On Thursday afternoon, Margaret is making her way along the low tiled corridor to the studio room upstairs. The door has been left ajar, and she can hear the tinny sound of the portable stereo from inside, and Alannah’s voice talking over the music: Now into second. Elbows up, girls. Looking good. As Margaret approaches, the music jolts to a stop, rewinds, begins again. Alannah’s voice counts aloud: And two, three, four … Margaret knocks gently with the knuckle of a finger before opening the door halfway and looking in. Pale white light from the window. Skinny teenage girls in their leotards, soft ballet shoes, hands on the barre; their faces pink and formless, long limbs like fawns. Alannah, compact and muscular, hair pinned back, comes to the door, smiling, and Margaret hands over the keys. You’re a star, Alannah says. No problem, Margaret replies. Turning back, Alannah addresses the girls again: Remember your turnout. Margaret closes the door, quieter now, and walks back down the corridor alone, her shoes clicking softly on the tiles. Downstairs the coffee shop is busy. Women with babies and pushchairs, Mrs Harrington in the corner with her pot of tea, the espresso machine clanking beside the sink. Margaret orders the usual afternoon coffee and waits at the counter, leafing through a newspaper. Pages thumbed already and greasy, brown-grey. The steam wand hisses in the jug of milk and Doreen in her apron asks: Are you back in tonight? Margaret looks up from the Letters page to answer: Mm. Cello. Supposed to be very good, the guy. Doreen lays her cup and saucer on the countertop. There you are, sweetheart, she says. Folding the paper, Margaret lifts the saucer, saying: Wonderful. Thank you. Back up in the office, Linda is on the phone, and Margaret sits at the other desk, wakes the computer, opens her email inbox. Outside in the street below, brittle brown leaves drift over the parked cars. When Linda hangs up, she and Margaret exchange some conversation about the new vouchers, David’s idea; the ticketing software, impossible; and David himself, their executive director, whom they haven’t even seen since Monday. Margaret sips her coffee, hot and velvet bitter, while out the window the dry leaves scatter and fall.
That evening after work, in the garden behind her friend Anna’s house, Anna refills the bird feeders and Margaret sits on the bench watching. Early October. Anna is talking again about genetically modified mosquitoes, which she says are being released into the wild somewhere in the United States in order to kill off – or maybe just render infertile, Margaret isn’t sure – the old classic mosquitoes, God’s originals. Margaret watches Anna hanging a little wire feeding contraption up on the branch of a tree and listens to her talking about the mosquitoes, though she has already explained about them before. To play devil’s advocate, Margaret says, I think malaria does kill a lot of people. Anna is refilling another feeder now, a lock of hair falling forward onto her forehead. Obviously, she replies. But this isn’t in a medical lab they’re doing this, it’s an ecosystem. The sun comes out from behind a low cloud and Margaret screws one of her eyes shut against the cold white light, the other eye shaded already by the foliage of a tree. Hey, she says. I meant to tell you something. Anna hangs up the second feeder and sits down beside her on the bench. Margaret doesn’t look at her, but she can hear her moving, feel the weight of her body on the thin wooden slats.
What’s that? Anna asks.
You know the chess club had this event in the hall at the weekend.
No, I didn’t. What kind of event was it, a competition?
No, says Margaret. Well, I don’t know. They invited a chess player down from Dublin to play ten people at once.
Wow, really? Did he win?
Margaret gives a half-smile now, answering: Mm.
All ten of the games?
Right.
That’s amazing, says Anna. How did he do it? Was he playing them all off against each other?
Margaret wriggles her back against the bench to sit up straighter. No, she says. After a moment’s thought, she adds: He couldn’t have won all ten if he was doing that, could he? I mean, if you think about it, he could only have won five.
Oh. True. But there must be some trick to it. I mean, I doubt he was ten times better than everyone else.
Well, the other players were just random people, from the chess club. And one of them was a ten-year-old. I don’t think it matters.
I’m just saying, I’m sure he had a system, Anna says.
A cloud draws over the sun and the garden grows darker. I think his system was just being really good at chess, says Margaret.
I would have told Luke if I’d known it was on. He plays a little bit.
Margaret turns to look at her, saying: Does he?
Yeah, online. You know, it’s an incredibly complicated game. I mean, people study for their whole lives to get good at it.
Right, I know that, says Margaret. This was one of those people. The guy.
A grandmaster?
I don’t know. Something like that. I feel like we’re getting very immersed down into the chess aspect of this story.
Anna gives a little shivering shake with her shoulders, and indeed, Margaret thinks, it has grown perceptibly cooler outside. I’m sorry, says Anna. I thought the story was about chess. Please go on.
It’s okay, says Margaret. She feels herself exhaling, feels on her hands and face the gathering cold. I didn’t know Luke played chess, she adds. Do you want to go inside?
The little back kitchen has grown dim now, and Anna turns the light on. Anna and Luke live with their ten-month-old son Henry in this small terraced house, ex-council, with a garden where they grow crab apples and potatoes. Luke is a woodwork teacher and Anna is a visual artist and also gives art classes to children. She cannot drive, and used to be well known in town for cycling around in eccentric clothing, carrying her shopping in a wicker basket. For Margaret the last twenty years have passed this way: Anna on her bicycle at the age of sixteen, in school uniform, laughing, heedless of the vulgar shouts from the boys; then at twenty-six, coloured scarf flying out behind her, skirt spattered with dirty water, bag of oranges in her basket; now at thirty-six, happy, tired, more often walking than cycling, pushing a second-hand pram with a mismatched wheel. Of course, from Anna’s point of view, Margaret thinks, these years must have passed the other way: watching her, Margaret, growing older. Easier to perceive the way the years accumulate in others. For Anna there must be such a Margaret, who has been one thing and is now another, while Margaret looking at her own life sees only the onwardly flowing blur of all experience. Anna is putting the kettle on, talking again about the mosquitoes, and from the front of the house they hear Luke’s key in the door. A moment later he appears, carrying Henry in his arms. Margaret says hello, and Luke greets her, old friends, lifting the baby’s fat hand in a simulated wave.
I won’t intrude, Margaret says. I was heading off anyway.
Anna has started folding some of Henry’s clothes, which have been left on the countertop. When will I see you? she says to Margaret. Are you around at the weekend?
Sure, Margaret says.
Come for dinner, says Anna.
On the street outside, Margaret’s car is parked. A single sycamore leaf of rich yellow colour has drifted onto her windshield. Along the gutter of the street, many more leaves, red, brown, have been lifted by the wind and left to settle. Margaret gets into her car and pulls the door shut, starts the engine, touches for no reason the mirror. Dinner at the weekend, Anna said. That will be nice, and Margaret might make something for dessert. She could have said to Luke: Anna was telling me you play chess. But why? To revive the conversation, to work her way around to telling Anna after all about what happened. In that case to bring it up in front of Luke would have been a bad idea, since Margaret doesn’t want to tell Luke about what happened, and isn’t even sure if she wants to tell Anna. Anna is a person of firm and occasionally unpredictable beliefs: maybe she would judge Margaret harshly. Also, Margaret thinks as she drives out of town, Anna has the baby now, she doesn’t see as much of her as she used to, and, in any case, she was never really the type of friend who liked to gossip about people’s sex lives. Probably she was not going to be the ideal interlocutor for that particular conversation. But then the ideal interlocutor – a friend with no rigid moral beliefs, few or no competing demands on her attention and perhaps a taste for faintly scandalous anecdotes – does not seem to be available to Margaret at present. Her friend Joanie, maybe, but she’s away in Lisbon. There’s Corinne, but then Margaret has never been so close with Corinne as to tell her things she hasn’t already told Anna, so the whole interaction would probably feel strange for both of them. She could email her friend Rosalie, owes her an email anyway in fact. But what is it that she actually wants to say? And once she has said it, what does she hope or expect to hear in response?
