Normal People: A Novel by Sally Rooney

Author:Sally Rooney [Rooney, Sally]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571334667
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2018-07-14T16:00:00+00:00

Four Months Later

(JANUARY 2013)

She’s in her apartment with friends. The scholarship exams finished this week and term is about to start again on Monday. She feels drained, like a vessel turned out onto its rim. She’s smoking her fourth cigarette of the evening, which gives her a curious acidic sensation in her chest, and she also hasn’t eaten dinner. For lunch she had a tangerine and a piece of unbuttered toast. Peggy is on the sofa telling a story about interrailing in Europe, and for some reason she insists on explaining the difference between West and East Berlin. Marianne exhales and says absently: Yes, I’ve been there.

Peggy turns to her, eyes widened. You’ve been to Berlin? she says. I didn’t think they let people from Connacht travel that far.

Some of their friends laugh politely. Marianne taps the ash off her cigarette into the ceramic tray on the arm of the sofa. Extremely hilarious, she says.

They must have given you time off from the farm, says Peggy.

Quite, says Marianne.

Peggy continues telling her story then. She has lately taken to sleeping over in Marianne’s apartment when Jamie’s not there, eating breakfast in her bed, and even following her to the bathroom when she showers, clipping her toenails blithely and complaining about men. Marianne likes to be singled out as her special friend, even when this expresses itself as a tendency to take up vast amounts of her leisure time. But at certain parties lately, Peggy has also started to make fun of her in front of others. For the sake of their friends, Marianne tries to laugh along, but the effort contorts her face, which only gives Peggy another chance to tease her. When everyone else has gone home she snuggles into Marianne’s shoulder and says: Don’t be mad with me. And Marianne says in a thin, defensive voice: I’m not mad at you. They are right now shaping up to have this exact exchange, yet again, in just a few short hours.

After the Berlin story concludes, Marianne gets another bottle of wine from the kitchen and refills people’s glasses.

How did the exams go, by the way? Sophie asks her.

Marianne gives a humorous shrug and is rewarded with a little laughter. Her friends sometimes seem uncertain about her dynamic with Peggy, volunteering extra laughter when Marianne tries to be funny, but in a way that can seem sympathetic or even pitying rather than amused.

Tell the truth, says Peggy. You fucked them up, didn’t you?

Marianne smiles, makes a face, puts the cap back on the wine bottle. The scholarship exams finished two days ago; Peggy and Marianne sat them together.

Well, they could have gone better, Marianne says diplomatically.

This is one hundred per cent typical you, says Peggy. You’re the smartest person in the world but when it comes down to it, you’re a bottler.

You can sit them again next year, says Sophie.

I doubt they went that badly, Joanna says.

Marianne avoids Joanna’s eyes and puts the wine back in the fridge. The scholarships offer

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