Lanark

by Alasdair Gray

  There was applause and a small gloomy man with a heavy moustache stood with a microphone on the steps. He said, “Glad to be back, folks, in legendary Unthank where I’ve had so many legendary experiences. I’m going to lead off with a new thing, it bombed them in Troy and Trebizond, it sank like stone-cold turkey in Atlantis, let’s see what happens here. ‘Domestic Man.’”

  He threw his head back and shouted:

  “The cake she baked me bit me till I cried!”

  The instruments and machines said BAWAM so loudly that hearing and thought were destroyed for a second.

  “The bed she made me was so hard I nearly died!”

  (BAWAM)

  “The shirt she washed me folded its arms and tied me up inside!”

  (BAWAM)

  “She’s going domestic, she’s got a great big domestic plan, But please baby believe me lady I am

  not a domestic man

  not a domestic man

  not a domestic man.”

  (BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM)

  Rima was sitting up, hands pressed over ears and tears pouring down her cheeks. She spoke but the words were inaudible. Lanark saw Ritchie-Smollet beckoning violently from the doorway behind the singer. He pulled Rima up and they stumbled through the audience. The singer shouted:

  “She cleans windows till they shine so I can’t see!”

  (BAWAM)

  “She polishes floors till they suck my foot in up to the knee!”

  (BAWAM)

  “She papers rooms till the walls start squeezing in on me!”

  (BAWAM)

  As they passed the singer Rima waved so threateningly at a bank of loudspeakers that someone grabbed her arm. Lanark pulled him off and clumsy punches were exchanged on the way to the door. Ritchie-Smollet separated them, his voice coming through the BAWAMing like a far-off whisper: “… entirely my fault … delicate condition … failure of liaison….”

  It was quieter outside the door where Jack waited with dressing-gown and slippers. Rima kept muttering “Bastards” as she was helped into these.

  “They dislike space, you see, and noise fills that up,” said Ritchie-Smollet, leading them across the nave. “The fault is really mine. I went out with a man who thought I could save his marriage because I’d performed the ceremony. Illogical, really. Didn’t know him from Adam. I hadn’t expected you to sleep so long—if we had a clock it would be safe to say you snoozed right round the bally thing. Contractions started yet?”

  “No,” said Rima.

  “Good. In a brace of shakes you’ll have a bed and a bite in the triforium. I’d have put you there when you came but I feared you were too feeble to face the stairs.”

  He opened a little door and they saw a stair hardly two feet wide spiralling upward in the thickness of the wall. Lanark said, “Excuse me, but can’t we get a decent room in a decent house?”

  “Rooms are hard to find just now. The house of God is the best I can offer.”

  “When I was last here a quarter of the city stood empty.”

  “Ah, that was before the new building programme started. Someone on the committee may offer you a spare room eventually. Anyway, we can wait for them in the triforium—your clothes are there.”

  Ritchie-Smollet ducked through the doorway and climbed. Rima followed and Lanark came after. The stairs were laboriously steep. After several turns they passed through another door onto the inner sill of a huge window. Rima gasped and clutched a handrail. Far below a man moved like a beetle over the flagged floor and the echoing throbs of “Domestic Man” added to the insecurity. Ritchie-Smollet said, “That’s Polyphemus on his way to the chapterhouse. My word, but the Lugworms are going it some.”

  A few steps took them onto a walkway between rows of organ pipes, and a few more into the end of a very long low attic. The ceiling slanted from the floor to a wall of arches overlooking the nave. As they walked down it Lanark saw partitions dividing the loft on his left into cubicles, each containing a little furniture. In one a man in a dirty coat sat trying to mend an old boot. In another a haggard woman lay drinking from a flat-sided bottle. Ritchie-Smollet said, “Here we are,” stepped into one and squatted on the carpet.

  The cubicle had a homely look mitigated by a smell of disinfectant. It was lit by a pink silk-shaded lamp above a low bed that covered a third of the floor. The seats were stools and cushions but there was a low table, a chest of drawers and a tiny sink. The boards between the ceiling joists were covered by forget-me-not patterned paper, and on one of the two walls a hanger on a hook held Lanark’s clothes, newly cleaned and pressed.

  “Small but snug,” said Ritchie-Smollet. “A regrettable lack of headroom but nobody will disturb us. I suggest Rima slip into bed (she’ll find a hot-water bottle there) and you get dressed. Then Jack will bring us a meal, a companion will arrive for your good lady, and we two can attend the meeting in the chapterhouse. The provost should be there by now.”

  Lanark sank on a stool with elbows on knees and chin on hands. He said, “You keep moving me about and I don’t know why.” “Yes, it’s difficult. In the present state of chronological confusion it’s impossible to state things clearly. As secretary I can only arrange meetings by keeping members here till the rest arrive. But Gow’s come, and poor Scougal and Mrs. Schtzngrm and the ubiquitous Polyphemus. And chairman Sludden, praise God.”

