Lanark

by Alasdair Gray

  “She’s not a real woman, you see,” said Lanark. “She’s a tool, an instrument shaped like a woman.”

  Macfee bent forward and was sick on the pavement; then he said, “I’m going home.”

  “I’ll take you there.”

  “Better not. I’m going to hit someone tonight. I need to hit someone tonight. If you don’t keep away it’ll probably be you.” He sounded so feeble that Lanark took his arm and walked with him along several busy streets, then several quiet ones. They passed a parked truck beside three workmen cementing a concrete block over a sewer grating. A soldier with a gun stood smoking nearby. Lanark asked the foreman, “What are you doing?”

  “Cementing a block over this stank.”

  “Why?”

  “Just don’t interfere,” said the soldier.

  “I’m not interfering, but couldn’t you tell us what’s happening?”

  “There’s going to be an announcement. Just go to your homes and wait for the announcement.”

  Lanark noticed that every drain they passed was blocked up. A hollow shouting began in the distance and drew nearer. It came from a loudspeaker on top of a slow-moving van. It said, “SPECIAL EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. IN FIFTEEN MIN UTES NORMAL HEARTBEAT TIME, PROVOST SLUDDEN WILL MAKE A SPECIAL EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT. IF YOU HAVE NEIGHBOURS WITHOUT TELEVISION OR WIRELESS, CALL THEM IN TO HEAR PROVOST SLUDDEN’S SPECIAL EMERGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT IN FIFTEEN MINUTES NORMAL HEARTBEAT TIME. ALL SHOPS, OFFICES, FACT ORIES, DANCEHALLS, CINEMAS, RESTAURANTS, CAFÉS, SPORT CENTRES, SCHOOLS AND PUBLIC HOUSES ARE ASKED TO RELAY PROVOST SLUDDEN’S EMERGENCY ANNOUNCE MENT OVER THEIR LOUDSPEAKER SYSTEMS IN FOURTEEN AND A HALF MINUTES NORMAL HEARTBEAT TIME. THIS IS URGENT….”

  “What’s happening to this city?” asked Macfee, shaking his arm free. They passed a long queue of people outside a public lavatory, then a wall of gigantic posters. Macfee said “Here” and they stepped through a gap between two posters onto a great area of gravel covered by rows of parked cars. He stopped beside one and opened the door. Lanark opened the door on the other side.

  The front seat of the car extended the whole width and a plump young woman with a thin face sat in the middle. She said, “Come in. Sit down. Shut the door and shut up, both of you. Excuse my manners. I’ll make tea in a minute but I don’t want to miss my garden.”

  Lanark shut the door and leaned back with a feeling of relief. Sunlight streamed in through the windows and the car seemed to be thrusting slowly forward through a shrubbery of rosebushes. Green leaves and heavy white blossoms brushed across the windscreen and past the windows of the doors. He saw golden-brown bees working in the hearts of the roses and heard their drowsy humming, the rustle of leaves, some distant bird calls. Mrs. Macfee took a small can from a shelf and pressed the top. A fine mist smelling like roses came out. She sighed and leaned back with closed eyes saying, “I don’t need to see it. The sound and scent are good enough for me.”

  The car had no clutch or steering column, and the seat was the sort that could slide forward while the back flattened to form a bed. A glass panel and a blind shut out the back seat where the children were probably sleeping. Under the windscreen was a set of drawers, shelves and compartments. One compartment held an electric plate, another a plastic basin with a small tap above it. Macfee opened a tiny refrigerator door, took out two cans of beer and passed one to Lanark.

  The roses parted before the windscreen and the car, with a sound of gurgling water, floated like a yacht onto a circular lake surrounded by hills sloping up from the water’s edge and clothed from base to summit in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower blossoms, scarcely a green leaf visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating colour. The lake was of great depth but so transparent that the bottom, which seemed to be a mass of small round pearly pebbles, was distinctly visible whenever the eye allowed itself not to see, far down in the inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills. The whole impression was of richness, warmth, colour, quietness, softness and delicacy, and as the eye traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction with the water to its vague termination in the cloudless blue, it was difficult not to fancy a wide cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals and golden onyxes rolling silently out of the sky. Mrs. Macfee took another little can and sprayed the interior with a scent of pansies. Macfee shouted “Sentimental rot!” and violently twisted a switch.

