing. His intelligence, his thoughtfulness. Yeah, he said, I get you.
I really hated being that person, she said. Scolding and giving out all the time. I felt very trapped, having to live that way. I don’t know how to describe it, being trapped inside a feeling. Like crouching into an awkward pose, and you get trapped there. Being perfect, being in the right. But I find it’s very hard to let go of that now. Even though I never wanted it. Still, I don’t know why, but it’s hard to let go.
For a time neither of them spoke, and with his hand behind his head Ivan lay beside her looking up at the ceiling. Finally he said aloud: Same for me, in a way. Although different. But say with my brother, I can get very focused on being in the right. And my brain sort of glosses over anything I’ve done wrong. Because I view him differently. I don’t really think my actions affect him. I see myself very affected by his actions, but not the other way around.
I understand, she said.
He turned his head slightly to look at her. He doesn’t hate you or anything, by the way, he said. Peter, my brother, he’s not really against you, or anything like that. I just explained the whole thing kind of badly, and we had one little argument about it, barely even an argument. But he apologised later on. Tonight actually, he apologised, before we started fighting. Which was about different things, and nothing to do with you. Just for you to know that.
Tired then, she closed her eyes. Okay, she said.
Warm and heavy under the quilt, they were both quiet for a time. Then into the silence Ivan said: You know when you told me just now, ‘I need that.’ Like, that you need me to love you. For me, that felt very good. Yeah. Honestly, one of the best feelings I’ve probably ever had in my life. I’m sorry to bring it up, because I know it was said in a certain context, and maybe it didn’t mean anything beyond that. But to me, it was meaningful, very much. To give you what you need, it’s so nice, you have no idea. I just want my whole life to go on like that. And I think it could, I don’t see why not. I don’t know, maybe you think I’m being weird. Since we’ve only been together a short time. I know a lot of things can change. Obviously we’ll just see how it goes. The future is a mystery, and so on. But I don’t think it’s anything bad to imagine, or think about. That we could be very happy, like we are now, in the longer term. And all the different things that could go with that. I mean, we’re both young, in reality, anything is possible. Life can change a lot.
She just watched him, understanding what he was saying, what he was carefully not saying, the anything that he meant was possible. He didn’t understand, she thought, or didn’t want to accept, what the passage of time would do to them both. She would soon grow older, too old, no longer beautiful, unable to give him children, while he was still a very young man. He didn’t understand or want to know that now: and why should he have to, when they were lying there in bed together, languid, happy, in love, why think about the cruelty of time? Let him, she thought, have his fantasy, which was, after all, so touching, so gratifying to her vanity, and something more than that. Lying by his side, allowing her eyes once more to close, she said nothing, she articulated no contradiction, and his words remained spoken there between them, unrefuted. The future was a mystery, after all, that was true. Within its infinite folds it contained the possibility, however remote, that she might still be salvaged, her body, from the wreck of all her wasted years. In his arms, to be given life, yes, and to give life also. Something miraculous, inexpressible, perfect. Impossible of course to think: and yet it happened all the time. May have been happening even then, concealed inaccessibly inside her breathing body. Each generation that had gone before, hundreds, thousands. The only answer to death, she thought: to echo back its name in that way, with all the same intensity and senselessness, on the side of life. Why not allow him, why not allow herself, at least the idea, the image, the future, at once impossible and not, enveloping them both in its mystery in the dark stillness of her quiet bedroom, descending with them both into the depths of sleep.
Now, sitting in the office, with rain streaming down the window beside her, Margaret checks the desktop clock and sees it’s ten, after ten, and the coffee shop will be open, she can go and have her cup of tea. Ask Doreen what she’s planning for Christmas. She’s heard, Margaret can be sure, they’ve all heard by now. You’ll have the town scandalised. People sniggering, no doubt. And others saying: Well, hasn’t she every right. Ricky too will have his day, his chance to crow and scold, and why not. Arm in a sling last time she saw him. Urinating on the street outside Flynn’s. She didn’t even stop the car. Her sense of rightness, dearer to her then than her life. And why remonstrate: with him, with herself. She had to survive. To get out, not to drown, to clutch and hold at something, anything. The danger long past now, she looks down and finds her hands still tightened, grasping. Her thankless and dutiful life. With a tremble of something like relief she thinks of him now, Ivan, remembers how she left him this morning, his chess book propped open on the kitchen table. The dog stretched out sleeping at his feet. She was leaving early, get to the chemist before work, drive out as far as Carrick. Half-rising from the chair, Ivan kissed her goodbye, have a good day, I love you. See you later, she said. Enjoy the chess. To be that person, yes, hands in the pockets of her long raincoat, walking out to the car, whistling to herself. Thinking about what film they might watch tonight, where they might take the dog for a walk. Introduce him some evening to Anna, to Luke, let them talk about polytunnels together, or genetically modified insects. And maybe it won’t last: maybe, next month, or next year, Ivan will meet someone else, a girl, young and slender with long fair hair, and Margaret will have to let him go after all, to bear that, the pain, the embarrassment, caught out again, making a show of herself. Serves her right. Or in ten years’ time, against the odds, they might look back and laugh together. Maybe. Sense of all the windows and doors of her life flung open. Everything exposed to the light and air. Nothing protected, nothing left to be protected anymore. A wild woman, her mother called her. A shocking piece of work. And so she is. Lord have mercy.