“Don’t be sorry. Come and sit here.”
“I think I’d better get back to bed. It’s the middle of the night. I apologize again.”
“Don’t be silly. You’re a big boy and can do as you like. Come over here and sit down like I’m telling you.”
And he, obedient, sits down. She: “Like that. Only a little closer.” She laughs quietly, deep in her throat, and presses up against him. He leans away, tries to stand up, she pulls him down. “Now, now. Don’t you know what to do? Such a big boy.”
It’s as if he’d been clubbed. No will of his own. Only half conscious. Knows only that he must be quiet so he doesn’t wake up the whole house. She throws off the covers, and there it is, the smell those awful, obscene men talked about, the smell of sex that makes it stand up straight! She reaches her hand down to the crotch of his pyjamas. “Yes, you are a man.” Contented sigh. She takes his hand and puts it on her body. Her nightgown has ridden up. “What do you think of this?”
It is hairy and wet. Warm, alive. She takes one of his fingers and puts it into what he realizes is her vagina. “Do you want to try? So you’re not so shy next time?” She sighs again and wriggles a bit and moans. “Don’t make me beg. Come on.”
She is amazingly strong, or maybe she needs no strength, his body is willing and lets itself be pulled onto her and presses eagerly when she leads it to the right place. Suddenly and irreversibly engaged in what the encyclopedia describes as coitus, when the male organ is introduced into the woman’s vagina. Conception occurs when, on ejaculation, sperm cells swim to the fertile egg in the woman’s uterus. Oh dear God.
This is what he thinks only seconds after his orgasm. That she could be with child. That he can become a father at the age of seventeen and have to live in a forced marriage for the rest of his life. Was it for this he was saved? His promises to God? Come to this? Terrified, he tears himself free, grabs his pyjama trousers, almost sobbing. “Well, where are you going in such a hurry?” she asks from where she’s lying. “Wasn’t it good?”
“I didn’t mean to,” he blurts out. In any case he can still move, to the attic stairs, up. His brothers sleep and snore. He can’t moan out loud, he can’t hang himself without waking them when he kicks away the chair. Powerless, he lies down on his bed, sticky and smelly. He has a math test at school in the morning and should be rested and alert, but what does that matter now, whether or not he succeeds at school, since he’ll have to leave when it becomes clear that she’s with child.
How did he survive the night? How did he get through the following year, when he came down to the kitchen as late as possible, snatched a slice of bread and grabbed a gulp of coffee without sitting down before rushing off to the station. Came home and ate with the others, left the table as soon as possible and studied, skipped evening tea so that he would never ever have to go to the outhouse at night. Peeked at her out of the corner of his eye to ascertain whether she’d grown heavier, an expert at avoiding her gaze. She, hurt and angry. Mama: “How have you managed to get on Hilda’s bad side?” Total terror for eight months. Meanwhile, he has started thinking that the possible child isn’t even necessarily his, that she had planned it in order to frame him instead of the actual father, who had taken to his heels. Then exhaustion mixed with relief when he realized that she wasn’t pregnant, that no one knew anything. At the same time, disgust and fear at the thought of how easily it happens, almost before you know it. Without the love he’d imagined was the basis of everything.
Now an exact parallel. The same merciless pressure in his bladder. He never should have drunk that big cup of tea. Where she’s sitting blocks the way to the WC in the corridor. He unhinged from discomfort and fear. She in tears. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Tell me what’s the matter.”
“I don’t know where to start. I’m so unhappy I just want to die.”
“Hilda, you said that your husband died. Was it recently?”
“Not exactly died. Ran off. I’m completely alone.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No. Or rather a girl who’s with my mother. I have to work.”
“What work do you do?”
“I clean for families in town. I can’t hardly manage.”
“I understand it must be hard. And badly paid. And when you’re depressed … Do you have friends you can talk to?”
“Who’d take the trouble?”
“Don’t say that. I remember that Hilda had a lot of friends. You were a whole group of girls who went out together on your free afternoons.” If his bladder bursts, he’ll be an invalid forever. He has to get up. “Excuse me. I just have to …” He sidles to the door, leaving it ajar. An endless distance to the end of the corridor, but at least the WC is free. Ah! The flush can be heard in the whole house, you might as well stand on the roof and shout what you’ve been doing.
He left the door ajar so she wouldn’t start going through his things, and maybe she hasn’t, either, but of course she’s searched the room with her eyes. He smiles benevolently, as relieved as that night he came into the kitchen from the outhouse. More relaxed, he sits back down on the bed. She has had time to think about the conversation they’ve had and doesn’t like his interrogation.
“I didn’t come here to talk about how I live and work. Everyone who works has the same life—drudgery and bad pay. What I need to talk about is where I’m to get the strength to bear it.”
“Yes.”
“When I had a man, I thought I had something to live for. He was no great shakes, but all the same he was a kind of protection or what should I call it. I had someone to wait for. It’s more fun to cook when there’s two of you. More clothes to wash, of course, big heavy men’s clothes, but it’s still better. Do you understand what I’m saying? That I don’t know how I’m going to live all alone. It’s dreadful. Nowadays there aren’t any live-in housemaids any more, like at your place. Back then I thought it was horrible, you didn’t have any life of your own. But it’s awful being alone. Do you know what I mean?”
“I’m trying. At least I think I understand. You miss your husband. So it’s lucky he’s not dead, just gone. Do you know where he is? Because then maybe you can repair the damage. Maybe you had a fight when he left. Maybe he doesn’t know that you feel the way you do. Tell him! The same way you’ve told me.”
“Well of course he’s got someone else. Younger than me. And now they’ve got a kid together. I had my girl with another fellow. What would he want to come back to me for?”
“I see.” Suddenly he can’t repress a colossal yawn. “Excuse me. I got no sleep last night on the way to Åbo. My head is spinning.”
“I’ll be going,” she says, giving him hope. “But first I have to ask if as a priest you can’t give me some comfort. What would Jesus say?”
He knows very well what Jesus would say. “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” But he can never, ever say to her, “Come unto me.” He smiles crookedly, feeling almost drunk. “Jesus says, ‘Follow me.’ He means that if we live as true Christians in prayer and faith, we can experience a different sort of joy and meaning in our lives. One way of approaching that kind of life is to go to church. There is a genuine fellowship in a congregation. There you’re not alone.”
He can hear how empty it sounds, and she objects, quite rightly, “That’s all very well. But I wonder. Just look at me. You can see I’m working class and not the kind of person who moves in refined circles. They don’t accept people like me at the drop of a hat.”