Lanark: a life in 4 books (43 page)

He helped her on with her coat and they went downstairs.

He stopped outside the close mouth and pointed across at the sighing silhouette of the park trees. “Let’s go through the park.”

“But Duncan, the gates are locked.”

“There’s a railing missing here. Come on. It’ll be a shortcut.” He helped her through the narrow gap and down an embankment on the other side. Their feet rustled dead leaves. They crossed dark smooth lawns and walked round a splashing fountain among the dumpy bodies of holly trees. Two glimmering swans paddled drowsily in the black water of the ornamental pond and they heard the somnolent squawk of a goose from the island in the middle. There was a wide bridge over the Kelvin with lightless iron candelabra on plinths at each end. Thaw rested his elbows on the parapet and said, “Listen.”

Nearby an almost full moon was freckled by the top leaves of an elm. The river gurgled faintly against its clay bank, the distant fountain tinkled. Marjory said, “Lovely.”

He said, “I’ve once or twice felt moments when calmness, unity and … and glory seemed the core of things. Have you ever felt that?”

“I think so, Duncan. I once went with friends onto the Campsies and I got separated from them. It was a lovely warm day. I think I felt it a little then.”

“But must these moments always be lonely? Won’t love let us enjoy them with somebody else?”

“I don’t know, Duncan.”

Thaw looked at her. “Yah. Come on,” he said genially. “And please put your arm through mine.”

Beyond the bridge the road divided and a monument to Carlyle stood in the fork. It was a rough granite pillar with the top cut in the shape of the prophet’s upper body. Moonlight lay like white frost on brow, beard and shoulders and left the hollow cheeks and concave eye sockets in gloom. Thaw shook his free fist and shouted, “Go home, ye spy! Go home, ye traitor to democracy! … He follows me everywhere,” he explained to Marjory, and helped her over a locked gate into the lighted street.

As they passed the university Marjory said, “Duncan, have you had much experience of girls?”

“Not much, and all of one sort.”

He told her about Kate Caldwell, Molly Tierney and June Haig, speaking lightly and jokingly. She punctuated the story with murmurs of “Oh, Duncan.”

“And there you have my experience of girls,” he ended.

“Oh, Duncan.”

The phrase was so loaded with affectionate pity that he began to think he had done a stupid thing. She said, “You see, Duncan, I think you’re too afraid. Do you remember in the bus back from the pictures when you asked if you could hold my hand?”

“Yes.”

“You needn’t have asked. I knew you wanted to. Any girl would have known and let you do it.”

“I see.”

“And to a certain extent it’s the same with kissing. When a girl feels you’re worried and frightened she gets upset too.”

“Like life models who only feel embarrassed when an embarrassed student draws them.”

“Yes, it’s like that.”

He stopped and gripped her arm. “Marjory, can I draw you? Naked, I mean?”

She stared. He said eagerly, “I won’t be embarrassed—my picture needs you. The professional models are good to practise on but they come out like film actresses. I need someone who’s beautiful but not fashionable.”

“But Duncan … I’m not beautiful.”

“Oh, you are. If I paint you I’ll show you you are.”

“But Duncan, I … I … I have an ugly birthmark down my side.”

He shook his head impatiently. “Surface discolourations aren’t important.” He gave a slight, helpless laugh and added, “You ought to do it, to make us equal again. I stripped naked in front of you just now, in words.”

“Oh, Duncan!”

She gave him an affectionate pitying smile and sighed.

“All right, Duncan.”

They walked on.

“Good. When? Next week?”

“No, the week after. I’m very busy just now.”

“Monday?”

“No. Well … Friday.”

“Good. About seven?”

“Yes.”

“And should I keep reminding you till then?”

“No, I … I really will remember, Duncan.”

“Good.”

At the garden gate she tilted up her mouth. He brushed his cheek on hers and murmured, “We’re not mature enough for mouths. Mine hardens when I touch you with it. Please hold me.”

They clasped, and her ear against his cheek made a point of tingling excitement. He began breathing deeply. She whispered, “Are you happy, Duncan?”

“Aye.”

A car stopped at the kerb. Glancing sideways they saw the profile of the professor sitting immobile behind the wheel. They broke apart, laughing.

