John McGahern - Creatures of the Earth - New and Selected Stories

‘You don’t believe in anything at all, then?’ she said with a gravity that both charmed and nettled.

‘I have no talent for profundity.’ He had spoken more than he had intended and was beginning to be irritated by the turn of the conversation.

‘You must believe in something?’ she insisted.

‘’Tis most certain. Have not the schoolmen said it?’ he quoted to tease gently, but saw she disliked the tone. ‘I believe in honour, decency, affection, in pleasure. This, for instance, is a very good steak.’

‘You don’t seem bitter.’ This faint praise was harder to take than blame.

‘That would be stupid. That would be worst of all. How is the lamb?’

‘It’s good, but I don’t like to be fobbed off like that.’

‘I wouldn’t do that. I still find it painful, that’s all. I’m far too grateful to you. I think you were very brave to come here.’ He started to fumble again, gently, diffidently.

‘I wasn’t brave. It was what I wanted.’

‘Not many women would have the courage to propose an hotel.’

‘They might be the wise ones.’

It was her turn to want to change the direction of the conversation. A silence fell that wasn’t silence. They were unsure, their minds working furiously behind the silence to find some safe way to turn.

‘That man you were in love with,’ he suggested.

‘He was married. He had a son. He travelled in pharmaceuticals.’

‘That doesn’t sound too good for you.’

‘It wasn’t. It was a mess.’

They had taken another wrong turning.

It was still raining heavily when they came from the grill. They had one very slow drink in the hotel bar, watching the people drink and come and go before the room and night drew them.

In the morning he asked, ‘What are you doing today?’

‘I’ll go back to the hospital, probably try to get some sleep. I’m on night duty at eight.’

‘We didn’t get much sleep last night.’

‘No, we didn’t,’ she answered gently enough, but making it plain that she had no interest in the reference. ‘What are you doing?’ she changed the subject.

‘There are three buses back. I’ll have to get one of them.’

‘Which one?’

‘Probably the twelve o’clock, since you’re going back to the hospital. When will we meet again?’ he asked in a tone that already took the meeting for granted.

She was half dressed. The vague shape of her thighs shone through the pale slip as she turned towards him. ‘We can’t meet again.’

‘Why not?’ The casualness changed. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. The very opposite.’

‘What’s the matter, then? Why can’t we meet?’

‘I was going to tell you last night and didn’t. I thought it might spoil everything. After all, you were in Maynooth once. I’m joining an Order.’

‘You must be joking.’

‘I was never more serious in my life. I’m joining next Thursday … the Medical Missionaries.’ She had about her that presence that had attracted him in the dancehall; she stood free of everything around her, secure in her own light.

‘I can’t believe you.’

‘It’s true,’ she said.

‘But the whole thing is a lie, a waste, a fabrication.’

‘It’s not for me and it wasn’t once for you.’

‘But I believed then.’

‘Don’t you think I do?’ she said sharply.

‘To mouth Hail Marys and Our Fathers all of your life.’

‘You know that’s cheap. It’ll be mostly work. I’ll nurse as I nurse now. In two years’ time I’ll probably be sent to medical school. The Order has a great need of its own doctors.’

‘Wasn’t last night a strange preparation for your new life?’

‘I don’t see much wrong with it.’

‘From your point of view, wasn’t it a sin?’ He was angry now.

‘Not much of a one, if it was. I’ve known women who spent the night before their marriage with another man. It was an end to their free or single life.’

‘And I was the goodbye, the shake-hands?’

‘I didn’t plan it. I was attracted to you. We were free. That’s the way it fell. If I did it after joining, it would be different. It would be a very great sin.’

‘Perhaps we could be married?’ he pressed blindly.

‘No. You wouldn’t ask so lightly if we could.’

‘We wouldn’t have much at first but we would have one another and we could work,’ he pursued.

‘No. I’m sorry. I like you very much, but it cannot be. My mind has been made up for a long time.’

‘Well, one last time, then,’ he cut her short.

‘Hadn’t we the whole night?’

‘One last time.’ His hands insisted: and as soon as it was over he was sorry, left with less than if it had never taken place.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

After they had paid downstairs, they did not want to eat in the hotel, though the grill room was serving breakfast. They went to one of the big plastic and chrome places on O’Connell Street. They ate slowly in uneasy silence.

‘I hope you’ll forgive me, if there’s anything to forgive,’ she said after a long time.

‘I was going to ask the same thing. There’s nothing to forgive. I wanted to see you again, to go on seeing you. I never thought I’d have the luck to meet someone so open … so unafraid.’ He was entangled in his own words before he’d finished.

‘I’m not like that at all.’ She laughed as she hadn’t for a long time. ‘I’m a coward. I’m frightened of next week. I’m frightened by most things.’

‘Why don’t you take an address that’ll always find me in case you change your mind?’

‘I’ll not change.’

‘I thought that once too.’

‘No. I’ll not. I can’t,’ she said, but he still wrote the address and slipped it in her pocket.

‘You can throw it away as soon as I’m out of sight.’

As they rose he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.

They now leaned completely on those small acts of ceremony that help us better out of life than any drug. He paid at the cash desk and waited afterwards while she fixed her scarf, smiled ruefully as he stood aside to allow her the inside of the stairs, opened the large swing-door at the bottom of the steps. They walked slowly to the bus stop. At the stop they tried to foretell the evening’s weather by the dark cloudy appearance of the sky towards the west. The only thing that seemed certain was that there’d be more rain. They shook hands as the bus came in. He waited until all the passengers had got on and it had moved away.

The river out beyond the Custom House, the straight quays, seemed to stretch out in the emptiness after she had gone. In my end is my beginning, he recalled. In my beginning is my end, his and hers, mine and thine. It seemed to stretch out, complete as the emptiness, endless as a wedding ring. He knew it like his own breathing. There might well be nothing, but she was still prepared to live by that one thing, to will it true.

Thinking of her, he found himself walking eagerly towards the Busarus … but almost as quickly his walking slowed. His steps grew hesitant, as if he was thinking of turning back. He knew that no matter how eagerly he found himself walking in any direction it could only take him to the next day and the next.

‘I suppose it won’t be long now till your friend is here,’ the barman said as he held the glass to the light after polishing.

‘If it’s not too wet,’ I said.

‘It’s a bad evening,’ he yawned, the rain drifting across the bandstand and small trees of Fairview Park to stream down the long window.

She showed hardly any sign of rain when she came, lifting the scarf from her black hair. ‘You seem to have escaped the wet.’ The barman was all smiles as he greeted her.