Lanark: a life in 4 books (41 page)

“Yes, all right, then.”

“Good. I’ll be there.”

He turned and walked quickly home. June had aroused him like an erotic fantasy, yet he hadn’t once blushed or stammered. He wondered why this arousal made him her equal when his feeling for Marjory made him subordinate. In the living room he walked up and down for a while, then said, “Dad, tomorrow night I’m taking out a girl. I want you to give me five pounds.”

Mr. Thaw turned slowly and stared at him.

“What kind of girl is this?”

“Her kind is no business of yours. I want to be free and open-handed. A few shillings will keep me mean and cautious and I’ll get no pleasure at all. I need pleasure.”

“And how often do you intend to have it?”

“I don’t care. I don’t know. I’m only thinking of tomorrow night.”

Mr. Thaw scratched his head. “Your grant is a hundred and twenty a year. With that I’m to clothe, house, feed you and pay for materials and pocket money. You won’t work in the holidays because it interferes with your artistic self-expression—”

“Don’t talk to me about self-expression!” cried Thaw fiercely.

“Do you think I’d paint if I’d nothing better to express than this rotten
self?
If my self was made of decent material I could relax with it, but self-
disgust
keeps forcing me out after the truth, the truth, the truth!”

“I can make neither head nor tail of that,” said Mr. Thaw, “but I know the result. The result is that I toil so that you can paint. And now you want over a quarter of my weekly salary to spend on pleasure. What kind of fool do you think I am?”

After a moment Thaw said, “In future I’ll handle my grant money myself. I know you don’t mind me sleeping here, but I’ll try not to ask for other favours.”

“You’ll try and you’ll fail because you’re so damned impractical. But all right, all right. Try anyway.”

“Thank you. It’ll be two months before the next grant comes through. Please give me five pounds, Dad.”

His father looked hard at him, then brought out a wallet and handed over the money.

In Paisley’s shop door next night he knew after ten minutes that June would not come, yet numbness in his limbs and heart kept him waiting an hour longer. A lame old man in a dirty coat approached and asked for money. Thaw stared resentfully into bloodshot eyes, a twisted helpless mouth and a tangled beard slimy with spittle. He could not think why he should own a five-pound note and this man not, so he handed it over and walked quickly away. He felt his soul was being deliberately crushed, yet there was nobody to blame. He could not bear to face his father. He walked to the Cowcaddens, climbed the stair to Drummond’s house, pushed the door open and went into the kitchen.

Drummond and Janet Weir sat on each side of the kitchen range looking at a crate on the hearth rug. The ginger cat sprawled on a sheet of glass covering this and stared down at two white mice among cheese rinds at the bottom. Drummond said, “Hullo, Duncan. Ginger’s at his television set.”

“How did this happen?” said Thaw.

“My mother visited us yesterday. She brought the mice as a present for the cat, since it was his ninth birthday. My father and I took them away from her.”

“And now Ginger sits there, foiled of his rightful prey,” said Mr. Drummond. He lay in the recess bed with spectacles on his craggy nose, a flat cap on his head, an open library book propped on the quilt over his knees. Janet shivered and said,

“Surely it’s cruel, having him on top of them like that.”

Drummond said, “What? Make the tea, Duncan looks tired. These mice are nearly blind, Duncan. If anyone is suffering it’s Ginger.”

Drummond left the room and came back with a picture of himself chalking a cue beside a snooker table. He propped the painting on the sideboard, took paint and brushes and began altering the position and number of the balls. The air was permeated by the pleasant smell of linseed oil and turpentine. At intervals Drummond stood back and said, “How’s that, Duncan?”

Janet handed Thaw a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich, and when he had drunk and eaten he began to draw her. She crouched near the fire with the cat on her lap, copious hair overhanging and surrounding her subtle face. She looked rather like Marjory, but Marjory moved with childish carelessness and Janet seemed to feel eyes watching the secretest parts of her.

“What o’clock is it?” said Thaw.

“I don’t know,” said Drummond. “None of the clocks in this house can be relied on, least of all the ones that go. It’s a pity Ma isn’t here. She could estimate the time by things like passing aeroplanes. Couldn’t she, Dad?”

“What?”

“I said Ma could always tell the time.”

“Oh, aye. She would shake my shoulders in bed in the morning. ‘Hector! Hector! It’s ten past four. There’s Mrs. Stewart going to her work in the bakery—I’d know her step anywhere.’ Or it would be ‘It’s a quarter to eight—I can hear the horse of Eliot’s milk cart two streets away.’”