The enlarged landscape would show Blackhill, Riddrie, the Campsie Fells, the Cathkin Braes and crowds from both sides mixing around the locks in the middle. Over 105 square feet of canvas he wove, unwove and rewove a net of blue, grey and brown guidelines. He was contemplating them glumly one night when McAlpin entered and said, “What’s wrong?”

“I wish the shapes weren’t so restless.”

“A landscape seen simultaneously from above and below and containing north, east and south can hardly be peaceful. Especially if there’s a war in it.”

“True, but I’m making a point of rest in the middle foreground: Marjory, looking at us.”

“What expression will she have?”

“Her usual expression. I hope you remember she’s posing tomorrow. I don’t want interruptions.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be left to yourselves. What exactly do you expect from tomorrow evening? You seem to be building a lot on it.”

“I expect an evening of good sound work. I’ll be glad to get more but I’m not hoping for it so I can’t be disappointed. I love the slight gawkiness in her. She doesn’t seem to feel she has breasts and that emphasizes them. She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

“Yes. Mind you, she could dress to show it more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Her clothes are a bit schoolgirlish, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think that.”

“You don’t? I see.”

“My grapes are not sour, you foxy plutocrat.”

“Sour gra—? Why, you shabby socialist!”

They laughed at each other.

Next morning he prepared his drawing board, brought in a bottle of wine and carefully set the fire so that it would flare at the touch of a match; but he was restless and went to school for the coffee break. In the refectory he met Janet Weir and asked if she had seen Marjory.

“No, Duncan. She’s not at school today.”

“Did she—yesterday, I mean—look a bit tired and ill?”

“I don’t think so, Duncan.”

He returned to the studio and at half-past six lit the fire and sat by it trying to read. The doorbell rang at ten to eight. Making an effort not to run he strolled down and casually turned the knob. It took him two or three seconds to see that the girl on the mat was Janet. She said, “Duncan, Marjory sent me to say she’s terribly sorry. She was working very hard last night and isn’t feeling very well.”

After a moment Thaw said heavily, “Tell her I’m not surprised,” and closed the door. He went upstairs and uncorked the wine, intending to drink himself silly, but after one glass he felt so dull that he spread his mattress and slept.

There was a sound of wind and of seagulls squabbling above the park. He woke in a square of sunlight and saw blue air and white clouds through the window. Turning his back to it he curled tightly into the mattress and deliberately remembered his friendship with Marjory from the time she first passed him on the stairs to the evening before. It seemed such a history of insult that he bit his fingers with rage and at the end his eyes were warm with tears. He grew calmer by moving onto the dais of the lecture theatre and talking in a quiet, distinct voice.

“… an art school without classes or examinations where life drawing, morbid anatomy, tools, material and information are free to whoever wants them. I am ready to lay these plans before the director and the board of governors, but without your loyalty I can do nothing.”

Her face was in the cheering crowd which parted to let him through. He noticed her with a slight nod, having more important things to think about. A Labour administration made him Secretary of State for Scotland, and arising in the House of Commons he announced his plan for a separate Scottish parliament: “It is plain that the vaster the social unit, the less possible is true democracy.”

A stunned silence was broken by the Prime Minister denouncing him as a renegade. Thaw strode from the chamber and an amazing thing happened. All seventy-one Scottish MPs—Labour, Liberal and Tory—rose and followed him. On the terrace above the Thames he was turning to address them when McAlpin came in and said, “Hullo. Having a long lie?”

“She didn’t come.”

“The bitch! Listen, it’s a glorious day, come out sketching with me.”

“I don’t feel like moving.”

“Make yourself. You’ll be better for it.”

“I can’t.”

McAlpin stretched paper on a drawing board. Thaw said abruptly, “I’ve finished with her.”

“Very wise.”

“But I haven’t worked out how to say ‘Goodbye.’”

“Don’t bother. Just don’t say ‘Hello’ again.”

“No. I must be definite.”

“It’s useless brooding, Duncan. The light will have gone in three or four hours. Come out sketching.”

“No.”

