John McGahern - The Pornographer

“Is she not coming home cured, then?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it.”

“Why are they sending her out, so?”

“Maybe there’s nothing more they can do for her,” and I was glad not to have to watch his face.

“Will you go in for her?” he asked when I parked at the hospital. “I’d sooner sit out here in the car. And there’s nothing much I can do in there anyhow.” And when I looked towards him he had already looked away.

“I thought yous were never coming,” she was all waiting, her cases by the armchair at the entrance to the ward.

“We’re hardly late at all.”

“Once you know you’re going you can’t wait to get away. Where’s your uncle?”

“He’s waiting out at the car.”

“That’s just like him. Let you haul out all the cases,” she started to complain.

He was standing outside the V8, the boot up, the back door open,

“Will you look at him, standing there, like a railway porter,” I saw now that she was just complaining out of happiness and relief to be entering again into the familiar. He hid his nervousness by busily stacking the cases in the boot, and then settling her among the rugs and pillows in the back, she making noises of protestation. “Well, it’s great to see you better and going home,” he let rumble out as the car rolled away from the hospital.

“Maybe I’m not well at all.”

“Ah well, Mary, you never missed! You were always a great one for having both ends. Sure, you’re even looking well,” and though she grumbled on I saw that the tiny scold had reassured her.

At Maynooth I left them. “There’ll be a bus back in any minute. I don’t want you to wait.”

“You’ll be down soon?” my uncle said as we shook hands.

“Promise,” she said as I kissed her. “And thanks for everything and God bless you.”

“I promise. If you don’t go now you’ll soon find yourself driving into the sun.” I shut the door but she continued waving from the back window as the big car nosed out into the traffic.

I took the story in Friday evening to the Elbow Inn. Every Friday evening the people from the paper met there just after work. I took the story in instead of posting it because I wanted to borrow a car or van for the river trip.

Maloney had his back to the counter when I came in, pulling on a cigar. Around him there were three or four different conversations going but they all formed a single and distinct whole from the rest of the bar, and people were continually circulating between the points of conversation. There was a tradition of wit on those Fridays which resulted in a killing and artificial tedium. Though they put out pornographic papers it would be difficult to tell them from any bank or insurance party except that their dress was perhaps that bit more attractively careless. Some of the girls said “Hello, stranger” to me between the smiles and handshakes but it had as much significance as “yours sincerely”. Maloney bought me a drink and I gave him the story.

“I don’t suppose you’ll like it,” I said carelessly.

“If he doesn’t like it he doesn’t have to publish it,” one of the girls who was with him laughed.

“Even if we didn’t like it there’s a special place for odd-ball stuff our regulars come in with from time to time,” Maloney countered quickly, and started to slip through it. As he did I asked the girl where she intended to go on her summer holiday. Maloney interrupted tepid talk about the Aran Islands to say in his mock pompous voice, “It breaks no new ground but it’s up to your usual high, traditional standard and of course there’s the usual spunk, old boy. Where do you intend to exercise the Colonel and our good Mavis next?”

“I thought of a trip in a cruiser up the Shannon.”

“Excellent idea. Spend your holiday discovering Ireland. Support home industry. I’m all for that, old boy.”

“In fact, I’ve got an invite on one of those trips and I want to borrow a car for next weekend. It’s all the paper will have to contribute to the field work.”

“Very in-ter-est-ing. Do you have a Mavis to take along to your Colonel?”

“Sure,” I tried to cut the joking short. “She’s seventy-nine and after every time we do it we have to search between the sheets for her false teeth. What about the car?”

“Hi, John,” he called across to a young bald-headed man in a blue duffle coat, “What cars are free next Friday?”

“There’s a few, I’d take the black Beetle if I was him.”

“The Black Beetle, then,” I said and Maloney nodded gravely.

“What can I get you to drink before I go?” I offered, but it was refused, and I made the final arrangements for picking up the Volkswagen late afternoon of the next Friday.

There was a time I’d have hung on in the pub, afraid of missing something if I left, afraid of being mocked as soon as I left. But now I knew it didn’t matter, and anyhow it could not be controlled. There was always a time when you’d have to leave.

I spent the Saturday she was to come to cook dinner cleaning the kitchen. Then I got the fire to light and went out and bought the red wine.

She came with a large cane basket. The way she returned my kiss left no doubt as to how she planned for the evening to end. There was fresh rain on her face, and as we kissed I had no chance of curbing my own desire. Suddenly I wanted nothing but to sleep with her.

“I’ll show you the kitchen. Then I’ll set the table and draw the wine and leave you to the cooking. I’d only get in your way. All that can be said about the kitchen is that it’s elemental.”

“It has all that I need. And it’s even clean,” she said.

“I tried to clean it but I’m afraid it’s not all that clean.”

“It’s just lovely,” she raised herself on her toes to be kissed again.

She unpacked the parcels from the basket: two steaks, a head of lettuce, mushrooms, three different kinds of cheeses, four apples.

“You see, I kept it simple.”

“It looks delicious. There’s fruit here as well. What’ll you have?”

“I’ll have a sherry.”

After I poured a glass of sherry, I said, “I’ll leave the bottle out. Is there anything else before I leave?”

“Yes. A kiss. And a radio. I like to play the radio while I cook.”

I took the transistor in from the other room, and the kiss was so prolonged that I put my hands beneath her clothes, moving them freely. It was she who broke loose. “I suppose I better make a start,” her face flushed. I wanted to say, “Why don’t we before you start?” but left the room.

I set the table, poured out a large whiskey, threw some more wood on the fire and stood leaning against the mantel sipping the whiskey while noises of utensils and smells of cooking came through the radio music from the kitchen. The evening was on its way like a life. There was no use kicking against it now. It had to be plundered like a meal.

“Everything’s ready,” she called from the kitchen. The smell of the grilled steaks was delicious. “We’ll just have the steaks with the mushrooms and we can have the salad at the same time,” she handed me the salad bowl. “There’s just one thing missing,” she cried out. “No candles!”

“There are candles somewhere,” I said and found an old packet among the liquor bottles. When she lit the candles and fixed them in their own wax in ashtrays round the room, she switched off the light. There was hardly need of candles because of the leaping fire which flashed on glass and metal and made the plates glow white.

When I praised the meat she said, “I got it from Janey and Betty’s butcher. They told me he’s expensive but that you can always be certain of him. When I mentioned their names he put down the piece he was going to give me and went back and searched among the hanging pieces in the cold room.”