7

On Thursday evening, Ivan is waiting for his brother in a dimly lit restaurant. Elsewhere he can see rich people eating expensive meals, and soon his brother will arrive, another rich person basically, and they will eat a meal together also. Why not? Peter, though overly motivated by the acquisition of personal wealth, Ivan thinks, and often obnoxious, and not as smart as he thinks he is, nonetheless has talked sense about a couple of things down the years. At least on a few significant points, in fact, Peter has been right, and Ivan himself has been wrong. On the topic of women, for example, when they used to argue about that, Peter, always a fan, was as it turns out broadly speaking correct, and Ivan mistaken. Just today, or was it yesterday, when that pregnant woman boarded the tram at Smithfield and Ivan got up to offer her his seat, and they smiled at each other and she sat down, saying thank you: this was the kind of thing he would have argued about with Peter in former years, and from the wrong side. It had once seemed to Ivan absolutely no business of his if some total stranger happened to be pregnant. That makes her so important, he thought, just because she’s going to have a baby? Isn’t the wealthy global north overpopulated already? And how can feminists say they want equality, if what they really want is to be considered biologically more important than men? Feminists, it seemed to Ivan, were campaigning for a world in which men, far from being equal citizens, in fact had to give up their seats on public transport whenever any random woman decided to get pregnant, which happened constantly. That really was his view, at the time, which his brother had never been shy about denouncing and describing as ‘fascist’ and so on. Later, in college, Ivan came to feel more like: okay, whatever. I’m not that tired, and I guess if the woman is so tired, she can sit down. It’s not one hundred percent fair, since it’s not as if I made her pregnant, or have ever had the opportunity to do that with literally any woman, but whatever, I’m not going to make a big point out of it. And on the one occasion during his college years when this hypothetical situation arose in reality, he did give up his seat, but not with any great feeling of camaraderie; rather, with a slight feeling of awkwardness and irritation still. Now, today, or actually no, yesterday afternoon, he smiled at the pregnant woman on the tram with a very genuine smile, and she looked up at him with eyes of gratitude, saying: Thank you. Ivan perceived in himself at that moment a completely different attitude towards the whole situation. He no longer felt annoyed or imposed on; rather he was filled with kindly and even tender feelings towards the woman who was pregnant. These feelings seemed, when he thought about it, to be connected with recent developments in his own life: his new understanding of relations between women and men. How certain things can happen, resulting in such situations, even unintentionally, which is something he has always understood on a literal level, but now understands with personal sympathy and compassion for all involved. This particular weakness of women, in regards to their desire for men, strikes him as beautiful, moving, worthy of deep respect and deference. And these are probably the same feelings, really more sentimental than ideological, that have also motivated Peter through the years to care so much supposedly about the oppression of women: because Peter has always at any given time had at least one girlfriend he could imagine in the role of the oppressed. It’s easy, Ivan can readily see, to become upset and angry on behalf of a woman who likes going to bed with you. Such a relationship by its nature excites feelings of protectiveness and even a sort of awed reverence on the part of the man towards the woman. But on a number of other points too, Ivan thinks, his brother has long been a person of good sense. On the subject of how to deal with their mother’s boyfriend Frank, for instance. Or how to tell a waiter politely that they’ve brought the wrong food. Ivan has even observed Peter doing this. Looking down at the plate, he will say in a friendly offhanded kind of voice: Ah, I think it was the tortellini for me. He doesn’t hesitate before saying it, he just says it right out, completely normal. This is not a skill Ivan urgently needs to cultivate, considering how seldom he frequents restaurants, considering that he has almost literally no money, but he would still like to have this skill in his pocket for the rare occasions on which a waiter brings him the wrong dish, to be able to say nonchalantly: Ah, I think it was the tortellini.