McAlpin left, and after the civil war Thaw became head of the reconstruction committee. Fountains splashed and trees grew where the demolished banks had stood. Backcourts were given benches and open-air draughtboards for the old, paddling ponds and sand pits for infants, communal non-profit making launderettes for housewives. Pleasure boats with small orchestras sailed down the canal from Riddrie to the Clyde islands. Marjory read his name in newspapers, heard his voice on the wireless, saw his face in cinemas; he surrounded her, he was shaping her world, yet she could not touch him. Then he dozed and dreamed of a fearful twilit country dripping with rain. He was trying to escape from it with a little girl who insulted and betrayed him. She grew tall and sat wearing jewellery on a throne in a dark ancient house. She had sent her club-footed butler to catch him. Tiny Thaw fled from room to room, slamming doors behind him, but the slow limping sound drew nearer all the time. He came at last to a cupboard with no way out and clutched the doorknob, trying to hold it shut. Freezing water swirled up his legs.

He woke in darkness with half the bedding on the floor. Three stars shone through the window and geese sang discordantly from the pond. Pulling the blankets round him, he eased his breathing with an ephedrine pill and imagined her a slave in a luxurious brothel where he tortured her into making shameless love to him. The second time he masturbated she changed into June Haig, the third time became a boy. Disgusted with himself he stared at the ceiling till dawn, then fell asleep again. It was Sunday, and that afternoon other students came and made coffee, painted and gossiped. Thaw lay pretending to read but actually composing farewell speeches for Marjory, speeches amused, pathetic, stoical, coldly insulting and madly violent. In the evening Macbeth arrived. The art school had expelled him for drunkenness and he sagged into a chair saying,

“Wha’s wrong wi Duncan? Why’s he curled up like that?”

“Shh. He’s breaking with Marjory,” murmured McAlpin.

“Why’re you breaking, Duncan? Can you not get your hole, is ’at it! Will she not give you your hole?”

“No. Partly, mibby. I don’t know.”

“Listen to me, Duncan. Listen. Listen. Holes don’t matter. I’ve had my hole regular since I was seventeen, just because Molly wouldnae look at me don’t think I’ve gone without my hole. I go to Bath Street. I get it twice, three times, four times a week and it doesnae matter
that
much.”

He snapped his fingers. “Marjory is a nice girl. You stick to her, hole or no hole.”

“She isn’t kind to me,” said Thaw from under the blankets.

“I admit that is depressing. I admit that no hole, with no kindness on top of it, can be depressing.”

On Monday he went to an school and met Marjory on the steps. His mind had split with her so completely that the pretty smiling girl before him was as confusing as a resurrection.

“Hello, Duncan! I’m sorry about Friday. Janet told you why, didn’t she?”

“She told me, yes.”

“There’s a choir practice after lunch today. Are you going to the refectory?”

“I suppose so.”

Her smile was so direct and bright that his face had to reflect it, but in the refectory he sat beside her and Janet Weir without talking and drew on the tabletop. Marjory said, “Janet and I are going to the opera tonight, Duncan.”

“Good.”

“We haven’t booked seats, we’re going to queue for the balcony.”

“Good.”

Janet went to get cigarettes. Marjory said, “Aitken isn’t coming−he hates opera. But you like it, Duncan, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

She moved nearer. “Duncan, you know I’ll pose for you whenever you like.”

“Marjory, we must stop this.” He drew a dark shadow under an eye, pressing hard on the pencil and saying, “We’ll be better rid of each other.”

He glanced sideways. Her quiet profile seemed to examine the drawing. Janet returned saying, “No Gauloise! I wish they’d sell us Gauloise.”

Thaw said, “There’s no satisfaction in the present way of things.”

“Shall we go over to the choir, Duncan?” Marjory asked.

As they crossed the street she said, “I’m sorry, Duncan.”

“It doesn’t matter. I spent the weekend getting used to leaving you and now I’m used to it.”

They paused at the door of the theatre where the choir rehearsed. He said, “So there’s nothing to be done.”

“I see. Oh, Duncan, I’m sorry you’ve liked me so much. And Duncan, I’m sorry I haven’t—”

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” he said, taking her hands and leaning his brow on hers. “Don’t be sorry! You gave me friendship, and for a long time I was grateful.”

“But Duncan, can’t we still be friends? Not now, perhaps, but later?”

They put their cheeks together and he murmured, “Later, mibby, when I have a real girlfriend I can … perhaps….” “Yes. Then.”

She clasped his waist and he caressed her easily, moving his mouth into the soft nook between her neck and shoulder. Janet and two friends went past saying, “Oho!” “Aha!” “Hurry up, you’re late.”