Lanark: a life in 4 books (79 page)

“This is a river and it’s nearly dawn, Narky boy.”

“Doninerrupt. You’re not a cricit, Gloop, you’re a chamberlain, like Munro. Know Munro, no? Nindividual who delivers folk from one chamber to nother. Listen. Twilit lake, sleek as clean steel, each star a shining spear in your deep. Pottery. I have been twitted, in my time, with solidity, Gloop. Dull solid man of few words, me. But
pottery
is lukring in these dethps, Gloop!” said Lanark, thumping his chest. He thumped too hard and started coughing.

“Lean on me, Nark,” said Gloopy.

Lanark leaned on him and they came to a footbridge which crossed the water in one slender white span to a shining arrangement of glass cubes and lantern-hung trees on the other shore. “Olympia,” said Gloopy.

“Nice,” said Lanark. In the middle of the bridge he stopped again saying, “No fireworks now, so we have waterworks, yes? It’s urgent that I piss.”

He did so between two railings and was disappointed to see his urine jet two feet forward and then fall straight down.

“When I was a small-bellied boy!” he cried, “tumbling ninepin over the dolly mixture daisies, my piss had an arc of thirteen feet. A greybeard now, belly flabby from abuse of drink, I cannot squirt past my reflection. Piss. A word which sounds like what it means. A rare word.”

“Police,” muttered Gloopy.

“No, Gloop, you are wrong. Police does not sound like what it means. It is too like polite, please and nice.”

Gloopy was running down the slope of the bridge toward the village. When he reached the shore he turned his head for a moment and yelled, “All right, officers! Just a perverse frolic!” Lanark saw two policemen advancing toward him. He zipped up his trousers and hurried after Gloopy. As he reached the shore two men stepped onto the bridge and stood blocking the way. They wore black suits. One held out a hand and said in a dull voice, “Pass please.”

“I can’t, you’re blocking the way.”

“Show your pass, please.”

“I don’t have one. Or if I do it’s in my briefcase—I’ve left that somewhere. Do I need a pass? I’m a delegate, I have rooms here, please let me through.”

“Identify self.”

“Provost Lanark of Greater Unthank.”

“There is no Provost Lanark of Greater Unthank.” Lanark noticed that the man’s eyes and mouth were shut and the voice came from a neatly folded white handkerchief in his breast pocket. His companion was staring at Lanark with eyes and mouth wide open. A metal ring with a black centre poked out between his teeth. With great relief Lanark heard the voice of an ordinary human policeman behind him: “Just what’s happening here?”

“There is no Provost Lanark of Greater Unthank,” said the security man again.

“There is!” said Lanark querulously, “I know the programme says the Unthank delegate is Sludden but it’s wrong, there was an unexpected last-minute change,
I
am the delegate!”

“Identify self.”

“How
can
I without my briefcase? Where’s Gloopy? He’ll vouch for me, he’s a very important pimp, you’ve just let him through. Or Wilkins, send for Wilkins. Or Monboddo! Yes, contact the bloody Lord Monboddo, he knows me better than anyone.”

In his own ears the words seemed shrill and unconvincing. The voice from the security man’s pocket sounded like a record slowing to a stop: “Proof-burden property of putative prover.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means, Jimmy, that you’d better come quietly with us,” said a policeman, and Lanark felt a hand grip each shoulder.

He said feebly, “My name is Lanark.”

“Don’t let it worry you, Jimmy.”

The security men stepped back. The policemen pushed Lanark forward, then sideways and down to a landing stage. Lanark said, “Aren’t you taking me to the repose village?”

They pushed him onto the deck of a motor launch, then down into a cabin. He said, “What about Nastler? He’s your king, isn’t he?
He
knows me.”

They pushed him down on a bench and sat on a bench opposite. He felt the launch move out into the river and was suddenly so tired that he had to concentrate to keep from falling down.

Later he saw the planks of another landing stage, and a pavement which continued for a long time, then a few stone steps, a doormat and some square rubber tiles fitted edge to edge. He was allowed to lean on a flat surface. A voice said,

“Name?”

“Lanark.”

“Christian or surname?”

“Both.”

“Are you telling me your name is Lanark Lanark?”

“If you like. I mean yes yes yes yes yes.”