Outside town now, the evening gathers. Past the garden centre, past the old graveyard, having taken a left off the main road and under the railway bridge, Margaret manoeuvres her car through an open gateway, tyres crunching down the overgrown drive. Behind the hedgerow is the low stone facade of the cottage she has been renting since last year. When she kills the engine and gets out, birds start from their branches and together flicker through the air as if mechanised. Margaret lets herself in the front door, turns the lights on, picks up and looks unseeing at the post on the front mat. Her name, address, a magazine subscription. She takes off her coat and scarf, hangs them up and goes into the kitchen, yawning, opening the fridge. On a milk carton in the door, a black line of type reads: OCT 11. She takes out a sealed plastic package of raw chicken thighs and closes the door again. Is there even a reality left there, something that in fact did happen? The way a dream, untold, vanishes, never having taken place to begin with. Better perhaps in this case: a dream, attached at the corners to no reality, shared with no one, vanishing into nothingness. Tonight she will drive back to work for a cello recital, and stand in the lobby taking tickets, making polite conversation, directing people to their seats. Afterwards, another stranger in her car, a cellist this time, looking out her passenger window at the passing town. Like the chess player. His number in her phone still. His hands she remembers: bitten fingernails. I really love touching you like that, he said. His almost innocent tenderness. They talked, she thinks, as well as everything else. He told her about his father, his disappointments, regrets, and she confessed herself also disappointed, regretful. It was easy then to make love, easy and pleasant, a relief. Is there anything left of that now? And where? In that room, in the cold little bungalow with the damp curtains. Or in the contact between their two lives, touching.
At the kitchen table, she sits and eats alone, knowing that after she’s finished eating she will have to wash up individually each utensil she has used to prepare and eat this meal, and to wipe down also each surface involved: the sink-side countertop, the fridge-side countertop, the cooking surface, and the kitchen table itself. Afterwards she will ring her mother to discuss the new dishwasher that Margaret has offered to buy for her, a process that has become mystifyingly lengthy and complicated, so many phone calls about the dishwasher, which to buy and where, and whether the man who installs it will be able to take away the old one at the same time. Margaret already, in advance of the awaited transaction, finds herself silently lording over her two siblings and their increasingly elderly mother the ultimately inconsequential expense of this dishwasher: evidence of Margaret’s essentially dutiful personality, her reliably self-sacrificing fulfilment of filial obligations. It’s only going to cost a few hundred euro. Margaret, though of more limited means than her siblings, can’t even think of anything she would rather do with the money. She has nowhere to go, no one to visit. Maybe she would like a new pair of winter boots, she thinks; but the boots from two years ago are fine. The upcoming expense of her mother’s new dishwasher is in practical terms irrelevant. And yet she lords it over her siblings and mother secretly, which is terrible. Eating, perceiving the flavour and texture of the food she has prepared, sweetish, salty, she rehearses in advance the conversation she will have on the phone with her mother in just a few minutes’ time. I saw Ricky in town today, her mother will say. She is bound to say this, or something like it. He was looking well, she might add. He was asking after you. And he would too. No stopping him. Ricky Fitzpatrick: Margaret’s ex-husband. Margaret Kearns: Mrs Richard Fitzpatrick, once.
That night, Ivan is in the kitchen of his flat, eating a bowl of instant noodles and scrolling through a page of search results matching the query: need a temporary home for my dog ireland. Once again, however, after five or six attempts using different keywords, the results consist of links like ‘How to Foster a Dog’ and ‘Dogs Available for Fostering Now’. To take a dog out of the fostering system, into one’s home, appears to be very simple, and yet Ivan cannot find a single website explaining how to put a dog into that same system. No process, obviously, can consist exclusively of output, without any corresponding input. The dogs are coming from somewhere. But how to make his own dog one of them, Ivan still has no idea. How often in his life he has found himself a frustrated observer of apparently impenetrable systems, watching other people participate effortlessly in structures he can find no way to enter or even understand. So often that it’s practically baseline, just normal existence for him. And this is not only due to the irrational nature of other people, and the consequent irrationality of the rules and processes they devise; it’s due to Ivan himself, his fundamental unsuitedness to life. He knows this. He feels himself to have been formed, somehow, with something other than life in mind. He has his good qualities, kind of, but none of them have much to do with living in the world that he actually lives in, the only world that can be said in a fairly real way to exist. Anyway, it’s not going to matter, because Peter said he would take care of the dog situation. Leave it with me, he specifically said on the phone. For Peter, social systems are never confusing, always transparent, and usually manipulable to his own ends. He is someone who not only knows a vast number of people, but through knowing them can somehow make them do things he wants them to do. He won’t be sitting in his apartment typing ‘dog foster ireland help’ or whatever into a search engine. He’ll be in a big room somewhere surrounded by people who think he’s really smart and interesting, and one of them will probably be like the CEO of a dog fostering charity. Peter could even at this moment be regaling the CEO with a story about his loser younger brother who can’t find a temporary home for their dog, and they’re laughing together. However: let them laugh. If it means the dog will have somewhere safe and caring to stay for a while until Ivan finds a new flat or house-share where dogs are welcome, laugh it up, as far as he’s concerned.
The dog, Ivan’s dog, Alexei, is six years old. His photograph serves as the lock screen on Ivan’s phone: Alexei’s slender black-and-white body curled on the sofa, forming an O-shape, eyes closed in blissful sleep. Ivan put a lot of work into training him as a puppy, taking him out endlessly for toilet breaks, even during the night, and teaching him to sit on command and to walk nicely on the lead and not pull. After long, unhappy days at school, Ivan would return alone to the small semi-detached house where he and his father lived together, and each afternoon, without fail, the tiny body of Alexei would bound up to the door to greet him, wagging the tail delightedly. It did not matter to Alexei that Ivan was considered by his peers to be a loser; that, due to his insectile physique, people at school called him ‘Spider’ Koubek; that one of the popular girls in his year had once asked him, on a dare, if he knew what a blowjob was, and that he had, for reasons he still doesn’t understand, answered ‘no’, even though he obviously did. As far as Alexei was concerned, Ivan was the most charismatic and loveable person alive. In the evenings after dinner, they would lie on the sofa together, Ivan playing online chess against adult opponents in foreign countries, Alexei with his long thin face burrowed lovingly in Ivan’s shoulder. Beside them, Ivan’s father sat in the armchair watching television, shaking his head when the news came on. After Ivan moved away for college, his dad gave him regular updates about the dog over the phone. Much of the conversation that passed between father and son in recent years concerned Alexei: his little antics, his moods, visits to the vet, and so on. Periodically, Ivan’s father would text him photographs, and Ivan would reply: Ah he’s so cute! The photograph on the lock screen of his phone, in fact: that was one his father sent him. A year ago now, or more. My home help, his dad used to call Alexei as a joke, because he sometimes would bring him his slippers. And now his dad is gone, and the dog is living in Ivan’s mother’s boyfriend’s house in Skerries, and his mother is sending hostile text messages saying things like: It’s been over a month now sweetheart. I’m not running a dog shelter you know! xx
Through the second page of search results he goes on scrolling, when out of nowhere a voice behind him says: Ivan. Starting up, dropping the fork he was still holding distractedly in his right hand, Ivan turns and sees his flatmate, Roland, standing behind him. Jesus, says Ivan. I didn’t hear you there. His face feels hot, and he fumbles to pick his fork back up. Roland watches impassively. Okay, he says. I was just going to ask you, are you around at the weekend? Ivan feels his heart palpitating still from the shock of Roland’s presence, even though it’s not shocking anymore, it’s just Roland, standing in the kitchen of the flat where they both live. Oh, says Ivan. Around here, you mean? Roland answers: I genuinely don’t know what else I could mean by that. Ivan swallows. Yeah, I’ll be here, he says. I mean, I think so. I don’t have firm plans. Roland nods his head slowly and then goes to the fridge. Cool, he says. Roland’s girlfriend Julia appears in the doorway now, wearing silken pyjamas, with a towel around her shoulders. Sensing that the kitchen environment is no longer hospitable to his presence, Ivan gets up, lifts his laptop from the table and in the other hand takes his half-eaten bowl of noodles. Averting his eyes from Julia he mumbles: Hey. Julia answers brightly: Hey, Ivan. Turning to Roland, she says: They can’t stay with her sister, by the way, I asked. Ivan makes his way quietly towards the door, eyes lowered, while Roland, who appears to be making himself a sandwich, answers: God, they’re so annoying.
