unblemished.
18
I’d had this affair with Jenny Starling on my first trip to Newfoundland. I had promised my wife I was done with her, and, through a coincidence, I’d ended up spending a night and a morning with her. Then my ferry left Boston for Nova Scotia and then a train to St John’s. I met the prime minister, Morris, on the train. He waived the duty on my sketch box. He listened to my plans for an artists’ colony. He suggested Burin. Ice-free port, he said, solid storerooms on the water. I’ll give free passage, he said, to artists and tax breaks for students.
I loved Burin. The birch groves and blueberry bushes and there was a marsh I sank in.
After seeing Burin I returned to New York. I did not tell Kathleen about staying with Jenny, though she knew I’d had dinner with her. I sold the house we had in Monhegan. I had my wife and son ready to leave. While I was in the middle of a set of push-ups with my feet on a kitchen chair, the postman came and Kathleen knelt down and laid the blue letter franked in Boston on the linoleum between my hands and oh she knew.
I finished my twenty repetitions, stood, and primly tore off one end of the envelope. Near the middle of the letter was a word with the tails of a p and a g . I knew the word before I’d even got to it; it was next to the face of my thumb. I knew the information contained in this word as though the word itself had impregnated the letter. I was shocked at how I had not thought of this possibility, how dumb I was not to connect. But I did not tell Kathleen anything. I held on to the idea of the way things were.
I said to Kathleen, I have to go to Boston.
That was it. It’s hard to believe that Kathleen accepted this without any other words being said. We both knew it, and somehow not saying the words undid it.
I stayed with Jenny Starling three days. She demanded that I leave my wife, that I take up with her. She almost convinced me that I should. And perhaps a promise leaked out of me. I am a bad man for promising. There was my desire in the idea of being with a woman I could talk with, but there was something repellent in her now being pregnant. That the two should mix. It had begun with the letter: I did not like the handwriting. How could I be passionate with a woman who writes this way? But how is a man to relieve himself of repellent thoughts? I did not tell this to Jenny but resorted to the responsibilities I had to my wife. Yes, I would accept Jenny’s child as my own. I would do all I could to take care of her and the child. But I would not leave my wife.
We did not sleep together. Jenny wanted it to be our last three days. Fucking is a declaration of just the two of you. It excludes the world. I refused it. I felt of all the things I’d done to Kathleen, this resistance could shore up some goodwill. I had sold the Monhegan house because it brought Kathleen memories of Jenny. That was where I’d slept with Jenny while courting Kathleen. So. These three days were the end and the end is different from knowing you have only a short time. I had the rest of my life with Kathleen, which makes you feel different. I am not a great man. I have fucked over those I love. I hurt Jenny and did very badly by Kathleen. I am a man of appetites and an inability to refrain from the most intimate act a man and a woman can do. I love the feast of fucking, the permission and the giving. It is a religious act. I am not religious, except for sex and art. They are my king and queen, and I do not mind lying to honour them. There is a greater honesty at work, or at least to hell with telling the truth. To lie does not betray integrity. At least, my definition of integrity.
When I left, when Jenny Starling saw that I was certainly to return to Kathleen, she relaxed. She began to smoke. She loosened up. She became herself because she had lost everything. In that becoming of her self I was glad to have chosen Kathleen. I wanted a clean woman. There was a fixed
18
I’d had this affair with Jenny Starling on my first trip to Newfoundland. I had promised my wife I was done with her, and, through a coincidence, I’d ended up spending a night and a morning with her. Then my ferry left Boston for Nova Scotia and then a train to St John’s. I met the prime minister, Morris, on the train. He waived the duty on my sketch box. He listened to my plans for an artists’ colony. He suggested Burin. Ice-free port, he said, solid storerooms on the water. I’ll give free passage, he said, to artists and tax breaks for students.
I loved Burin. The birch groves and blueberry bushes and there was a marsh I sank in.
After seeing Burin I returned to New York. I did not tell Kathleen about staying with Jenny, though she knew I’d had dinner with her. I sold the house we had in Monhegan. I had my wife and son ready to leave. While I was in the middle of a set of push-ups with my feet on a kitchen chair, the postman came and Kathleen knelt down and laid the blue letter franked in Boston on the linoleum between my hands and oh she knew.
I finished my twenty repetitions, stood, and primly tore off one end of the envelope. Near the middle of the letter was a word with the tails of a p and a g . I knew the word before I’d even got to it; it was next to the face of my thumb. I knew the information contained in this word as though the word itself had impregnated the letter. I was shocked at how I had not thought of this possibility, how dumb I was not to connect. But I did not tell Kathleen anything. I held on to the idea of the way things were.
I said to Kathleen, I have to go to Boston.
That was it. It’s hard to believe that Kathleen accepted this without any other words being said. We both knew it, and somehow not saying the words undid it.
I stayed with Jenny Starling three days. She demanded that I leave my wife, that I take up with her. She almost convinced me that I should. And perhaps a promise leaked out of me. I am a bad man for promising. There was my desire in the idea of being with a woman I could talk with, but there was something repellent in her now being pregnant. That the two should mix. It had begun with the letter: I did not like the handwriting. How could I be passionate with a woman who writes this way? But how is a man to relieve himself of repellent thoughts? I did not tell this to Jenny but resorted to the responsibilities I had to my wife. Yes, I would accept Jenny’s child as my own. I would do all I could to take care of her and the child. But I would not leave my wife.
We did not sleep together. Jenny wanted it to be our last three days. Fucking is a declaration of just the two of you. It excludes the world. I refused it. I felt of all the things I’d done to Kathleen, this resistance could shore up some goodwill. I had sold the Monhegan house because it brought Kathleen memories of Jenny. That was where I’d slept with Jenny while courting Kathleen. So. These three days were the end and the end is different from knowing you have only a short time. I had the rest of my life with Kathleen, which makes you feel different. I am not a great man. I have fucked over those I love. I hurt Jenny and did very badly by Kathleen. I am a man of appetites and an inability to refrain from the most intimate act a man and a woman can do. I love the feast of fucking, the permission and the giving. It is a religious act. I am not religious, except for sex and art. They are my king and queen, and I do not mind lying to honour them. There is a greater honesty at work, or at least to hell with telling the truth. To lie does not betray integrity. At least, my definition of integrity.
When I left, when Jenny Starling saw that I was certainly to return to Kathleen, she relaxed. She began to smoke. She loosened up. She became herself because she had lost everything. In that becoming of her self I was glad to have chosen Kathleen. I wanted a clean woman. There was a fixed
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