“Age?”

“Ndtermate. I mean indeterminate. Past halfway.”

Someone sighed and said “Address?”

“Nthank cathedral. No,’ Lympia. Olympia.”

There was some muttering. He noticed the words “bridge” and “security” and “six fifty.” That jerked him awake. He stared across a counter at a police sergeant with a grey moustache who was writing in a ledger. He saw a room full of desks where two policewomen were typing and the number 6.94 very big and black was framed upon the wall. With a click it charged to 6.95. He realized that a decimal clock had a hundred minutes an hour and licked his lips and tried to talk quickly and clearly.

“Sergeant, this is urgent! An important phone call is probably going through just now to my rooms in the delegates’ repose village; can it be diverted here? It’s from Wilkins, Monboddo’s secretary. I’ve been drunk and foolish, I’m sorry, but there may be a public disaster if I can’t speak to Wilkins!”

The sergeant stared at him hard. Lanark had flung out his hands appealingly and now saw they were filthy. His waistcoat was unbuttoned, his suit crumpled. There was a bad smell in the room and he noticed, with a shudder, that it came from a brown crusted stain on his trouser leg. He said, “I know I look detestable but politicians can’t always be wise! Please! I’m not asking for myself but for the people I represent. Put me on to Wilkins!”

The sergeant sighed. He took an assembly programme from under the counter and studied a back page printed in small type. He said, “Is Wilkins a surname or a Christian name?” “Surname, I think. Does it matter?”

The sergeant pushed the programme over the counter saying, “Which?”

A list of names headed
COUNCIL STAFF
filled ten pages. In the first four Lanark found Wilkins Staple-Stewart, the Acting Secretary for Internal-External Liaison, Peleus Wilkins, Procurator Designate for Surroundings and Places, and Wendel Q.

Wilkins, Senior Adviser on Population Energy Transfer.

“Listen!” said Lanark. “I’ll phone every Wilkins in the list till I get the—no! No, I’ll phone Monboddo and get the full name from him; he knows me even if his damned robots don’t. I’m sorry the hour is so early, but …”

He hesitated, for his voice sounded unconvincing again and the sergeant was slowly shaking his head. “Let me prove who I am!” said Lanark wildly. “My briefcase is in Nastler’s room in the stadium—no, I gave it to Joy, a Red Girl, a hostess in the executive gallery; she put it behind the bar for me I must get it back it contains a vitally important document please this is vital—”

The sergeant, who was writing in the ledger, said “All right, lads.”

Lanark felt a hand clapped on each shoulder and cried, “But what am I charged with? I’ve hurt nobody, molested nobody, insulted nobody. What am I charged with?”

“With being a pisser,” said a policeman holding him.

“All men are pissers!”

“I am charging you,” said the sergeant, writing, “under the General Powers (Consolidation) Order, and what you need is a nice long rest.”

And as he was led away Lanark found himself yawning hugely. The hands on his shoulder grew strangly comforting. Surely he had often been pushed forward by strong people who thought he was wicked? The feeling was less dreamlike than childlike.

He was led into a small narrow room with what looked like bunks piled with folded blankets along one wall. He climbed at once to the top bunk and lay down, but they laughed and said, “No, no, Jimmy!”

He climbed down and they gave him two blankets to carry and led him to another door. He went through and it was slammed and locked behind him. He wrapped the blankets round him, lay on a platform in a corner and slept.

And now he was awake and wildly miserable. He sprang up and walked in a circle round the floor, crying, “Oh! I have been wicked,
stupid
, evil,
stupid
, daft daft daft
daft
and stupid, stupid! And it happened exactly when I thought myself a fine great special splendid man! How did it happen? I meant to find Wilkins and talk to him sensibly, but the women made me feel famous. Did they want to destroy me? No, no, they treated me like something special because it made
them
feel special but all the time nothing good was being made, nothing useful was done. I was drunk, yes, with white rainbows, yes, but mostly with vanity; nobody is as crazy as a man who thinks he is important. People tried to tell me things and I ignored them. What was Kodac hinting at? Valuable minerals, special reports, government ignorance, it sounded like dirty trickery but I should have listened carefully. And … Catalyst … why didn’t I ask her name? She tried to warn me and I thought she wanted to sleep with me. