Summary
Chapter 15
Peter adjusts to living in his flat without Naomi. He speaks to Sylvia and her parents on the phone, and they express their condolences for the loss of his father. When he goes to see Sylvia in person, she expresses anger and shock that he broke up with Naomi. Their misunderstanding lies in Peter assuming that he and Sylvia will get back together, and Sylvia thinking that their sexual encounter was casual. Sylvia tells Peter she refuses to "rescue" him from the chance of having an intimate relationship with Naomi. Peter tells Sylvia that he never wanted to start seeing other people in the first place. Sylvia's accident ruined her life, and she refuses to let it ruin Peter's, too. Peter tells Sylvia that she appears to be jealous of Naomi. At her wits' end, Sylvia accuses Peter of punishing her for not dying. Peter slams a brass candle holder on the ground, and Sylvia demands that he leave immediately. Peter goes to a convenience store and buys a bottle of vodka, deciding not to head back to his flat for fear of killing himself. He decides to head to his father's house in Kildare where Naomi is staying. There, Peter is shocked to encounter Ivan. Naomi has gone out with friends.
Ivan calls out Peter's hypocrisy at dating a younger person, and refuses to answer any questions about Margaret. They briefly discuss Ivan's upcoming chess event. Ivan asks if Peter really told Naomi he is a genius, and insists that he won't pry about Peter's relationships. Peter apologizes for being harsh at dinner, but the atmosphere remains tense. Ivan dislikes what he perceives as Peter's arrogance, but Peter states that he does feel right about certain things. For example, he believes Ivan is wrong for being antifeminist. Ivan claims that conduct is more important than belief, and his views on women have changed since he uttered those statements. The argument turns to their family dynamics. Peter felt that he had to protect Ivan and their father, and that neither of them showed up for him when he was in dire need. Ivan shoves him and Peter responds in turn, scaring Ivan.
Peter goes to dinner at his mother's house. He asks if it is alright that Naomi is staying in the house in Kildare, and he admits to Christine that he and Ivan had a fight. Though Peter feels ashamed at seeking his mother's support, he accepts the solace that she provides. Christine invites Peter to stay the night, comforts him, and warns him to keep an eye on his temper.
Chapter 16
Ivan feels shaken by his fight with Peter. His pride is wounded. He reflects on why he and Peter could not voice their true feelings while their father was still alive. Their father's sensitivity prevented that. Grasping that his father is truly gone makes Ivan feel a distorted sense of reality. On the phone with his mother, Ivan hints at having a girlfriend and tells Christine that he is still unsure of his Christmas plans. She asks after Alexei before hanging up. After, Ivan calls Margaret, who informs him that she told her mother about their relationship. Ivan cries as he shares with Margaret about his fight with Peter. She comforts him and affirms his need to see her in person. Ivan leaves a note for Naomi (also explaining that Peter came to the house looking for her) and heads over to Margaret's.
Margaret finally feels the rage she had been suppressing toward her mother for nearly her entire life. The anger spills over toward her sister Louise, her friend Anna, and everyone else who, by default, took Ricky's side by not taking Margaret's. When Ivan arrives, Margaret brings up their age difference again. It comes out that Ivan told Peter about her, which deeply upsets Margaret. Without resolving the situation, Margaret and Ivan go to bed together. Ivan contemplates a future together, but Margaret understands what the passage of time will do to them. She decides to enjoy the moment and let the future bring what it will.
Chapter 17
Peter wakes to find himself in Christine's spare bedroom. He heads out, planning to research painless ways to end his life. He returns to his apartment only to find both Sylvia and Naomi there waiting for him. Peter faints in shock. They take care of him, joking that "the girlfriends have unionised." Naomi advises him to seek mental health support. After Sylvia leaves, Peter assures Naomi that he would not have actually harmed himself. She spends the night at his apartment. The next day, Peter and Sylvia go on a walk together, bantering and discussing aesthetics, politics, and ethics. Both Naomi and Sylvia privately inform Peter that they like the other. Sylvia and Peter apologize and forgive each other for their roles in the whole situation, though they acknowledge that the accident was no one's fault. They also understand that Peter's grief over losing his father complicates things.
Sylvia suggests that she, Naomi, and Peter "come to some kind of arrangement" between the three of them. Without officially resolving to do so, Peter continues seeing and loving both women. At times he wishes he could just date and marry a "normal" woman, but he knows it could "represent a kind of spiritual death for him." Peter navigates the complexity of his situation without landing on a moral maxim about it.
