Lanark: a life in 4 books (63 page)

Coming down on the ladders he found the light from below much stronger than before. The room where the Lugworms had lain was lit by bulbs hung from improvised brackets. Two electricians were working near the door and one of them said, “A bloke was looking for you, Jimmy.”

“Who was he?”

“A young bloke. Long hair.”

“What did he want?”

“He didnae say.”

Near the cubicle he heard a strange, steady little song. Sludden lay on the bed singing “Dadadada” and dandling a robust little boy in a blue woollen suit. Rima, in a blouse and skirt, sat knitting beside them. The sight filled Lanark with a large cold rage. Rima gave him an unfriendly glance and Sludden said brightly, “The wanderer returns!”

Lanark went to the tiny sink, washed his hands, then turned to Sludden and said, “Give him to me.”

He took the child, who started wailing. “Oh, put him down!” said Rima impatiently. “He needs a rest and so do I.”

Lanark sat on the bed foot and sang quietly, “Dadadada.” The boy stopped complaining and settled in his arms. The small compact body was warm and comforting and gave such a pleasant feeling of peace that Lanark wondered uneasily if this was a right thing for a father to feel. He laid the boy in a pram by the bed and tucked a soft blanket round him.

Sludden stood up and stretched his arms, saying, “Great! That’s really great. I came here for several reasons, of course, but one is to congratulate you on your performance. Don’t sneer at him, Rima, he’s a good committee man when he accepts discipline. He jostled Gow, and that allowed us to act. The committee is in permanent session now. I don’t mean we’re all in the chapterhouse all the time, but some of us are in the chapterhouse all the time.”

Lanark said, “Listen, Sludden, I want the company of my wife and child. Do you understand me?”

“Of course!” said Sludden cheerily. “I’m just leaving. I’ll come back for you all later.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sludden has offered us room in his house,” said Rima.

“We’re not taking it.”

“I don’t want to force anything on you,” said Sludden. “But this seems a strange place to bring up a child.”

“Unthank is dead and done for, don’t you realize that?” cried Lanark. “The boy and Rima and I are leaving for a much brighter city. Wilkins promised us.”

“Don’t trust your council friends too far,” said Sludden gravely.

“We’ve cleared the motorway, the food trucks are rolling in again. And even if Wilkins did tell the truth, you’re forgetting differences in timescale. The decimal calendar hasn’t been introduced here and what the council calls days can be months—years, where we’re concerned. And remember, Alexander was born here. You have a council passport. He hasn’t.”

“Who is Alexander?”

Sludden pointed to the pram. Rima said, “Ritchie-Smollet christened him that.”

Lanark jumped up shouting, “
Christened?
”

Alexander started crying. “Shushush,” whispered Rima, reaching for the pram handle and gently rocking it. “Shushushush.” “Why Alexander?” whispered Lanark furiously. “Why couldn’t you wait for me? Why the bloody hurry?”

“We waited as long as we could—why didn’t you come when we called?”

“You never called me!”

“We did. Jack went to the tower when you started your row and shouted up the ladder, but you wouldn’t come down.” “I didn’t know that was Jack shouting,” said Lanark, confused. “Were you drunk?” asked Rima.

“Of course not. You’ve never seen me drunk.”

“Perhaps, but you often act that way. And Ritchie-Smollet says a bottle of cooking sherry has vanished from the kitchen.”

“I’m leaving,” said Sludden with a chuckle. “Outsiders should never mix in a lovers’ quarrel. I’ll see you later.”

“Thank you,” said Lanark. “We’ll manage by ourselves.” Sludden shrugged and left. Alexander gradually fell asleep.

Rima sat with tight-shut lips, knitting hard. Lanark lay on the bed with hands behind his head and said gloomily, “I didn’t want to leave you. And I didn’t think I was long.”

“You were away for hours—ages, it seemed to me. You’ve no sense of time. None at all.”

“Alexander is quite a good name. We can shorten it to Alex. Or Sandy.”

“He’s called
Alexander
.”

“What are you knitting?”

“Clothes. Children need clothes, hadn’t you noticed? We can’t always live on Ritchie-Smollet’s charity.”

“If Sludden is right about calendars,” Lanark mused, “we’ll be a long time in this place. I’ll have to look for work.”

“So you’re going to leave me alone again. I see. Why did you ring that bell? Are you sure you weren’t drunk?”