When Ivan re-enters his bedroom, he can see that his phone is ringing on the bed where he left it. The screen is lighted, displaying an incoming call from a mobile number he doesn’t recognise. The phone is on the vibrate setting, but the vibration is almost soundless, the noise absorbed by his mattress, so he didn’t hear it from outside. Also the charger is plugged in still, because the phone was on two percent battery when he left it here to make himself the noodles. He is conscious of an extreme sense of urgency, a frantic urgency to answer this incoming call, not knowing how long it has already been ringing. Shutting the door behind him, dropping his laptop on the bed and setting his bowl of noodles down on the bedside table, he taps the green icon and answers, realising too late that the phone is not sufficiently charged to unplug it from the wall yet, so in order to hear anything he’ll have to crouch on the floor beside the nightstand, holding the charging phone, which is also really hot, up to his face. Arranging himself in this way, crouching down on the carpet, he says into the phone: Hello? For a second, nothing happens. Then a woman’s voice says: Hello. Hi. Is this Ivan?
With a feeling of frightened exhilaration he recognises, or rather remembers, or thinks that he remembers, this voice. Hi, he says. Yes. This is Ivan speaking. Hello.
Hi, says the voice again. This is Margaret Kearns. We met last weekend.
Quickly he answers: Oh, I remember. It’s cool. I mean, it’s nice to hear from you. I hope the call wasn’t ringing for too long or anything. I just had my phone left on charge because it was running out of battery.
He is conscious that he says all this very rapidly, too rapidly, and she pauses before she replies. His pulse is so fast and loud in his ears that he wonders for a second if it’s even audible on the other side of the call, or is that medically possible, to hear the sound of another person’s heartbeat on a phone call: probably not.
That’s okay, she says. It wasn’t ringing for long.
Carefully, quietly, he takes an inhaling breath and then breathes out again, slightly away from the phone, not wanting her to hear any loud breathing noises. Is it his turn to begin talking again now, or it’s still her turn? Another second passes in silence. Maybe it is his turn already and he’s coming across as rude and standoffish.
I just remembered that you said I should call, she says, if I ever thought of you. And I’ve been thinking of you, so.
Ah, he says. I’ve been thinking about you too. A lot.
She pauses again. He manoeuvres himself down into a sitting position on the carpet, his back against the bed. At the chess workshop last Saturday morning, when they were waiting around for latecomers to arrive, one of the men from the chess club called Margaret ‘a fine woman’. It was only other men there at that point, no women, and Ivan felt that the remark referred to Margaret’s good looks. This provoked an unfamiliar feeling in him, a hot stirring of something like defensiveness, as if there was something derogatory about the man’s words: and maybe there was, in a sexist way, valuing a woman only on her appearance and so forth. But at the same time he also felt in himself a private feeling of triumph and excitement, knowing that he had secretly spent the night with the woman in question, and that the two of them had even made fun of the other men a little bit. She was so attractive that people actually talked about it behind her back, and he had gone to bed with her, and afterwards lying in his arms she had said it was perfect. Oh dear, you’re making our guest blush, Ollie said then. And everyone turned to look at Ivan, who swallowed, not really aware that he had been blushing but confusedly feeling his face getting hot even at the idea that he had been. Maybe we should just keep the conversation to chess, he said. All the men laughed at that, so heartily that it unnerved him slightly, and then the conversation did after all go back to chess. Probably they just thought that Ivan had developed a little crush on Margaret the night before, at the bar, which was, though obviously kind of true, not the whole truth. And now he crouches on the floor of his room waiting for her to start talking into her phone again, to say anything at all.
I had to drive a cellist home from an event tonight, she says finally. That reminded me of you. Although he wasn’t staying in the holiday village.
Nervously he feels himself smiling. Yeah? he says. I guess they got him a hotel room or something.
In her voice also he hears a little smile when she answers: Yes, they did. Or rather, we did.
Nice. Maybe I should get good at cello instead.
He can hear her laughing now, beautiful sound. I suppose you probably could, if you put your mind to it, she says.
Why, do you like musicians? Because I actually can play a little bit of piano. Although not very well or anything.
Now in a low private kind of voice between the two of them she murmurs: Multi-talented.
Foolishly he hears himself laughing. Yeah, big time, he says. No, I wish I was. Actually I’m not even, like— whatever the singular form would be. Uni-talented.
Oh, I think you are. I should know, because I’m really not.
That’s not true, he says. You know, uh— He pauses, nervous again, and the phone is very hot in his hand. I was going to say, he continues, I can think of a few talents of yours.
Sounding amused, she answers: Aha. Dare I ask, like what?
He swallows, thinking for a second, and then he says: Well, I don’t know if you know this, but you have a very beautiful speaking voice.
Thank you, Ivan. I’m not sure that’s a talent, though. Strictly speaking, I think it’s more like a quality.
Okay. I see. And being very beautiful to look at, I guess that’s more of a quality as well.
She’s laughing again. He sits up with his back straighter against the bed. I think so, yes, she says. It’s very kind of you, but I don’t think it’s a talent.
Mm, he says. I do have some things I could say about you that are more into the realm of talents, but, you know. I don’t want to make you hang up on me.
In a gorgeously sweet humorous voice she answers: You’re being very funny.
He puts his hand behind his head, irrepressibly smiling. Do you think that? he says. To tell the truth, I sometimes find myself pretty funny, but no one else ever says that about me.
You must not have met the right people yet, she says.
For a second he thinks of saying: Well, I have met one of them. Meaning her. But in these situations you have to be thoughtful and not go too far with your remarks, making the other person feel that you have a one-track mind. In her voice he hears a kind of purring which he personally finds unbelievably erotic, but possibly that’s just how her voice sounds and she can’t help it. On the other hand, he has actually slept with her, and she said at the time that she liked it, and now she’s calling him on the phone a week later nearly, telling him that she’s thinking of him. These are probably the kind of circumstances where you can make flirtatious remarks and it’s normal. He already has flirted a little bit anyway, telling her she’s beautiful, and hinting at other things, and she has been laughing and apparently having fun. Suddenly he starts saying: Do you— Then he breaks off and, awkwardly, goes on: I don’t know. What do you think about seeing each other again, maybe?
She’s quiet for a second, or at most two. Well, she says, we’re at very different stages in our lives.
He answers: I get you. They both fall silent again. It was the wrong thing to ask, he thinks. If he had just said nothing. Or if he had said something irrelevant, like going back to the cellist she mentioned, and asking what kind of music she likes. But no, he thinks: talking about music is never interesting. It doesn’t matter now. The reality is that he did ask, and she said in a doubting voice: We’re at very different stages in our lives. Why did she call him then? Just to get compliments from him, or what? Now, having had this thought, he feels terrible, because even to be liked by her to the small extent that she enjoys his compliments would be okay, but she probably doesn’t like him even that small amount. What does it mean, different stages in our lives? It means the age thing, obviously, but he thinks most likely it’s nothing to do with that. Most likely that’s just a way of saying, I don’t like you, sorry. However, just in case she seriously does mean the age thing, he adds: I just think – from my perspective – I don’t personally care about that, at all.
When she answers him she has a sad smiling tone in her voice, like a sad rueful smile. Maybe I should be the one who cares about it, then, she says.
