The Pornographer

by John McGahern

  “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.

  “We’ll have another drink.”

  “What do you do now? Are you still with that agency?” he asked.

  “No. I gave that up. I write pornography.”

  “You write pornography?” his clean-cut features, boyish still beneath the straight black hair, mirrored all the shades between incredulity and amazement.

  “That way I don’t have to go into the agency. I don’t get all that much money but I get paid enough.”

  “This is too rich. You’re getting elderly girls pregnant and writing pornography. It’s too much,” his bellow of helpless laughter attracted attention all around the bar. “What is the pornography like?”

  “It’s heartless and it’s mindless and it’s a lie. I’m stuck with it and I’m sick of it, a cold anvil that has to be beaten,” I began.

  “Anyhow we’ll see you for dinner Saturday, though we may well have to fumigate the place afterwards,” he said as we parted.

  “What did you do for the evening?” I asked her when we met.

  “I just moped,” she answered. “There was a time when everything was certain. I knew exactly where I was going, everything I was doing. Everything had a purpose then, but since I met you everything gets more and more mixed-up.”

  “I gave the doctor the sample. We should know for certain by Saturday.”

  “What’ll we know for certain?”

  “Whether you’re pregnant or not.”

  “I know I am.”

  “If you’re not,” I said determinedly, “we’ll go out and celebrate. We’ll have the biggest, most expensive, drunkennest meal in Dublin,” and, I thought silently, we’ll get to hell out of one another’s lives for ever.

  “What’ll we do then?”

  “We’ll both be free.”

  “And what if the test is positive?”

  “There’s no use thinking
about that now. We’ll know soon enough.”

  “I don’t see what’s wrong with getting married. I know we’d be happy.”

  What was her meat was my poison. The trouble with the old clichés was that they were all true and turned up for their renewal.

  “We’ll have to face into that in two days’ time.”

  “But will we be married?”

  “If we have to,” I said quickly. “I won’t be able to see you tomorrow evening. I have to have dinner with this doctor and his wife tomorrow evening.”

  “I’ll go to dinner with Betty and Janey then. They rang today to see if I’d have dinner at their place. I told them I’d wait till I saw you. I think they must know that something’s wrong.”

  “Did you tell them anything?”

  “No. I was going to but I didn’t. Will we go back tonight?”

  “We’ll wait till Sunday. We’ll know for certain what we’ve let ourselves in for.”

  “I can do with Sunday coming. I find my hands all the time stretching out for you. I could do with holding your body for the whole of a whole week.”

  I brought champagne and whiskey and a sheaf of yellow roses to the dinner.

  “What did you want to bring all this for?” Peter White asked sharply in the hallway.

  “I feel it’s the least I could bring. Turning up on such an errand after all these years.”

  “To pay your way?” he said sarcastically.

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, thanks, but it’s too much. I’m afraid it has no influence on your news though. The test was positive.”

  I waited, empty, feeling it sink like a stone to the bottom of the emptiness, come up again like mud.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “That means she’s pregnant?”

  “The test has a two per cent margin of error, but if I were you I’d take it that she is pregnant.”

  “Somehow I never had much hope that it’d turn out any other way.”

  His wife came in. She had on a white apron with a recipe for steak au poivre in black print across the front. She seemed prettier than when they’d married. We shook hands and she praised the roses.

  “Did you tell?” she asked Peter.

  “The news is bad,” I answered for him. “It’s a mess.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s going to be a problem.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to go into it at dinner. What’ll we have to drink?”

  She had a dry sherry. He and I had whiskey. A log fire blazed behind the wire screen over the white marble fireplace. Persian rugs were scattered about the polished wood of the floor. Three places were set at the head of the long table, silver candlesticks down its centre. The heavy velvet curtains drawn the whole length of one wall gave a feeling that all the unpleasantness of the world lay arctic wastes away outside.

  “It’s quite lovely,” I said. “It speaks of comfort and money.”

  “Is it that vulgar?” he fenced.

  “It’s not vulgar at all. It’s lovely, as money is. It gives me the feeling of luxury and protection.”

  “Peter is still defensive,” she smiled. “He feels like that about everything in life, that he shouldn’t have it, but I’m quite used to it.”

  She withdrew and came back ten minutes later with three bowls of mushroom soup, on which sprigs of parsley floated. When the bowls were gathered away she carried in a roast chicken on a platter.

  “It was a lot of work,” I said to her.

  “A girl comes in. Kitty. I let her home early this evening.”

  “Don’t laugh,” Peter said, switching on an electric carving knife. “I feel ridiculous with this thing but it works.”

  “What do you think it’s best to do?” I began as soon as we’d started to eat. I was anxious not to put it off for any longer. It was as if I knew that my fate in the sad business would be decided here most favourably. She looked towards him but he kept his eyes on his plate. “You have to think of the woman and more especially the child,” she said.