Ivan had planned to spend this week studying opening theory, but instead he has had to devote his time to calling and emailing a small tech start-up, trying to get them to pay an invoice he sent them in July. Hello, he writes in his emails, just sending another reminder about this invoice, sent 08/07. I am still awaiting payment on this. Thanks again. Best, Ivan Koubek. His rent is due in ten days and, for several reasons, not only his own failings, but also the time he had to take off for the funeral and so on, he has no other outstanding income due. He has called the phone number on the company website so many times that by now when he reaches the automated voice message on the other end he actually finds himself mumbling along with the words, like some kind of insane tuneless karaoke, pacing around his tiny box room with the streaming wet window. You’ve reached EduFocus One. Thank you for calling. Please leave your name and number and a member of our team will reach out to you. It’s a female voice saying these words, a kind of robotic accentless voice, and then a tone sounds. One important thing Ivan has learned about leaving these messages is not to become aggressive, because he did that once before with a different start-up, not screaming but using an angry tone of voice, and then he got an email saying that protecting the dignity of staff was the organisation’s top priority and that he had made the work environment feel unsafe, and then he didn’t get paid. Also the email scared him and made him feel like he was going to go to jail. He has, relatedly, been looking for new work during the week too, sending emails, making calls; even, through half-closed eyes with his mouse pointer poised over the red x button, looking at graduate jobs listed online. Trading Technology (Trainee Scheme). Graduate Financial Services Engineer. Junior Software Analyst. These words sort of roll and slide over his consciousness, adhering to nothing, rolling away again as soon as he clicks the x. And his mother this week has been sending the usual guilting text messages about the dog, about Ivan’s failure to visit the dog, and implicitly also about Ivan’s failure to visit her, his mother, whom he doesn’t want to visit, because she’ll ask him about his career, which doesn’t exist, and her stepson Darren will probably be there, wearing ugly brand-label clothing and talking about his sailing club. On the bus this morning, Ivan received another such text from his mother, saying: I thought you couldn’t bear to be parted from this creature? And attached to the message was a picture of his dog Alexei looking mournfully up at the camera, his thin face pointed down but with eyes upturned in melancholy. Sitting on the crowded morning bus in his jacket, the air too warm and humid with other people’s breath, his shoulder pressed against the shoulder of the person beside him, Ivan felt bad about his dog, and missed him, and started to think he really should visit, even all the way out in Skerries, in his mother’s boyfriend’s house, with the photographs of boats on the mantelpiece. He remembered then about the unpaid invoice, about the rent due at the end of next week, the graduate jobs he had seen listed on the website, the opening theory he hadn’t studied, the eulogy he hadn’t given at his father’s funeral, and then, before his thoughts could sink down any more deeply into debilitating dark regret and misery, he thought about Margaret. For each of the last two weekends he has been with her, and this weekend he’s going to be with her again. And bringing this to mind on the bus, he closed his eyes just briefly and felt the proximity of that approaching peace and restfulness, a sense that he was even now proceeding there, that time was moving ahead in that direction, towards the weekend, when he could be near her, and he thought about all the things he wanted to ask her about herself. What kind of books she likes to read, was she popular at school, does she like her sister better or her brother, does she believe in God, did she have a lot of boyfriends before she got married or only a few. Some of these questions he could ask her over dinner, and some he could ask her in bed, holding her in his arms, kissing her intermittently on the mouth. Of course, whether or not there is a beautiful woman in his life who enjoys being kissed by him, he still has to pay rent: he accepts this. Nonetheless, it is better to feel hopeful and optimistic about one’s life on earth while engaged in the never-ending struggle to pay rent, than to feel despondent and depressed while engaged in the same non-optional struggle anyway.

Now, from behind a curtain near the restaurant entrance, Peter appears in person, seven minutes late, wearing a long navy-coloured overcoat. In his hands he’s carrying a briefcase, and also a rolled-up umbrella and a folded copy of a newspaper, as a server shows him to Ivan’s table. Hello, says Peter. Hey, says Ivan. The server goes away again and Peter takes off his coat and puts away the items he has been carrying, pretty much effortlessly, like he doesn’t have to think for even a few seconds about where all these various objects will go. Then he sits down opposite Ivan at the table, smiling to himself.

What? says Ivan.

Nothing, says Peter. Am I late, or you’re early?

Ivan says he’s early. Peter checks his wristwatch, a heavy-looking gold-rimmed watch face with a leather strap, and remarks: That’s nice of you, but I’m also a little bit late. Looking up then, he asks: How was your weekend?

It was fine, says Ivan. How was yours?

Peter fills their water glasses from the carafe. Same as usual, he says. You were back in Leitrim again?

Right, Ivan says.

You’re seeing someone over there.

In response to this remark, Ivan feels himself draw in a cautious breath between his teeth. Well, he says, yeah, kind of.