Ah, he says. Okay. They’re being quiet again now. He wonders where she is at this moment: at home, he would guess, but where does she live? House, apartment? And where in her home is she: kitchen, living room, or in her bedroom maybe, like the way he’s in his. He would like her to be there, in the room where she sleeps. Well, I’m happy you called, he says. Like, if I’m honest, I didn’t think you were going to. I suppose it doesn’t matter to say all this now. But after I got home again at the weekend, I started getting kind of anxious, like maybe I did something wrong, or, I don’t know. Do you ever go back over things in your head, and you’re thinking, why did I say those things, or why did I do that? I guess you probably don’t, because everything you say is interesting. But I do that all the time, going back over things. And getting kind of mad with myself. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I was just saying, I’m happy you called me. Because I guess, it makes me feel a bit more like, you probably don’t hate me after all. Or maybe you do, I don’t know.
Quietly, without hesitating, she answers: I don’t hate you, Ivan, of course not. And you didn’t do anything wrong the other night. Not at all.
Well, I know I was really awkward, he says. Like the way I talked so much about chess, I honestly don’t know why I did that. I think I was just a little bit nervous, because I’m not too experienced at those situations or whatever. But I wouldn’t be like that again. If we saw each other again, I mean. I would be a lot different.
Still in the same quiet voice she says: I wouldn’t want you to be different.
He feels so embarrassed and stupid that he starts laughing for no reason. Okay, he says. That’s good, because actually I don’t know if I would be. Even though I just said I would. But if you don’t want me to, it’s better. Are you really definite that you don’t want to see each other again?
She pauses, and then: No, I’m not definite, she says. Actually I do want to. I just think it might not be wise.
Because we’re at different stages in our lives?
Yes, because of that.
He looks at the screen of his phone. The battery is on twenty-three percent now, which he thinks is high enough, so he takes the charger out. Well, he says, maybe we could see each other and just talk, what do you think? Nothing would have to happen. And if we were just talking, I don’t think it would matter about the life stages being different.
She lets out a kind of helpless exhalation into the phone. Oh God, she says. I don’t know. Do you really think it’s a good idea?
For a moment he considers this question: whether it is a good idea for them to see each other again. Is it different, to want something, and to think the wanted thing is a good idea? Yes, it could be different, he thinks, if the long-term consequences of the event were foreseeably worse than the short-term gratification involved. And indeed, the long-term consequences of seeing someone again who you like very much, who doesn’t really hand on heart seem to like you in the same way, while unrelatedly you’re still grieving and feeling distraught about a recent death in your family, those consequences could be pretty bad, devastating even, in the long term, if you got to like her more and more and she understandably, due to your bad personality and looks, did not experience the same thing on her side. A lot of negative feelings could follow on from that: sadness, low self-esteem, anger at yourself and the other person, despair. People probably have lost their minds over less, and gone actually crazy from the misery. And yet, at the same time, it seems incredibly possible now, tantalisingly possible, that he might once again hear her voice murmuring his name in a low pleasurable satisfied tone while he makes love to her. And for this, he thinks, whatever: despair, heartbreak, even losing his mind and going insane later on, anything. Literally, anything, any price. Yeah, he says. I think it’s a good idea. I do.
At thirteen minutes past nine on Saturday night, Margaret is in the car park beside the bus stop, waiting for the arrival of the Sligo service from Dublin. The car heating system is turned up to the maximum setting and absentmindedly she holds her hands over a hot-air vent, thinking: What if someone sees me? She is sitting here alone in her car, long after the shops and businesses in the vicinity have closed, very clearly waiting for something. Anyone could be passing, and knocking cheerfully on her driver’s-side window they would say: Hello there, Margaret. What brings you into town? And she would have to roll the window down and reply: Oh hello, how are things? Right at that very moment, of course, the Sligo bus would pull up, and probably only one solitary person would alight. A more suggestive scenario Margaret struggles to imagine. Worse than suggestive: sordid. She, an older woman, approaching middle age, is waiting in her dusty overheated car in a poorly lit car park for the arrival of a young man, hardly past adolescence, on a night bus from Dublin. Not even the kindliest, most trusting and well-intentioned of passers-by, observing the scene, could conceive of a wholly innocent explanation for these events. The sexual element would simply leap forth with explanatory power. And, inevitably, people would come to hear about it. Her mother, Anna, the gang at work. Even Ricky. And what would he say, she thinks, if he knew? Would he laugh, to see her humiliating herself like this? Would it infuriate him, that after all her preaching and scolding she could do such a thing? Or maybe in confusion, bewildered, he would refuse to accept the truth. After all, despite everything, he still believes in her decency. Which she, too, believed in once: her own decency, a rag to clutch at, amid the squalor of their life.
On the phone, Ivan told her that she was beautiful, and that he wanted to see her again. This was flattering, and therefore pleasurable: the pleasure of flattered vanity. Margaret disapproves of her own vanity and knows that Anna, above all a decent person, disapproves of it also, Margaret’s and her own. This is probably why Margaret never told Anna about Ivan the other day even when given the opportunity, even in the garden, when she seemed to be about to tell her. And also why, when letting Anna know that she wouldn’t be coming to dinner this evening after all, Margaret didn’t explain what she would be doing instead. Because Anna deplores in Margaret, as in everyone, the vanity that is gratified by the flirtatious attentions of others. But then Anna has a husband, and now even a baby, both of whom offer her in different ways the love and devotion that supersedes and makes irrelevant the pleasure of praise and compliments. It seems hard in Anna therefore to condemn Margaret’s vanity, which has been so painfully starved in recent years, when Anna’s own is fed by the incomparably hearty nourishment of unconditional love. In the short time since Margaret met Ivan, he has provided, why not be honest, the only mouthful of desirable flattery she has tasted in a very long time. It is wrong to be vain: obscurely, warming her hands over the air vent, Margaret knows and admits to herself that it is wrong. But wrong in what way? Who is the victim of the wrongness: just herself? Or, somehow, other people?
Headlights appear now at the brow of the hill, and trundling slowly the bus makes its way down to the stop and whines to a halt. The door is released, and the luggage door also, lifting mechanically out and upward to display a lighted compartment containing a small number of coloured suitcases. From the door of the bus a young woman emerges, looking at her phone, and goes over to the luggage compartment. For a second or two, nothing else happens; and then she sees one more person alighting. Ivan. He’s wearing a dark jacket and carrying a backpack over one shoulder. Margaret before she knows what she’s doing feels her hand fumbling for the door-release handle, and the inrush of the cold October night over her face; she’s getting out of her car. Ivan, looking around, sees the car park, and then sees her: recognises her, and approaches. He doesn’t shout out enthusiastically: Hello, Margaret! or anything like that. He just comes over silently to the car, carrying on one shoulder the strap of his backpack. Under the artificial orange light of the streetlamps, he looks tall again, as she remembers. A polite distance away from her he stands, and says: Hey. She feels herself shivering in the cold. Hey, she says. Do you want to hop in?
They get into the car and she starts the engine. Her hands are shaking, although the car, she notices now, is stiflingly warm. Turning the heating system down, she asks Ivan how his journey was, and he answers: It was okay, thanks. Those buses aren’t too bad. They stop a lot, though. You don’t have a train station in town, do you? She is reversing out of the parking space, looking in the mirror, everything visible only in shades of orange and black darkness. No, she says. The closest one is over in Carrick. He’s nodding his head. His backpack is resting in his lap. On the phone he said they would see each other just to talk, and nothing else, which perhaps was a genuine suggestion and that really is all they’re going to do. At the moment, however, they are not even doing that: they are sitting in silence together while Margaret pulls out of the car park onto the road.
I live in the middle of nowhere, by the way, she remarks.
Like outside town, you mean?
Right. I’m just renting a place out there for the moment.
Cool, he says. I’ve always wanted to live in the middle of nowhere myself, but it hasn’t worked out like that. Clearing his throat, he adds: You live alone, I guess.
She laughs, a little nervously. Yes, she says. Indeed I do.
Yeah, I thought that, he replies. I live with roommates.
After a pause, unable to think of anything else to say, she asks: Do you work from home?
Oh, says Ivan. I guess we didn’t talk about work before, did we? He looks around at her, waiting for an answer.
