Port Mungo by Patrick McGrath Page B

and drown her talent in whisky. She did not argue. She was languid with sex.
    —Where do you want to go?
    He told her he wanted to go south.
    —How far south?
    As far as he had to, until he found a place where he could work. He told her that more than anything in the world he wanted her to come with him. He begged her to come with him.
    Later they sat in a coffee shop down the block. It was almost noon. She was wearing dark glasses. Beyond the plate-glass window the rain was gently falling. She was more awake now, and worrying at this ultimatum of his, delivered earlier when she was still soft and tender from the sex. She cranked up her engines of dissent. Rusty and spluttering at first, she soon had her theme and Jack allowed her to run it out. The general drift was, he was asking her to turn her back on her friends, all that was familiar to her. First London, now here—what was wrong with New York?
    Nothing was wrong with New York, he told her, it was how they
lived
in New York that was wrong: they stayed in bed all morning, he said, then they wandered the city for three or four hours, then it was time for cocktails.
    She took off her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes. She spoke about being dragged far from civilization. She said he was leading her deep into a jungle she would never find her way out of. But Jack knew, so he said later, that as she grumbled and rambled she was at the same time coolly examining his proposal, and that even as she argued, the idea of going south began to rouse her, for she was always susceptible to the prospect of flight, she was far more the drifter than he was.
    —Where is it you want to go, Jack?
    She was properly awake now, she had drunk enough coffee, the hook was in. He shrugged. He was cool, offhand.
    —Mexico.
    —Mexico!
    —Cuba. Honduras.
    She had her sunglasses on again, he couldn’t see her eyes. But she ran her tongue round the inside of her mouth as she reached for the cigarettes and murmured the names. Mexico—Cuba—Honduras—poetry!
    —Go by water, he said.
    —By boat, yes.
    —Look for a town on the coast.
    —A river town.
    Is this how the conversation went? A river town may or may not have been suggested, and Vera may or may not have been so easily persuaded. But she knew that without Jack she was sunk. She had no plans, no money, nothing. And she was still very much in love with him. And so, in this fashion, or in a fashion similar to this, the decision was made. They would pack up and go south. She grew excited later, this Jack did remember clearly, she decided that here was one of the moments of grand pathos in an artist’s life—a moment of heroic self-sacrifice—a moment when a woman lifted her eyes and glimpsed her destiny, understanding, yes, what must be done, no matter the cost, for Art to be served. She called it “The Leaving of Manhattan.” She described, over drinks, to the usual crowd, the epic canvas she intended to paint, a vast thing of color and movement, allegorical figures in the sea and in the sky, with Manhattan a kind of radiant heart in the center of the composition, and pulling away from it a great white ship with four slanting funnels and Jack and herself at the rail with their eyes on a future where Art and Art Alone would rule, and their friends on the dock weeping and dancing—
    How they laughed. Let her mock herself, thought Jack, let her set herself up as a ridiculous figure, the woman who left Manhattan so she could paint in peace.
    But just let me get her to that quiet river town and she will be painting pictures of real importance. More to the point, so will I. No, she wouldn’t let him go without her, he knew this, she wouldn’t miss this adventure, and besides, there was real spirit in Vera Savage, an old deep spark of the unquenchable stuff. And Manhattan—Manhattan could wait. Manhattan wouldn’t go away.
    For much of the next year they drifted. They didn’t leave New York in a great white ship with four red funnels,