John McGahern - The Pornographer

A rapturous letter followed. She had had a dangerous and difficult confinement, but the child was worth it all. The child was beautiful. All his little features were replicas of my own, except the ears. We can’t all be perfect, she quoted from her favourite movie. I should hear him crow.

I wrote restating my old position in what I thought were the clearest possible terms, which she described as brutal and hurtful.

All right, we could give up the child for adoption, but on these conditions. I’d have to come to London and live at Kavanagh’s and take care of the child for a whole week. Feed it, change it, wash it. She’d move out for that time. If, at the end of the week, I could be heartless enough to give it away for ever, then she’d consent to the adoption, but there was no other way she’d consent.

I just repeated my position, saying whether I took care of the child for a day or a month could make no difference.

The next letter did not come by return and was more cautious. Would I come to London?

I hesitated for some days before writing that I would go to London. I’d see her to talk about what she intended to do, but under no circumstance would I agree to see the child. It had the echo of negotiating a deal of sale. I might be prepared to go ten thousand but under no circumstances would I consider fifteen or anything close to it.

I took the plane with the feeling of being flushed from one city to the other, that there should be a chain to pull. I rang her from London Airport.

“It’s great to hear your voice,” she said. “If you’d rung a half-hour earlier you’d have heard the little man crowing. But he’s sound asleep again. You’ll have to wait till you get here. Where are you ringing from?”

“The airport.”

“Why don’t you get the tube? It’s quicker at this time. I’ll meet you outside Archway Station. And we can walk here.”

“I’m not going to the house.”

“But you’re expected. Everybody’s looking forward to meeting you. There’s food and drink. Michael and Nora have been talking about little else but meeting you for days.”

“I’m sorry but I’m not going to the house,” I found myself trembling with nervousness. “I don’t intend to see the child.”

When she was silent I said, “I’m keeping to my end of the bargain. Meet me at ten in The Bell at the bottom of Fleet Street. That’s if you want to meet me.”

“But everybody’s expecting you. And don’t you want to see your child at least once?”

“No. And I’m sorry. Meet me at ten in The Bell if you want to meet me.”

As I’d plenty of time, I walked from Cromwell Road across London to the pub. Walking in a city where a great deal of time has been spent is like walking with several half-tangible, fugitive images that make up your disappearing life. There had been snow and there was packed ice along the edges of the pavement. I loved the glow of the night-lights. If one could be free of this clinging burden of tension it would be a lovely place to walk in, asking nothing but to be free to walk and look and see, hunch shoulders against the cold. Except I was too old not to know that it was by virtue of this very tension that it took on the apparel of happiness.

She came through the door on Fleet Street just before ten, with a man in his forties, red hair thinning, his powerful body managing to look awkward and ill at ease in his blue suit and shirt and tie. He was plainly Irish, from a line of men who had been performing feats of strength to the amazement of an infantile countryside for the past hundred years, adrift in London now, pressing buttons on a tower crane, and I knew at once he was Michael Kavanagh.

“I wanted to come on my own,” she said in a low pleading voice, “but Michael insisted on driving me. He’s been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“That’s fine with me. I’m glad to meet you,” and he reluctantly gave me his hand. That he was raging with uneasiness showed in his every movement.

“What’ll you have to drink?”

“A light and bitter,” he said and she had a glass of lager.

With the warm brown wood of the bar, the white mantles hanging from the gas lamps, the governor in his long shirtsleeves behind the solid counter, it could have been a very pleasant place to talk and drink.

“Well, what are you going to do?” Kavanagh was going to sort me out quickly.

“I don’t know,” I said and watched him finish the pint, order another round from the bar. She was worn and looked as if she’d been through a severe illness. The grey in her hair showed much more. I found myself completely indifferent to her, as if we’d both journeyed out past touching. Kavanagh drank the second pint more slowly.

“How do you mean you don’t know?” he pursued.

“What is there to do now? Either the child is adopted or kept.”

“And it’s no concern of yours, like?”

“It is some concern.”

“Some concern… after all you’ve put this poor girl through. It’d make stones bleed.”

“I’d prefer if the child could be adopted. That way it’d have two proper parents.…”

“I couldn’t give the child away. I don’t know how anybody that even saw him could give him away,” she said. But I hardly looked at her. It was with Kavanagh I’d have to contend.

“Well, you better come back to the house and see your good handiwork anyhow. That’s all the girl says that she wants. Many a man would go on his bended knees at the very thought that such a girl should even think of marrying him. And all she wants from you is to go back to the house for an hour. That’s all she says she wants. And if that’s the way you are, in my humble opinion, she’s well rid of you.”

“Come back with us to the house,” she put her hand on my arm. “That’s all I ask. If you want you can walk out of the house after that, and be as free as you want to be.”

“I’m not going back to the house. And I’m not seeing the child.”

“What did you come to London for, then? Why didn’t you skulk with the rest of the craw thumpers back in good old holy Ireland that never puts a foot wrong?”

“I’m leaving,” I said. Time had been called several minutes before. And we were attracting the governor’s eye. Twice he had come out from behind the counter and lifted our glasses.

“Goodnight. Thanks,” I said to him and turned to go out by the back way, towards St Brides. I had just let the door swing when Kavanagh caught me and pulled me against the wall, “Are you coming or not?”

“No,” I pushed against his arms but it was like pushing against trees.

“Are you coming or not?” and he started to shake me. I had no fear, feeling apologetic in the face of my own coldness, having the bad taste to remember a Civil War joke, “Who’re you for?” the man with the gun was asking the drunk outside the pub: “I’m for yous.”

“Are you coming or not?”

“No.”

“Well, you’ll be took,” he started to drag me. At that, strength came to me, and I managed to free one arm, and strike and kick. Then I was spun completely free, and I could feel the blows come so fast that I could not be certain where they were coming from, and the hardness of the wall. I must have been falling, for the last I remember was striking out at her as she came towards me with outstretched hands. I must have lost consciousness for moments only, for they were quarrelling nearby when I woke. “What did you want to do that for?” she was crying. “You’ve gone and ruined everything.”

“Leave him there and to hell with him. To hell with both of you and all stupid women.”

I was at the bottom of steps. Quickly I pulled off shoes, and rose, holding the shoes in my hand, and stole round by the church.