“I rang it because I was happy then. Why are you attacking me?”

“To defend myself.”

“I’m sorry I shouted at you, Rima. I was surprised and angry. I’m very glad to be back with you.”

“Yes, it’s easy for you to live in a box, you can run off to your towers and committee meetings whenever you like. When will I get some freedom?”

“Whenever you need it.”

“And you’ll stay here and look after Alex?”

“Of course. That’s only fair.”

Rima sighed and then smiled and rolled up her knitting. She came to the bed, kissed him quickly on the brow, then went to the chest of drawers and peered at her face in a mirror.

Lanark said, “Are you leaving already?”

“Yes, Lanark. I really do need a change.”

She made up her mouth with lipstick. Lanark said, “Who gave you that?”

“Frankie. We’re going dancing. We’re going to get ourselves picked up by a couple of young young young boys. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Not if you only dance with them.”

“Oh, but we’ll flirt with them too. We’ll madden them with desire. Middle-aged women need to madden somebody some times.”

“You aren’t middle-aged.”

“I’m no chicken, anyway. When Alex wakens you can change his nappy—there’s a clean one in the top drawer. Put the dirty one in the plastic bag under the bed. If he cries you must heat some milk in the kitchen—not too hot, mind. Test it with your finger.”

“Aren’t you breastfeeding him?”

“Yes, but he has to learn to drink like an ordinary human being. But I’ll probably be back before he wakens. How do I look?”

She posed before him, hands on hips. He said, “Very young. Very beautiful.”

She kissed him warmly and left. He lay back on the bed, missing her, and fell asleep.

He was wakened by Alexander crying so he changed his nappy and carried him to the kitchen. Jack and Frankie were eating a meal at a table there. Frankie said, “Hullo, passionate man. How’s Rima?”

He stared at her, confused, and blushed hotly. He muttered, “Gone for a walk. The boy needs milk.”

“I’ll make him a bottle.”

Lanark strayed round the kitchen murmuring nonsense to Alexander, for there was a strange appalling pain in his chest and he didn’t want to talk to adults. Frankie handed him a warm bottle with teat folded in a white napkin. He muttered some thanks and went back to the cubicle. He sat on the bed and held the teat to Alexander’s mouth but Alexander twisted aside, screaming, “NononononoMumumumum!”

“She’ll be back soon, Sandy.”

“NononononononononononoMumumumumumumumumum!” Alexander kept screaming and Lanark walked the floor with him. He felt he was carrying a dwarf who kept hitting him on the head with a stick, a dwarf he could neither disarm nor put down. People in neighbouring cubicles began banging their walls, then a man came in and said, “There are folk trying to sleep in this building, Jimmy.”

“I can’t help that, and I’m not called Jimmy.”

The man was tall and bald with white stubble on his cheeks, a single black tooth in his upper jaw, and wore a dirty grey raincoat. He stared at Lanark for a while then pulled a brown bottle from his pocket and said, “Milk’s no use. Give him a slug of this—it’s a great quietener.”

“No.”

“Then take a slug yourself.”

“No.”

The man sighed, squatted on a stool and said, “Tell me your woes.”

“I have no woes!” yelled Lanark who was too plagued to think. Alexander was screaming “Mumumumumumumumumum!”

“If it’s woman trouble,” said the man, “I can advise you because I was married once. I had a wife who did terrible things, things I cannae mention in the presence of a wean. You see, women are different from us. They’re seventy-five percent water. You can read that in Pavlov.”

Alexander fastened his gums on the teat and started sucking. Lanark sighed with relief. After a moment he said, “Men are mostly water too.”

“Yes, but only seventy percent. The extra five percent makes the difference. Women have notions and feelings like us but they’ve got tides too, tides that keep floating the bits of a human being together inside them and washing it apart again. They’re governed by lunar gravity; you can read that in Newton. How can they follow ordinary notions of decency when they’re driven by the moon?”

Lanark laid Alexander in the pram with the bottle beside him and gently rocked the handle.

The man said, “I was ignorant when I was married. I hadnae read Newton, I hadnae read Pavlov, so I kicked the bitch out—pardon the language, I am referring to my wife. I wish now that I’d cut my throat instead. Do me a favour, pal. Give yourself a holiday. Have a drink.”

