by Sally Rooney
She confides in me, she said.
I looked at Nick in the rear-view mirror, but he was watching the road.
I’m a big hit with her, said Bobbi. I’m not sure it’ll go anywhere though, I think she’s married.
Just to some actor, said Nick.
It took Bobbi three or four bites to finish the pastry. Then she put on the Animal Collective CD and turned the music up really loud. When we got to the home supplies store Bobbi and I just smoked in the car park while Nick went inside to get the deckchairs. He came back out carrying them under one arm, looking very masculine. I crushed my cigarette under the toe of my sandal while he opened the boot and said, I’m afraid this lake is going to be a major disappointment.
Twenty minutes later Nick parked the car and we all went down a little lane, surrounded by trees. The lake lay blue and flat, reflecting the sky. There wasn’t anyone else around. We sat on the grass by the water, in the shade of a willow tree, and ate cream pastries. Bobbi and I took turns drinking from the bottle of wine, which was warm and sweet.
Can you swim in it? Bobbi said. The lake.
Yeah, I think so, said Nick.
She stretched out her legs on the grass. She said she wanted to swim.
You don’t have your swimsuit, I said.
So? she said. There’s no one here anyway.
I’m here, I said.
Bobbi laughed at that. She threw back her head and laughed up into the trees. She was wearing a sleeveless cotton blouse, printed with tiny flowers, and her arms looked slender and dark in the shade. She started unbuttoning the blouse. Bobbi, I said. You’re not really.
He can take his shirt off, but I can’t? she said.
I threw up my hands. Nick coughed, like an amused little cough.
I actually wasn’t planning to take my shirt off, Nick said.
I’m going to be offended if you try to object, said Bobbi.
Frances is the one objecting, not me.
Oh, her, said Bobbi. She’ll live.
Then she left her clothes folded up on the grass and walked down to the lake. The muscles of her back moved smoothly under her skin, and in the glare of sunlight her tan lines were almost invisible, so she appeared whole and completely perfect. The only sound after that was the sound of her limbs moving through the water. It was very hot, and we had finished the pastries. The light had moved and we were no longer in the shade. I drank some more wine and looked out for Bobbi’s figure.
She’s literally shameless, I said. I wish I was more like that.
Nick and I were sitting quite close together, so that if I inclined my head I could touch it to his shoulder. The sunlight was inordinately bright. I closed my eyes and let strange patterns form behind my eyelids. The heat poured down over my hair and little insects purred in the undergrowth. I could smell the laundered scent of Nick’s clothing, and the orange-oil shower gel I had used when I stayed in his house.
That was awkward yesterday, he said. About the girl at the airport.
I tried to give a cute, impartial smile, but his tone made it hard for me to breathe evenly. It sounded like he had been waiting for an opportunity to speak to me alone, and immediately I was in his confidence again.
Some girls just like married men, I said.
He laughed, I heard him. I kept my eyes closed and let the red shapes in my eyelids unfold themselves like kaleidoscopes.
I said I didn’t think that was true, he said.
Loyal of you.
I was afraid you’d think they were being serious.
You didn’t like her? I said.
Louisa? Oh, you know. She was nice. I didn’t dream about her at night.
Nick had definitely never told me that he dreamed about me at night, or even that he especially liked me. In terms of verbal declarations, ‘I didn’t dream about her at night’ was the first thing I could remember him saying that implied I had any special status to him at all.
So are you seeing anyone at the moment? he said.
I opened my eyes then. He wasn’t looking at me, he was inspecting a dandelion between his thumb and forefinger. He didn’t seem to be joking. I held my legs together very tightly.
Well, I was for a while, I said. But I’m afraid he ended it.
He twisted the flower stem back and forth, smiling a reluctant smile.
He did? Nick said. What was he thinking?
You know, I have no idea.
He looked at me and I was afraid of what expression my face was making.
I’m very happy you’re here, he said. It’s good to see you again.