No, she says, I suppose not.
He starts nodding his head again, looking out the windscreen, and he even seems to take a deep breath, as if to prepare himself. Okay, he says. Well, to be honest, I don’t totally have a job at this exact moment. I had this idea to take some time off after I finished college, to focus more on my chess. That was just this summer when I finished. But obviously I have to pay rent and everything, so I’ve ended up doing a lot of freelance work anyway. Data analysis, which I hate. And I also used to work as a delivery driver for one of those apps, but that was actually so bad that I quit.
That’s interesting, says Margaret. Driving a car, or cycling?
Cycling, he answers. I can drive, by the way, I have my full licence. I could drive my dad’s car if I had to, but in the city it’s not worth it. He glances over at her here, as if to make sure she’s listening, before going on. Anyway, he says, it was kind of funny sometimes, the delivery thing, because of the weird stuff people would order. And it was good to get the exercise. But on the other hand, I almost got killed a few times, so that aspect put me off.
Oh God, really?
Yeah, on the roads. People who drive cars are psychopaths. Sorry, I mean – no offence. Not you, obviously.
Smiling now she says: That’s okay. I have a friend who cycles everywhere, and she says the same thing. That drivers are insane.
It’s so true, Ivan says. After a moment he adds: So that’s kind of the work situation, to answer your question. I don’t exactly have what you would call a job.
Because you’re focusing on your chess.
Well, that was my plan. But I’m not really playing too well right now, as it happens. I don’t want to bore you too much with all that. The way I’m playing at the moment, I’ll just say, I might as well get a job.
Do you want one? she asks.
In her peripheral vision she can see him frowning, his brows knitting together. That’s a good question, he says. Do I want to have a job? I have a lot of thoughts about that, actually. Putting the whole chess aspect aside, I would like to be doing something, rather than nothing, yeah. But what would be something, compared to nothing? Or maybe that’s too abstract. For example, I do a little bit of data analysis, like I was saying. For tech companies mostly. They’ll give me a lot of data – say user experience data, like how long users spend on each section of a website – and I’ll spend a few hours making graphs and whatnot. Say it takes me – I don’t know, four hours to make these graphs, and I’ll pretend it took me ten hours, to get extra money. He glances over at her again, and adds: You might think that’s immoral, I don’t know. But anyway, never mind that for a second. The four hours that I actually spend making the graphs, and the ten hours that I get paid for: what is that? Like, any of that: what is it? At least when I worked as a delivery driver, I knew what I was doing. Someone wanted a Big Mac, and I brought it to them, and the amount I got paid was like, what it was worth to that person not to have to collect their own burger. The amount they will pay, not to leave the house, is the amount I will accept, yes to leave the house. Minus whatever the app is taking. If you get me.
I get you. You’re making perfect sense.
Oh good, he says. Because in the data analysis example, my question is, what is the money that’s being paid to me? It’s the money that the company will pay, to have their own information explained back to them in a graph. And how much money should that be? Clearly no one knows, because at the end I’ll make up a number of hours and they’ll just pay me for that number. I guess the graph is supposed to make the company more profitable, in theory, but no one knows by how much, it’s all made up. Briefly Ivan pauses here, and then goes on in the same tone: For my dissertation in college, I don’t know if you care about this, but I was working on climate modelling. Which is a big area in theoretical physics. And the more you work on that type of thing, the more you start seeing the economy in terms of, what we would call, throughput. Like, uh – resources, you know. Say, for example, concrete, or natural materials like wood. I’m not explaining this too well. I guess I think of the economy in terms of: what does everyone actually need, to be able to live, and then, where are we going to get all that stuff? And at the moment, you know, it’s messed up, from the climate perspective. Am I talking way too much now?
No, she says. Not at all, go on.
Well, obviously, the way it is now, not everyone has what they need. In terms of world poverty, and all those problems. And then a lot of people have way too much, to the extent that they’re just throwing money around for no reason. Paying people to make graphs, and the graphs could cost anything. The number comes from nowhere. It’s not related back down to any real resource value. You have— Not to get too politicised about it, because I’m not saying it from that side. But you do literally have people going hungry, I know that’s a cliché. Food shortages, it is a real thing. And then you have these tech companies paying me to make a graph. Why? It comes from the wrong distribution of resources. I mean, including the resource of labour, my labour in this case. That would count as a resource, in terms of total throughput. Because in theory I could be doing something else. You know, building a bridge, or working in a science lab or whatever it might be. My dad was an engineer, for example. But it doesn’t have to be that. I mean, even if you’re just delivering a burger to someone’s house, at least you understand your role in the economic system. Maybe it seems kind of stupid that people won’t collect their own burgers, but I guess not everyone might be able to. Whereas data analysis, I don’t know. It’s a lot more money for me, obviously. Especially if I exaggerate my hours, which, to be honest, I always do.
They’re driving in darkness now, and she turns on her full-beam headlights. She finds herself reviewing these remarks, combing back through them as if with her fingers. It’s interesting, she says. But then I suppose my job is more like the example of data analysis. I mean, whatever I get paid, it’s sort of random. It’s not as if my work adds a certain amount of profit and I get some of the profit back in my wages. It’s just an arts centre, we’re subsidised by the state.
He’s looking over at her. The turn-off for the cottage is approaching on the left, and she taps the indicator, which starts ticking quietly. Oh no, that’s not what I meant, he says. I’m so bad at explaining myself when I start talking about this stuff, I’m sorry. In itself, I think profit is actually sort of an inefficiency. For different reasons, I won’t go into it too much. But say if you take the example of a teacher, they go into work every day and like, teach children to read. The school isn’t making any profit, obviously, because it’s free to go there. But I think we all agree, the children should learn to read, so we better pay someone to teach them. Since that person needs to eat, and so on. If we organise everything in view of profit, we get things happening in the economy that make no sense. Like in this example, no one has a direct profit motive for teaching children, but the whole economy will collapse if people can’t read. You get the same problem with infrastructure, and all kinds of things.
Margaret turns the car, and they make their way along the narrower road, its surface perceptibly uneven under the tyres. But I don’t teach anyone to read, she says.
No, but what you do— Well, I only know from meeting you in your job last weekend. So you can correct me. But you helped to run the event, as I remember. And you gave me a lift to my accommodation afterwards, as part of your work.
Smiling to herself, looking out the windshield at the approaching gates, she answers: Right. Yes. Although I clocked off at that point.
He gives a sweet, kind of goofy laugh. I would hope so, he says. But putting that aside— I don’t know, it’s more interesting, so I don’t know why I’m putting it aside. Just to say that your work has value, from my point of view. What do you call it, by the way? Your job title, I mean.
Oh, I’m the programme director, she says. Managing the artistic programme. Booking events, basically – music, theatre, things like that. And trying to get an audience in. But there are only three of us on staff full-time, so we all do a bit of everything.
Cool, he says. I guess you see a lot of interesting shows then, at your work.
You know, I really do. I’m very lucky, I love my job.
She turns the car through the gates and slowly they make their way up the darkened drive, under the trees. Inside the cottage the lights are on, the windows glowing dimly yellow. Together they get out of the car and Ivan stands looking at the low darkened facade of the house for a moment, the left half partly covered by trailing ivy. Then Margaret opens the front door and they enter the hallway. A small brown moth circles the overhead light while they take off their jackets and shoes. She asks if she can offer him anything: coffee or tea, or something to eat. He says he has eaten already, but he would like to refill his water bottle if that’s okay. They go into the kitchen together, the terracotta tiles cold underfoot. He takes a silver water flask from his bag and refills it from the tap.
Your house is really nice, he says.
Oh, it’s not mine, it’s just rented.
Yeah, but I just mean it’s a nice place. Plus it’s cool you get to live alone.
She opens the kettle to look at the water level inside, and then shuts the lid again. Right, she says. I suppose— It wasn’t what I had planned for my life. To be living alone. But it’s okay.
