[...] 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. [...]

[...] Do you like that? he asks. Look of desperate gratitude she turns towards him. What he feels also and can’t express. I love it so much, she says. I feel really safe. I don’t know. When it’s like this, I get this feeling. I feel so safe, I can’t explain. All over himself a strange rising intensity like heat looking down at her. To give her that feeling, yes. Naomi, you are safe, he says. Completely, I promise. Everything’s going to be okay. For a moment longer just looking at one another. The same desperation they feel, the same terrible gratitude, tender painful vulnerability, depth of pleasure. Gasping contractions of her breath. Peter, she says. Fuck, I’m sorry. He also then. Wet inside her, which she loves. Hears her dazed voice under him mumbling: Oh, it’s so nice. Her irrepressible love of life, he thinks. Pulling fried chicken apart with oily fingers. Last sip of soft drink rattling in the straw. Or trying on a new dress, the way her body luxuriates in tactility. Pleasure of her own gorgeousness in the mirror. Deep complete joy she finds in being alive. No job, no family support, no fixed address, no state entitlements, no money to finish college. Owner of nothing in the world but her own perfect body. Men, and even other women, and systems, bureaucracies, laws, intent it seems on breaking her, forcing her to accept misery. And here she is laughing, drinking sugary coffee, begging to be fucked. He loves that in her. Wants to protect her at times even from himself. Her freedom, wild animal that she is. Both finished they lie in silence side by side. He thinks of her staying a while, however long, her underwear drying on the clotheshorse, dishes in the sink. Sees himself cooking dinner while she sits with bare feet on the sofa recording some interminable voice note for her friends. I literally can’t believe he even said that. Undressing her for bed at night, kissing fondly her unresisting lips. Far away here from anything that could harm her. Object only of idiotic desire and love.

[...] 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. [...]

[...] 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.

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.

On the way back, they stop at an old country hotel in Knocknagarry. Margaret doesn’t think anyone will see them, it’s too unlikely, there’s no use being paranoid. And indeed, when they enter, the dining room is almost empty: a young family near the entrance, an elderly couple by the closed piano. Margaret and Ivan are shown to a small table, set with white linen, heavy silverware, a lighted wax candle. In her exhausted satisfaction after swimming, she smiles at him without speaking, and he smiles back. They order, the waitress brings their food, and they eat. When Margaret rests her arm on the tabletop, Ivan reaches over and touches the back of her hand lightly with his fingertips. No one else takes any notice, the staff, the elderly couple, the young family with their noisy children, and why should they. Margaret is reminded of the way she felt when she first met Ivan: as if life had slipped free of its netting. As if the netting itself had all along been an illusion, nothing real. An idea, which could not contain or describe the borderless all-enveloping reality of life. Now, in her satisfied exhaustion, with her hand resting on the white linen tablecloth, the touch of Ivan’s fingertips, the candle dripping a slow thread of wax down its side, the glossy closed lid of the piano, Margaret feels that she can perceive the miraculous beauty of life itself, lived only once and then gone forever, the bloom of a perfect and impermanent flower, never to be retrieved. This is life, the experience, this is all there has ever been. To force this moment into contact with her ordinary existence only seems to reveal how constricting, how misshapen her ideas of life have been before. When the waitress returns to ask if they are enjoying the meal, Margaret does not move her hand, and neither does Ivan. Politely they both answer that the meal is very nice, while on the table the tips of his fingers brush her thumb. After they finish eating, they pay together and leave through the lobby, Margaret taking her keys from her bag to unlock the car.

[...] Sometimes wonders how much of his capacity for pleasure is just vanity. Please, I need it. Oh God, it feels so good. He loves that. Happy woman. Compliment deeper and more intense, to make her. Tightening kind of throbbing feeling inside him just thinking about it. Are you happy, Naomi, he said. And looking up at him she answered yes. Didn’t even laugh about it afterwards: too weird maybe. Is that what you’re into, Peter, you like the girl to pretend she’s happy? Instead she lay with her head on his shoulder, talking about which of his friends she liked the most. Felt so in love with her then he could hardly speak. Pain in his throat like crying. Am I annoying you, she asked. He moved his hand over her hair, swallowing. Not at all, he said. Go on. Light touch with the cash in the morning, don’t worry about it. Watching him get dressed for work the other day she said from bed: Honestly, very dilf-coded. Alright, he replied, I changed my mind, I’m taking you back to jail. She, the calculating liar, the exploited innocent, yes. Whole thing getting a bit fucking Marcel Proust. Waits until she’s out of the house to vacuum the carpet, wipe down the bathroom surfaces. Haul the laundry up and down from the basement. Not wanting her to see: and why. Awkward to make her thank him maybe. Or trying to maintain the fiction of his own dominance, when in truth she has become effortlessly the mistress of his household, he at times something more like a live-in servant, washing on the delicate cycle her favourite underwear.

