Intermezzo Finale

We’re back.

At the end of Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo, the brothers, Peter and Ivan, reconcile, and Margaret plays a prominent role although she no longer has her own perspective as a character. It’s all Peter and Ivan.

After the episode where Peter beats Ivan up, he is surprised by his two lady friends, Sylvia and Naomi, who confront him and propose they continue their triadic intimate relationship. Peter had been thinking he had to choose between the two, not considering what they wanted. Then, he is shown at his flat in Dublin when his mother texts him with the news that Ivan is playing an important chess match nearby and includes a link to the live reporting on the match. Peter taps this and studies Ivan’s image. He realizes the significance of the match and resolves to go to the nearby venue; he plans to remain outside so as not to interrupt Ivan’s concentration. Arriving, he sits in the lobby to wait, occasionally checking the live report on his phone. He thinks warmly of Ivan and with regret over their fight. He will remain in the lobby till the match ends and then briefly congratulate his brother.

A woman wearing a raincoat emerges from inside the hall, and Peter decides it must be Ivan’s significant other, Margaret. Of course, it is, and Peter introduces himself and asks Margaret if she’d sit with him.

What we have here in the climax of the story is that the two brothers, grieving over their father’s death, have had various difficulties and challenges. Peter has been self-medicating and has been confused over which woman in his life to commit to. Ivan has clung (literally) to a woman a decade older than he, who has her own troubles (an abusive ex-husband) but who actually seems like a pretty good person to cling to. But Ivan has also avoided his grief and wallowed in an under-employed existence, settling for mediocrity. And he and Peter have had several major arguments, culminating in a physical fight.

However, they have constantly thought of each other in warm terms, and now, at the end, are ready to forgive and accept that they are family who have survived a major loss.

Margaret is the catalyst. As they sit together, Peter is intensely aware of her, wondering how much she knows about he and Ivan.

“Finally she says in a very low voice: I can imagine what you must think of me. As if scalded, in shock, he answers too loudly: Oh Jesus, don’t start. I was just going to say the same thing to you.”

Then Peter says: Our dad should be here…I mean, I’m sorry our dad would have been here. To congratulate Ivan. You know, he was very proud of him. We all are, very proud…I’m sorry, she says quietly. I know it must be very difficult.”

And Peter replies: “Thank you. It is hard. I miss him.”

Peter is able to verbalize his grief with Margaret, a stranger he feels close to, an intermediary with Ivan. It represents a large step toward reconciliation with his brother. Notably he has not yet been able to talk about his feelings with the two women he loves, Naomi and Sylvia.

The match is over; Ivan has triumphed. Margaret gets up to go back inside to him. She addresses Peter: “Will you wait? I’m going to go in and tell Ivan you’re here. I feel he will want to see you.”

Peter remains. “And was it real he wonders. She, the raincoat, flower-like her face, the live stream, captured pawn…Half in love with her himself by the time she was walking away…Sitting there beside him quietly: she seemed to embody the inexpressible depth of misunderstanding: of her, his brother, interpersonal relations, life itself.”

And Ivan emerges from the auditorium.

“Peter looks back at him, his brother, the watchful child, so young still, all of life ahead of him, and his eyes are filling with tears, hot, the corridor dimming and growing blurry…Ivan comes towards him, saying: Hey…And in desperation, as if not to be seen, to hide his face, he puts his arms around Ivan, embraces him…I’m sorry, alright? …I’m sorry as well, he (Ivan) says. Are you okay?”

At this point, Peter and Ivan have a long conversation about their father’s death, the women in their lives, chess, and their relationship, tying together the loose ends the story has developed. The last paragraph is long. In it, Peter’s stream of consciousness is on full display, as he leaves the event and the book. He imagines the whole family plus the three women he and Ivan are involved with, having Christmas dinner together. ”Nothing is fixed. She, the other, Ivan, the girlfriend, Christine (his mother), their father, from beyond the grave. It doesn’t always work but I do my best. See what happens. Go on in any case living.”

There’s a sense here of Peter feeling responsible for them all, caring for them.

And so Intermezzo ends, connecting nicely with the beginning in which Peter is shown musing affectionately about Ivan but also very blocked about expressing himself.

Thank you, Sally Rooney.

Next week, a new book, Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Till then.

#Intermezzo #SallyRooney #AlanBray