  Lanark looked at Rima. The sight soothed him. She lay smiling against the pillows, a hand touching her full breast. There was a soft calmness about her; the dimples at the corners of her mouth were unusually deep. She said fondly, “It’s all right, Lanark. Don’t worry.”

  He sighed and started dressing.

  Jack entered with a loaded tray and Ritchie-Smollet poured coffee into cups and passed plates around, chatting as he did so.

  “All out of tins, of course, but good of its kind. Easy to serve, too, which is handy because there’s only room for a very tiny kitchen. There was amazing opposition when we set up this little refuge—even more than to the arts lab in the lady chapel. Yet these lofts have lain empty since the old monks marched round them telling their beads. And what could better conform to the wishes of the founder? You know the poem, of course:

  “If at the church they would give us some ale, and a pleasant fire our souls to regale, we’d sing and we’d pray all the livelong day, nor ever once wish from the church to stray,

  “And God, like a father, rejoicing to see, His children as pleasant and happy as He, would have no more quarrel with Devil or barrel, But kiss him and give him both drink and—”

  “What the hell am I eating?” shouted Lanark.

  “Enigma de Filets Congalés. Is it underdone? Try this pink moist crumbly stuff. I can heartily recommend it.”

  Lanark groaned. A stink of burning rubber was fading from his nostrils and his limbs were invaded by a familiar invigorating warmth. He said, “This is institute food.”

  “Yes. The Quantum group delivers nothing else to us nowadays.”

  “We left the institute because we hate this food.”

  “I admire you for it!” cried Ritchie-Smollet enthusiastically. “And you’ve moved in the right direction! We have two or three millennialists on the committee and who’s to blame them? Has not the prayer of humanity in all ages been for innocent and abundant food? Impossible, of course, but wer immer strebend sich bemüht et cetera. And one has to eat, unless one feels with Miss Weil that anorexia nervosa is a sacred duty.”

  “Yes I will eat!” cried Lanark savagely. “But please stop bombarding me with funny names and meaningless quotations!” He finished all the plates that Rima and Ritchie-Smollet left untouched and in the end felt bloated, drugged and horribly tricked. A voice cried, “Rima!” A plump woman of about forty wearing tarty clothes came in. Rima laughed and said, “Frankie!”

  Frankie dropped a huge embroidered handbag on the floor, sat on the bed and said, “Sludden told me you were here—he’s coming later. So the myst
ery man has put a bun in your oven, has he? Actually you don’t look too bad—quite surprisingly winsome, really. Hullo, mystery man, I’m glad you’ve grown a beard. You look less vulnerable.”

  “Hullo,” said Lanark ungraciously. He was not pleased to see Frankie.

  CHAPTER 36.

  Chapterhouse

  Ritchie-Smollet led them to the far end of the attic, through a small kitchen where Jack was washing dishes, and down another spiral stair in the thickness of the wall. They came into a square room with vaulted ceiling upheld by a great central pillar. A row of stone chairs with wooden backs were built into the length of each wall. Lanark thought this an awkward arrangement: if all the seats were occupied everyone would find the central pillar hiding three or four people opposite. A small, fit-looking man stood with feet apart and hands in pockets warming his back at an electric fire. Ritchie-Smollet spoke with less than usual enthusiasm.

  “Ah, Grant. This is Lanark, who has news for us.”

  “Council news, no doubt,” said Grant with a sarcastic emphasis,

  “I’ve been waiting over an hour.”

  “Remember the rest of us haven’t got your knack of timing things. The provost may be in the crypt; I’ll go and look.”

  Ritchie-Smollet left by a door in a corner. Grant and Lanark stared at each other. Grant seemed about thirty though there were some deep vertical wrinkles on his cheeks and brow. His short crisp hair was carefully combed and he wore a neat blue suit and red necktie. He said, “I know you. When I was a lad you used to hang around the old Elite with Sludden’s mob.”

  “Not for long,” said Lanark. “How do you time things? Have you a watch?”

  “I’ve a pulse.”

  “You count your heartbeats?”

  “I estimate them. We all developed that talent in the shops when the old timekeeping collapsed.”

  “You keep a shop?”

  “I’m talking abut workshops. Machine shops. I’m a maker, not a salesman.”

  Lanark sat on a seat near the fire. Grant’s voice offended him. It was loud, penetrating and clearly used to addressing crowds without help from the equipment which lets a man talk softly to millions. Lanark said, “Where’s Polyphemus?” “Eh?”

  “I heard that someone called Polyphemus was here.”

  Grant grinned and said, “I’m here all right. Smollet calls me that.”

  “Why?”

  “Polyphemus was a one-eyed ogre in an old story. I keep reminding the committee of a fact they want to forget, so they say I have only one way of seeing things.”

  “What fact is that?”

  “None of them are makers.”

  “Do you mean workers?”

  “No, I mean makers. Many hard workers make nothing but wealth. They don’t produce food, fuel, shelter or helpful ideas; their work is just a way of tightening their grip on folk who do.”

  “What do you make?”

