The Collected Stories

by John McGahern

  ‘He doesn’t keep me. I pay for this place. He always wanted me to move, but I would never give up my own place,’ she said sharply, but she could not be harsh for long, and began to laugh. ‘Anyhow he always leaves before morning. He has his breakfast in the other house’; and she switched off the light on the disordered bed and chairs and came into my arms. The night had been so tense and sudden that we had no desire except to lie in one another’s arms, and as we kissed a last time before turning to seek our sleep she whispered, ‘If you want me during the night, don’t be afraid to wake me up.’

  The Russian ships had stopped and were lying off Cuba, the radio told us as she made coffee on the small gas stove beside the sink in the corner of the room the next morning. The danger seemed about to pass. Again the world breathed, and it looked foolish to have believed it had ever been threatened.

  Jerry was coming back from Cork that evening, and we agreed as we kissed to let this day go by without meeting but to meet at five the next day in Gaffneys of Fairview.

  The bicycle had gone from the hallway by the time I left. The morning met me as other damp cold Dublin mornings, the world almost restored already to the everyday. The rich uses we dreamed last night when it was threatened that we would put it to if spared were now forgotten, when again it lay all about us in such tedious abundance.

  ‘Did Jerry notice or suspect anything?’ I asked over the coal fire in Gaffneys when we met, both of us shy in our first meeting as separate persons after the intimacy of flesh.

  ‘No. All he talked about was the Cuban business. Apparently, they were just as scared. They stayed up drinking all night in the hotel. He just had a terrible hangover.’

  That evening we went to my room, and she was, in a calm and quiet way, completely free with her body, offering it as a gift, completely open. With the firelight leaping on the walls of the locked room, I said, ‘There is no Cuba now. It is the first time, you and I,’ but in my desire was too quick; ‘I should have been able to wait,’ but she took my face between her hands and drew it down. ‘Don’t worry. There will come a time soon enough when you won’t have that trouble.’

  ‘How did you first meet Jerry?’ I asked to cover the silence.

  ‘My father was mixed up in politics in a small way and he was friendly with Jerry; and then my father died while I was at the convent in Eccles Street. Jerry seemed to do most of the arranging at the funeral, and it seemed natural for him to take me out on those halfdays and Sundays that we were given free.’

  ‘Did you know of his reputation?’

  ‘Everybody did. It made him dangerous and attractive. And one Saturday halfday we went to this flat in an attic off Baggot Street. He must have borrowed it for the occasion for I’ve never been in it since. I was foolish. I knew so little. I just thought you lay in bed with a man and that was all that happened. I remember it was raining. The flat was right in the roof and there was the loud drumming of rain all the time. That’s how it began. And it’s gone on from there ever since.’

  She drew me towards her, in the full openness of desire, but she quickly rose. ‘I have to hurry. I have to meet Jerry at nine’; and the pattern of her thieving had been set.

  Often when I saw her dress to leave, combing her hair in the big cane armchair, drawing lipstick across her rich curving lips in the looking glass, I felt that she had come with stolen silver to the room. We had dined with the silver, and now that the meal was ended she was wiping and shining the silver anew, replacing it in the black jewel case to be taken out and used again in Jerry’s bed or at his table, doubly soiled; and when I complained she said angrily, ‘What about it? He doesn’t know.’

  ‘At least you and Jerry aren’t fouling up anybody.’

  ‘What about his wife? You seem very moral all of a sudden.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,’ I apologized, but already the bloom had gone from the first careless fruits, and we felt the responsibility enter softly, but definitely, as any burden.

  ‘Why can’t you stay another hour?’

  ‘I know what’d happen in one of those hours,’ she said spiritedly, but the tone was affectionate and dreamy, perhaps with the desire for children. ‘I’d get pregnant as hell.’

  ‘What should we do?’

  ‘Maybe we should tell Jerry,’ she said. It was my turn to be alarmed.

  ‘What would we tell him?’

  The days of Jerry’s profligacy were over. Not only had he grown jealous but violent. Not long before, hearing that she had been seen in a bar with a man and not being able to find her, he had taken a razor and slashed the dresses in her wardrobe to ribbons.

  ‘We could tell him everything,’ she said without conviction. ‘That we want to be together.’

  ‘He’d go berserk. You know that.’

  ‘He’s often said that the one thing he feels guilty about is having taken my young life. That we should have met when both of us were young.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he’ll think me the ideal man for the job,’ I said. ‘They say the world would be a better place if we looked at ourselves objectively and subjectively at others, but that’s never the way the ball bounces.’

  ‘Well, what are we to do?’

  ‘By telling Jerry about us, you’re just using one relationship to break up another. I think you should leave Jerry. Tell him that you just want to start up a life of your own.’

  ‘But he’ll know that there’s someone.’

  ‘That’s his problem. You don’t have to tell him. We can stay apart for a while. And then take up without any fear, like two free people.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said as she put on her coat. ‘And then, after all that, if I found that you didn’t want me, I’d be in a nice fix.’

  ‘There’d be no fear of that. Where are you going tonight?’