With a pleasant, interested expression, Peter looks at him. Kind of? he says.

I mean, yeah, we do see each other. But that’s not to put labels on it.

In a smiling voice, Peter says: I see. Keeping things casual.

This could be interpreted as mocking, Ivan thinks, but from the tone he doesn’t believe it’s meant that way. Thinking it over, he swallows a mouthful of ice water from his glass. Then he says: It’s more just, that it’s still early times. But no, it’s, uh— He breaks off here, not having prepared in advance any phrase with which to close this sentence, and not finding now any appropriate one to hand. Embarrassed, he smiles, and says nothing else.

Peter has meanwhile started examining the menu politely, as if not to make a big point of the fact that Ivan just randomly stopped talking mid-sentence, which Ivan can acknowledge is basically kind of nice of him. Without looking up, Peter says: A fellow chess enthusiast?

Sorry? says Ivan.

Your friend in Leitrim, does she play chess?

Oh, I get you. No, she doesn’t.

At this Peter looks up from the menu with a curious, still pleasant, but noticeably different expression. Oh, he says. So the two of you met…?

We met at the exhibition game, yeah, says Ivan. But she wasn’t there watching, she works at the arts centre. Where it was on.

How interesting.

Ivan now also picks up the menu and looks at it, although he already had plenty of time to decide what to eat before Peter arrived, and in fact he had already decided before then by looking at the restaurant website. Yeah, I like her a lot, he says.

That’s nice, Peter answers. I’m happy for you.

The server returns then to take their orders, starters as well as main courses, and Peter talks Ivan into sharing a bottle of white wine, and then the server goes away again, taking the menus with her. Ivan knew in advance that Peter would want to know what the situation was with Margaret, and he had even felt some anxiety about how the discussion would unfold, what Peter might imply or say about Ivan or about the relationship, but now that this section of the conversation has concluded, he actually feels it went well. Peter was courteous and tactful, he thinks; and he himself was okay, a little awkward, but fine, not a complete embarrassment. Practically flush with the success of this exchange, he asks Peter how work is going, and they are still talking about Peter’s work when the starters arrive. Peter has ordered some kind of bruschetta dish, while Ivan has ordered French onion soup. They both begin eating, and the soup is so hot and rich and flavourful that Ivan feels his mouth watering even as he eats, remembering how hungry he is, the two plain slices of white bread he ate for lunch, his face growing damp now in the steam rising appetisingly from the soup bowl. It’s not everything I thought it might be, Peter is saying. But at least I’m keeping busy. You know, you come in with all these high ideals, it’s the same for everyone. Actually, let me correct myself, it’s not like that at all for most of them. The majority of these people don’t have any ideals in the first place. But even if you do, to finish my point, you still have to take the work you can get.

Ivan wipes his mouth thoughtfully with the cloth napkin and puts it back down in his lap again. Do you have ideals? he asks. Peter looks at him across the table with such a funny expression – hurt, and at the same time baffled and kind of alarmed – that Ivan immediately adds: I mean, sorry, I’m sure you do.

I do, Peter says, yes.

Right, right. But such as, for example?

Peter still looks puzzled. What do you mean? he asks.

Ivan can feel himself communicating poorly, and in order to smooth over the situation, he tries to smile. Like, what would be one of your ideals? he says. You don’t have to say, I’m just interested.

In a gentle tone of voice now, Peter answers: It’s a figure of speech, Ivan. To have ideals, it just means to be motivated by something other than your own self-interest. Of course, speaking personally, I would like to live in a more equitable society. And I do get quite a bit of work in that area. Equality, employment rights. But for the moment, as I was saying, my professional life still has to revolve around making money.

No, I get you. A more equitable society. It’s interesting. I agree, I’d like to live in one as well.

Peter sips his wine and puts the glass down. I suppose more or less everyone would like to, in theory, he says. Are you thinking about a future career?

Yeah. Thinking of becoming an eco-terrorist.

Peter glances up and, perceptibly seeing in Ivan’s face that he’s joking, smiles. I respect it, he says. Give me a call when you need a lawyer.

In Ivan’s mouth, the wine has a cold, enjoyably acidic taste. Honestly, he says, the big obstacle would be that I’m a coward.

