Free The Pornographer by John McGahern Page A

cheap, crowded restaurants.
    And without any desire for meaning, in the same way as I had been surprised at her bedside, I sometimes felt meaning in this crowded solitude. That all had a purpose, that it had to have, the people coming and going, the ships tied up along the North Wall, the changing delicate lights and ripples of the river, the cranes and building, lights of shops, and the skythrough a blue haze of smoke and frost. And then it slipped away, and I found myself walking with a light and eager step to nowhere among others, in a meaningless haze of goodwill and general benediction and shuffle, everything fragmented again.
    And then came the quiet or the tiredness that said that if that was the way it was it too had to be accepted, and when night fell it was possible to go home with the easy conscience of a sport’s reporter writing, “No play was possible today at Lords because of rain.”
    I tried to write a new story. I thought if I got another story done before Maloney started to ask for it I would give myself several free days, but I wasn’t able to write. It must have been that I had got used to deadlines. I went early to Kavanagh’s to meet her and had drunk two pints by the time she came.
    “It’s good to see you,” she bent to kiss me as she started to unbutton her jacket.
    “What’ll you have?”
    “I’ll have a gin and tonic—to celebrate,” she said mysteriously.
    “To celebrate what?” I asked when I brought the drinks back from the bar.
    “You see, silly, there was no reason to be worried. I told you I was regular as could be. It must have been all that exercise.”
    “I’m glad. I’ll drink to that.”
    I must have been worried for I felt a weight lift, as money suddenly come upon that had been feared lost. The evening brightened. Having realized the fear in being set free, I resolved never to put it at risk again. And I thought of how many times this celebration must have taken place, people made light-hearted as we by the same tidings. For this time we had no bills of pleasure to pay. We were not caged in any nightmare of the future.
    “We’ve never met any place except in these old pubs,” she said suddenly. “Why don’t we start going to different places?”
    “What sort of different places?”
    “There’s the cinema,” and she named a picture that was playing on the quays that had received much praise. “Or we could go to the Park next Saturday, to the races.”
    At the mention of the Park, I remembered the days at the races I’d often gone to with her I had loved, and I drew back as if I knew instinctively what she was seeking: if we could meet people that either she or I knew it would give our relationship some social significance, drag it out of these dark pubs for christening.
    “No. I don’t feel like going to any of those places. But why don’t you go?” and I saw it fall like a blow. She made no attempt to conceal it.
    “O boy! That sure puts me in my place,” and there were tears in her eyes.
    “I don’t want to put you in your place.”
    “But you did. Don’t you understand that those places don’t have an interest for me in themselves but are places that I want to go to with you?”
    “There’s no future for you in that—for either of us. You’ll only get hurt. That’s the way you fall in love.”
    “That’s all the music I need to hear. Maybe I’m hurt all I can be hurt already. I don’t know why you have to be so twisted and awkward. Especially with the news I had I thought we’d just have a nice pleasant evening.”
    “There’s plenty of places we can go together.”
    “Where?” she put her hand on my knee, smiling through her tears.
    “We could go down the country,” I said awkwardly. “And stay in some nice hotel for a weekend.”
    “I have a far better idea,” she was laughing now. “And it won’t cost a thing. I was going to mention it when all the silly fighting started. We can take a boat, one of the new cruisers, out