“I see a lot of talent in these pieces, Rory. I admit, I was curious when I first heard about you. I hoped your paintings were less explicit than these pregnant nudes, and nothing quite so political as your other pieces.”
“I paint what I see, in the room or the political realm. Sometimes I paint what influenced me as a person through family connections, such as pregnant nudes or the shipyards in Glasgow where my grandfather and uncles worked until they died. The political stuff is important. It needs to be given room to exist too.”
Rory glances at me and smiles. Mr. Irving smiles, deciding he can afford to be blunt.
“I appreciate that. I’m just not seeing anything that’s quite my taste here. Maybe I’ll come back this way in a few months. Will you paint something with a mother and child after the baby’s born? My wife has to like the piece too.”
Mr. Irving looks at me and smiles with something approaching kindness.
Rory returns his smile politely. Sometimes saying nothing speaks volumes. We all know—Mr. Irving included—he won’t be crossing our threshold again. That’s the lie of polite conversation. He’s at least three times our age. His life follows a trajectory that’s completely contrary to ours. He doesn’t express disapproval, but abandons his humble pretense of appreciation after a few sips of black tea. Rory doesn’t say so, but he’s got his back up. He won’t paint what Irving wants on principle. Rory’s best friend, Noel, may have tried to, but not Rory. It goes against the grain. Besides, I’ve already made the arrangement for our child to be adopted.
Mr. Irving doesn’t finish his tea. After he leaves, I dare to say something about his request to Rory. But it’s like remarking on a sliver of light peeking around the edges of a closed door. I’ll never be a mother in our relationship. I’m only speaking to my indecision.
“I’m not sure I can give up the baby, Rory. Its too much like its a part of me now, a part of you—”
“Babies don’t belong in an artist’s studio,” he insists. “You can’t keep it.”
That’s how little ownership he takes in our child’s conception. It’s so unlike every other aspect of our relationship, but his opinion hasn’t changed since I first told him I was pregnant. In every conversation he calls it my baby, never owning his part in creating it. In a moment of frustration, I start to weep silently. I grumble aloud, more to myself than anything.
“Tell that to Picasso—”
I’m thinking about how Picasso fathered babies both early and much later in his life. Rory has returned his attention entirely back to his painting, ignoring my grief. I’ve been living with the similarities between Rory and Gulley Jimson, a character in Joyce Cary’s novel The Horse’s Mouth. Gulley is a much older and more eccentric painter, and Rory is a young man, not yet out of his teens, but I can’t ignore the parallels. Rory’s art is more important than anything else in his day-to-day life, and his dearest friendships have all begun to suffer for his art.
I think about how he and I suffer in these bare rooms. He quit working at Glidden’s paint factory shortly after I started to receive my Mothers Allowance cheques. We split what’s designed to support one pregnant adult between two adults these days. I’ve come face-to-face with a huge decision, the hard choice between keeping the child and losing its father, or giving the baby up to stay a couple. I decided early on to surrender my baby for adoption. Every child needs two parents. I pray whoever adopts my baby will welcome and love it wholly. Rory and I are so poor, we’re often hungry. Keeping my child would mean hunger, whether Rory stayed or not. It weighs on me. Giving the child up means losing all contact with them, having no knowledge of their future. I’ve been told I must sign legal papers declaring I won’t attempt to locate or see them in the future. That’s what makes me hesitate.
Wordlessly, I pick up our teacups and carry them to the kitchen down the hall. In Rory’s mind, the matter has been settled. As for me, as I run soapy water into the sink to wash our teacups, my body continues in its biological role, producing new life as nature designed. Cell splits with cell at my core and they multiply quickly. The baby is developing as a simple physical function, both within and completely apart from anything to do with me.
The truth is that I haven’t completely made up my mind regarding my next step. I’ve arranged for adoption, but I’ll wait for my baby’s arrival to make the final decision. Perhaps there’s a solution to my dilemma I haven’t considered yet. In the back of my mind, I’m considering baby names. Still, I shiver with the ugliest anticipation, when anyone knocks on our door after midnight.