Peter laughs so genuinely and spontaneously at this remark that he has to cover his mouth, which is full of food. Coughing a little, and then swallowing, he says humorously: Ah, and I thought we had nothing in common.

Ivan feels consciously pleased at making him laugh. What do you mean, you’re a coward as well? he says. I wouldn’t have thought that.

Wouldn’t you?

Well, the way you go into court and give your arguments to the judge. I think if you were cowardly you wouldn’t want to do that.

Peter appears to think about this, and answers: Not if you were good at it. No. It’s easy to do things you’re already good at, that’s not courageous. Trying to do something you might not be capable of doing— He breaks off here, apparently thinking again, chewing a crust of bread. We’re being hard on ourselves in a way, he remarks, because both our lives involve some voluntary exposure to what other people might call defeat. Which I think requires a certain degree of courage. Even if just psychologically.

Ivan listens, letting the wine get warm in his mouth before swallowing. You mean like when I lose at chess, he says.

A lot of people probably wouldn’t be able to cope with it the way you can.

I don’t know. I don’t think I cope with it all too well. It bothers me a lot to lose.

It bothers me a lot too, says Peter.

Ivan looks at him across the table. Yeah? he says. I wouldn’t have thought that either. Like when you lose at a court case, it bothers you?

Peter nods his head, looking down at his plate, moving his cutlery around. Absolutely, he says. I find it very aggravating.

No way. It’s funny. I don’t remember you getting too annoyed when you would lose at debating.

He glances up with a kindly smile. I didn’t lose very often, he says.

Yeah, true. At the time it made me feel like debating must be kind of fake, compared to chess. How you would win all the time and never lose.

Well, there just wasn’t anyone good enough to beat us.

Ivan considers this, and then answers: I wanted my life to be like that.

Me too, says Peter.

They go on eating their food for a time in silence. Ivan feels he is learning something interesting from this discussion, although he can’t say what exactly. Of course, he and his brother both wanted their lives to consist of winning all the time and never losing: this is presumably true of everyone. No one ever wants to lose. And yet for both Peter and Ivan, this particular feeling has perhaps been more important, more intense than for other people: the desire to win all the time, and also the naive youthful belief that it would be possible to live such a life, now soured by experience. There seems to have been in both their lives a period of exuberant repeated triumph, for Ivan his final years at secondary school, for Peter his time at college, which in both cases came to a disheartening close. After leaving school, Ivan struggled to focus on his chess, and his dad got sick, and everything started to get extremely depressing. What happened to Peter after he graduated from university is less clear to Ivan, but there certainly was a turn in his life, even in his personality, which happened around the time of Sylvia’s accident. It’s something Ivan doesn’t understand too well, since he was just a child at the time. Or like sixteen, but close enough to childhood still. It seems to say something about Peter that when Ivan actually was a child, the two of them were good friends, but when Ivan became a thinking person with his own individuality, Peter didn’t like him or want to spend time with him anymore. And what it says, Ivan thinks, is that Peter likes people he can dominate and feel superior to, and he’s not such a great fan of people who talk back to him and disagree. Once Ivan got to the age of sixteen, seventeen, that’s when he and Peter started getting into arguments, fights even, about politics, history, whatever, pregnant women on public transport, and Peter would call Ivan all kinds of names, a misogynist, a loser. That was sad, because they really had been friends before. If Peter and Sylvia had stayed together, Ivan thinks, everything would have been different, because she had a good effect on him. It was after they broke up that things changed. But this thought is obscure and confusing, since it’s not like Sylvia went out of Peter’s life, they’re still best friends, and it’s something Ivan doesn’t know a lot about or understand. Peter is refilling their glasses now, and the server is bringing their main courses to the table. Ivan has ordered the salmon: a glistening pink fillet topped with delicate dissolving flakes of salt, surrounded by buttered green peas and asparagus and baby potatoes.

That looks good, Peter says.