  The interior became part of a sharp red convertible speeding down a multi-lane freeway under a dazzling sun. A swarm of dots grew visible in the heat haze ahead. The dots became a pack of motorcyclists. The car accelerated, moving in sideways toward the bikes.

  “Jimmy!” said Mrs. Macfee. “You know I don’t like this.”

  “You’re unlucky, aren’t you?” said Macfee. She pressed her lips together, pulled open a drawer in the dashboard, took out a sock and needle and started darning. Looking past her profile Lanark saw the car drawing level with the leader of the pack. He wore leather clothes with skull and swastika badges. A girl like Miss Maheen dressed in leather clung behind him. Then froom!—a glittering barbed dart shot out from Macfee’s side of the car and entered the cyclist’s body under the armpit. With a great screech the car swung round sideways and ploughed into the pack. The scene outside went suddenly slow. Slowly crashing and screaming cyclists were tossed into the air or fell and clung in agony to the car bonnet until they slid slowly off. Lanark shoved open the door beside him and stared with relief at the dingy gravel park and a row of quiet mohomes.

  “Shut the door, we’re freezing,” yelled Macfee. Lanark reluctantly closed it. Bodies still spun ballet-like through swirling clouds of dust. Two bikes crashed with a tremendous explosion; then the scene was replaced by the head and shoulders of a man with a vividly patterned necktie. He said, “We are sorry to interrupt this programme but here is an emergency announcement by Provost Sludden, the chief executive officer of Greater Unthank. As this announcement contains a warning of serious health hazards for inhabitants of the Greater Unthank region, it is vital that everyone—especially those with children—gives it very special attention. Provost Sludden.”

  Sludden appeared, sitting on a leather sofa under a huge map of the city. His hands were clasped between his knees, and he looked gravely at the camera a while before speaking.

  “Hullo. Not many of you have seen me face to face like this, and I promise you I regret having to appear. A provost is a public servant, and a good servant should never march into the living room when the family is enjoying an evening of television and complain about the difficulties of his job. Good servants work quietly behind the scenes, providing their employers with what the employers need. But sometimes an unforeseen accident occurs. Perhaps a bath falls through the kitchen ceiling, and then no matter how competent a servant is, he must tell the boss and the boss’s wife what has happened, because the household routine is going to be upset and everyone has a right to know why. Something unexpected has happened to the plumbing of the Unthank region, and as chief executive officer I am going to take you into my confidence and explain why.

  “But first I must tell you how your elected servants recently defeated a much greater problem: starvation. Yes. Starvation. The council was allowing a heap of poisonous muck from a burst transporter to isolate the city. Our foodstocks were nearly exhausted. We might have introduced severe rationing in the hope that the council would intervene to save us at the last minute, but we decided not to risk that. We decided to act ourselves. We told our heroic fire brigade to sweep the poison into the sewers—there was nowhere else for it to go. They did. Unthank was saved. We didn’t publicize this triumph. It was enough reward for us that nobody would go hungry.

  “Now for the bad news. The poison from the motorway is creeping backward through the sewage system in the form of a very lethal and corrosive gas. It is undermining our streets, our public buildings and our houses.”

  Sludden stood up and pointed to an area of the map outlined in red.

  “Here is the danger
area: central Unthank inside the ring road and the district east of the cathedral.”

  “That’s us, all right,” said Macfee.

  “To prevent loss of life we must stop the gas from spreading. Every drain and sewer-opening in the danger area must be blocked. This work is proceeding in the streets and will soon start in houses and other buildings. Sanitary workers will call in to seal up every sink, urinal and lavatory pan. Naturally this takes time, so we invite your cooperation. Tubes of plastic cement will soon be obtainable, on demand, from your local police station and post office. The homes of householders who block their own drains will receive nothing more than a routine inspection. Meanwhile everyone should immediately plug their sinks and fill them with water. Lavatory pans will also stay safe for a while if they are not actually employed. I will now pause for three minutes to let everyone attend to their sink.”

