Lanark

by Alasdair Gray

  “Come here!” cried a gruff voice. “I’ve a gun, so no funny business.”

  Lanark went closer. A fat man in a colonel’s uniform sat beside the driver. The fat man said, “How many of you are there?”

  “One.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that? Where are you going?” “The cathedral.”

  “Don’t you know you’re trespassing?”

  “I’m just crossing a road.”

  “Oh, no! You are crossing a freeway. Freeways are for the exclusive use of wheeled carriages propelled by engines burning refined forms of fossilized fuel, and don’t forget it…. Good heavens, it’s Lanark, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Are you McPake?”

  “Of course. Get inside. Where did you say you were going?”

  Lanark explained. McPake said, “Take us there, Cameron,” then he leaned back, chuckling. “I thought we had a riot on our hands when we saw you. We’re on the watch for them, you know, at times like these.”

  The jeep turned down toward the cathedral square. Lanark said, “I suppose Rima told you about Alexander?”

  McPake shook his head. “Sorry, I only know one Rima. She used to hang about with Sludden in the old Elite days. Had her myself once. What a woman! I thought she took off for the institute when you did.”

  “Sorry, I’m getting confused,” said Lanark.

  He sat in a state of miserable excitement until the jeep put him down at the cathedral gates. In the doorway he heard organ strains, and the floor inside held a scattering of elderly and middle-aged people (But I’m middle-aged, he thought), standing between the rows of chairs and singing that time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all her sons away, they fly, forgotten, as the dream dies at the opening day. He hurried past them with his mouth shaping denunciations, opened the small door, and rushed up the spiral stair, and along the window ledge, through the organ loft and past the cubicles of the attic. Rima and Alex were in none of them. He rushed to the kitchen and stared at Frankie and Jack, who looked up, startled, from a card game. He said, “Where are they?” There was an embarrassed silence; then Frankie said in a small voice, “She said she left a note for you.”

  He hurried back and found the empty cubicle. A note lay on the carefully made bed.

  Dear Lanark,

  I expect you won’t be surprised to find us gone. Things haven’t been very good lately, have they. Alexander and I will be living with Sludden, as we arranged, and on the whole it’s better that you aren’t coming too. Please don’t try to find us—Alex is naturally a bit upset by all this and I don’t want you to make him worse.

  You probably think I’ve gone with Sludden because he has a big house, and is famous, and is a better lover than you in most ways, but that isn’t the real reason. It may surprise you to hear that Sludden needs me more than you do. I don’t think you need anybody. No matter how bad things get, you will always plod on without caring what other people think or feel. You’re the most selfish man I know.

  Dear Lanark, I don’t hate you but whenever I try to write some¬ thing friendly it turns out nasty, perhaps because if you give the devil your little finger he bites off the whole arm. But you’ve often been nice to me, you aren’t really a devil.

  Love

  Rima

  P.S. I’m coming back to collect some clothes and things. I may see you then.

  He undressed slowly, got into bed, switched off the light and fell asleep at once. He woke several times feeling that something horrible had happened which he must tell Rima about, then he remembered what it was. Lying drearily awake he sometimes heard the cathedral bell tolling the hours. Once it struck five o’clock and when he awoke later it was striking three, which suggested that the regular marking of time had not slowed it down much.

  At last he opened his eyes to the electric light. She stood by the bed quietly taking clothes from the chest of drawers. He said, “Hullo.”

  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “How’s Sandy?”

  “Very quiet but quite happy, I think. He has plenty of room to run about and Sludden lives outside the danger zone so there’s no stink, of course.”

  “There’s no stink here.”

  “In another twenty-four hours I’m sure even you will begin to notice it.”

  She snapped the suitcase shut and said, “I wanted to pack this before I left but I was afraid you would suddenly come in and get hysterical.”

  “When have you seen me hysterical?” he asked peevishly.

  “I don’t remember. Of course that’s partly your trouble, isn’t it? Sludden and I often discuss you, and he thinks you would be a very valuable man if you knew how to release your emotions.”