  ‘There’s a dinner that a younger branch of the Party is giving. It’s all right for me to go. They think it rather dashing of Jerry to appear with a young woman.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. Young people don’t like to see themselves caricatured either.’

  ‘Anyhow I’m going,’ she said.

  ‘Will it be five in Gaffneys tomorrow?’

  ‘At five, then,’ I heard as the door opened and softly closed.

  ‘Does Jerry suspect at all?’ I asked her again another evening over Gaffneys’ small coal fire.

  ‘No. Not at all. Odd that he often was suspicious when nothing at all was going on and now that there is he suspects nothing. Only the other day he was asking about you. He was wondering what had become of you. It seemed so long since we had seen you last.’

  Our easy thieving that was hardly loving, anxiety curbed by caution, appetite so luxuriously satisfied that it could not give way to the dreaming that draws us close to danger, was wearing itself naturally away when a different relationship was made alarmingly possible. Jerry was suddenly offered a lucrative contract to found a new radio/television network in Sierra Leone, and he was thinking of accepting. Ireland as a small nation with a history of oppression was suddenly becoming useful in the Third World.

  ‘He goes to London the weekend after next for the interview and he’ll almost certainly take it.’

  ‘That means the end of his political career here.’

  ‘There’s not much further he can get here. It gives him prestige, a different platform, and a lot of cash.’

  ‘How do you fit into this?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Does he want to take you with him?’

  ‘He’ll go out on his own first, but he says that as soon as he’s settled there and sees the state of play that he wants me to follow him.’

  ‘What’ll you do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a voice that implied that I was now part of these considerations.

  Slane was a lovely old village in the English style close to Dublin. One Sunday we had lunch at the one hotel, more like a village inn than a hotel, plain wooden tables and chairs, t
he walls and fireplaces simple black and white, iron scrapers on the steps outside the entrance. She had suggested that we go there the weekend Jerry was on interview in London. The country weekend, the walks along the wooded banks of the river, coming back to the hotel with sharp appetites to have one drink in the bar and then to linger over lunch, in the knowledge that we had the whole long curtained afternoon spread before us, was dream enough. But was it to be that simple? Did we know one another outside the carnal pleasures we shared, and were we prepared to spend our lives together in the good or nightmare they might bring? It was growing clearer that she wasn’t sure of me and that I wasn’t sure. So when the telegram came from the country I was almost glad of the usual drama and mysteriousness.

  ‘Then that’s goodbye to our poor weekend.’ She handed me back the telegram in Gaffneys.

  ‘It’s only one weekend,’ I protested. ‘We’ll have as many as we want once Jerry goes.’

  ‘You remember when I wanted to tell Jerry that we were in love and you wouldn’t have it? You said we didn’t know one another well enough, and then when we can have two whole days together you get this telegram. How are we ever going to get to know one another except by being together?’

  ‘Maybe we can still go?’

  ‘No. Not if you are doubtful. I think you should go home.’

  ‘Will you come back with me this evening?’

  ‘I have to have dinner with Jerry.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘At eight.’

  ‘We’ll have time. We can take a taxi.’

  ‘No, love.’ She was quite definite.

  ‘Will you meet me when I come back, then?’ I asked uncertainly.

  ‘Jerry comes back from London on Sunday.’

  ‘On Monday, then?’

  ‘All right, on Monday.’ There was no need to say where or when. She even said, ‘See you Monday,’ to the barman’s silent inquiry as we left, and he waved ‘Have a nice weekend,’ as he gathered in our glasses.

  I was returning home: a last look at the telegram before throwing it away – an overnight bag, the ticket, the train – the old wheel turned and turned anew, wearing my life away; but if it wasn’t this wheel it would be another.

  Rose, my stepmother, seemed glad to see me, smiling hard, speaking rapidly. ‘We even thought you might come on the late train last night. We said he might be very well on that train when we heard it pass. We kept the kettle on till after the news, and then we said you’ll hardly come now, but even then we didn’t go to bed till we were certain you’d not come.’

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘No. There’s nothing wrong.’

  ‘What does he want me for?’

  ‘I suppose he wants to see you. I didn’t know there was anything special, but he’s been worrying or brooding lately. I’m sure he’ll tell you himself. And now you’ll be wanting something to eat. He’s not been himself lately,’ she added conspiratorially. ‘If you can, go with him, do your best to humour him.’

  We shook hands when he came, but did not speak, and Rose and myself carried the burden of the conversation during the meal. Suddenly, as we rose at the end of the meal, he said, ‘I want you to walk over with me and look at the walnuts.’

  ‘Why the walnuts?’

  ‘He’s thinking of selling the walnut trees,’ Rose said. ‘They’ve offered a great price. It’s for the veneer, but I said you wouldn’t want us to sell.’

  ‘A lot you’d know about that,’ he said to her in a half-snarl, but she covertly winked at me, and we left it that way.

  ‘Was the telegram about the selling of the walnut trees, then?’ I asked as we walked together towards the plantation. ‘Sell anything you want as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘No. I have no intention of selling the walnuts. I threaten to sell them from time to time, just to stir things up. She’s fond of those damned walnuts. I just mentioned it as an excuse to get out. We can talk in peace here,’ he said, and I waited.