Christine texts Peter information about Ivan's chess tournament, where he has the chance of earning his second of three International Master qualifications. Peter goes to the hotel where the match is taking place and waits outside the room so as not to disturb Ivan. There, he runs into Margaret. They introduce themselves, both friendly and nervous. After making small talk, Margaret addresses the obvious and unspoken issue by saying, "I can't imagine what you must think of me." Peter, embarrassed, says the same, and they laugh together. Margaret goes in to congratulate Ivan. Later, Peter cries as he wishes Ivan a hearty congratulations for winning the game. They reconcile. Ivan invites Peter to spend Christmas in Kildare with him and Margaret.
Analysis
The apparent ease with which Peter discarded Naomi in the hopes of resuming a monogamous relationship with Sylvia deeply disturbs her. She accuses him of making all three of them miserable, and explains that being the only woman in Peter's life is too much pressure. Furthermore, she refuses to be used as an exit strategy for Peter's relationship with Naomi. Throughout the novel, the characters of Naomi and Sylvia represented Peter's psychological split between intellect and embodiment. Peter's objectification of Naomi was more apparent—for instance, he constantly refers to her as "the other" despite developing true feelings for her. However, in Chapter 15, Sylvia reproaches Peter for using her to "help [him] get out of [his] relationship" and escape intimacy. She insists that he cannot "use" her like that because she is "a human being." In other words, Sylvia deviates from being a character who operates merely on a symbolic plane, asserting herself as a fully realized person rather than a projection of Peter's internal conflict.
After his confrontation with Sylvia, Peter fantasizes about disappearing. While these fantasies take on a suicidal element, they mostly involve "[emigrating]" from his current life and social circles (Chapter 15). He repeats the petulant affirmation, "You can't make me," addressing God or anyone or anything else that prompts him to endure what he hates. Unable to sit with his suffering, Peter buys a train ticket to go see Naomi. This confirms that she is his second choice. Sylvia accused Peter of using her as an outlet to avoid intimacy. Here, he assigns that role to Naomi. Rather than process the rupture with Sylvia, Peter seeks intimacy with Naomi as a way to manage his distress.
Ivan takes issue with the subtleties of Peter's word choices and tone (Chapter 15). These surface-level details point to what is really at stake for Ivan: the fact that he feels disrespected by his brother. Peter, on the other hand, feels abandoned by Ivan and their father. The argument devolves into a physical altercation as years of pent-up resentments reach a breaking point. This physical outburst is ironic for two men who pride themselves on their rationality. Reasoned dialogue fails in this instance. Peter feels guilty in the aftermath but does not know who to turn to, eventually settling on Christine. His behavior can be understood as both avoidance and a deeply human longing for connection. Ivan's reaction immediately following the fight gestures toward gendered power dynamics. He feels ashamed for "provoking a physical confrontation with someone stronger and more violent than himself" (Chapter 16). His humiliation at relying on Peter's mercy reveals a complicated relationship with power and masculinity.
Coming clean to her mother about dating a younger man brings feelings of rage, pain, and betrayal to the surface for Margaret. She feels she has nothing to show for a "lifetime of good behaviour and self-sacrifice" (Chapter 16). Suppressing her true needs (which in this case was for someone to stand by her side during the breakdown of her marriage) alienated her to the point of rage. Her relationship with Ivan restored a sense of vitality in her life, but she feels the costs are too high. Margaret reclaims her agency by directly addressing issues with the people in her life. This begins with her mother, and later includes Ivan; in Chapter 16, Margaret again brings up their age difference. However, she ultimately decides to humble herself and experience all of the pain, joy, and sorrow that life has to offer. Without any guarantee of the future, Margaret embraces the flux and full texture of her present life.
Rooney portrays unconventional relationships (such as age-gap pairings and ethical non-monogamy) in all their complexity and nuance without reducing them to binary moral categories. Instead she shows that unconventional connections can be ethical or unethical depending on honesty and power. For example, the triangle between Peter, Naomi, and Sylvia only becomes ethical when Peter assimilates his conflicting needs and communicates them to both women. From there, Sylvia and Naomi make their own choices according to their own constraints, needs, and moral aspirations. All the characters in Intermezzo navigate love under conditions of grief and precarity. For the Koubek brothers, everything they do is in the shadow of their loss of their father. Overall, the book challenges the idea of the self-contained individual. Even for Ivan and Margaret—whose relationship raises theoretical ethical questions due to their age gap, but ultimately functions without harm or coercion—the reality of what other people in their lives think is present in their dynamic.
