Connell is mugged and seeks Marianne's help late at night

Connell is mugged and seeks Marianne's help late at night after losing his wallet and phone in Dún Laoghaire. The call brings him to Marianne’s apartment, where the practical need for help gives way to a painful exchange about their feelings and the misunderstanding that separated them the previous summer. The encounter reveals that care between them persists, even as they remain unable to make their past and present intentions clear to one another.

The Call and the Journey to Marianne

At Marianne’s gathering, she receives a call from a number she does not recognise and steps away to answer. Connell tells her that his wallet, phone, and other belongings have been stolen, and that he is stranded in Dún Laoghaire. He has not been home since exams and is drunk; because he has neither his phone nor money, he reaches out to Marianne, the one person whose number he can remember.

When Marianne meets him outside her building, he has been injured in the robbery. Connell explains that a man demanded his wallet, that he refused for reasons he cannot account for, and that the man then hit him. Looking back, he says he should have handed over the money. He also apologises for calling, while Marianne offers him a choice: he can shower and stay at her apartment, or take cash and go home. Connell leaves the decision to her, making his immediate dependence on her explicit without presuming that he is welcome.

Care Complicated by Intimacy

Connell’s arrival is not simply a practical emergency. He is drunk enough to joke about his condition and flirt with Marianne; she laughs at the flirtation and reminds him that Jamie is there. The joking sits beside the vulnerability of his situation: he has been hurt, is far from home, and has called someone with whom intimacy has never become emotionally straightforward.

In the kitchen, Connell asks Marianne whether she loves Jamie. She points out that he has not usually shown interest in her feelings and that she thought such subjects were off-limits between them. Connell then admits that he has been seeing someone for about six weeks: Helen Brophy, a medical student. Marianne is shocked. Connell says that he loves Helen, and Marianne begins to cry. The disclosure makes plain that, while Marianne has been trying to understand her own relationship with Jamie, Connell has already entered a relationship he had not told her about.

The Previous Summer Reconsidered

Marianne’s immediate response is to tell Connell to leave her alone. He apologises for not telling her about Helen, and she asks him to go. But her hurt does not erase awareness of why he came: when Connell reminds her that he needs money to get home, she recalls that he was assaulted and offers him two fifty-euro notes. Her effort to act like a grown-up is expressed through practical care, even as she is visibly distressed and Connell himself appears close to tears.

Before leaving, Connell says he never understood what had happened between them the previous summer, when he had to move home. He had thought Marianne might let him stay with her. Marianne answers that he had said he wanted them to see other people, so she believed he was ending their relationship; she had not known he wanted to remain with her and says he would have been welcome. The conversation identifies the separation as a misunderstanding rather than a shared decision clearly discussed by both of them. Yet the clarification comes only after Connell has become involved with Helen, and it does not repair the immediate hurt.

Departure and Concealment

Connell leaves Marianne’s apartment with the money. The door closes quietly, giving the encounter no dramatic resolution: he has received help, and they have finally named part of the misunderstanding between them, but neither offers a way to return to their previous intimacy. The episode ends with separation rather than reconciliation.

The next morning in the Arts Block, Jamie kisses Marianne in front of other people and tells her she looks beautiful. He asks how Connell was the previous night. Marianne grips Jamie’s hand, rolls her eyes conspiratorially, and says Connell was so out of it that she eventually got rid of him. Her public account hides the emotionally charged conversation and the help she gave Connell. The contrast between the private exchange and her breezy explanation shows how the two continue to keep important feelings and facts out of view, even after the night has exposed the cost of their silence.