  ‘You know about this Act they’re bringing in?’ he began ponderously.

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’re giving it a first reading, but it’s not the law yet.’

  ‘What is this Act?’

  ‘It’s an Act that makes sure that the widow gets so much of a man’s property as makes no difference after he’s dead – whether he likes it or not.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with us?’

  ‘You can’t be that thick. I’ll not live for ever. After this Act who’ll get this place? Now do you get my drift? Rose will. And who’ll Rose give it to? Those damned relatives will be swarming all over this place before I’m even cold.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ I was asking questions now simply to gain time to think.

  ‘How do I know?’ he said with manic grievance. ‘Already the place is disappearing fast beneath our feet. Only a few weeks back the tractor was missing. Her damned nephew had it. Without as much as by my leave. They forgot to inform me. And she never goes near them that there’s not something missing from the house.’

  ‘That’s hardly fair. It’s usual to share things round in the country. She always brought more back than she took.’

  I remembered the baskets of raspberries and plums she used to bring back from their mountain farm.

  ‘That’s right. Don’t take my word for it,’ he shouted. ‘Soon you’ll know.’

  ‘But what’s this got to do with the telegram?’ I asked, and he quietened.

  ‘I was in to see Callan the solicitor. That’s why I sent the telegram. If I transfer the place to you before that Act becomes law, then the Act can’t touch us. Do you get me now?’

  I did – too well. He would disinherit Rose by signing the place over to me. I would inherit both Rose and the place if he died.

  ‘You won’t have it signed over to you, then?’

  ‘No, I won’t. Have you said any of this to Rose?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. Do you take me for a fool or something? Are you saying to me for the last time that you won’t take it?’ And when I wouldn’t answer he said with great bitterness, ‘I should have known. You don’t even have respect for your own blood,’ and muttering, walked away towards the cattle gathered between the stone wall and the first of the walnut trees. Once or twice he moved as if he might turn back, but he did not. We did not speak any common language.

  We avoided each other that evening, the tension making us prisoners of every small movement, and the next day I tried to slip quietly away.

  ‘Is it going you are?’ Rose said sharply when she saw me about to leave.

  ‘That’s right, Rose.’

  ‘You shouldn’t pass any heed on your father. You should let it go with him. He won’t change his ways now. You’re worse than he is, not to let it go with him.’

  For a moment I wanted to ask her, ‘Do you know that he wanted to leave you at my sweet mercy after his death?’ but I knew she would answer, ‘What does that matter? You know he gets these ideas. You should let it go with him’; and when I said, ‘Goodbye, Rose,’ she did not answer.

  As the train trundled across the bridges into Dublin and by the grey back of Croke Park, all I could do was stare. The weekend was over like a life. If it had happened differently it would still be over. Differently, we would have had our walks and drinks, made love in the curtained rooms, experimented in the ways of love, pretending we were taming instinct, imagining we were getting more out of it than had been intended, and afterwards … Where were we to go from there, our pleasure now its grinning head? And it would be over and not over. I had gone home instead, a grotesquerie of other homegoings, and it too was over now.

  She would have met him at the airport, they would have had dinner, and if their evenings remained the same as when I used to meet them together they would now be having drinks in some bar. As the train came slowly into Amiens Street, I suddenly wanted to find them, to see us all together. They were not in any of the Grafton Street bars, and I was on the
point of giving up the impulse – with gratitude that I hadn’t been able to satisfy it – when I found them in a hotel lounge by the river. They were sitting at the counter, picking at a bowl of salted peanuts between their drinks. He seemed glad to see me, getting off his stool, ‘I was just saying here how long it is since we last saw you,’ in his remorseless slow voice, as if my coming might lighten an already heavy-hanging evening. He was so friendly that I could easily have asked him how his interview had gone, amid the profusion of my lies, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to know.

  ‘I’ve just come from London. We’ve had dinner at the airport.’ He began to tell me all that I already knew.

  ‘And will you take this job?’ I asked after he had told me at length about the weekend, without any attempt to select between details, other than to put the whole lot in.

  ‘It’s all arranged. It’ll be in the papers tomorrow. I leave in three weeks’ time,’ he said.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I proffered uneasily. ‘But do you have any regrets about leaving?’

  ‘No. None whatever. I’ve done my marching stint and speeching stint. Let the young do that now. It’s my time to sit back. There comes a time of life when your grapefruit in the morning is important.’

  ‘And will her ladyship go with you?’

  ‘I’ll see how the land lies first, and then she’ll follow. And by the way,’ he began to shake with laughter and gripped my arm so that it hurt, ‘don’t you think to get up to anything with her while I’m gone.’

  ‘Now that you’ve put it into my head I might try my hand.’ I looked for danger but he was only enjoying his own joke, shaking with laughter as he rose from the bar stool. ‘I better spend a penny on the strength of that.’

  ‘That – was – mean,’ she said without looking up.

  ‘I suppose it was. I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘You knew we’d be around.’

  ‘Will you see me tomorrow?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Anyhow, I’ll be there.’

  ‘How did your weekend in the country go?’ she asked sarcastically.

  ‘It went as usual, nothing but the usual,’ I echoed her own sarcasm.