John McGahern - The Pornographer

He seemed pleased enough to hear from me. I suppose there is always excitement — even when it is unpleasant — when the pall of everyday is torn away.

“I’m afraid it does me no credit,” I explained. “I’m looking for something. And I didn’t know who else to turn to.…”

“What is it?”

“Well, it’s not money!” I prevaricated.

“We could even manage a little of that,” his easy ironical laugh brought easy idle evenings vividly back, mockingly now.

“I may well be in trouble, may well have got a woman pregnant.”

“How did you manage that?”

“Are there two ways?” I countered defensively. “I hate asking you this, but how do you go about getting this test done — to know for certain.”

“I can take care of that for you.”

“But I don’t want that.”

“It’s no trouble. I can get it done at the hospital,” and he gave instructions for getting the urine sample and we arranged to meet late the next evening in O’Neill’s of Suffolk Street when I’d bring him the sample. Often we conceal our motives from ourselves. I had rung him instead of ringing any anonymous doctor because I was now looking for allies.

Spring was late, and when it came it was more like early summer. Fairview Park was full of flowers and young men, their trousers tucked into socks, kicking footballs under the greening trees, using their cast-off clothes to mark the goals. I had played with them once. They were mostly apprentice barmen on their day off. Corporation workmen started to assemble scaffolding and ladders and then to paint the bandstand. As I went to meet her, the faintest tang of the spring tides was getting through the city dump and the car fumes. Because of the angle at which I saw the world, the good weather was getting on my nerves.

“It’s very simple,” I explained to her when we met that evening in the Green Goose. “You take the urine sample first thing in the morning. All you have to be careful of is that the container is sterilized.”

“It’s as simple as that?”

“As simple as that.”

The edge had nothing to do with the simple test. It just focused on it because it was nearest, as edges do.

“Life is very simple for you, isn’t it?”

“No, but some things in it are. It’s bad enough without complicating the simple things.”

“How complicated?” she challenged angrily.

“The test will tell me for certain whether you’re pregnant or not. If you’re not, then there’s no trouble.”

“There’s a test for love and life as well?”

“There’s generally no need. They’re too obvious.”

“So a test will tell me what I already know full well?”

“No. It’s only fifty-fifty at the most you’re pregnant,” edge was meeting edge. “Stress can cause you to miss. Disturbance can. The very idea that you might be pregnant can. Only the test will tell us for certain.”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“The doctor. He’s agreed to do it,” I was blind now. “Ease up. I don’t even have to be here. You wouldn’t use contraceptives. You said you were sure it was safe. All you did was lie on your back and get pregnant.”

“And you had nothing got to do with it?”

“Sure I had. I was stupid. And I’m paying for it now by being here.”

We’d been drawn so much into the heat of the quarrel that it had been forgotten that a few early evening people were around us in the Goose. It was when she began to cry that I noticed they were all staring our way.

“If you don’t stop you’ll get us into trouble here. Why don’t we go?”

“All right. We’ll go,” she said, and as we left I thought I heard a shout behind us from one of the tables, but I did not look back.

Out in the car park, the metal goose hanging still on its arm in the calm and lovely evening, I said, “I’m sorry. Would you like to go some other place? Would you like to go and eat a decent meal, with wine?”

“I’m sorry too,” she was smiling when she dried her eyes. “What I’d like to do is go back to your place. We can talk in peace there.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to go to a decent restaurant?”

“I’m certain,” she said and took my arm. “And don’t worry, love. I know everything is going to work out fine.”

“How do you make out that?” I asked.

“Because,” she said, “because both of us are good people.”

Peter White was waiting for me at the bar and I handed him the sample as soon as we met, “Just to get it over with.”

“I’ll take care of it,” he put it in his pocket. “It’s no trouble. I’ll have the result in two days’ time. By the way, Mary sent her regards, and asked if you could come to dinner on Saturday. I should have the result for you by then.”

“I’ll be glad to but there’s no need. Is there any way I can pay you?”

“No. I’m a sort of big wheel now, a consultant. I can get it done at the hospital. I’m only sorry that you should be in this fix.” His clothes were careful, as I suppose they had always been, but expensive too.

“I’m sorry it’s over this we should meet,” I began, but his directness saved me embarrassment.

“What’ll you do if she is pregnant?”

“Do you really think there’s a fifty-fifty chance she’s not?” I couldn’t resist clutching at the straw.

“At least that, but then there’s no problem. What’ll you do if it turns out that she is?”

“I suppose I’ll have to marry her.”

“Why?”

“It’s the last thing I want to do, but I can’t very well ditch her.”

“Where did you meet?”

“At a dance.”

“Did you make her any promises?”

“None. We only met a little over a month ago. If she wanted to do it, fair enough, I wanted to too, that was all there was to it. She wouldn’t allow contraceptives but she always said it was safe. It didn’t turn out that way.”

“Whether she knew it or not she wanted to get pregnant. Why would you marry her?”

“She wants me to. She says she loves me. And she’s worked at this bank for twenty years. She gets so much of a marriage gratuity for every year she’s worked, so it’s quite large. She’d get that much money if I married her. She doesn’t get a penny if she just has to resign.”

“But have you any fondness for her? Has the marriage any chance of working out?”

“None. I’d only marry her till the child came. Then I’d leave.”

“Why marry then?”

“That way it’d seem I was the bastard. She’d get protection. I’d take the rap. It’s the only condition I’d marry on, that I’d be free to leave as soon as it was over.”

“Then you must be a younger man than I think you are. You don’t marry people on conditions. You either marry them or you don’t marry them. What’s wrong with the situation now, from her point of view, is that it’s outside the law. By marrying her you put it inside and she’s protected in all sorts of ways.”

“What’d stop me from walking out?”

“You’d be walking out on a new wife, a child. You’d be walking out on the law. It’d be a far greater mess all round. She may agree to it now but will she agree to it then?”

“What’s to happen to her?”

“I think you have to help her in every way you can, but that stops far short of marrying her.”

“You think then I won’t have to marry her?” it was like grasping for pure joy.

“Unless you want to get yourself into a far greater mess.”

I was set free. The wild inner hope had been given solid sanction from outside. All things are relative. I could not have known such happiness if I had not lived for days with the nightmare. I was so happy that I was careless that my rich prize was won from her ruin.