Lanark glanced at the brown bottle held toward him, then took it and swigged. The taste was horrible. He passed it back, trying to say thank you, but there were tears in his eyes and he could only gulp and pull faces. A warm stupidity began to spread softly through him. He heard the man say, “You have to like women but not care for them: not care what they do, I mean. Nobody can help what they do. We do as things do with us.” “What is for us,” said Lanark, with a feeling of profound understanding, “will not go past us.”

“A hundred years from now,” said the man, “it’ll all be the same.”

Lanark heard Alexander asking sadly, “When will she come?”

“Soon, son. Very soon.”

“When is soon?”

“Near to now but not now.”

“I need her now.”

“Then you need her badly. You must try to need her properly.”

“What is proply?”

“Silently. Silence is always proper. When I understand this better I’ll stop talking. You won’t be able to hear me for miles. I will radiate silence like a dark star shining in the gaps between syllables and conversation.”

“You’re ignoring politics,” said the man aggressively. “Politics depend on noise. All parties subscribe to
that
opinion, if to no other.”

Alexander screamed, “They’re biting me!”

“Who’s biting you?” said Lanark leaning unsteadily over the pram.

“My teeth.”

Lanark put a finger in the small mouth and felt a tiny bone edge coming through the gum. He said uneasily, “We age quickly in this world.”

“You must remember one important thing,” said the man, “You’ve emptied the bottle. I’m not complaining. I know where to get another, but it costs a coupla dollars. A dollar a skull. Right?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve no money.”

“What’s happening here?” asked Rima, coming angrily in.

“Sandy is teething,” said Lanark.

“I’m just leaving, missus,” said the man, and left.

Rima changed Alexander’s nappy, saying grimly, “I can’t trust you to do a thing.”

“But I’ve fed him. I’ve cared for him.”

“Huh!”

Lanark lay on the bed watching her. He was sober now and some of the ache had returned to his chest, but he was also thankful and relieved. After a while he said, “Did you enjoy the dancing?”

“Dancing?”

“You said you were going dancing with Frankie.”

“Did I? Maybe I did. Anyway I missed Frankie and went househunting with what’s-his-name. The fat soldier. McPake.”

“McPake?”

“He used to hang around the old Elite with us. The Elite has vanished under a motorway now. Nothing there but a great concrete trench. They really are making a mess of this place.”

“Did you find any houses?”

“Hundreds of them, all furnished and all beautiful. But we’ve no money so I was wasting my time. Is that what you’re going to say?”

“Of course not!”

She had settled Alexander in the pram and was sitting despondently with drooping head and arms folded under breasts. He was pricked by tenderness and desire and went to her with arms outstretched, whispering, “Oh, Rima dear, let’s love each other a little….”

She smiled, jumped up and danced toward him with hands outstretched and nipping. “Oh, Rima dear!” she moaned through pursed-out lips. “Oh, lovey-dovey earie-dearie Rima, let’s lovey-dovey an itsy-bitsy little….”

Her nips were painful and he fended them off, laughing until they both fell side by side and breathless on the bed. A moment later he asked sadly, “Do I really seem like that?”

“I’m afraid you do. You’re too nervous and pathetic.”

She sighed, then unfastened her blouse, saying, “However, since you want it, let’s love each other a little.”

He stared, astonished, and said, “I can’t make love when you’ve made me feel small and absurd.”

“I’ve made you fell absurd, have I? I’m glad. I’m delighted. You make me feel small all the time. You’ve never paid attention to my feelings, never once. You dragged us here from a perfectly comfortable place because you disliked the food, and what good did it do? We still eat the same food. You laughed when I gave you a son and you can’t even give him a home. You use use use me all the time, and you’re so smugly sure you’re right all the time. You’re heavy and dismal and humourless, yet you want me to pet you and make you feel big and important. I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I’m too tired.” She went to the seat by the pram and resumed knitting.

Lanark sat on the bed with his face in his hands. He said, “This is Hell.”

“Yes. I know.”

“I wish you could love me.”

“You take me for granted, so I can’t. You don’t know how to make me love you. Some men can do it.”

He looked up and said, “Which men?”

She continued to knit. He stood up and cried,
“Which men?”
“I might tell you if you wouldn’t get hysterical.”

Alexander sat up and asked in an interested voice, “Is Dad going to get hysterical?”