The Dark

by John McGahern

  Real noises came. A door opened down the landing, it was not shut. Feet padded on the boards, the whisper of clothes brushing. You raised yourself on your hands, the grip of terror close, for what could be moving at this hour of night?

  A low knock came on the door. Before you could say, “Come in,” it opened. A figure stood in the darkness along the wall.

  “You’re not asleep?”

  It was the priest’s voice, some of the terror broke, you let yourself back on your arms again.

  “No,” there was relief, but soon suspicion grew in place of the terror, what could the priest want in the room at this hour, the things that have to happen.

  “I heard you restless. I couldn’t sleep either, so I thought it might be a good time for us to talk.”

  He wore a striped shirt and pyjamas, blue stripes on grey flannel it seemed when he moved into the moonlight to draw back a corner of the bedclothes.

  “You don’t mind, do you—it’s easier to talk this way, and even in the summer the middle of the night gets cold.”

  “No, father. I don’t mind,” what else was there to say, and move far out to the other edge of the bed, even then his feet touching you as they went down. The bodies lay side by side in the single bed.

  “You find it hard to sleep? I often do. It’s the worst of all, I often think, to be sleepless at night,” he said, and you stiffened when his arm went about your shoulder, was this to be another of the midnight horrors with your father. His hand closed on your arm. You wanted to curse or wrench yourself free but you had to lie stiff as a board, stare straight ahead at the wall, afraid before anything of meeting the eyes you knew were searching your face.

  “Do you sleep well usually?”

  “Alright, father. The first night in a strange house is hard.”

  “It’s always hard in a strange house, if you’re not a traveller. I used never be able to sleep the first night home from college, or the first night in the college after the holidays, what you’re not used to I suppose, and the strange excitement.”

  His hand was moving on your shoulder. You could think of nothing to say. The roving fingers touched your throat. You couldn’t do or say anything.

  “You have a good idea why I invited you here?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “I was going to broach it in the sitting-room, but I thought you might be too fagged out after the journey. When I heard you restless I thought it might be a good time to talk, in fact I thought it might be the cause of the restlessness. It’s always better to talk no matter what. You’ve thought about the priesthood since? You know that that’s one of the main reasons I wanted you here?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “Have you come to any decision or any closer to one?” he moved his face closer to ask, his hand quiet, clasping tighter on the shoulder.

  “No, father,” you couldn’t say any more, you had to fight back tears, it was too horrid and hopeless.

  “You haven’t decided either one way or the other?”

  “No, father, but I don’t know. I’m not sure.”

  You felt cornered and desperate, wanting to struggle far more free by this of the questions than the body and en¬ circling arm.

  “What troubles you most? Do you want to be a priest?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “What then troubles you most?”

  “I’m not sure if I have a vocation. I don’t know.”

  “You know that God won’t come down out of his heaven to call you. The Holy Father defined a vocation as three things: good moral character, at least average intelligence, a good state of health. If you have these and the desire to give your life to God, then you have a vocation, it’s as easily recognizable as that. Does that help you to see your way any more clearly?”

  “I don’t think I’m good enough, father,” was what you said twisting away from it put so close and plain as this, tears started to flow down your face.

  “How?”

  “I can’t be certain. I thought maybe if I went out into the world for a few years to test myself, then I could be sure. It wouldn’t be too late to become a priest then. Don’t some become priests in that way?”

  “It’d be unlikely. People get into ruts and habits and drift. Once you’ve got a taste of the world—it’s hard to settle down at any time to the daily habitual service of God—but it’s worse if you come late. It’d be unlikely you’d ever leave the world once you got its taste and if you did it would be harder than now. The excitement and novelty would soon go. And then and then and then.”

  He stopped, the conversation against a wall, and as suddenly his whole voice changed.

  “Have you ever kissed a girl?” it came with the shock of a blow.

  “No, father. Never.”

  “Have you ever wanted or desired to kiss?”

  “Yes, father,” the tears flowed hopelessly, just broken, he was cutting through to the nothingness and squalor of your life, you were now as you were born, as low as the dirt.

  “Did you take pleasure in it?”

  “Yes, father,” it choked out.

  “You excited yourself, brought them into your mind. You caused seed to spill in your excitement?”

  “Yes, father.”

  “How often did it happen?”

  “Several times a week sometimes. More times not at all.”

  “How many times a week?”

  “Seven or eight sometimes, father.”

  “Did you try to break it?”

  “Yes. Always after Confession.”

  “Did you succeed for long?”

  “It’s six weeks since it happened last.”

  “Did you bring one woman or many women into these pleasures?”

  “Many women, father.”

  “Were they real or imaginary?”

  “Both, father.”

  “You don’t think this vice has got a grip on you, you think you could break it?”

  “Yes, father, I think I might.”

  “This is the most reason why you’re not sure, why you think you’re not good enough, is it?”

  “Yes, father. Do you think I might be good enough?”

  You still felt a nothing and broken, cheap as dirt, but hope was rising, would the priest restore the wreckage, would he say—yes, yes, you’re good enough.

