Chapter 25

It was the middle of October by then. I put some cash together from whatever I could find in my room, as well as some birthday and Christmas money I’d forgotten to lodge in the bank. Altogether this came to forty-three euro, four fifty of which I spent in a German supermarket buying bread, pasta and tinned tomatoes. In the mornings I asked Bobbi for the use of her milk and she waved me away like: use whatever you want. Jerry gave her an allowance every week, and I also noticed she had started wearing a new black wool coat with tortoiseshell buttons. I didn’t want to tell her what had happened with my account, so I just described myself as ‘broke’ in a tone of voice I calculated to be flippant.

Every morning and evening I called my father, and every morning and evening he didn’t pick up. We did go to Melissa and Nick’s house to have dinner.

We went more than once. Increasingly I noticed that Bobbi had started to enjoy Nick’s company, even to enjoy it more than the company of Melissa or myself. When the four of us spent time together, she and Nick often engaged in pretend arguments or other competitive activities from which Melissa and I were excluded. They played video games after dinner, or magnetic travel chess, while Melissa and I talked about impressionism.

Once when they were drunk they even raced each other around the back garden. Nick won but he was tired afterwards, and Bobbi called him ‘elderly’ and threw dead leaves on him. She asked Melissa: who’s prettier, Nick or me? Melissa looked at me and in an arch tone she replied: I love all my children equally. Bobbi’s relationship with Nick affected me in a curious way. Seeing them together, each giving the other all of their attention, gave me a weird aesthetic thrill. Physically they were perfect, like twins. At times I caught myself wishing they would move closer or even

touch one another, as if I was trying to complete something which in my mind remained unfinished.

We often had political discussions, in which we all shared similar positions but expressed ourselves differently. Bobbi, for example, was an insurrectionist, while Melissa, from a grim pessimism, tended to favour the rule of law. Nick and I fell somewhere between the two of them, more comfortable with critique than endorsement. We talked one night about the endemic racism of criminal justice in the US, the videos of police brutality that we had all seen without ever seeking them out, and what it meant for us as white people to say they were ‘difficult to watch’, which we all agreed they were although we couldn’t fix on one exact meaning for this difficulty. There was one particular video of a black teenage girl in a bathing suit crying for her mother while a white police officer knelt on her back, which Nick said made him feel so physically ill he couldn’t finish watching it.

I realise that’s indulgent, he said. But I also thought, what good even comes of me finishing it? Which is depressing in itself.

We also discussed whether these videos in some way contributed to a sense of European superiority, as if police forces in Europe were not endemically racist.

Which they are, Bobbi said.

Yeah, I don’t think the expression is ‘American cops are bastards,’ said Nick.

Melissa said she didn’t doubt that we were all a part of the problem, but it was difficult to see how exactly, and seemingly impossible to do anything about it without first comprehending that. I said I sometimes felt drawn to disclaiming my ethnicity, as if, though I was obviously white, I wasn’t ‘really’ white, like other white people.

No offence, Bobbi said, but that’s honestly very unhelpful.

I’m not offended, I said. I agree.

Certain elements of my relationship with Nick had changed since he told Melissa we were together. I sent him sentimental texts during daytime hours and he called me when he was drunk to tell me nice things about my personality. The sex itself was similar, but afterwards was different. Instead of feeling tranquil, I

felt oddly defenceless, like an animal playing dead. It was as though Nick could reach through the soft cloud of my skin and take whatever was inside me, like my lungs or other internal organs, and I wouldn’t try to stop him. When I described this to him he said he felt the same, but he was sleepy and he might not really have been listening.

Piles of dead leaves had formed all over campus, and I spent my time attending lectures and trying to find books in the Ussher Library. On dry days, Bobbi and I walked along underused paths kicking leaves and talking about things like the idea of landscape painting. Bobbi thought the fetishisation of ‘untouched nature’ was intrinsically patriarchal and nationalistic. I like houses better than fields, I observed. They’re more poetic, because they have people in them. Then we sat in the Buttery watching rain come down the windows. Something had changed between us, but I didn’t know what it was. We still intuited each other’s moods easily, we shared the same conspiratorial looks, and our conversations still felt lengthy and intelligent. The time she ran me that bath had changed something, had placed Bobbi in a new relation to me even as we both remained ourselves.

One afternoon toward the end of the month, when my supply of money was down to about six euro, I got an email from a man called Lewis, who was the editor of a literary journal in Dublin. The email said that Valerie had sent the story on with a view to having it published, and that if I was willing to give my permission, he would very much like to print it in an upcoming issue. He said he was ‘very excited’ by the prospect and that he had some thoughts on possible revisions if I was interested.