Ivan, submerged in a pleasant warm vaguely confused feeling induced by the conversation, the ambience, the food and wine, his own thoughts, agrees that it looks good. It’s a really nice place, he adds. I’ve never been here before. This, he thinks, sounds like something a person who habitually goes to restaurants would say. In his mouth, the salmon melts hot into an abstraction of flavour: salt savoury fish and the bright sparkling taste of lemon juice, melting together on the palate. It is extremely flavourful, Ivan thinks, extremely good to eat. Peter asks him if he’s been back to their father’s house since the funeral, and Ivan says no. For a while they talk about the house, which now belongs legally to their mother, because it was purchased jointly and their father never bought out her share. Christine has not yet revealed whether she intends to sell the property, and neither Peter nor Ivan can be bothered to ask her about it anymore, since, they both agree, she actually seems to enjoy keeping them in suspense. Personally I don’t care what she does, Peter says. But maybe you’d prefer her not to sell. Ivan, after a pause, says it’s hard to know, because it would be sad never to be able to go back to the house again, but he also doesn’t like to think of it sitting empty and no one living there. An expression crosses over Peter’s face, a difficult expression to describe, and then immediately it’s gone again, and he answers: I know what you mean. I suppose with the transport situation, it wouldn’t be practical for either of us to live there. Ivan agrees it would be impractical, and Peter after a pause asks: You’re still living out in Ringsend, aren’t you? Ivan says yes, for the moment.

And you’re working? Peter asks.

Well, yeah, freelance, Ivan says. Data analysis. Only part-time.

But you’re getting by okay.

Ivan chews a mouthful of his food, thinking, and then swallows. Mostly, he says. At the moment it’s tricky, because I didn’t get a lot of work done in August or September. With the funeral, and all that.

Right, Peter says. When you say tricky, you mean…?

Ivan pauses again, and then answers carefully: I’m just waiting to get paid. And my rent is due next week. You know, if everyone would pay me on time, I wouldn’t have a problem.

When he glances up, Peter is nodding his head, using his knife to construct an intricate forkful of pasta. Well, listen, he says, if it gets to next week and you don’t have the money, just call me. Alright? I’d be happy to help, it’s no big deal.

For a moment Ivan says nothing, watching his brother eat. Then he says: Cool. That’s really nice of you, thanks. After a pause, he adds: Hopefully I’ll get the money before then. But if I did have to borrow, I would pay you back, obviously.

Sure, I know. But no rush.

With a strange feeling, Ivan goes on eating, unable to think of anything to say. The idea of borrowing money from Peter has never occurred to him before: maybe because Peter’s aura of wealth has always seemed more like a personality trait than a transferable item of property. Asking to borrow his money would have been like asking to borrow his sense of humour: it wouldn’t even have made sense as a request. Ivan can see now, however, that Peter’s money is not a personal characteristic, but literally just money. And although Ivan would still prefer not to have to do it, he has to acknowledge that it’s soothing to his nerves, knowing that he can pay his rent next week no matter what happens, and he doesn’t have to worry about it every minute. He feels touched by Peter’s generosity: and even more so by his pretence of being offhanded about his own generosity, like it’s no big deal, a pretence which serves only to make the situation less awkward for Ivan. He’s trying to be nice, obviously. The whole thing, taking Ivan out for dinner, being tactful, making sure he’s not in need of money: this is Peter’s way of trying to be a nice person, a good brother. Ivan finds this so touching that it’s actually sad, a sadness that seems to be related fundamentally to his brother’s personality. It reminds him of Sylvia again, of her role in Peter’s life. Like when their dad was in the hospital, and she would come and sit by the bed, doing newspaper puzzles: crosswords, letter wheels, sometimes even the chess problems. Peter himself did not have much patience to sit at their father’s bedside. He liked to be up and about, visiting the vending machine, making phone calls, trying to get information from the doctors. Filling out the insurance forms, things like that. He was not someone to hang around reading slowly through smudged newsprint. Incline, four letters. R something something P. That was more for Sylvia and Ivan, who would sit on the uncomfortable chairs together looking over the back pages of the paper until his father felt tired enough to sleep. All three had their parts to play, however. The insurance paperwork was also important, and from the vending machines Peter would bring back some little snacks for Ivan and Sylvia, cups of coffee, a Twix bar, and fresh water for their dad. It wasn’t like Peter was off somewhere else, having fun, letting Ivan handle everything alone. But you felt at the same time his need of Sylvia, as if he relied on her to supply certain things that went beyond him. It’s all connected somehow, Ivan thinks: even right now, the dinner they’re eating together, Peter trying so hard to be nice to him, it goes back to a certain sadness, a certain deficiency in Peter’s personality. After the funeral last month, Ivan remembers, Sylvia stayed over with Peter, in his room. Is that why he has invited Ivan out for dinner, talked him into sharing a bottle of wine, offered to lend him money, and so forth? The server comes back with the dessert menus now, and when she’s gone again Peter pours the last of the wine into Ivan’s glass. Watching him across the table, thinking, feeling something almost like a gathering of courage inside himself, Ivan says aloud: So, what’s going on with you?