  “I’m prepared to marry her if there’s no other way out.”

  “That’s not on,” he said, “since you’re only prepared to marry her and then leave her. You’d only be walking out on a far greater mess.”

  “Why would he leave her?”

  “Because I couldn’t stand living with her. I’d marry her only so that I’d be seen to take the blame for the whole business.”

  “But you must have been fond of her in order for what has happened to happen?”

  “No. I wanted to sleep with her.”

  “To do that you must have given her something to go on?”

  “I never told her that I loved her or promised her anything. I suppose it’s the only saving feature now.”

  “For God’s sake,” he said. “You don’t have to love someone or even to be fond of them to want to fuck with them!”

  Her very silence was a rebuke as she rearranged her knife and fork.

  “What does she want?” she pursued.

  “She wants to marry me.”

  “Does she know that you don’t love her?”

  “She doesn’t mind that. She says she has enough love for the both of us.”

  He groaned but she ignored it. “Why weren’t contraceptives used?”

  “She said they weren’t natural, that they turned the whole thing into a farce. Every time she said it was safe according to the calendar. It didn’t turn out that way.”

  “She was using the Boles Method, no doubt. There’s a fool of a gynaecologist in the hospital, a staunch Catholic, and a great Boles man. In this last experiment more women got pregnant using the Boles Method than no method at all. The woman obviously wanted to get pregnant. I see it every day in the hospital. Time running out? Get pregnant, and it’ll be taken care of. Bored with life? Get pregnant, and it’ll stir things up. Not getting enough attention? Get pregnant, and it’ll bring an overdose of attention. Hit me now with the child in my arms,” he laughed jeeringly.

  “The girl or woman probably didn’t get pregnant deliberately. She’ll suffer for it now anyhow,” his wife said.

  “If you can tell where instinct ends and consciousness begins you’ll make all our fortunes. Here. Hold on to your seat belts,” he said as he set the carving knife whirring. “I’ll carve you a second helping of instinct any day of the week,” and he poured what was left of the Moselle.

  “All this riding of hobby horses isn’t getting us anywhere,” she said calmly.

  “Right,” he said. “She can have an abortion.”

  “Not here,” she reminded.

  “London’s only an hour away. There’s a good clinic in Woodford. She can be back at work in three days. It’s expensive. That’s all.”

  “She’d never agree to it,” I said.

  “You can’t force her to have an abortion,” his wife said. “It’s probably her last chance to have a child at her age. If she were to have an abortion it’s very unlikely she’d be able to conceive again afterwards.”

  “Then, if she won’t agree to the abortion, she can have the child and put it up for adoption.”

  “What if she didn’t want to have it adopted once she had it?”

  “You’d have to cross that bridge when you reach it. She’d be pleasing herself then, wouldn’t she? She’d be on on her own after that point. But up to there, to my mind, you’ll have to give her all the help you can.”

  “Dublin is too small a place for her to have the child, with her kind of family,” I probed.

  “It probably is. London would probably be the easiest place all round, but again that’s for her to decide.”

  “Is marriage completely out?” she asked.

  “If abortion is out for her, marriage is out for him,” he said.

  “It sounds horribly logical.” I didn’t care to see it so brutally.

  “Life isn’t simply a logical business,” she said.

  “No,” he said. “It
’s not logical, but it’d be a damned sight worse without some attempt to make sense of it.”

  When we rose, she said that Kitty would clear the table in the morning. He and I had large brandies. She had nothing.

  By the time I left I no longer felt the vulnerable single person that has to take on suffering and death. We upholster ourselves.

  She looked at me when we met under Clery’s clock on the Sunday. “It’s bad news,” I said. “The test was positive. It’s almost certain that you’re pregnant.”

  “Now we’re really in it,” she said without seeming to realize anything of the words, and stood silent, as if gathering the knowledge within her, the way I’d seen her stand as if to collect herself before getting into bed for the first time, the way I must have stood when I first heard the test was positive.

  “The doctor and his wife were very good. They’ll give us all the help they can. They said the first thing to consider is an abortion. They can arrange it, perfectly legally.”

  “Would you agree to that?” she asked indignantly.

  “Of course I would but it’s not my decision. You have to decide that.”

  “To take a small life, and have it killed. Of course we’d get off scot-free. But how could we live with ourselves again?”

  “That wouldn’t bother me. It’s not my decision though.”

  “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.”

  “Well then, if an abortion is out marriage is even more out.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d be only marrying you because you’re pregnant.”

  “Those sort of marriages are often the happiest. I know at least three.”

  “This couldn’t. I’d only marry to cover for you.”

  “You’d change when you saw the child.”

  “No. I wouldn’t change. I’d leave as soon as you had the child. We talked about it. They said that if I was certain the marriage had no chance—and I am certain it hasn’t—it’d only be a far bigger mess when it happened than if we never married.”