I opened the file I had sent to Valerie and read it all in one go, without stopping to think about what I was doing. The figure in the story was recognisably Bobbi, her parents recognisable as her parents, myself identifiably myself. No one who knew us could fail to see Bobbi in the story. It wasn’t an unflattering portrait, exactly.

It emphasised the domineering aspects of Bobbi’s personality and of my own, because the story was about personal domination. But, I thought, things always have to be selected and emphasised, that’s writing. Bobbi would understand that more than anyone.

Lewis also mentioned I would be paid for the story, and included a scale of fees for first-time contributors. If published at its current length, my story would be worth over eight hundred euro. I sent Lewis a reply thanking him for his interest and telling him I would be delighted to work with him on whatever revisions he thought appropriate.

That evening Nick picked me up from the apartment to take me out to Monkstown. Melissa was staying with her family in Kildare for a few days. In the car I explained about the story, and about the conversation I’d had with Bobbi in the bath and what she’d said about not being special. Slow down, Nick said. You’ve sold this story for how much did you say? I didn’t even know you wrote prose. I laughed, I liked when he acted proud of me. I told him it was my first one and he called me intimidating. We talked about Bobbi appearing in the story, and he said he appeared in Melissa’s work all the time.

But only passingly, I said. Like ‘my husband was there.’ Bobbi is the main character in this one.

Yeah, I forgot you’ve read Melissa’s book. You’re right, she doesn’t dwell on me that much. Anyway I’m sure Bobbi won’t mind.

I’m contemplating never telling her. It’s not like she reads the magazine.

Well, I think that’s a bad idea, he said. It would involve a lot of other people also not telling her. That guy Philip who you hang around with, people like that. My wife. But you’re the boss, obviously.

I made a ‘hm’ noise, because I thought he was right but I didn’t want to think so. I liked when he called me the boss. He tapped his hands on the steering wheel cheerfully. What is it with me and writers? he said.

You just like women who can wreck you intellectually, I said. I bet you had crushes on your teachers at school.

I was actually notorious for that kind of thing. I slept with one of my college lecturers, have I told you about that?

I asked him to, and he told me. The woman was not just a teaching assistant, she was a real professor. I asked what age she

was and Nick smiled coyly and said: like forty-five? Maybe fifty.

Anyway she could have lost her job, it was insane.

I see it from her perspective, I said. Didn’t I kiss you at your wife’s birthday party?

He said he struggled to understand why he made people feel that way, that it had happened rarely in his life but always with a violent intensity and no real sense of agency on his part. A friend of his elder brother had developed a similar thing for him when he was fifteen. And this girl was nearly twenty, Nick said. Obsessed with me. That’s how I lost my virginity.

Were you obsessed with her? I said.

No, I was just frightened of saying no to her. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

I told him that sounded bleak and it made me sad. Quickly he said: oh, I wasn’t going for sympathy points. I did say yes to her, it wasn’t … Well, it probably was illegal, but I consented to it.

Because you were too frightened to say no, I said. Would you call it consent if it happened to me?

Well, no. But it wasn’t like I felt physically threatened. I mean, it was weird behaviour from her, but we were both teenagers. I don’t think she was an evil person.

We were still in town, sitting in traffic on the north quays. It was early evening, but dark already. I looked out the window at passers-by and at the veil of rain that moved around under the streetlights. I told him I thought he was such an appealing love object partly because he was so curiously passive. I knew I would have to be the one to kiss you, I said. And that you would never kiss me, which made me feel vulnerable. But I also felt this terrible power, like, you’re going to let me kiss you, what else will you let me do? It was sort of intoxicating. I couldn’t decide if I had complete control over you or no control at all.

And now what do you feel? he said.

More like complete control. Is that bad?

He said he didn’t mind. He thought it was healthy for us to try and correct the power disparity, though he added that he didn’t think we would ever be able to do it completely. I told him that Melissa thought he was ‘pathologically submissive’ and he said it

would be a mistake to assume that meant he was powerless in relationships with women. He told me he thought helplessness was often a way of exercising power. I told him he sounded like Bobbi and he laughed. The highest compliment a man can ever get from you, Frances, he said.

That night in bed we talked about his sister’s baby, how much he loved her, how sometimes when he was depressed he would go over to Laura’s house just to be closer to the baby and see her face. I didn’t know if he and Melissa planned to have children, or why they didn’t have them already if he loved children so much. I didn’t want to ask, because I was afraid of finding out that they did plan to, so instead I affected an ironic tone and said: maybe you and I could have children together. We could raise them in a polyamorous commune and let them choose their own first names.

