[...] Yes, in retrospect, Ivan can see, with the eyes of an adult, that Peter was not coping very well at the time. But in the real chronology of events, Ivan was only sixteen. He had his own problems, his chess, his school, and so on. His painful infatuation with that girl Kelly Heneghan who didn’t seem to know he was alive. Frankly, if he had to admit the truth, Ivan found his brother’s presence in the house uncomfortable. Peter barely spoke to anyone, barely made eye contact. For hours at a time he would just sit staring into space, doing nothing. And he cried, okay, not openly, but you could hear him crying in his room. It was awkward. Ivan had his own life to worry about. What was he supposed to do? In the evenings after school, he started avoiding Peter’s company, excusing himself early from dinner, slipping out of the room whenever Peter entered. Obviously the situation was sad, with Sylvia being in hospital and everything, Ivan was sincerely sad for that, but the doctors said the recovery was going as well as could be expected, and it’s not like Ivan could solve the problem. It was just something he didn’t want to think about, honestly. What good would come from dwelling on it, worrying about it all the time? And the whole thing dragged on and on. Even after Peter moved back to Dublin, he would come home periodically and lie in his room for days on end, not talking, not even eating meals. For a year it was like this, on and off. The brother who had looked out for and defended Ivan was gone, and in his place was this unnerving kind of ghostly presence, practically haunting the house, making everyone feel bad. One of these nights, Ivan woke up thirsty and went downstairs to get himself a glass of water, yes, fine. And in the kitchen he found Peter sitting alone at the table. It was late, maybe three o’clock in the morning, and he tried to creep back out, but Peter had already seen him. You don’t have to run away from me, he said. I’m not a monster. Ivan stood frozen in the doorway, saying nothing. Why even think about all this now? Peter was crying then, openly, with tears running down his face. I’m just really scared, Ivan, he said. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have anyone to talk to. That’s what he said, I’m scared, I don’t have anyone to talk to, that’s how Ivan remembers it. And instead of acknowledging that he had heard these words spoken, Ivan just turned around silently and went back up to bed. It was a conversation he didn’t want to have. Peter was like twenty-six, Ivan was only sixteen or seventeen, it wasn’t any of his business. He was just a child. Wasn’t it, in a way, actually wrong of Peter to put him in that position? [...]

[...] She’s sitting at the table he can tell from the directionality of her voice though he can only from here see the ceiling and part of the far wall. Clink of teaspoon also he hears. I don’t know, says Sylvia. I think it might have been the shock of seeing us in the same room together. Allowing his eyes to close he lets out something like a groan hearing them both laughing. Help, says Naomi. My girlfriends have unionised. Okay I’m getting up, he says, I’m getting up now, I’m fine. [...]

I was seriously worried about you, she says. I’m not even going to tell you where my mind went.

He says nothing.

You know if anything happened to you, that would be horrific for me, she goes on.

I don’t really want that responsibility, he remarks.

He’s looking out the window still but he can see her shaking her head. Yeah, well, tough, she says. How are you thirty-two and you’re like, I don’t want the responsibility. You think you can vanish into thin air and it won’t affect me?

Yes I would like he thinks to live in such a way that I could vanish into thin air at any time without affecting anyone and in fact I feel that for me this would constitute the perfect and perhaps the only acceptable life. At the same time I want desperately to be loved. Aloud he says: Whatever, I don’t know.

Social as well as philosophical of course: the problem. All very well if Emily knows or suspects, or if Janine, or Max, Leah, even Gary, maybe. But what about people in general, the public, the whole of Dublin talking. And with that idea in mind he almost wants to forget the idea, throw both of them over and find some nice normal girl instead, someone without any radical intellectual commitments or bizarre sexual proclivities, yes, someone normal. Get married, give Christine a few grandkids. Overhear the other legal wives saying pleasantly: She’s so nice. To spend his life making conversation with such a person, working to finance the lifestyle of such a person, would, of course, represent a kind of spiritual death for him. But perhaps that would be preferable to the kind of social death that awaits him now. What will he tell people, what will he say. What does he think he’s doing. Not to hold anything above anything else, to keep everything equal: a delusion, not even a fantasy, a burdensome quasi-administrative task at which he can only repeatedly fail. Encountering in everyday situations new irreducibly complex dilemmas, thickets of intersecting desires and preferences. Having to meet the needs of the moment, every moment, forever. But why. Why should it be so difficult. He likes her, likes the other, and they both like him. To hold a little space for that. Surely everyone knows and accepts privately that relationships are complicated. Forget anyway about what people think. If it were anyone else after all. He would be the first to say what harm, no one else’s business, good for them. Why should you care, what are you so insecure about. No one is taking your beloved monogamy away, don’t worry. [...]

Waiting then in silence empty-handed. Suspended floating, overwarm, heavy overcoat he hasn’t taken off. Before him the flat grey plane of the closed door. And was it real he wonders. She, the raincoat, flower-like her face, the live stream, captured pawn. You’re being very decent she said. Half in love with her himself by the time she was walking away. How is it possible he could have been so wrong about everything. Sitting there beside him quietly she seemed to embody the inexpressible depth of his misunderstanding: of her, his brother, interpersonal relations, life itself. And yet she didn’t remonstrate. I can imagine what you must think of me. To imagine, Ivan. To credit him that is with such taste. Like the Italian girlfriend he stared at over dinner. One thing to look of course. A woman like that: difficult actually to believe. Beautiful, yes, but not just that. Something more also. The way she held herself. [...]