  “I don’t see any reason why not if you fight that sin.”

  Joy rose, the world was beautiful again, all was beautiful.

  “Had you ever to fight that sin when you were my age, father?” you asked, everything was open, you could share your lives, both of you fellow-passengers in the same rocked boat.

  There was such silence that you winced, you had committed an impertinence, you were by no means in the same boat, you were out there alone with your sins.

  “The only thing I see wrong with you is that you take things far too serious, and bottle them up, and brood,” he completely ignored the question. “Most of those in my youth who became priests were gay. They kicked football, they went to dances in the holidays, flirted with girls, even sometimes saw them home from the dances. They made good normal priests.”

  You barely listened this time, resentment risen close to hatred. He had broken down your life to the dirt, he’d reduced you to that, and no flesh was superior to other flesh. You’d wanted to share, rise on admittance together into joy, but he was different, he was above that, you were impertinent to ask. He must have committed sins the same as yours once too, if he was flesh.

  What right had he to come and lie with you in bed, his body hot against yours, his arm about your shoulders. Almost as the cursed nights when your father used stroke your thighs. You remembered the blue scars on the stomach by your side.

  “You must pray to God to give you Grace to avoid this sin, and be constantly on your guard. As you grow older you’ll find your passion easier to control. It weakens,” he was saying. “You can stay here long as you want, you’ll have time and quiet to think, you can bring a
ny trouble or scruple to me. We can talk. And pray, as I will pray for you too, that God may well direct you.”

  He paused. You’d listened with increasing irritation and hatred, you wished the night could happen again. You’d tell him nothing. You’d give him his own steel.

  You felt him release his arm and get out on the floor and replace the bedclothes. Your hands clenched as he sprinkled holy water on your burning face, though the drops fell cool as sprigs of parsley.

  “God guard you and bless you. Sleep if you can,” he said as he left the room noiselessly as he’d entered it.

  13

  ANGUISH STAYED AFTER THE PRIEST HAD GONE—RAGE, YOU’D been stripped down to the last squalor, and no one had right to do that to anybody: shame, what must the priest think of you every time he looked at you any more: and if it could happen again what you’d say and not say, what you’d want to happen, you’d give nothing away, you’d destroy him, but it was all over now, except for the feverish restlessness of the anguish. The moonlight was still in the room, the crack across the mirror. The clocks beat the half-hours, single quick chimes, but you couldn’t tell the hours, none of the clocks struck alone or together, just one broken medley. And it was impossible to sleep, the mind a preying whirl.

  At last, restless and hot, you reached out and found a sock across your shoes on the floor, pulled your prick till it grew stiff, and you could push it into the sock. You were all turbed and it was something to do and it would draw off some of the fever. You turned and started to pump, rhythmically but without imagination till you heard the springs creaking. You moved out to the very edge of the bed, where the solid rail was under the mattress. You imagined nothing, neither edge of nylon nor pink nipple in your teeth, nor hands thrusting through your hair, but just pumped mechanical as a slow piston up and down, you got hot and you could press your mouth on the pillow, pumping madly, till you started to beat out into the sock. You turned at the last flutter, so that it wouldn’t have chance to seep through the wool and stain the sheet. Wet came on your hand as you removed the sock and let it fall over the shoes on the floor again. You were able to lie on your back and stare at the ceiling in more stupor than calm.

  You’d broken the three weeks discipline since Confession, you’d not be able to go to Communion in the morning. You’d never be able to be a priest either, you’d drift on without being able to decide anything, it was easier to let it go. You shivered as the interrogation of an hour ago came back, the squalor, but it was better try and shut it out.

  The clocks kept up their insane medley, the single strikes of the half-hours, the medley of the hours. The yellow of the moonlight faded as the day grew light. You stared at the ceiling, different number of boards than over the old bed with the broken brass bells at home, so much variation too in the grain and the knots.

  “Will the morning ever come, ever come, ever come?” as you waited for the cursed clocks, until you could stand it no longer, and dressed and went down outside, holding the knocker as you closed the hall door so as to make no noise.

  The white ground mist filled the morning, promise of a blazing day, the church vague in white twenty yards away. A spider netting of it lay on the laurels, on the cactus leaves above the iron bugle, it lay on the grass across the graves. Your hand left a gleaming black handtrack on the mudguard of the car, your feet left shining wet tracks on the grass between the graves.

  Your cheeks burned with the fever of fatigue, you wished you could lie naked on all this wet coolness and suck and roll your face in the wet grass, press the hot pores of your body against the wetness.

  You noticed nothing except these and the flitting of a wren low in the laurels. You ground your teeth, your hands clenched and unclenched, the mind bent on destruction of the night before, but only managing to circle and circle in its own futility.

  You couldn’t be a priest, never now, that was all. You’d never raise anointed hands. You’d drift into the world, world of girls and women, company in gay evenings, exact opposite of the lonely dedication of the priesthood unto death. Your life seemed set, without knowing why, it was fixed, you had no choice. You were a drifter, you’d drift a whole life long after pleasure, but at the end there’d be the reckoning. If you could be a priest you’d be able to enter that choking moment without fear, you’d have already died to longing, you’d have already abandoned the world for that reality, there’d be no confusion. But the night and room and your father and even the hedge around the orchard at home were all confusion, there was no beginning nor end.