Nick told me he already had sinister ambitions to that effect.

Would you still find me attractive if I was pregnant? I said.

Sure, yeah.

In a fetishistic way?

Well, I don’t know, he said. I do feel like I’m more aware of pregnant women than I was ten years ago. I tend to imagine myself doing nice things for them.

That sounds fetishistic.

Everything is a fetish with you. I meant more like cooking them meals. But would I still want to fuck you if you were pregnant, yes.

Rest assured.

I turned around then and put my mouth up next to his ear. My eyes were closed so I felt like I was just playing a game and not being completely real. Hey, I said, I really want you. And I could feel Nick nodding his head, this sweet eager nod. Thanks, he said.

He said that. We kissed. I pressed my back against the mattress and he touched me cautiously like a deer touches things with its face. Nick, you’re such a gift, I said. I left my wallet in my coat, he replied. One second. And I said: just do it like this, I’m on the pill anyway. He had his hand laid flat on the pillow beside my head, and for a second he did nothing and his breath felt very hot. Yeah, do you want to? he said. I told him that I did and he kept breathing and then said: you make me feel so good about myself.

I put my arms around his neck and he slipped his hand between my legs so he could get inside me. We had always used condoms before and this felt different to me, or maybe he was being different about it. His skin was damp and he was sighing very hard. I felt my body opening up and then closing like a stop-motion video of a flower with its petals blooming open and closed, and it was so real it was like hallucinating. Nick said the word fuck and then said: Frances, I didn’t know it would feel so good, I’m sorry. His mouth was extremely soft and close. I asked if he needed to come already and he inhaled for a second and then said: sorry, I’m sorry. I thought of his sinister desire to get me pregnant, how full and huge I would feel, how he would touch me so lovingly and with such pride, and then I heard that I was saying: no it’s good, I want it. It felt very weird and nice then, and he was telling me that he loved me, I remember that. He was murmuring it in my ear: I love you.

*

I had several essay deadlines approaching at the time, so I drew up a rough personal timetable. In the mornings, before the library opened, I sat in bed and worked on the revisions Lewis sent me. I could see the story I had written gaining shape, unfolding itself, becoming longer and more solid. Then I showered and dressed in oversized sweaters to go and work in college all day. I often managed without eating until late in the evening, and when I got home I cooked two handfuls of pasta and ate it with olive oil and vinegar before falling asleep, sometimes without getting undressed.

Nick had started rehearsing for a production of Hamlet, and after work on Tuesdays and Fridays he came to stay in the apartment. He complained that there was never any food in the kitchen, but after I said I was broke in a sarcastic voice, he said: oh really? I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. Then he started to bring food with him when he visited. He brought fresh bread from the Temple Bar bakery, jars of raspberry jam, tubs of hummus and full-fat cream cheese. When he watched the way I ate this food, he

asked me how broke I was. I shrugged. After that he started to bring over chicken breasts and plastic things of minced beef to put in my fridge. This makes me feel like a kept woman, I said. He said things like: well look, you can freeze them if you don’t want them tomorrow. I felt I had to act amused and glib about the food, because I thought Nick would be uncomfortable if he knew I really had no money and I was living on the bread and jam he brought me.

Bobbi seemed to enjoy Nick’s presence in our apartment, partly because he made himself so useful. He showed us how to fix the leaky tap in our kitchen. Man of the house, she said sarcastically.

Once while he was cooking dinner for us, I heard him on the phone to Melissa, talking about some editorial dispute of hers and reassuring her that the other party was being ‘totally unreasonable’. For most of the call he was just nodding and moving saucepans around on the hob while saying: mm, I know.

This was the role that seemed to appeal to him more than anything, listening to things and asking intelligent questions that showed he had been listening. It made him feel needed. He was excellent on the phone that time. I had no doubt that Melissa was the one who’d made the call.

We stayed up late talking those nights, sometimes until we could see it getting bright behind the blinds. One night I told him I was on a financial assistance scheme to cover my college fees.

He expressed surprise and then immediately said: sorry for sounding surprised, that’s ignorant of me. I shouldn’t presume everyone’s parents can pay for that stuff.

Well, we’re not poor, I said. I’m not saying that defensively. I just don’t want you to get the impression that I grew up very poor or anything.

Of course.