  He lay rigid, clenching his fists and teeth in order not to scream. She placed the suitcase by the bed foot and sat on it, twisting a handkerchief. She said, “Oh, Lanark, I don’t like hurting you but I must explain why I’m leaving. You think I’m greedy and ungrateful and prefer Sludden because he’s a far better lover, but that’s not why. Women can live quite comfortably with a clumsy lover if he makes them happy in other ways. But you’re too serious all the time. You make my ordinary little feelings seem as fluffy and useless as bits of dust. You make life a duty, something to be examined and corrected.

  Do you remember when I was pregnant, and said I wanted a girl, and you said you wanted a boy so that someone would like the baby? You’ve always tried to balance me as if I were a badly floating boat. You’ve brought no joy to my happiness or sorrow to my misery, you’ve made me the loneliest woman in the world. I don’t love Sludden more than you, but life with him seems open and free. I’m sure Alex will benefit too. Sludden plays with him. You would only explain things to him.” Lanark said nothing. She said, “But we enjoyed ourselves sometimes, didn’t we? You’ve been a friend to me—I’m not sorry I met you.”

  “When can I visit Sandy?”

  “I thought you were going away to Provan soon.”

  “Not if Sandy isn’t going.”

  “If you phone us first you can come anytime. Frankie has the number and the address. We’ll be needing a babysitter.”

  “Tell Sandy I’ll see him soon and I’ll visit him often. Goodbye.” She stood, lifted the case, hesitated and said, “I’m sure you would be happier if you complained more about things.”

  “Would complaining make you like me and want to stay? No, it would make it easier for you to leave. So don’t think—”

  He stopped with open mouth, for heavy grief came swelling up his throat till it broke out in loud, dry choking sobs like big hiccups or the slow ticking of a wooden clock. Wetness flooded his eyes and cheeks. He stretched a hand toward her and she said softly, “Poor Lanark! You really are suffering,” and went softly out and softly closed the door behind her. Eventually the sobbing stopped. He lay flat with a leaden weight in his chest. He thought wistfully of getting drunk or smashing furniture, but all activity seemed too tiring. The leaden weight kept him flat on his back till he fell asleep.

  Later someone laid a hand on his shoulder and he opened his eyes sharply saying, “Rima?”

  Frankie stood by the bed with food on a tray. He sighed and thanked her and she watched him eat. She said, “I’ve taken your clothes away—they were terribly dirty. But there’s a new suit and underthings laid out for you downstairs in the vestry.”

  “Oh.”

  “I think you need a shave and a haircut. Jack was a barber, once. Will I ask him to see to it?”

  “No.”

  “Can Sludden speak to you?”

  He stared at her.

  She flushed and said, “I mean, if he comes to see you, you won’t lose your temper or attack him, will you?”

  “I certainly won’t lose my dignity because I’m faced by someone with none of his own.”

  She giggled and said, “Good. I’ll tell him that.”

  She removed the tray and later Sludden entered and sat by the bed, saying, “How do you feel?”

  “I d
on’t like you, Sludden, but the only people I do like depend on you. Tell me what you want.”

  “Yes, in a minute. I’m glad you agreed to see me, but of course I knew you would. What Rima and I admire in you is your instinctive self-control. That makes you a very, very valuable man.”

  “Tell me what you want, Sludden.”

  “We’re sensible modern men, after all, not knights who’ve been jousting for the love of a fair lady. I dare say the fair lady picked you up somewhere, but you were too weighty for her so she dropped you and picked me up instead. I’m a lightweight. Women enjoy lifting me. But you’re made of sterner stuff, which is why I’m here.”

  “Please tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to stop pitying yourself and get out of bed. I want you to do a difficult, important job. The committee sent me here. They ask you to go to Provan and speak for Unthank in the general assembly of council states.”

  “You’re joking!” said Lanark, sitting up. Sludden said nothing.

  “Why should they ask me?”

  “We want someone who’s been through the institute and knows the council corridors. You’ve worked for Ozenfant. You’ve spoken to Monboddo.”

  “I’ve quarrelled with the first and I don’t like the second.”

  “Good. Stand up in Provan and denounce them for us. We don’t want to be represented by a diplomat now, we want someone tactless, someone who will tell delegates from other states exactly what is happening here. Use your nose and take back some of our stink to its source.”

  Lanark sniffed. The air had an unpleasant familiar smell. He said, “Send Grant. He understands politics.”

  “Nobody trusts Grant. He understands politics, yes, but he wants to change them.”

  “Ritchie-Smollet.”

  “He doesn’t understand politics at all. He believes everyone he meets is honestly doing their best.”

  “Gow.”

  “Gow owns shares in Cortexin, the company that fouled us up. He makes belligerent noises but he would only pretend to fight the council.”

  “And you?”

  “If I left the city for more than a week our administration would collapse. There would be nobody in control but a lot of civil servants who want to clear out as soon as they can. We’re under very strong attack, inside and out.”

  “So I’ve been chosen because nobody else trusts one another,” said Lanark. An intoxicating excitement began to fill him and he frowned to hide it. He saw himself on a platform, or maybe a pedestal, casting awe over a vast assembly with a few simple, forceful words about truth, justice and brotherhood. He said suddenly, “How would I get to Provan?”

  “By air.”

  “But do I cross a zone, I mean an incaldrical zone, I mean—”

  “An intercalendrical zone? Yes, you do.”

  “Won’t that age me a lot?”

  “Probably.”

  “I’m not going. I want to stay near Sandy. I want to help him grow up.”

  “I understand that,” said Sludden gravely. “But if you love your son—if you love Rima—you’ll work for them in Provan.”

  “My family isn’t in the danger area now. It’s living with you.” Sludden smiled painfully, stood up and walked the floor of the cubicle. He said, “I will tell you something only one other person knows. You’ll have to be quiet about it till you reach Provan, but then you must tell the world. The whole of the Greater Unthank region is in danger, and not just from a typhoid epidemic, though that is probable too. Mrs. Schtzngrm has analyzed a sample of the poison—two firemen died getting it for her—and she says it has begun filtering down through the Permian layer. As you probably know, the continents, though not continuous with it, are floating on a superdense mass of molten—”

  “Don’t blind me with science, Sludden.”

  “If the pollution isn’t cleared up we’re going to have tremors and subsidences in the earth’s crust.”

  “Something must be done!” cried Lanark, aghast.

  “Yes. The knowledge of what to do belongs to the institute. The machinery to do it belongs to the creature. Only the council can force them to act together.”

  “I’ll go,” said Lanark quietly, and mainly to himself. “But first I must see the boy.”

  “Get dressed in the vestry and I’ll take you to him,” said Sludden briskly. “And by the way, if you’ve no objection we’ll have you declared provost: Lord Provost of Greater Unthank. It doesn’t mean anything—I’ll still be senior executive officer—but you’ll be going among people with titles, and a title of your own helps to impress that kind.”

  Lanark pulled on the old greatcoat like a dressing gown, thrust his bare feet into the mud-caked shoes and followed Sludden downstairs to the vestry. His feelings were pulled between a piercing sad love for Sandy and an excited love of his own importance as a provost and delegate. Nothing interrupted the colloquy between these two loves. A warm bath was ready for him, and afterward he sat in a bathrobe while Jack shaved and trimmed him and Frankie manicured his fingernails. He put on clean new underwear, socks, shirt, a dark blue necktie, and a three-piece suit of light grey tweed, and beautifully polished black shoes; then he withdrew to the lavatory, excreted into a plastic chamberpot fitted inside the lavatory pan and had the comfortable feeling that someone else was expected to empty it. There was a mirror above the blocked lavatory sink; a medicine cabinet with a mirror for a door hung on the wall facing it. By moving the door to an angle he managed to see himself in profile. Jack had removed the beard and trimmed the moustache. His greying hair, receding from the brow, swept into a bush behind the ears: the effect was impressive and statesmanlike. He placed his hands on his hips and said quietly, “When Lord Monboddo says that the council has done its best for Unthank he is lying to us—or has been lied to by others.”

