But you deserve it more.
He looked up at her. He wiped his mouth with the napkin. You mean in terms of the financial stuff? he said.
Oh, she replied. Well, I meant that you’re a better student.
She looked down critically at her croissant. He watched her.
Though in terms of financial circumstances too, obviously, she said. I mean, it’s kind of ridiculous they don’t means-test these things.
I guess we’re from very different backgrounds, class-wise.
I don’t think about it much, she said. Quickly she added: Sorry, that’s an ignorant thing to say. Maybe I should think about it more.
You don’t consider me your working-class friend?
She gave a smile that was more like a grimace and said: I’m conscious of the fact that we got to know each other because your mother works for my family. I also don’t think my mother is a good employer, I don’t think she pays Lorraine very well.
No, she pays her fuck all.
He cut a thin slice of omelette with his knife. The egg was more rubbery than he would have liked.
I’m surprised this hasn’t come up before, she said. I think it’s totally fair if you resent me.
No, I don’t resent you. Why would I?
He put his knife and fork down and looked at her. She had an anxious little expression on her face.
I just feel weird about all this, he said. I feel weird wearing black tie and saying things in Latin. You know at the dinner last night, those people serving us, they were students. They’re working to put themselves through college while we sit there eating the free food they put in front of us. Is that not horrible?
Of course it is. The whole idea of ‘meritocracy’ or whatever, it’s evil, you know I think that. But what are we supposed to do, give back the scholarship money? I don’t see what that achieves.
Well, it’s always easy to think of reasons not to do something.
You know you’re not going to do it either, so don’t guilttrip me, she said.
They continued eating then, as if they were acting out an argument in which both sides were equally compelling, and they had chosen their positions more or less at random, only in order to have the discussion out. A large seagull landed at the base of a nearby street light, its plumage magnificently clean and soft-looking.
You need to get it straight in your mind what you think a good society would look like, said Marianne. And if you think people should be able to go to college and get English degrees, you shouldn’t feel guilty for doing that yourself, because you have every right to.
That’s okay for you, you don’t feel guilty about anything.
She started rooting around in her handbag looking for something. Offhandedly she said: Is that how you see me?
No, he said. Then, uncertain of how guilty he thought Marianne felt about anything, he added: I don’t know. I should have known coming to Trinity that it would be like this. I’m just looking at all this scholarship stuff thinking, Jesus, what would people in school say?
For a second Marianne said nothing. He felt in some obscure sense that he had expressed himself incorrectly, but he didn’t know how. To be fair, she said, you were always very concerned with what people in school would say. He remembered then, about how people had treated her at that time, and how he himself had treated her, and he felt bad. It wasn’t the conclusion he was hoping the conversation would have, but he smiled and said: Ouch. She smiled back at him and then lifted her coffee cup. At that moment he thought: just as their relationship in school had been on his terms, their relationship now was on hers. But she’s more generous, he thought. She’s a better person.
*
When Jamie’s story is finished, Marianne goes inside and comes back out again with another bottle of sparkling wine, and one bottle of red. Niall starts unwrapping the wire on the first bottle and Marianne hands Connell a corkscrew. Peggy starts clearing away people’s plates. Connell unpeels the foil from the top of the bottle as Jamie leans over and says something to Marianne. He sinks the screw into the cork and twists it downwards. Peggy takes his plate away and stacks it with the others. He folds down the arms of the corkscrew and lifts the cork from the neck of the bottle with the sound of lips smacking.
The sky has dimmed into a cooler blue now, with silver clouds on the rim of the horizon. Connell’s face feels flushed and he wonders if he’s sunburned. He likes imagining Marianne older sometimes, with children. He imagines they’re all here in Italy together and she’s making a salad or something and complaining to Connell about her husband, who is older, probably an intellectual, and Marianne finds him dull. Why didn’t I marry you? she would say. He can see Marianne very clearly in this dream, he sees her face, and he feels that she has spent years as a journalist, maybe living in Lebanon. He doesn’t see himself so well or know what he’s been doing. But he knows what he would say to her. Money, he would say. And she would laugh without looking up from the salad.