“Do you know the time, Mr. Drummond?” said Thaw.

Mr. Drummond lifted an alarm clock which lay face down on a pile of books by the bed. He held it to his ear, shook it and put it carefully down saying, “The hands have ceased to go round and round, and no trust whatever can be placed in it.” He closed his eyes, opened his mouth, lay back on the pillow and at last said definitely, “We are in the region of midnight.”

“Then the trams have stopped, you’ll have to stay here tonight,” said Drummond.

“The trams haven’t stopped. I can hear them,” said Janet.

“Can’t you keep your mouth shut?” cried Drummond savagely. “I don’t know why I tolerate you! You’re the epitome of all … of all … Duncan! You aren’t going to let this woman drive you out of my house?”

“No. I’m going home to bed. Goodnight.”

Drummond followed Thaw into the lobby. “Let’s be sensible about this, Duncan. Why should you go to bed?”

“To sleep.”

Drummond stood erect, folded his arms, drew his black eyebrows together at the bridge of his nose and said in a firm quiet voice, “I’m telling you not to go out of that door, Duncan.”

“Heech! You’re in a bad way when you have to resort to commanding,” said Thaw, but lingered. “Why should I
not
go out that door?” he asked plaintively.

“Because you’d rather not,” said Drummond, ushering him back into the kitchen.

“I’m being weak,” said Thaw, settling into a chair by the fire. “
No, damn me!
” he cried, jumping up. “Why should I be commanded by you or by any man? Goodnight!”

“Janet, ask him to stay!” said Drummond. “Tell him it’s stupid going back to Riddrie at this hour of night.”

“I think you should stay, Duncan,” said Janet.

“Well, if you’re convinced of that …” said Thaw, sitting down. For the first time since waiting for June he felt relaxed and cheerful.

Thaw drew, Drummond painted, they gossiped and improvised jokes and sometimes chuckled continuously for many minutes. They had spells of listlessness when Janet made the tea. Each time he drew her his hand moved more easily and depicted more of the surrounding room. It was as if Janet’s body gave out light which clarified nearby things and turned the cluttered furniture, Drummond working at the sideboard, Mr. Drummond reading or dozing, even stale breadcrusts on the table, into parts of a cunning harmony. She sat still easily under his concentrated stare. Sometimes her eyes returned it for a second, then glanced slyly sideways at Drummond. Thaw said, “You’re a flower beneath the foot, Janet.”

“What do you mean, Duncan?”

“You’re beautiful and neglected and dishevelled.”

“Don’t encourage her,” said Drummond grimly. “Don’t you know it’s deliberate? She probably wants the girls at school to think I beat her.”

“Why have you always to be offensive?” said Janet.

“Why have I …? Why have you always to be offensive? Stupid!” said Drummond, almost kindly, for he was staring at his painting. He had taken out all but one white ball and said,

“How’s that, Duncan?”

“Good. But I preferred it with more balls.”

Drummond frowned at the picture, took a saw from a drawer and cut off the part with the snooker table on it. He placed the self-portrait on the mantelpiece and said “How about that, Duncan?”

“More perfect but less worthwhile.”

Drummond said, “Make the tea, Janet.”

He took a small gilt frame from under the sideboard, measured it, sawed the head off the portrait and fitted it into the frame. He hung it on the wall and stood back regarding it with arms folded and head on one side. He said, “More perfect? You’re right, Duncan, it is more perfect. Yes, I’m pleased with my night’s work.”

“All sheer bloody nonsense!” snorted Mr. Drummond from his bed.

“Yes, I’m pleased with my night’s work,” said Drummond, accepting a cup of tea from Janet.

The darkness outside the window paled and soft pink came into the sky behind the pinnacles of the dingy little church. Drummond shot up the window to let in a cool draught. From grey rooftops on the left rose the mock Gothic spire of the university, then the Kilpatrick hills, patched with woodlands and with the clear distant top of Ben Lomond behind the eastward slope. Thaw thought it queer that a man on that summit, surrounded by the highlands and overlooking deep lochs, might see with a telescope this kitchen window, a speck of light in a low haze to the south. The dim sky broke into cloudbergs with dazzling silver between. Mr. Drummond lay back on his pillow snoring wheezily through open mouth.

“The dairy will be open now,” said Drummond. “Janet, here’s half a crown. Go and buy something nice for breakfast. Duncan and I will get ready for bed.”