I raised an eyebrow and then turned my face away. I could see Bobbi’s head dipping and rising in the silver water like a seal.
And I am sorry, he said.
I smiled mechanically, and said: oh, for hurting my feelings? Nick sighed as if placing down something heavy. He relaxed, I could feel his posture changing. I lay back and let the blades of grass touch my shoulders.
Sure, if you have any, he said.
Have you ever said one sincere thing in your life?
I said I was sorry, that was sincere. I tried to tell you how nice it is to see you again. What do you want? I could grovel but I don’t think you’re the kind of person it would appeal to.
How well do you think you know me? I said.
He gave me a look then, like he was finally dropping some long pretence. It was a good look, but I knew that he could practise it just as well as any of the others.
Well, I’d like to get to know you better, he said.
We saw that Bobbi was coming out of the water then, but I stayed lying in Nick’s shade, and he didn’t move his arm from where it nearly brushed my cheek. Bobbi came up the bank shivering and wringing her hair out. When she put her clothes back on her blouse soaked through on her skin until it was almost sheer. We looked up at her and asked how the water was and she said: so cold, it felt incredible.
On the way back in the car I rode in the front seat and Bobbi lay with her legs stretched out in the back. When Nick and I looked at one another we looked away quickly, but not quickly enough to stop us from smiling. From the back seat Bobbi said: what’s funny? But she asked only lazily, and didn’t press for an answer. I put a Joni Mitchell album in the CD player and looked out the window to feel the cool air on my face. It was early evening by the time we got back to the house.
*
That night Nick and I sat together at dinner. After the food was finished Melissa opened another bottle of wine and Nick leaned over to light my cigarette. When he shook the match out he placed his arm on the back of my chair quite casually. Nobody seemed to notice, actually it probably looked perfectly normal, but I found it impossible to concentrate while he was doing it. The others were talking about refugees. Evelyn kept saying: some of these people have degrees, these are doctors and professors we’re talking about. I had noticed before this tendency of people to emphasise the qualifications of refugees. Derek said: whatever about the others, imagine turning doctors away. It’s insane.
What does that mean? said Bobbi. Don’t let them in unless they’ve got a medical degree?
Evelyn said that wasn’t what Derek meant, and Derek interrupted Evelyn to say something about Western value systems and cultural relativism. Bobbi said that the universal right to asylum was a constituent part of the ‘Western value system’ if any such thing existed. She did the air quotes.
The naive dream of multiculturalism, Derek said. Žižek is very good on this. Borders do exist for a reason, you know.
You don’t know how right you are, said Bobbi. But I bet we disagree about what the reason is.
Nick started laughing then. Melissa just looked away as if she wasn’t paying attention to the conversation. I pulled my shoulders back fractionally to feel Nick’s arm against my skin.
We’re all on the same side here, Derek said. Nick, you’re an oppressive white male, you back me up.
I actually agree with Bobbi, said Nick. Oppressive though I
certainly am.
Oh, God save us, Derek said. Who needs liberal democracy? Maybe we should just burn down Government Buildings and see where that gets us.
I know you’re exaggerating, said Nick, but increasingly it’s hard to see why not.
When did you get so radical? Evelyn said. You’re spending too much time around college students, they’re putting ideas in your head.
Melissa tipped some ash off her cigarette into a tray she was holding in her left hand. She was smiling then, a comical little smile.
Yeah, Nick, you used to love the police state, Melissa said. What happened?
You invited all these college students on holiday with us, he said. I was powerless to resist.
She sat back and looked at him, through the glimmer of smoke. He lifted his arm off the back of my chair and put his cigarette out in the ashtray. The temperature seemed to drop perceptibly, and I saw everything in dimmer colours.
Did you stop by the lake earlier? she said.
On the way back, yeah, said Nick.
Frances got sunburnt, Bobbi said.
