John McGahern - The Pornographer

“Whatever you think.”

“And your lady in London is a vintage Mavis? Did she pull you off against the dashboard of the company Beetle on your way down? I liked that. It was one of the better touches.”

“No. She didn’t. I wish she had. It would have been safer on the dashboard.”

“Your yokel who introduced you to the boats sounds authentic. He couldn’t have been invented. He’s the very heart and soul in person of my dear friends, the plain people of Ireland. You’ll please answer me that. Was he invented or drawn from life?”

“He can be found any day round Roosky.”

“Thanks. I could tell. He was treated a bit harshly, but I’m glad to see our pair were kind. In Merriman’s effort it was done with less kindness but very much more gusto. Anyhow we’re not in that untranslatable league. The boat was real?”

“Yes. It was a boat like that, and the morning was misty.”

“The willow of a girl at the Bush is much more down our readers’ usual line. Except they’ll be disappointed you didn’t follow up the fat man on his paper run. Licked lips must have gone dry. But the accident or miracle of life did take place while the boat was stationary. As you put it, in the arms of the bay?”

“Yes. That’s your pound of flesh. That’s where I think it happened. Now why don’t you let go?”

“Because I find it very in-ter-est-ing. I can see how you’ve fallen between two schools. You should have written it as plain biography, with copious, boring footnotes. That way no one would doubt you. No one has the faintest idea as to why we exist but everybody is mad for every sort of info about other existences. That way they can enjoy their own — safely. You can’t beat life for that sort of thing. They get someone else to do their living and their dying for them, there’s no way they have to do it for themselves. And the first thing you have to convince them of is that it happened . Then you can tell them anything. Contrary to the sceptical view, your human being is mad to believe, to be convinced, especially that everything is going to turn out well in the end.”

“O for God’s sake, I didn’t write the bloody thing to furnish a text for a lecture.”

“You need a lecture. You’ve got off scot-free. This big sugar-daddy is taking on your growing burden. You’ve sullied the Shannon and you’re still out there laughing, back at square one, ready to start all over again. You need a lecture all right. You need several lectures,” he concluded.

The sense of getting off free was short-lived, dispelled by a short, plain note the next morning. No honeymoon had taken place.

“I am not going to be married, which — going by the tone of your last letter — can, I know, be little relief to you. I could not bring myself to marry Jonathan. Since I couldn’t, it was only proper that I move from his house and give up the job on the magazine, which, I found, wasn’t really a job at all, but something he created for me.

“I have found a cheap flat in North London and I’ll have no difficulty finding another job, nothing glamorous, some obscure place that will see out the remaining time. I have money and you are not to worry in any way. I’ll write you a long account as soon as I am completely settled. Jonathan’s conduct in all this was exemplary. He put no pressure of any kind on me other than to marry him but once I knew I couldn’t bring myself to do it I couldn’t go on staying in his house or keep the job.

“You can imagine what a few weeks these have been and you’ll never know how greatly loved you are. I don’t know, but when it came to the crunch I just couldn’t imagine holding Jonathan in my arms after your dear lovely self, and the idea just became increasingly funny. But, boy, I didn’t feel like laughing at all when he turned up with this other woman. I knew it was crazy but I just felt hopping mad.”

I was dismayed and furious and downhearted.

“You’ll be glad to learn I don’t need lectures now. This woman isn’t marrying,” I informed Maloney.

“I’m delighted,” he crowed.

“Why?”

“It lets you off too easily of course. Too soft an umbrella. If she’d married him, you’d have been two-nil up on the night. Now it’s even-steven. You’re right out there in the firing line once more. I thought the game was closed. Now it’s an on-going thing again. It’s interesting. It’s getting very interesting.”

I bought a round of drinks. He wasn’t able to contain his curiosity for long. “Why did this lady throw up the chance of fortune and respectability? Or did she just dally with it in her lap too long?”

“I don’t see what’s so funny about it,” I said, and he went into convulsions.

“Give us some water to dilute this,” he said to the barman when he’d recovered.

“Why?” he pressed. “Why didn’t she marry her tycoon? She might have done us all a good turn.”

“It’s a sore point. Apparently she was so taken with my physique that the idea of doing it with this Englishman wasn’t entertainable. It was just funny.”

“A good definition of the funny, if I may say so. Tension set off by the realization of the difference between what should be possible and what is in fact impossible. The idea of seeing one take place in the other.”

I stayed silent. There was no stopping him now.

“Our national poet was shrewder in sexual and other matters than most people give him credit for. ‘Isn’t it amazing,’ he once intoned, ‘the survival of the virginity of the soul in spite of sexual intercourse.’ This bird may have opened up her oyster to you, but she’s no Moll Flanders. Like our friend Yeats she’s more of a spiritualist. She believes in the continuing virginity of the individual, in spite of all the evidence around to the contrary. Yes,” he said, “I’ll have another look at our Shannon story. Knowing that real people are involved gives the spice of pornography a very satisfying solidity. It might even phosphoresce a little more this time.”

In a long letter she described how the idyll with Jonathan ended.

They’d been very happy for some days after the cremation. She’d cooked dinner most evenings upstairs and they’d stayed at home, sometimes going for a short stroll in the area before separating for the night.

“‘We’re going out tonight,’ he’d warned me mysteriously that morning, and it was to his favourite restaurant we went, the red roses as usual on the table. He was in wonderful spirits, joking with the waiters, and he ordered champagne.

“‘No, my dear. It’s not my birthday and I was never one for beating round the bush. As you know I’ve been in love with you for years but it took your sad business to bring us together. You always said you couldn’t marry me while my wife was alive because of your Catholic faith. The other business — Gwen’s death — has left me free after all these years. If you haven’t already guessed it, I’m asking you to marry me.’

“‘When?’

“‘Now if possible. Perhaps not right now or even tomorrow but very soon, soon as we can get a licence.’

“‘We’ll have to wait.’

“‘No, dear. We don’t have to go through the church ceremony now if that doesn’t suit you but we’ll wait for the child as man and wife, living together. The child will be brought up as if it were our child.’

“‘I’ll have to think about this.’

“‘You have a few days, a week, no more than a week. I hope though you’ll make up your mind before the week. You see, my love, I’m fifty-eight. I have no illusions and even less time. At most I have twelve years, ten, eight, maybe even less. Foolish or not, I want to spend those years as a happy, normal married man. I don’t expect to be given happiness but I’m prepared to work at it. And I know we can make a success, with luck maybe a great success.’ I was right up against it. I was very fond of Jonathan, but somehow I never thought of sleeping with him, of waking up with those funny handlebars every morning. And what clinched it, if it needed clinching, was that I could no more give up hope of seeing you again than giving up my own life, which I’d have had to do, if I’d married Jonathan.