Thaw and Drummond went into a room with an open bed settee in the middle. They undressed to their underwear, removed their socks and got between rough blankets. They heard Janet return and do something in the kitchen, then she entered with three plates of stewed pears and cream. She ate on the edge of the bed and when Thaw and Drummond lay down she wrapped herself in a khaki greatcoat and lay across their ankles with the cat curled against her stomach. Thaw said sleepily, “I would now be getting out of my bed at home if—”

Suddenly he was struck by an image, not of June Haig but of Marjory. He imagined her breasts trembling under skilful hands and sat up, saying, “Janet! You’re Marjory’s friend. Is she carrying on with somebody else?”

“I don’t think so, Duncan.”

“Then what is wrong with her? What is wrong with her?”

“I think she’s too contented at home, Duncan. She’s very happy with her father and mother.”

“I see. She’s in love with her parents. Instead of learning to be adult by teaching me to be adult she basks idly at home. Oh, God, if you exist,
hurt
her,
hurt
her, God, let her find no comfort but in me, make life afflict her as it afflicts me. Oh, Aitken! Aitken! How
dare
she be happy without me?”

Thaw lay back glaring at the ceiling. After a pause Drummond said bitterly, “I understand your feelings.”

Janet sneered and said, “In case you don’t know, Duncan, he’s thinking about Molly—
oh!
”

Drummond’s foot below the blankets had struck her chin. She put her hands to her face and wept quietly. They stewed in their separate miseries and gradually fell asleep.

Thaw dreamed he was fornicating awkwardly with Marjory, who stood naked and erect like a caryatid. He rode astride her hips, holding himself off the ground by gripping her sides with knees and arms. The cold rigid body stayed inert at first, then gradually began to vibrate. He had a thin, lonely sensation of triumph.

He awoke late in the afternoon. Slowly drawing his feet from below Janet without disturbing her he carried his clothes into the kitchen, washed at the sink, dressed, gave water and cheese to the mice in the crate and rolled up the drawings he had made the night before. On the way to the front door he glanced into the bedroom. Janet no longer lay on the bed foot and there was movement under the blankets. In the close he met Mr. Drummond returning from the hotel, tall, spectacled, flat-capped, raincoat open over boiler suit.

“Hullo, Duncan. You’re not leaving? I’m just going to make dinner. I’ve some cod roe here.”

He indicated a paper parcel under his armpit.

“No thanks, Mr. Drummond.”

“Well, it’s a present from the chef. I neither pinched it nor paid for it. You’re sure you won’t have some?”

“No thanks. If I go back to your house I’m afraid I’ll never get away.”

Mr. Drummond laughed and started filling a short-stemmed pipe. “You’re a reader, aren’t you?”

“I read books, yes.”

“I’m inclined that way myself. I tried to make Aitken a reader, but I failed. Do you know how he passed his English exams?”

“No.”

“I read his schoolbooks, Scott, Jane Austen, and so on, and told him the stories. He can remember anything he hears, you see, but he’s never read a book from start to finish in his life, unless it was about art. Consequently his mind is cramped, narrow and lacking in sympathy for his fellow man. He’ll never prosper. But you’ll prosper, Duncan.”

“I hope so, Mr. Drummond.”

“Oh, yes, you’ll prosper, Duncan.”

Cheered by this prophecy Thaw walked quickly uphill to the school and passed Marjory in the entrance hall. He nodded coldly but she stopped him, smiled and said, “Where have you been, Duncan?”

“I’ve been sleeping.”

“Are you coming for a coffee?”

He was filled with relief and delight. She gave him her hand to hold on the way to the refectory. He thought, ‘This is an interesting world.’

CHAPTER 25.

Breaking

He took the 1875
Imperial Gazetteer of Scotland
from his father’s bookcase and read:

MONKLAND CANAL
, an artificial navigable communication between the city of Glasgow and the district of Monkland in Lanarkshire. The project of the canal was suggested in 1769 as a measure for securing to the inhabitants of Glasgow, at all times, a plentiful supply of coals. The Corporation of the city immediately employed the celebrated James Watt to survey the ground, obtained an act of parliament for carrying out the measure, and subscribed a number of shares to the stock. The work was begun in 1771. Previous to its formation the lands in the neighbourhood were comparatively shut up, the mineral fields unproductive, and only a thatched cottage was seen here and there to dot the surface. But once the canal was in operation a change, as if effected by magic, came over the face and feelings of the district, a change accelerated by the establishment of ironworks in the district of Monkland. Public works were erected, population gathered in masses by thousands, splendid edifices were called into existence, a property once considered valueless, except for the scanty returns of its tillage or hortage, became a mine of wealth which may enrich many succeeding generations.