He looks over at her. Oh, he says. I’m sorry. That was stupid of me, to say that.
No, don’t worry. I mean, you’re right, there are worse things. I spent a few months living with my mother last year, that was much worse.
He goes on looking at her. You don’t get along too well? he asks.
Margaret feels constrained in her response now, as if the conversation has become somehow hazardous, though she doesn’t understand why. With my mother? she says. I don’t know. I suppose we both do our best. It probably just didn’t suit us, to be living together.
He’s nodding his head thoughtfully. I get you, he says. I had to live with my mother sometimes, like off and on, and that never really suited us either. You know, partly because she lives with her boyfriend, and he has his own children as well. Who, honestly, I believe she prefers.
Margaret is listening, half-frowning, curious. You think your mother prefers her stepchildren? she says.
Yeah, I think so. They suit her more, with her personality. They’re both like, super normal and they have good jobs and everything.
Ah. You think she would prefer if you had a full-time job?
Definitely, says Ivan. It’s a fact, she would prefer that. She brings it up a lot. At the funeral even, last month. Again she brought it up about the job, why don’t I have one. I don’t know what you think of that, but to me it seemed a little bit on the harsh side. To be bringing that up at my dad’s funeral, I don’t know.
Margaret finds herself trying to picture this woman, Ivan’s mother, trying to imagine in what tone of voice she could possibly have said this, and even what she looks like, how she was dressed. That does seem harsh, says Margaret.
Does it? I’m glad, because I thought that myself. But sometimes I pick up on things the wrong way.
And what about your brother?
Yeah, Peter, says Ivan. You mean, what does he do for a job? He’s a barrister.
That’s interesting. But I suppose I meant, does he get on with your mother?
Oh, I see. No, not really. They don’t actually like each other too well. Although he does have a good job, in her opinion. But it’s not about that. It’s more like a personality clash between them. I guess I would say, if you’re interested, they’re both kind of dominant personalities. Who like getting their own way. So my mother trying to be the authority figure, that never went down too well with Peter, if you get me. Because he wouldn’t be a great fan of getting bossed around.
I see, Margaret says.
Ivan is looking at her. Yeah, he says. Whereas with me, I guess, my mother can be the authority more. But with no great results, because she’s never happy with me.
Margaret smiles despite herself. I’m sorry, she says. My mother is never happy with me either.
He smiles back at her. It’s weird, he says. I feel like if I created a new human being out of nothing, I would be very happy with them. Just that they were alive, even. You know, that’s my dad’s attitude. Or it was. He was always happy with us.
Touched, pained, she lays her hand over Ivan’s, where it rests on the countertop. I’m sorry, she says.
Thank you, Margaret, he answers. It is really weird, definitely. That he’s gone. And I have my regrets, you know. Like not being better towards him. Not that I was really bad. But say, even the stupid way I acted when I was a teenager. I wish I apologised for more of that stuff while I still had time. I don’t know, I’m sorry. I know that you lost your dad as well.
She’s nodding, feeling a kind of tightening in her throat. Yes, she says. I remember feeling that way at the time – regretful. But I don’t feel it so much anymore.
Oh, really? That’s good to know. Maybe that will happen for me as well, that the regret will fade. I guess feelings do change.
They do, she agrees.
She can feel him looking at her while she looks down at the countertop. Sorry, he says. I don’t know how we got onto such a sad topic.
Smiling with her eyes averted, she says: That’s okay. You know, life can be sad. It’s no good pretending to be happy all the time.
He pauses. Yeah, he says. I agree with that. Not that I really pretend to be happy, but I just don’t have anyone to talk to about these things. He swallows, and then continues: A lot of the time when I try to talk to someone, I feel like I must be really boring. Because I’ll notice that whoever I’m talking to is just zoned out and not interested in what I’m saying at all. That’s why I don’t talk a lot usually, I guess. I mean even with my friends, I don’t. Something might come into my head to say, but then I’ll just imagine how boring it would be from the perspective of everyone else, and I won’t say it. But when I’m talking to you— I guess, to be honest, you seem kind of interested. And then I probably get carried away a little bit, wanting to tell you things.
Well, I am interested, she says.
He’s nodding, looking down at his water flask on the countertop, saying: Honestly just being near you, I feel really good. Or— I’m sorry, maybe that’s weird.
Quietly she answers: No, it’s not.
He looks at her, not speaking. In this look she sees his question, and silently she gives her answer. Still without speaking he comes closer, he touches his hand to her hip. Closing her eyes, she feels his lips on hers, slowly. She lets her mouth come open. A long and deep kiss, with her back against the countertop. Not nervous or hesitant his gestures now but slow and thoughtful. A feeling of pleasure this gives her that seems more than vanity. Deep sensation like an opening outwards, inside. He, this person – his braces, bitten fingernails, ideas about resources, the delivery job he quit, sadness he has been unable to express – he wants her, and she wants him. To give him the feeling that he wants. She hears herself in a low voice saying his name.
Afterwards they lie quietly in bed, and he’s holding her in his arms, her head resting against his chest. When he tried looking on the internet last night, the advice was so confusing and contradictory, different things you had to do, and a lot of the websites were also trying to sell you certain products, like electronic toys or whatever, kind of making it seem like it would be impossible without these products, which he didn’t know how to use or even have time to purchase, until eventually he felt so confused and anxious that he just stopped looking. And then in real life, just now, everything was simple and easy. They got on the bed together, lying down, kissing like before, and in the light of the bedside lamp he started to undress her, taking off the sort of rough woollen jersey she was wearing, and unhooking her bra. She was smiling, lying there half-undressed, and when they looked at one another, she laughed, touching her face, and there was no need even to say anything, he understood completely, and he started laughing as well. They were both embarrassed, he thinks, but happy at the same time, and there was a pleasant feeling of foolishness between them that made them want to laugh even though nothing was funny. They kissed again, and he put his hand inside her underwear, feeling her breath kind of high and catching, because she liked that, and quietly he said that he wanted to make her come. She was flushed, nodding her head, and she said if he wanted that, then maybe when he was inside her, she could touch herself a little bit. Shyly her eyes were half-closed, not looking. I don’t mind, she said. It’s not the most important thing. The idea of it, that she would touch herself while he was doing it to her, and he could watch, made him even more excited, and he said: No, let’s definitely do that, if you want to. He got a condom from his bag, and she went on top of him. He could see she was getting really shy then, blushing, and she said she hoped she wasn’t very heavy. No, you’re not at all, he said. Which wasn’t completely true, because she was kind of, but he liked it. Then he was inside her, and she was clutching at his shoulder with her hand, because he could tell she loved it so much when it was deep like that, and her bare white breasts moved softly with the motion of her body. Slowly at first, and it felt so good that he wanted actually to stay just like that, watching her, holding her hand, maybe even for a long time, doing nothing else, and then it was faster and he heard himself mumbling: Fuck. From nothing this word formed in his mouth and was spoken, and she started to touch herself, looking down at him, and her tongue was at her lips, wet, and then he could feel that she was coming. She said his name in a crying voice, Ivan, oh God, and her eyes were closed, and he finished as well at the same time, not completely meaning to, but it was better anyway, and actually it was perfect. Now she lies on his chest maybe sleeping, and he moves his hand slowly over her back, thinking with satisfaction and happiness about how good everything is at this moment.