You know, but I do feel different from you and Bobbi. Maybe it’s a small difference. I feel self-conscious about the nice things I have. Like my laptop, that’s second-hand, it was my cousin’s. But I feel self-conscious with it, still.

You’re allowed to have nice things, he said.

I pinched the duvet cover between my thumb and finger. It was hard, scratchy cloth, not like the Egyptian cotton Nick had in his house.

My dad’s been kind of unreliable about paying my allowance, I said.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Like at the moment I basically have no money.

Are you serious? said Nick. What are you living on?

I rolled the duvet cover between my fingers, feeling the grain of it. Well, Bobbi lets me share her things, I said. And you’re always bringing food.

Frances, that’s insane, he said. Why didn’t you tell me? I can give you money.

No, no. You said yourself it would be weird. You said there were ethical concerns.

I would be more concerned about you starving yourself. Look, you can pay me back if you want, we can call it a loan.

I stared down at the duvet, its ugly printed pattern of flowers. I have money coming in from that story, I said. I’ll pay you back then. The next morning, he went out to an ATM while Bobbi and I ate breakfast. When he came back, I could see he was too shy to give me the money while she was there, and I was glad. I didn’t want her to know I needed it. I went into the hallway with him when he was leaving and he took out his wallet and counted out four fifty-euro notes. I found it unsettling to watch him handle money like that. That’s too much, I said. He gave me a pained expression and said: then give it back another time, don’t worry about it. I opened my mouth and he interrupted: Frances, it’s nothing. For him it probably was nothing. He kissed my forehead before he left.

*

On the last day of October, I handed in one of my essays and Bobbi and I went out afterwards to meet friends for coffee. I was happy with my life then, happier than I could ever remember.

Lewis was pleased with my revisions and ready to go ahead with printing the story in the January issue of the magazine. With Nick’s

loan, and the money I would have left over from the magazine even after I repaid him, I felt invincibly wealthy. It was like I’d finally escaped my childhood and my dependence on other people.

There was no way for my father to harm me any more, and from this vantage point I felt a new and sincere compassion toward him, the compassion of a good-natured observer.

We met Marianne that afternoon, as well as her boyfriend Andrew, who nobody really liked. Philip was there too, with Camille, a girl he had started seeing. Philip seemed awkward in my company, careful to catch my eye when he could and smile at my jokes but in a way that seemed to communicate sympathy, or even pity, rather than real friendship. I found his behaviour too silly to be offensive, though I remember hoping that Bobbi would notice it too so we could talk about it later.

We were sitting upstairs in a small cafe near College Green, and at some point the conversation turned to monogamy, a subject I didn’t have anything to say about. At first Marianne was discussing whether non-monogamy was an orientation, like being gay, and some people were ‘naturally’ non-monogamous, which led Bobbi to point out that no sexual orientation was ‘natural’ as such. I sipped on the coffee Bobbi had bought me and said nothing, just wanting to hear her talk. She said that monogamy was based on a commitment model, which served the needs of men in patrilineal societies by allowing them to pass property to their genetic offspring, traditionally facilitated by sexual entitlement to a wife. Non-monogamy could be based on an alternative model completely, Bobbi said. Something more like spontaneous consent.

Listening to Bobbi theorise in this way was exciting. She spoke in clear, brilliant sentences, like she was making shapes in the air out of glass or water. She never hesitated or repeated herself.

Every so often she would catch my eye and I would nod: yes, exactly. This agreement seemed to encourage her, like she was searching my eyes for approval, and she would look away again and continue: by which I mean …

She didn’t seem to be paying attention to the other people at the table while she spoke, but I noticed that Philip and Camille

were exchanging glances. At one point Philip looked at Andrew, the only other man seated with us, and Andrew raised both his eyebrows as if Bobbi had started talking gibberish or promoting anti-Semitism. I thought it was cowardly of Philip to look at Andrew, whom I knew he didn’t even like, and it made me uncomfortable. Gradually I realised that no one else had spoken in some time and that Marianne had started staring at her lap awkwardly. Even though I loved to listen to Bobbi when she was like this, I started to wish she would stop.

I just don’t think it’s possible to love more than one person, Camille said. I mean, with all your heart, really love them.

Did your parents have a favourite child? said Bobbi. That must have been hard for you.

Camille laughed nervously, unable to tell whether Bobbi was joking and not knowing Bobbi well enough to know that this was normal.

It’s not really the same with children, Camille said. Is it?

Well, it depends whether you believe in some kind of transhistorical concept of romantic love consistent across diverse cultures, said Bobbi. But I guess we all believe silly things, don’t we?