  Three sentences appeared on the screen:

  PLUG YOUR SINK.

  FILL IT WITH WATER.

  DON’T FLUSH YOUR LAVATORY PAN.

  “Have another beer,” said Macfee, passing a can across. “You too, Helen,”

  She said, “I’m frightened, Jimmy.”

  “Frightened? Why? We’re in luck at last. Mohomes don’t have lavatories. Our sink isn’t connected to the sewage system.”

  “But what will we do if we cannae use the public toilet?”

  “I think the provost will announce plans for that,” said Lanark. The speech had greatly impressed him. He thought, ‘I’m glad Rima and Sandy are in the cathedral. Ritchie-Smollet will have taken the necessary precautions by now.’ He sipped from the can. The inscription vanished and Sludden appeared once more.

  “There is one question I am sure you are all asking yourselves: How are we to get rid of our bodily waste? Well, you know, that question is as old as humanity itself. We tend to forget that interior flush lavatories are comparatively recent inventions, and three quarters of the world doesn’t have them. For a while we must be content to use one of these, as our great-grandparents did.”

  He held up a chamberpot.

  “Those of you with small children probably have one already. New stocks are being rushed to the shops from the Cortexin Adhoc Sanitation plant at New Cumbernauld. Large orders have been placed with a small factory in Unthank which still makes the old-fashioned earthernware article, thus giving a much-needed boost to a neglected part of the city’s economy. And though many will have to manage without one for a short period, I am sure they will be able to improvise with some other domestic utensil. As to the removal of the waste, you will receive through the post, if you have not received it already, a packet of these.”

  He held up a black plastic bag.

  “This is large enough to comfortably hold the contents of one full chamberpot. When tied at the neck it is both damp proof and odour proof. These should be stacked beside, not inside, your usual midden or dustbin. To speed collection, the cleansing workers will be helped by the army. That is why you have seen so many soldiers on the street lately.”

  “Soldiers don’t need guns to shift shit,” said Macfee.

  “Washing, if kept to a minimum, will present no problem. Once your sink is blocked it can be used in the usual way, except that the dirty water (which should be employed more than once) should be ladled into a pail and emptied into a gutter or convenient piece of ground. The same goes for urine. Fortunately a spell of mild weather is forecast, and our liquid waste will either evaporate or flow into districts where the drains still work.”

  “What if it rains?” said Macfee.

  “But we must also tackle the causes of this dangerous annoyance. We have already demanded action from the council, whose slowness caused this disaster in the first place. We have appealed to the Cortexin Group, who manufactured the poison. Both reply that experts are being consulted, the matter will be considered, that in due course we will hear from them. This is not good enough. So Professor Eva Schtzngrm has been made leader of a team who are working to gain the technology to clear the gas themselves, and we are choosing a delegate to speak up boldly for Unthank at the general assembly of council states soon to be held in Provan. The fact is that the council has treated Unthank badly. It is a long time since they introduced their decimal calendar based on the twenty-five-hour day. They promised us new clocks, so we rashly scrapped the old ones, and the new clocks failed to arrive. I was a young man then and I confess that, like most people, I didn’t care. Everyone likes to feel they have plenty of time; nobody likes seeing how fast it passes. But we can’t cope with a public emergency without clocks, so we have created a new department, our own department of chronometry. This department has commandeered a television channel—this television channel—and I will show you what it is going to transmit.”

  Sludden walked over to a clock hanging on a wall, a pendulum clock with a case shaped like a small log cabin.

  “Fucking miraculous,” said Macfee, opening another beer can. Helen said, “Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

  “This is one of many clocks recently unearthed from museums, lumber-rooms and antique shops. It may not look very impressive, but it is the first to be restored to perfect working order. When the others have been repaired they will be installed in the head offices of our essential services, and each one of them will be synchronized with this.”

  Sludden pointed to a weight shaped like a fir cone.

  “Notice that the weight has been wound up and placed on a small shelf immediately under the case. At the end of this announcement, I will suspend it, and the clock will strike the hours of midnight: the time when an old day dies and a new day begins. The sound will be reinforced by a long blast upon police and factory sirens, who will repeat the noise at noon tomorrow. Employees of the chronometry department have also taken over ninety-two church towers with bells in them, and from now on they too will broadcast the message of this little clock.