Many times in his life, he has experienced intense feelings of desire. In itself, he thinks, it’s not all that pleasurable a feeling: maybe a small bit pleasurable, but mostly frustrating and embarrassing, and also anxiety-inducing when you have to see the girl or interact with her, and you’re so anxious to come across well and not be creepy, even though it’s really obvious that she doesn’t like you in that way and never will. And on the other side, a few times in his life, he has even, supposedly, been an object of desire for someone else, like that girl Claire, who was in a younger year at college and a member of the chess society. In that experience there was almost no pleasure at all, just a lot of awkwardness and bad feeling, trying to avoid seeing her, and then sometimes getting caught in conversation with her, and everyone would be looking. She was always praising him loudly for being so good at chess and then deprecating herself and talking about how bad she was in comparison, which was kind of hard to disagree with, since he was literally one of the top-ranked players in the country and she was just some random unrated girl hanging around the college chess club. But sometimes he could see from her face that the way he spoke to her was hurting her feelings, which made him feel bad and guilty. No, the experience of being liked by her was basically just unpleasant, although she wasn’t ugly or anything, and some people even considered her to be pretty. Maybe in some small part of his brain – for instance, when one of the other guys said to him, that girl Claire seriously wants to suck your dick, Ivan – maybe there was a certain amount of good feeling in that. Because it was said in an offhanded way, as if it wasn’t really surprising, and other girls overheard, without seeming shocked, as if Ivan were more or less an averagely attractive guy and why shouldn’t some girl from a younger year want to do that to him, it was imaginable. However, other than this minor and temporary improvement in his self-image, there was nothing really enjoyable about being the object of another person’s desire, per se. And aside from these experiences, of wanting and being wanted, he has also had encounters with women which really involved neither category, as for example when at parties in college he would end up kind of drunkenly messing around with someone he didn’t know. He attended many parties in the hopes that this scenario might unfold, and then on a very few occasions it did, but never in a satisfying way. If he got to touch the girl, for instance, she definitely wouldn’t be moaning and writhing around or anything like that, actually she would just lie there, and he would be asking anxiously: Is that okay? And she would be like: Yeah, it’s fine. Then if he ever had to see her again in day-to-day life, his entire face would turn red and he would start stammering, and his friends would be like, Ivan, what’s wrong? Because he had just seen some girl who once gave him a handjob at a party or something, who probably didn’t even remember or care at all. Not that this happened frequently, because in fact he had only had like three of these encounters ever, and one of those was basically just kissing. The one time he actually succeeded in having full penetrative sex with someone, it was so awkward and bad that he walked back to his apartment afterwards and literally cried tears, hating himself more at that moment than maybe ever before in his life. Anyway. Nothing he has done or felt in this regard before has prepared him remotely for this new experience, with Margaret: the experience of mutual desire. To feel an interpenetration of thought between the two of them, understanding her, looking at her and knowing, yes, without even speaking, what she feels and wants, and knowing that she understands him also, completely. In her eyes, the look of warmth, the flickering kind of amusement, acknowledging: and this relates he thinks to her beauty, her thick dark hair in its loose unravelling braid, her full expressive mouth, the supple roundness of her arms, her breasts. Even her clothes, rumpled and softened, the careless way they drape over her figure, all of this is given life by her understanding, her complete personhood, which in a single look he senses and knows. The way she said his name in a crying voice, with her face and throat all flushed. To know that life can be like this: his life. Moving his hand over her back, he says aloud: Can I ask you— Then he remembers no one has been talking for a while, so he adds: Or maybe you’re asleep already, I’m sorry.
She lifts her head to look at him, and her face is dreamy, her eyes bright and glazed-looking. No, she says, I’m awake. What were you going to say?
Did you— It’s pretty stupid. But I’m just curious, did you always plan that you were going to call me? The other night. Or did you go back and forth on it.
She rests against him for a few moments longer in silence, and then she rolls over onto her back. He watches her, the bedlinen all white and tousled around her, like clouds, and her dark hair tumbled on the pillow.
To tell you the truth, she says, I told myself I wouldn’t. Because it didn’t seem to make any sense. I mean, with the age difference, and then we don’t even live anywhere near each other. And it was kind of crazy anyway, what happened. I actually felt shocked with myself when I thought about it, because I met you at a work event. And I never, never do things like that, never. I started thinking: I don’t know what came over me. I can’t imagine what kind of person he must think I am. And then, after a day or two, I started to wonder if maybe I should call, just to say: nice meeting you, and best wishes. Because I hated the idea of making you think— I don’t know, it’s silly, but I didn’t want you to feel that it didn’t mean anything to me. And I thought it would be nice to hear your voice again, actually. But that’s all. I just called to say thank you, and goodbye. Supposedly. I don’t know if I really believed that.
She’s looking up at the ceiling, not at him, while he lies in silence watching her.
My life isn’t very happy at the moment, Ivan, she says. Things are still difficult, with— the man I was married to. You know, he doesn’t really accept that we’re— Sorry, he does accept that we’re not together. But he doesn’t want to accept it. And my mother, I think, feels the same way. About my marriage, I mean. It’s complicated. I suppose I don’t have many people I can talk to. I know you were just asking me if I was planning to call you or not. And the answer is, I tried not to, and I told myself what a bad idea it was, and then eventually I started to think – what’s the point? I mean: what’s the point in pretending my life makes any sense anyway? Maybe it did once, but it doesn’t anymore.
She turns to him then, looking at him, and he looks back at her, nodding his head, to show that he understands.
I’m sorry to hear about that, he says. About your ex-husband.
She lowers her eyes, saying quietly: It’s okay.
Well, I’m sure it will be okay. But it sounds— to be honest, pretty bad.
She laughs now, looking up at him, and he can see that she’s sad, her eyes even looking almost tearful. It is pretty bad, isn’t it? she says.
Is it, like— Does he want to get back together with you?
I don’t know, she says. Sometimes I think he just wants to make me miserable. But that’s not true either. I suppose if you asked him, he would say yes, he wants to get back together.
And you don’t, says Ivan.
She shakes her head quickly.
That’s hard, he says. I’m sorry.
Oh, I don’t know, she replies. I’m not giving you a very good impression of him. He’s a decent person, you know, he just has his own problems. And I married him, after all.
He looks at her for a second or two, her face all pink and white like a flower, and her dark hair. I guess you’re probably not supposed to ask questions like this, he says, but were you in love with him?
I was once, she says. And after a pause she asks him: Have you ever been in love?
Ah, he answers. I thought I was, at different times. But it was never mutual or anything.
She nods her head, understanding without further explanation. After a moment she asks: Is it okay that I called you? You don’t think it was the wrong thing to do.
He pauses. No, he says. It wasn’t wrong, definitely not. I’m very happy. Or like— It’s weird to say I’m happy, because in a lot of ways I’m not at all. You know, because of the grief and regret that we were talking about before. But I feel really good being here with you. And I think it’s right. I know you’re not a great fan of the age difference, but I don’t think it matters. Or living far away. It’s not even that far. Not that I’m presuming you’ll want to see me again, I don’t know. But I’m very happy that I met you. And even knowing that you’re alive, I feel like my life will be a lot better. Just being able to remember – being with you, and having such a nice experience together. I don’t mean that in a weird way. But no, I think it’s the right thing that you called me, definitely. Yeah. And I’m thankful. Did I say that already? Or I don’t know if I did. But if I didn’t, I want to say thank you for calling me, and seeing me again. Because to me it means a lot.
She comes to him now and buries her face in his shoulder, and he puts his arms around her and touches her hair. He can feel that her jaw is moving a little, like maybe she might be crying, but if she is crying he thinks it’s okay. Her feelings about her ex-husband are obviously difficult, and about her mother, and her life has become senseless, and she also feels for him, Ivan, the situation that he’s in, and she likes him, even though she thinks he’s too young, and she feels confused about the sexual aspect of things, he can tell. But he thinks it’s okay for her to have these confusing feelings. It doesn’t mean that he has done anything bad, or that the sex wasn’t good. Dimly he even feels that she’s confused because in fact it was so good, and maybe she wants it again, the same way he does. How to make sense of these feelings in such a context? For him it’s not so difficult, but for her it seems to be very difficult and even makes her cry. About the crying, however, he feels calm, not panicked. Perhaps because as soon as her tears began, she came to him and put her face in his shoulder. And whatever she’s crying about or thinks she’s crying about, this still seems to mean something: that she wants to feel his arms around her, which is the same thing he wants. Whatever complicated circumstances may account for the situation, there is still this ultimate reality, that they are two people, a man and a woman, and the woman wants to lie in the arms of the man when she’s upset. And that reality has its own meaning. Ivan has never been such a man before, and had probably even thought that he never could be, that he would just get anxious and flustered, worrying that he had done something wrong, needing the woman to reassure him that he hadn’t done anything, or whatever, but now that the right moment has arrived, he finds it’s very easy. Just to hold her in his arms and feel her warm tears against his shoulder, and to touch her hair, and even say to her: Margaret, it’s okay. Don’t worry. It’s alright.