  In the grappling the things of the morning lost their starkness, you were standing lost between the graves when the door opened, and the priest was there, in his soutane, a jug and heavy latchkey in his hand.

  “Good morning. I didn’t expect to find you afoot so early.”

  “Good morning, father. I couldn’t sleep much.”

  “The first night in a strange house is always bad. By the look of the mist the day’ll be another scorcher.”

  ‘It looks as if it’s going to be hot, father. It’s nearly always hot when the mist’s like that,” the pingball went, and did you wonder how much of your life would go on these courteous noises.

  “Would you like to serve Mass for me?” the priest said, you’d joined each other on the gravel path.

  “I’d be glad to, father.”

  “Usually John serves it, but a break will do him no harm. He’ll have breakfast for us soon as it’s over.”

  “That’s fine so, father.”

  “We’re not very likely to have worshippers. No one comes on the weekdays except seldom. It’s the real country.”

  With the latchkey he unlocked the sacristy door, then went out through the altar and down to the main door, where he lifted off the heavy iron bar, and opened both doors wide. The cruets had to be filled with water and wine, the bowl with water, the white cloth laid across. He gave you a soutane and surplice of his own to wear.

  “We’re ready now, but it’s not eight yet,” he said when they stood robed before the crucifix on the sacristy wall. “A Miss Brady, a retired schoolmistress, used come but she hasn’t put in an appearance for over a week, I think she may be gone to the sea, but we’d better wait till eight just in case.”

  There was silence in the sacristy, except for birds outside, waiting for eight, now as always tension of something strange about to happen, and then both of you bowing together to the crucifix at eight.

  You had to concentrate too much to wander or think during the Mass, follow the words and movements to make the responses, pour wine and water, ring the small bell though no one was there to hear, and change the missal. The priest moved as in a dream, in the formality of the ritual and black vestments of the dead, nothing whatever to the priest of the night before.

  You served too the rite as in a dream, the bread and wine were utterly changed without you knowing. Only at the Communion did any disturbance come, you could not receive, you had sinned. You watched the priest but he didn’t seem to notice or else it meant nothing to him. Then dumbly you went and poured the last water and wine and followed the Mass through to its end.

  Breakfast was ready in the house. A boy of fifteen with blond hair, his face so pale that it seemed to belong more to the city than here, came with the tea, and the priest said, “John, this is Mr. Mahoney.”

  “You’re welcome here, sir,” the boy smiled as he shook your hand, and you could get nothing out, you’d never been called Mr. Mahoney or sirred before, it was too unreal.

  The newspaper had come. The priest commented on the headlines, and then as he folded it up towards the end of breakfast he said, “They’re such a waste of time, but strange the grip they get on you, it’s habit or curiosity, you feel there’s something important that you may miss. It’s some sort of illusion that you’re in contact with a greater world outside your own little corner.”

  “I suppose so, father. I never thought of it like that.”

  It went so, nothing was spoken
of the night before. The priest said he had to go away for the day. He’d not be back till the late evening.

  “You can amuse yourself in any way you wish. John will get you your lunch. There are books, the key’s in the bookcase, you can search and find for yourself. I used to spend a lot of my holidays with Uncle Michael, the Canon now, and I used read and read.

  “You know you can stay as long as you wish: a week, or a fortnight. I’ll be away a good deal. You’ll have plenty of time to think and come to a decision. You can make yourself completely free and at home.”

  “Thank you, father,” you bowed your head, there was nothing else to say.

  The priest went and gave some instructions to John, then he left, offering no explanation for his going, nor could you ask. You watched the car turn round the pedestal, the tyres crunching on the gravel, and you answered the priest’s wave before he went out of sight on the circling drive of laurel and through the gates that no one seemed to ever close.

  14

  ONCE BACK IN THE ROOM YOU HAD THE PURE DAY ON YOUR hands, without distraction, except what you wished to be without, the fears and doubts and longings, coming and going.

  The mahogany bookcase stood solid. Scott, Dickens, Canon Sheehan under glass: Wordsworth, Milton, volumes in brown leather, gold on the spines: staunch religious books, doctrine, histories of the church, books of sermons. One lone paperback, Tolstoy’s Resurrection in a red and white Penguin, and you turned the small key to get it out, though you’d never heard of it or Tolstoy. It didn’t look such a tomb as the others, there were more green leaves and living light of the day about it than the dust and memory of the others, it was too new for many dead hands to have turned the pages.

  You took it outside, your feet on the ground. The sun was beating through the last shades of mist, the blazing day close. You watched the cactus, colour of ripe vegetable marrow, and wondered had it religious significance, the one place you’d seen it before was in front of the Convent of Mercy in Long¬ ford, in a bugled pedestal too, and surrounded too by white gravel, but that faded, to look at the yellow cactus long enough was to come to silence and fear.