  He returned to the vestry and Sludden escorted him out to a long black car by the cathedral door. They climbed into the back seat and Sludden said, “Home, Angus,” to the chauffeur.

  They sped swiftly through the city and Lanark was too occupied with himself to notice much, except when the pervading stink grew unusually strong as the car crossed the riverbed by a splendid new concrete bridge. Heaps of bloated black plastic bags were scattered across the cracked mud. Sludden said glumly, “Nowhere else to dump them.”

  “On television you said these bags were odour-proof.”

  “They are, but they burst easily.”

  They came to a private housing scheme of neat little identical bungalows, each with a small garden in front and a garage alongside. The car stopped at one with a couple of old-fashioned ornamental iron lampposts outside the gate. Sludden led the way to the front door and fumbled awhile for his key. Lanark’s heart beat hard thinking he would meet Rima again. Through an uncurtained plate-glass window on one side he saw into a firelit sitting room where four people sat sipping coffee at a low table before the hearth. Lanark recognized one of them.

  He said, “Gilchrist is in there!”

  “Good. I invited him.”

  “But Gilchrist is on the side of the council!”

  “Not on the sanitary question. He’s on our side on that, and it’s important to present a broad front when dealing with journalists. Don’t worry, he’s a great fan of yours.”

  They entered a small lobby. Sludden took a note from a telephone stand, read it and frowned. He said, “Rima’s gone out. Alex will be upstairs in the television room. I suppose you’d prefer to see him first.”

  “Yes.”

  “Go through the first door on your right at the top.”

  He climbed a narrow, thick-carpeted stair and quietly opened a door. The room he entered was small and had three armchairs facing a television set in the corner. Two dolls wearing different kinds of soldier uniform lay on the floor among a litter of plastic toy weapons. A table had a monopoly game spread on it and some drawings on sheets of paper. Alexander sat on the arm of the middle chair, stroking a cat curled on the seat and watching
the television screen. Without turning he said, “Hullo, Rima,” and then, glancing round, “Hullo.” “Hullo, Sandy.”

  Lanark went to the table and looked at the drawings. He said, “What are these?”

  “A walking flower, a crane lifting a spider over a wall, and a space invasion by a lot of different aliens. Would you like to sit down and watch television with me?”

  “Yes.”

  Alexander shoved the cat off the seat and Lanark sat down. Alexander leaned against him and they watched a film like the film Lanark had seen in Macfee’s mohome, but the people killing each other in it were soldiers, not road users. Alexander said, “Don’t you like films about killing?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Films about killing are my favourites. They’re very real, aren’t they?”

  “Sandy. I’m going to leave this city for a long time.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wish I could stay.”

  “Mum said you would come and see me often. She doesn’t mind us being friends.”

  “I know. When I told her I would visit you often I didn’t know I would have to go away.”

  “Oh.”

  Lanark felt tears behind his eyes and realized his mouth was straining to girn aloud. He felt it would be horrible for a boy to remember a pitiable father and turned his face away and hardened the muscles of it to keep the grief inside. Alexander had turned his face to the television set. Lanark got up and moved clumsily to the door. He said, “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye.”

  “I’ve always liked you. I always will like you.”

  “Good,” said Alexander, staring at the screen. Lanark went outside, sat on the stairs and rubbed his face hard with both hands. Sludden appeared at the foot and said, “I’m sorry but the press are in a hurry.”

  “Sludden, will you look after him properly?”

  Sludden climbed some steps toward him and said, “Don’t worry! I know I played around a lot when I was younger but I’ve always liked Rima and I’m past wanting a change. Alex will be safe with me. I need a home life nowadays.”