Peter puts the empty bottle back in the cooler. What do you mean? he asks.

I don’t know. Like, you’re seeing anyone, or?

Looking over at him, Peter raises his eyebrows. Ah, he says. Well, it’s like you were saying before. It’s not always a straightforward question.

Ivan pauses, and then ventures: You’re not back together with …

Peter waits a moment for Ivan to complete the sentence, and when he doesn’t, he says simply: With Sylvia, you mean.

Right.

You can say her name, you know. It’s allowed.

Ivan nods his head, knowing that the conversation has become different now, and more serious, and he has to try to find the correct words. Yeah, you’re right, he says. I guess I just didn’t want to be intrusive.

No, that’s okay. It’s not intrusive. I hope you know she really cares about you.

I do know that, Ivan says. It’s the same for me, I care about her. After a brief pause he adds: I actually miss seeing her.

Peter looks down at the menu, even though he doesn’t seem to be reading it. Sure, he says. I think she feels that way about you too. He seems to swallow, and then looking up he adds: She says we’re starting to look alike. You and me.

Ivan finds himself laughing then, feeling a little drunk. Oh, he says. That’s funny. I don’t think that.

Well, I don’t have your youthful charm, obviously, Peter says. But I don’t think she meant you any offence. He turns around the dessert menu to look at the list of hot drinks and spirits. Sylvia’s very important to me, he remarks. You know, she’s a big part of my life, she always will be. But it’s been a long time since we broke up, and now I suppose we both have other things going on. It’s difficult. There are a lot of feelings there. I mean, to speak honestly, I still love her. Very much, yeah. But it’s complicated.

Ivan is nodding his head. He senses that, for the first time in his life, Peter is speaking to him as an equal, someone who understands the complexities of life and intimate relationships: which, he thinks, is exactly what he is, someone who has come to understand those complexities for himself. There are a lot of feelings there, Peter said, and Ivan knows exactly what he means. With Margaret, when she cried, and he was holding her: there were a lot of feelings then, too many. To think of his brother and Sylvia in a similar situation strikes Ivan as strange and sad, although why it should be so sad he doesn’t know exactly. He wants strongly to communicate all this somehow, how much he understands, how similar he feels in a way their circumstances are, and looking down at his own menu, almost unconsciously affecting the same offhanded manner as Peter, he says: I get you. With the woman I’m seeing, she has this ex-husband who she’s separated from. So that makes things kind of complicated, as well.

After a moment, though he himself is still looking at the menu, Ivan can perceive that Peter is staring at him: another strange feeling. Looking up, he confirms that indeed his brother is staring, with a vague frown on his face.

I’m sorry, she has what? Peter says.

Feeling less confident of himself now, and wondering whether in fact he might be drunk, Ivan repeats uncertainly: She’s separated from her husband.

Peter, still staring at him, says in an oddly quiet voice: What age is she?

Ivan senses himself swallowing. Thirty-six, he says.

Peter just nods his head neutrally for a few seconds. Still speaking quietly, he asks: Does she have children?

No.

Peter rubs his eyes with his fingers, looking tired now and depressed. Slowly he says: Don’t take this the wrong way, Ivan. But the woman is nearly forty. She’s been married already. You’re twenty-two, you’re hardly out of college, you don’t even have a job. I’m not trying to be disparaging, but do you think a normal woman of her age would want to hang around with someone in your situation?

A prickling Ivan senses at the back of his neck, and also under his arms, prickling in his blood. What are you saying? he says. She’s not normal?

I’m raising the question.

You don’t know her.

For that matter, neither do you, says Peter. You’ve met her what, twice?

With a hot kind of trembling feeling all over his body, Ivan pushes his chair back from the table and rises to his feet. Fuck you, he says.

Peter sits there with a weary smile on his face, saying: Can we be civilised, please?

In a deliberately quiet almost hissing voice Ivan says: I actually hate you. I’ve hated you my entire life.