  “Homes. I’m a shop steward with the Volstat Mohome group.” Lanark said thoughtfully, “These groups—Volstat, Algolagnics and so on—are they what people call the creature?”

  “Some of us call it that. The council is financed by it. So is the institute. So it likes to call itself the foundation.”

  “I’m sick of these big vague names that power keeps hiding behind,” said Lanark impatiently.

  “So you prefer not to think of them,” said Grant, nodding amiably. “That’s typical of intellectuals. The institute has bought and sold you so often that you’re ashamed to name your masters.”

  “I have no masters. I hate the institute. I don’t even like the council.”

  “But it helped you come here, so it still has a use for you.”

  “Blethers!” cried Lanark. “People usually help each other if they can do it without troubling themselves much.”

  “Try a cigarette,” said Grant, offering a packet. He had grown friendlier as Lanark grew angrier.

  “Thank you, I don’t smoke,” said Lanark, cooling a little.

  A while later Lanark said, “Would you tell me exactly what the creature is?”

  “A conspiracy which owns and manipulates everything for profit.”

  “Are you talking about the wealthy?”

  “Yes, but not the wealthy in coins and banknotes—that sort of wealth is only coloured beads to keep the makers servile. The owners and manipulators have smarter ways of banking energy. They pay themselves with time: time to think and plan, time to examine necessity from a distance.”

  An old man leaning on a stick and a dark young man with a turban entered and stood talking quietly by the pillar. Grant’s loud voice had been even and passionless, but suddenly he said, “What I hate most is their conceit. Their institute breaks whole populations into winners and losers and calls itself culture. Their council destroys every way of life which doesn’t bring them a profit and calls itself government. They pretend culture and government are supremely independent powers when they are nothing but gloves on the hands of Volstat and Quantum, Cortexin and Algolagnics. And they really think they are the foundation. They believe their greed holds up the continents. They don’t call it greed, of course, they call it profit, or (among themselves, where they don’t need to fool anyone) killings. They’re sure that only their profit allows people to make and eat things.”

  “Maybe that’s true.”

  “Yes, because they make it true. But it isn’t necessary. Old men remember when the makers unexpectedly produced enough for everyone. No crop failed, no mine was exhausted, no machinery broke down, but the creature dumped mountains of food in the ocean because the hungry couldn’t pay a profitable price for it, and the shoemaker’s children went shoeless because their father had made too many shoes. And the makers accepted this as though it was an earthquake! They refused to see they could make what they needed for each other and to hell with profit. They would have seen in the end, they would have had to see, if the council had not gone to war.”

  “How did that help?”

  “As the creature couldn’t stay rich by selling necessary things to the folk who made them it sold destructive things to the council. Then the war started and the destructive things were used to wreck the necessary things. The creature profited by replacing both.”

  “Who did the council fight?”

  “It split in two and fought itself.”

  “That’s suicide!”

  “No, ordinary behaviour. The efficient half eats the less efficient half and grows stronger. War is just a violent way of doing what half the people do calmly in peacetime: using the other half for food, heat, machinery and sexual pleasure. Man is the pie that bakes and eats himself, and the recipe is separation.”

  “I refuse to believe men kill each other just to make their enemies rich.”

  “How can men recognize their real enemies when their family, schools and work teach them to struggle with each other and to believe law and decency come from the teachers?”

  “My son won’t be taught that,” said Lanark firmly.

  “You have a son?”

  “Not yet.”

  The chapterhouse had filled with chattering groups and Ritchie-Smollet moved among them collecting signatures in a book. There were many young people in bright clothing, old eccentric men in tweeds and a large confusion of in-between people. Lanark decided that if this was the new government of Unthank he was not impressed. Their manners were shrill and vehement or languid and bored. Some had the mark of the council on their brow but nobody displayed the calm, well-contained strength of men like Monboddo, Ozenfant and Munro. Lanark said, “Could you tell me about this committee?”

  “I’m getting round to it. The war ended with the creature and its organs more dominant than ever. Naturally there was a lot of damage to repair, but that only took half our time and energy. If industry and government had been commanding us for the common good (as they pretend to do), the continents would have become gardens, gardens of space and light where everyone had time to care for their l
overs, children and neighbours without crowding and tormenting them. But these vast bodies only cooperate to kill or crush. Once again the council began feeding the creature by splitting the world in two and preparing a war. But it ran into unexpected trouble—”

  “Stop! You’re simplifying,” said Lanark. “You talk as if all government was one thing, but there are many kinds of government, and some are crueller than others.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Grant, nodding. “An organization which encloses a globe must split into departments. But you’re a very ordinary victim of council advertising if you think the world is neatly split between good governments and bad.”

  “What was the council’s unexpected trouble?”

  “The creature supplied it with such vast new weapons that a few of them could poison the world. Most folk are dour and uncomplaining about their own deaths, but the death of their children depresses them. The council tried to pretend the new weapons weren’t weapons at all but homes where everyone could live safely, but for all that an air of protest spread even to the council corridors. Many who had never dreamed of governing themselves began complaining loudly. This committee is made of complainers.”