Actually I wasn’t really burnt, but my face and arms were a little pink, and warm to the touch. I shrugged.
Well, Bobbi insisted on taking her clothes off and getting into the water, I said.
You snitch, said Bobbi. I’m ashamed of you.
Melissa was still looking over at Nick. He didn’t seem at all unsettled by this; he looked back at her and smiled, a relaxed and spontaneous smile, which made him look handsome. She shook her head in a gesture of amusement or exasperation, and finally looked away.
We all went to bed late that night, at about two in the morning. For ten or twenty minutes I lay on my bed in the dark hearing the quiet complaint of floorboards above me, and doors clicking shut. No voices. Bobbi’s room next door was entirely silent. I sat up and then lay down again. I felt myself developing a plan to go upstairs for a glass of water, though I wasn’t really thirsty. I could even hear myself justifying my thirst with reference to the wine I’d had at dinner, as if I would later be subject to interview about what I was doing upstairs. I sat up again, feeling my own forehead, which was normal temperature. Quietly I crept out of bed and up the stairs, wearing my white nightdress with the pattern of tiny rosebuds. The light in the kitchen was on. My heart started to beat very hard.
Inside the kitchen Nick was putting the clean wine glasses away in the cabinet. He looked up at me and said: oh, hello. Instantly, like I was reciting something, I replied: I felt like a glass of water. He made a humorous face, like he didn’t really believe me, but he handed me a glass anyway. I poured the water and then stood against the fridge door to drink it. It was lukewarm and tasted chlorinated. Eventually Nick stood in front of me and said, there aren’t any more wine glasses, so. We were looking at each other. I told him he was a total embarrassment and he said he was ‘extremely aware’ of that. He put his hand on my waist and I felt my whole body lift toward him. I touched the buckle of his belt and said: we can sleep together if you want, but you should know I’m only doing it ironically.
Nick’s room was on the same floor as the kitchen. It was the only bedroom on that floor of the house; the others were upstairs or else down in the basement like mine. His window was open onto the sea, so he pulled the shutters over quietly and closed it while I got onto the bed. When he was inside me I pressed my face into his shoulder and said: does it feel okay?
I keep wanting to say thank you, he said. That’s weird, isn’t it?
I told him to say it and he did. Then I told him I was coming and he shut his eyes and said, oh. Afterwards I sat with my back against the wall, looking down at him, where he was lying on his back and breathing.
I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, he said. I’m sorry about the thing on the internet.
I know I was being cold toward you. I didn’t realise you had pneumonia.
He smiled, he touched the soft underside of my knee with his fingers.
I thought you wanted me to leave you alone, he said. I was really sick and lonely, you know. It just seemed like you wanted nothing to do with me.
I thought about saying: no, I wanted you to tell me that you dreamt about me at night.
I was having a bad time too, I said. Let’s forget about it.
Well, that’s generous. I think I could have handled it a lot better.
But I forgive you, so it’s okay now.
He sat up on his elbows then and looked at me.
Yeah, but I mean you’ve forgiven me very quickly, he said. Considering I tried to break up with you. You could have dragged it out a lot more if you wanted.
No, I just wanted to get back into bed with you.
He laughed, as if this delighted him. He lay back down with his face turned away from the light, his eyes closed.
I didn’t think I was that good, he said.
You’re okay.
I thought I was a total embarrassment.
You are, but I take pity on you, I said. And the sex is very nice.
He said nothing. I couldn’t sleep in his room that night anyway, in case someone saw me leaving in the morning. Instead I went back down to my own bed and lay on my own, curled up as small as I could go.
14
The next day I felt warm and sleepy, like a child. I ate four slices of bread at breakfast and drank two whole bowls of coffee, with cream and sugar. Bobbi called me a little pig, though she said she meant this ‘in a cute way’. And I brushed Nick’s leg under the table and watched him trying not to laugh. I was filled with an exuberant, practically spiteful sense of joy.