[...] I’ll tell you what I think, she says. I think you’ve had your feelings involved with someone else all along. So every now and then, you just act cold with me for no reason. Or randomly stop speaking to me. To make sure I don’t get too attached. Eyes closed, he swallows. Right, he says. Or to make sure I don’t. Half expecting in the silence that follows to hear her again laughing. Glitter of her teeth. To make him come crawling at last, as she has wanted, as she has always planned. Instead she murmurs: Can we go to bed now. Catch in his throat trying to swallow. Mm, he says. You want that? And her head is nodding. Yeah, a lot, she says. Like, a lot, a lot. Rich fragrance of her unwashed hair. And will it make you happy? he asks. Again her head nodding, sweetly, her hand holding his, small firm pressure of her fingers. Yes, she says. I can promise, I can tell you for certain. It will make me very happy. Okay? Please. Opening his eyes damp and stinging. Oddly bright the lights seem, condensation on the tiles. Parcel of her breathing body small and wet in his arms. To make you happy: yes, I want to. Stay, please. Let me. Anything, I’ll do anything, whatever you want.

[...] Her friendship with Anna. Folk records they used to listen to together, French novels they would lend one another after school. Adolescent dream of attending university in Paris: sunlit boulevards, tempestuous love affairs, autumn afternoons at the Louvre. Went instead to Galway, hung around in poorly ventilated apartments smoking hash with boys who played acoustic guitar. The romance of those years. Her first boyfriend, the American, with his ironed shirts. His accent she thought glamorous. Fifteen years ago, more. Anna didn’t like him, she said he was arrogant. Actually he was arrogant, but I liked that about him. I suppose it made me feel special, that he liked me. They were eating dinner together, and Ivan was smiling. It’s a stereotype, I hope you know, he said. Pretty girls always go for the most arrogant guys. But go on, what happened? Crisp bedlinen, fragrance of cut flowers, cold winter sunlight. Her simple physical sense of being in the world again: renewed, as if after a long absence. Turning of the seasons. At work, the dim buzz of her phone against the desk.

[...] At least their marriage isn’t a secret, Margaret said. Ivan shrugged his shoulders. If it bothers you to keep secrets, you can tell people, he replied. But I think the only reason you’re not telling is because you think people would react stupidly. That has nothing to do with right and wrong. Margaret said that in fact she sincerely feared the judgement of others, and Ivan said that to fear judgement was not the same thing as believing that the judgement was valid. You’re making yourself anxious, he remarked. What’s the point? We have a nice time together, no one is getting hurt. Margaret fell silent then for some time, thinking. And finally she said: I suppose I’m afraid that someone will get hurt, in the end. Ivan gave no sign of shock or distress at this, he just went on refilling his coffee cup. Yeah, obviously, he answered. I mean, it’s possible. It’s probable, if you want to put it that way. But you still have to live your life, in my view. He swallowed a mouthful of the coffee then and put the cup back down. And if it’s any consolation, if someone does get hurt, it will definitely be me, he said. Getting my heart broken in the end, let’s be honest, it won’t be you. With a horrified laugh Margaret said that was no consolation at all, and that it made her feel terrible. Ivan smiled then, looking at her, and replied: Oh, well, okay. Maybe it will be you. I doubt it, but you can think that if you prefer. She put her hands in her hair, and her head was shaking. I think you’re going to meet a nice girl your own age, she said. Some beautiful nineteen-year-old, and she’ll be able to play chess with you. He started laughing at that. Hm, he said. I was about to say that nineteen seems a little young for me. But maybe that wouldn’t be tactful. They looked at each other, and they were both laughing, sheepishly, flushed. [...]