Lanark: a life in 4 books (66 page)

“Can you afford it?” said Macfee sarcastically. Lanark fingered the credit card in his pocket, nodded and pushed the door open.

The room was lit by a dim red glow with some zones of gaudy brightness. Most of the tables and chairs were partitioned off by luminous grilles shaped and coloured like pink veins and purple arteries. A revolving ball cast a flow of red and white corpuscular spots across the ceiling, and the music was a low, steady, protracted throbbing like a lame giant limping up a thickly carpeted stair.

“What kind of boozer is this?” said Macfee.

Lanark stood and stared. He would have turned and walked out if it hadn’t been for women. They filled the place with laughing, alert, indifferent young faces and throats, breasts, midriffs and legs in all kinds of clothing. He felt he had never seen so many girls in his life. Looking closely he saw there were as many men but they made a less distinct impression. For all he cared they were duplicates of the same confident long-haired youth and Lanark hated him. He stood transfixed between fascination and envy until someone shouted his name from a corner. He looked across and saw Gilchrist, Pettigrew and Miss Maheen standing at a bar quilted with red plastic.

“Listen,” he told Macfee. “That tall man is my boss. If anyone can help you it’s him. Let’s try anyway.”

He led the way to the bar, and said “Mr. Gilchrist, this is an old friend of mine—-Jimmy Macfee—I knew him as a boy. He’s a client of mine, a really deserving case, and—”

“Now, now, now!” said Gilchrist cheerfully. “We’re here on pleasure, not business. What would you both like?”

“A whisky as big as yours,” said Macfee.

“The same, please,” said Lanark.

Gilchrist gave the order. Macfee was clearly attracted by Miss Maheen who turned her head at regular intervals, smiling at each of them in turn.

“Why are you not drinking?” he asked when her split-second smile reached him.

“She doesn’t drink,” said Pettigrew dourly.

“Can’t she speak for herself?” said Macfee.

“She doesn’t need to.”

“Are you her husband or something?” said Macfee.

Pettigrew coolly emptied his whisky glass and said, “What do you do?”

“I’m a maker. I make mohomes,” said Macfee boldly. “
And
I live in one.”

“Mohome makers aren’t real makers,” said Pettigrew. “My father was a real maker. I respect real makers. You’re in the luxury trade.”

“So you think a mohome is a luxury?”

“Yes. I bet yours has colour television.”

“Why shouldn’t it have?”

“I suppose you came to us because you wanted a house you could stand up in, with an inside lavatory, and separate bedrooms, and wooden window frames, and maybe a fireplace?”

“Why shouldn’t I have a house like that?”

“I’ll tell you. When mohome users get a house like that they crowd into one room and sublet the others, and rip out the plumbing to sell as scrap metal, and rip out the window frames and chop up the doors and burn them. A mohome user isn’t fit for a decent house.”

“I’m not that sort! You know nothing about me!” cried Macfee.

“I knew all about you as soon as I clapped eyes on you,” said Pettigrew softly. “
You
, are an obnoxious, little, bastard.” Macfee stared at him, clenching his fists and inhaling loudly. His shoulders swelled and he seemed to grow taller.

“Miss Maheen!” said Pettigrew loudly. “If he threatens me, chop him.”

Miss Maheen stepped between Macfee and Pettigrew and raised her right hand to throat level, holding it flat and horizontal with the small finger outward. Her smile widened and remained. Gilchrist said hastily, “Oh, there’s no need for violence, Miss Maheen. Just
look
at him.”

Lanark heard a snapping sound inside Miss Maheen’s head. He couldn’t see her face but he saw Macfee’s. His mouth fell open, the lower lip trembled, he clapped his hands over his eyes. Gilchrist said quietly, “Lead him out, Lanark. This isn’t his kind of pub.”

Lanark gripped Macfee’s arm and led him through the crowd.

Outside the door Macfee leaned against the wall, dropped his hands and shuddered. “Wee black holes,” he whispered.

“Her eyes turned into wee black holes.”

“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.