Three whole days passed this way in Étables. At mealtimes out in the garden, Nick and Bobbi and I sat together at one end of the table and interrupted one another a lot. Nick and I both found Bobbi screamingly funny and we always laughed at everything she said. Once Nick cried at breakfast when Bobbi did an impersonation of a friend of theirs called David. We had only met David briefly, at literary things in Dublin, but Bobbi had his voice down perfectly. Nick also helped us to improve our language skills by speaking to us in French and repeatedly pronouncing the ‘r’ noise on request. Bobbi told him I could already speak French and that I was faking it to get his lessons. We could see it made him blush, and she flashed her eyes at me across the room.
On the beach in the afternoons, Melissa sat under a parasol reading the newspaper while we lay in the sun and drank from water bottles and reapplied sun lotion on each other’s shoulders. Nick liked to go swimming and then come back out of the water glistening wet and looking like an advertisement for cologne. Derek said he found it emasculating. I turned a page in my Robert Fisk book and pretended not to listen. Derek said: Melissa, does he spend a lot of time preening? Melissa didn’t look up from her newspaper. She said, no, he’s just naturally gorgeous, I’m afraid. That’s what you get when you marry for looks. Nick laughed. I turned another page in the book although I hadn’t read the previous one.
For two nights in a row, I went to bed on my own until I heard the house go quiet, and then I went up to Nick’s room. I didn’t feel too tired to stay up late, though during the day I often fell asleep at the beach or in the garden. We couldn’t have been getting more than four or five hours’ sleep, but he didn’t complain of feeling tired, or hurry me out of his room even when it was very late. After the first night, he stopped drinking wine with dinner. I don’t think he had anything to drink again at all. Derek pointed this out frequently, and I noticed Melissa offering him wine even after he said he didn’t want any.
Once when we were coming up from the sea together after swimming, I asked him: you don’t think they know, do you? We were waist deep in the water still. He shielded his eyes with the flat of his hand and looked at me. The others were back on the shore, with the towels, we could see them. In the sunlight my own arms looked lilac-white and dimpled with goosebumps.
No, he said. I don’t think so.
They might hear things at night.
I think we’re
pretty quiet.
It seems insanely risky what we’re doing, I said.
Yeah, of course it is. Did that just occur to you now?
I dipped my hands in the water and it stung of salt. I lifted a handful and let it fall back onto the surface from my palm.
Why are you doing it then? I said.
He dropped his hand from his eyes and started to shake his head. He was all white like marble. There was something so austere about the way he looked.
Are you flirting with me? he said.
Come on. Tell me you crave me.
He slapped a handful of water at my bare skin. It splashed my face and felt so cold it almost hurt. I looked up at the spotless blue lid of sky.
Fuck off, he said.
I liked him, but he didn’t need to know that.
*
After dinner on the fourth night we all went for a walk into the village together. Over the harbour the sky was a pale coral colour, and the ocean looked dark like lead. Rows of yachts nodded in the dockyard and good-looking people in bare feet carried bottles of wine along the decking. Melissa had her camera on a shoulder strap and occasionally took photographs. I was wearing a navy linen dress, with buttons.
Outside the ice-cream shop my phone started to ring. It was my father calling. I turned away from the others instinctively as I picked up, as if I were shielding myself. His voice was muffled, and there seemed to be some noise in the background. I started biting on my thumbnail while he spoke, feeling the grain of it with my teeth.
Is everything okay? I said.
Oh, very nice. Am I not allowed to give my only daughter a ring now and then?
His voice wandered up and down the tonal scale when he spoke. His drunkenness made me feel unclean. I wanted to shower or eat a fresh piece of fruit. I wandered a little away from the others then, but I didn’t want to leave them behind completely. Instead I lingered near a lamp-post while everyone else discussed whether to get ice cream or not.
No, obviously you can, I said.
So how are things? How is work?
You know I’m in France, right?