  “I know that quiet-minded people will find this a rude intrusion on their privacy; that intellectuals will say that a return to a solar timescale, when we don’t have sunlight, is putting clocks backward, not forward; and that manual workers, who time themselves by their pulses, will find the whole business irrelevant. Never mind. This clock allows me to make definite promises. By eight o’clock tomorrow every house, mohome, office and factory will have received an envelope of plastic wastebags. By ten o’clock the first free tubes of plastic cement will be available at your local post office. And at every hour I or some other corporation representative will appear on this channel to tell you how things are going. And now—”

  Said Sludden taking the weight in his hand—

  “I wish you all a very good night. Eternity, for Greater Unthank, is drawing to an end. Time is about to begin.”

  He suspended the weight. The pendulum swung left with a tick, then right with a tock. The clock face grew till it nearly filled the windscreen. Both hands pointed straight upright to a small door above the dial, which flapped open. A fat wooden bird popped out and in shouting “Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck—” Macfee turned a switch and the windscreen went transparent. The three of them sat in a row and stared through it at the darkened carpark. Sirens, hooters and distant clanging could be heard outside. Helen switched on a light.

  “A maniac!” said Macfee. “The man’s a maniac.”

  “Oh no,” said Lanark. “I’ve known him a long time, and he’s not a maniac. As a private person I don’t trust him, but he seems to have thoroughly grasped the political situation. And that speech sounded honest to me.”

  “He’s a friend of yours?”

  “No, a friend of my wife.”

  Macfee leaned over and grabbed Lanark’s lapels and said, “What’s the score?”

  “Jimmy!” cried Helen.

  Lanark cried, “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s what I’m asking you! You’ve a council passport, right? And you work for social stability, right? You know Sludden, right? So just tell me what you folk are tryi
ng to do!”

  Lanark had been half dragged across Helen’s lap, his ear was pressed against her thigh and comforting warmth began flowing through it. He said dreamily, “We’re trying to kill Unthank. Some of us.”

  “Christ, that isn’t news. We’ve known that for ages in the shops! ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Let the place die as long as my weans are spared.’ But you bastards are really putting the boot in now, aren’t you? Aren’t you?”

  Macfee shifted a hand to grip Lanark’s nostrils and cover his mouth. Lanark found he was watching a bulging reflection of his face and Macfee’s hand on the side of a shiny kettle on a shelf a few inches away. The reflection flickered and grew dim and he supposed that when it went black he would be unconscious. He felt no pain so he was not much worried. Then he heard slapping sounds and Helen panting, “Let go, let him go.” he was released and heard much louder slapping sounds. Helen moaned, then yelled, “Clear out, mister! Leave us! Leave us alone!”

  He found and pulled a handle and scrambled sideways out the door and slammed it shut. He hesitated beside the mohome, which was rocking slightly. Muffled noises came from the front seat and a frail childish wailing from the back. His eye was distracted by a lit poster on a gable showing an athletic couple in bathing costume playing beach ball with two laughing children. The message above said MONEY IS TIME. TIME IS LIFE. BUY MORE LIFE FOR YOUR FAMILY FROM THE QUANTUM INTERMINABLE. (THEY’LL LOVE YOU FOR IT.)

  CHAPTER 39.

  Divorce

  “Let the place die as long as my weans are spared.” Jimmy’s words had brought Sandy alarmingly to mind. Lanark ran from the park and along some empty streets, trying to retrace his steps. A warm heavy rain began falling and the gutters filled rapidly. The surrounding houses were unfamiliar. He turned a corner, came to a railing and looked down over several levels of motorway at the dark tower and bright spire of the cathedral. He sighed with relief, climbed the rail and scrambled down a slope of slippery wet grass. The water was nearly two feet deep at the edge of the road and flowing swiftly sideways like a stream. He waded through to the drier lanes. The only vehicle he saw was a military jeep which whizzed round a curve sending out sizzling arcs of spray, then slowed down and stopped beside him.