Marianne glanced at me, just briefly, but I could tell that she felt the same way I did: that Bobbi was being more than usually aggressive now, that she was going to hurt Camille’s feelings, and that Philip would be annoyed. I looked at Philip and saw it was too late. His nostrils were flared slightly, he was angry, and he was going to argue with Bobbi and lose.

Lots of anthropologists agree that humans are a naturally monogamous species, said Philip.

Is that really where you’re at theoretically? Bobbi said.

Not everything goes back to cultural theory, said Philip.

Bobbi laughed, an aesthetically gorgeous laugh, a performance of total self-assurance which made Marianne wince.

Oh my God, and they’re going to let you graduate? Bobbi said.

What about Jesus? I said. He loved everybody.

He was also celibate, said Philip.

A matter of historical dispute, Bobbi said.

Why don’t you tell us about your Bartleby essay, Philip? I said.

You handed that in today, didn’t you?

Bobbi grinned at my awkward intervention and sat back in her chair. Philip wasn’t looking at me, but at Camille, smiling like they were sharing a private joke. I bristled, since I had stepped in to save him from humiliation, and it was graceless of him not to acknowledge my effort. He turned away then and talked about his essay, as if he was humouring me, and I pretended not to listen.

Bobbi began to search her bag for a packet of cigarettes, lifting her head once to say: you should have read Gilles Deleuze. Philip glanced at Camille again.

I did read him, said Philip.

You missed his point then, Bobbi said. Frances? Do you fancy coming out for a cigarette?

I followed her. It was still early evening, and the air was crisp and navy blue. She started to laugh and I laughed too, from the joy of being alone with her. She lit both our cigarettes and then exhaled, a white cloud, and coughed with laughter.

Human nature, I ask you, she said. You’re such a pushover.

I think I only appear smart by staying quiet as often as possible.

That amused her. She fixed a strand of my hair behind my ear fondly.

Is that a hint? she said.

Oh no. If I could talk like you I would talk all the time.

We smiled at one another. It was cold. The tip of Bobbi’s cigarette glowed a spectral orange colour and released tiny sparks into the air. She lifted her face toward the street like she was showing off the perfect line of her profile.

I feel like shit lately, she said. All this stuff at home, I don’t know. You think you’re the kind of person who can deal with something and then it happens and you realise you can’t.

She balanced her cigarette on her lower lip, near the corner of her mouth, and started to gather her hair back in a knot with her hands. It was Halloween, the streets were busy, and little knots of people went by dressed in capes or fake spectacles or tiger costumes.

What do you mean? I said. What happened?

You know Jerry’s kind of temperamental, right? It doesn’t really matter. Family drama, what do you care?

I care about everything that happens to you.

She put her cigarette back between her fingers and wiped her nose with her sleeve. In her eyes the orange light reflected like fire.

He’s not really on board with the divorce, Bobbi said.

I didn’t realise that.

Yeah, he’s being a real jerk about it. He has all these conspiracy theories about Eleanor, like she’s out to get his money or whatever. And the worst thing is that he actually expects me to be on his side.

I thought of her saying to Camille: did your parents have a favourite child? I knew Bobbi had always been Jerry’s favourite, that he thought her sister was spoilt, that he considered his wife hysterical. I knew he told Bobbi these things in order to win her confidence. I had always thought that being Jerry’s favourite was a privilege for Bobbi, but now I saw it was also something cumbersome and dangerous.

I didn’t know you were going through all that, I said.

Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they?

That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through.

You have all this shit going on with your dad that you never talk about. It’s not like things are so perfect for you.

I said nothing. She exhaled a thin stream of smoke from her lips and then shook her head.

Sorry, she said. I didn’t mean that.

No, you’re right.

For a moment we stood there like that, huddled together behind the smoking barrier. I became aware that our arms were touching, and then Bobbi kissed me. I accepted the kiss, I even felt my hand reaching for hers. I could sense the soft pressure of her mouth, her lips parting, the sweet chemical scent of her moisturiser. I thought she was about to put her arm around my waist, but instead she drew away. Her face was flushed and extraordinarily pretty-looking. She stubbed her cigarette out.

Should we go back upstairs? she said.

The inside of my body hummed like a piece of machinery. I searched Bobbi’s face for some acknowledgement of what had just happened but there was none. Was she just confirming that she felt nothing for me any more, that kissing me was like kissing a wall? Was it some kind of experiment? Upstairs we got our coats and then walked home together talking about college, about Melissa’s new book, about things that didn’t really concern us.