Without stirring, without looking around to see whether the other diners or the staff are watching them, Peter just answers: I know.

Outside in the night air, Ivan walks with long brisk strides, stepping into the street when he has to avoid oncoming pedestrians. He can feel his back teeth grinding against each other, can even hear the horrible grinding sound in his ears. Do you think a normal woman, Peter said, as if the idea were laughable. But Margaret is, whatever Peter might think or say, in fact a normal woman. Even if she weren’t, it wouldn’t matter to Ivan, since unlike his brother he doesn’t assign an idiotically high, practically moral degree of value to the concept of normality, which phrased in another way means conformity with the dominant culture. But it so happens that Margaret is what Peter would consider normal: intelligent, cultured, at ease in social situations. What kind of abnormality was Peter even hinting at? That she might not be mentally all there? Or she’s just using Ivan to get back at her ex-husband or something. Whatever. She’s actually not like that at all. Gradually, making his way more slowly among the voices and bodies of other people, Ivan feels the heat in his face begin to dissipate, absorbed as thermal energy by the surrounding atmosphere. The extreme ferocious anger that provoked him to leave the restaurant so suddenly is now subsiding, he can sense, and the overwhelming intensity of bad feeling that remains inside him is not really anger anymore, but something else. He is beginning to feel that it was not a good idea – that it was, on the contrary, a shockingly awful idea – to tell Peter about Margaret’s age and marital status in that way. Firstly, he can see that he never should have trusted Peter with that information to begin with. But secondly, if he were going to make that mistake, he should have taken pains to introduce the information in a careful and appropriate manner. He can see that now. It’s so obvious. Margaret herself just the other day expressed anxiety about what Peter would think of her if he knew, because she understands that the situation might appear unusual and be open to misinterpretation. In saying what he said to Peter – not only the literal words, but the careless tone, the lack of forethought – Ivan realises that he has done something Margaret would not have wanted him to do. He has in fact brought about, of his own volition, the precise situation she was worried about, vis-à-vis his family and what they would think of her. Peter now actually does think badly of her, just as she feared he would, and it’s all because of Ivan. This thought strikes him with such a forceful blow that he stops walking and stands still in the street, staring down at the wet cracked paving in an abyss of extreme despair and mortification. Can it be corrected, he wonders. Would it be possible, for example, for Ivan to contact Peter and somehow rectify the misunderstanding between them regarding Margaret’s personality and moral character. But no, he thinks: not really. Because everything Ivan said at dinner was true, and Peter’s judgement of Margaret, while incorrect, is based on correct information, and it’s difficult to see what further mitigating information could reasonably be supplied to Peter to change his mind. At that, Ivan has to acknowledge, with distinct discomfort, that Margaret’s marriage is not something about which he himself is immensely well informed. He does not actually know, for instance, what her ex-husband’s name is, what he does for a living, how long they were married or why their relationship came to an end. Margaret has not to any meaningful degree, despite his confiding tone over dinner just now, opened up to Ivan on the subject. Do you think a normal woman, Peter said, and the memory of this remark instantly renews in Ivan a sufficient degree of anger to jolt him into resuming his walk. Just because he, Ivan, behaved stupidly and said things he shouldn’t have, that doesn’t mean that he, Peter, was justified in reacting the way he did. He could have shown some open-mindedness and sensitivity instead of leaping to condemnation and ridicule. Fundamentally Peter is a bad person, Ivan thinks, and Ivan’s own life would be in no sense worse and arguably a lot better if he never had to see or speak to him ever again. From now on, he will block his brother’s number from his phone and refuse to acknowledge him if they ever pass one another on the street. These thoughts, the image for instance of blanking Peter in public, embarrassing and offending him, can however only temporarily distract Ivan from the much more painful contemplation of his own remorse. Trying to be perceived as grown-up and sophisticated by a patronising older sibling, he has behaved stupidly, and worse than stupidly, he has betrayed the confidence and trust of a woman he likes very much and who might even like him. What could be worse than that? His resolution never to see his brother again is, he thinks, a paltry solace for the consciousness of his own wrong. As he makes his way across the canal, it begins to rain, at first faintly, and then more heavily. Bareheaded under the open sky he continues his walk – hair flattened to his head, dripping cold rainwater into his eyes – hating his brother, hating himself, and feeling extremely sorry.