The next afternoon, a Sunday afternoon, they go walking together along the laneway behind the cottage. The sky overhead is pale blue, and the leaves of the trees are light and brittle, falling now and then in golden flurries through the air when the wind touches the branches. Margaret is walking with her hands in her pockets to keep them warm. Clear days she finds are colder, because on overcast days the clouds are like a blanket, like the sky is wearing a white woollen blanket keeping in the heat. Whether this is true or not she doesn’t know. Ivan might know but she doesn’t ask him, only walks beside him along the laneway, where indeed anyone might see them, but no one does. This morning they ate breakfast together, talking a little. She made him coffee in the cafetière and he said the coffee was good. Last night she thought: he’s too young, too much in grief over his father, it has to stop. We can be friends, but nothing more. Already he had started asking about her marriage, her life situation, and to confide in him about that would be the act of an insane person. Going to bed together was one thing, foolish maybe, but not sinister. Telling him about Ricky would be different. Contaminating his life, conscripting him into her own private misery. Pathetic, besides. No one believed me, Ivan. But you believe me, don’t you? If he had any sense he would run a mile. Terrible: and worse again if he didn’t. No, she thought, for his sake, for both of us, it has to stop. Then this morning they lay in bed together, and he talked to her about chess, how he first began playing, and his more recent feelings of disillusionment, not being able to take much enjoyment in the game anymore. She said that she would like to play chess again sometime, out of interest, not having played since she was a child, and for some reason this made him very happy, and he kept saying how much fun it would be for them to play together, even though he had just been talking before about how chess no longer gave him any pleasure. She could perceive then that along with his painful feelings of disillusionment, he still felt, maybe even unconsciously, an almost childlike enthusiasm for the game of chess, both at the same time. He was in a good mood, and he wanted to kiss her, and for a while they kissed, and then without talking any more he made love to her again. It was obvious then that it was not going to be enough that he was too young and going through a bereavement. Those were solid sensible ideas, powerful enough for the surface of daily life, but not powerful enough for the hidden life of desire shared between two people. They ate breakfast together afterwards and had the coffee, and now they are walking in the laneway, quiet, contented, and the feeling between them seems good and somehow wholesome. As they turn the corner around the low stone wall, the lane dips down ahead, and rainwater has pooled in the hollow, reflecting the clear blue of the sky, and around the water she can see little birds, drinking and preening themselves. At the sound of the approaching footsteps, the birds lift themselves into the air, and there are more of them, many, starlings, with dark iridescent wings, and they lift themselves in one cloud into the blue air, rising, all together, while Margaret and Ivan both stop and look. All as one the birds move together, a dark cloud beating with the loud muscular sound of wings, ascending towards the overhead telephone wire, and strangely it seems now the cloud parts, one half rising up above the wire and the other half falling below, cut cleanly, and then together the two clouds combine once more into an edgeless and mobile arrangement, which is called a murmuration, Margaret thinks. Wow, says Ivan under his breath. Down by the pool of water a few smaller birds of a different kind are still bathing themselves, little sparrows, or finches. And the pale blue air all around them is still and silent, the leaves of the trees are silent and still. Margaret touches Ivan’s hand and he smiles and they go on walking. The other birds dart off through the air as they draw near. He begins talking again about the game of chess they’re going to play together, which he says they can do ‘over the board’ or online, and she’s laughing, thinking about this game of chess she has for some reason agreed to play with him, and then his phone starts to ring.
One second, he says. Sorry.
He lets go of her hand to take his phone from his pocket. Glancing at the screen, Margaret can see that the person calling is named Peter. Still looking down at the phone, Ivan says: Oh, wait a second. This is my brother calling me. Is today Sunday? Fuck. I might have to pick up, is that okay?
Sure, says Margaret. Don’t worry.
I’m sorry, he says. One second, it won’t take long.
As he says this, he’s already picking up the call, sliding the icon to one side and lifting the phone to his face, saying: Hello? He turns a little away from her, standing in the grassy verge at the side of the laneway. She can hear a voice on the other end of the call, buzzing faintly, but she can’t make out the words. Hey, listen, Ivan says. I’m really sorry about this, but I forgot. Again she can hear the buzzing. Yeah, says Ivan. Well, no, I can’t. Because, the thing is, I’m sorry about this, but— I’m actually not in Dublin right at the moment. He pauses, biting absently at one of his fingernails, while she waits with her hands in her pockets. Then he says: No, it’s not that, I’m just— I’m, uh— He turns to Margaret, pointing at the phone as if to say: What should I tell him? Bemused, she shrugs her shoulders. It seems his brother is saying something, because Ivan is nodding his head, turning away, looking down at the grass. Yeah, he says. Yes, that’s right. He glances back at her. Well, kind of, he says. Basically, yeah. Smiling now, looking relaxed, he kicks at a piece of grass with the toe of his shoe. Look, I feel bad, I’m sorry, he says. I can see you in the week if you want, like for dinner or something. Yeah. Okay, I’m going now. I’m sorry. Bye, sorry again. Goodbye. He hangs up the call and puts the phone back in his pocket, looking at her.
That was my brother, he says. I actually was supposed to meet him for lunch today, like ten minutes ago. But I forgot about it. He was there at the restaurant waiting for me and everything.
Oh, I’m sorry, Margaret says.
No, no, don’t be, says Ivan. He didn’t mind. No, he was very surprised I wasn’t there at first, because I’m usually the punctual one. But he figured out I was with someone. And then he was like, oh, forget about lunch, it doesn’t matter at all. Have fun. Yeah. He’s weird. He’s kind of funny. He really likes women, I don’t know if I said that before.
She stands there smiling, folding her arms, tucking her hands into the crooks of her elbows. No, you didn’t say that, she says. What does it mean, he likes women?
You know. He has a lot of girlfriends.
All at once?
With a funny kind of shrug Ivan walks on, and Margaret walks beside him. I don’t know, he says. We don’t talk about things like that. I’ve just heard from other people that he goes out with a lot of different girls. He did have a more long-term girlfriend once, when I was younger, but they broke up. Which was sad, because she was really great. And now he seems to have new girlfriends all the time. Not that it’s any of my business.
Together they go on walking, shadows short and dark over the gravelled path ahead. When you told him just now that you were with someone, Margaret says, did he ask who?
Well, he asked if I was in Leitrim. Because he knows that I was here last weekend, for the chess thing. And since I’m here again, I guess he worked out that I met someone the last time. But I never told him anything.
What do you think he would say if he knew?
If he knew what?
She swallows. That I’m thirty-six, she says. Or that I used to be married.
Oh, says Ivan. What would Peter say? I don’t know. He’s in his thirties as well, I think I told you. Around your age.
She says nothing. He looks over at her while they walk.
I guess you’re thinking about what different people in your life would say, he remarks. If they knew about me, or whatever.
You’re right, I suppose I was thinking about that.
Your ex-husband, and so forth.
Yes, she says.
You don’t think he would be too happy.
With a kind of laugh, frightened, not knowing what to say, she answers: Ah, no, Ivan, I don’t think he would.
But it’s your life, you know.
She nods her head, looking down at the ground. It’s difficult, she says. I don’t know. Ivan says nothing, just goes on walking beside her in the cold bright air. From the field beside the laneway, behind the low stone wall, a small sturdy sheep watches them passing, its dirty fleece silvered with rainfall, its face velvet black. Golden-green fields stretching out into the faint blue distance. Limitless clear air and light everywhere around them, filled with the sweet liquid singing of birds.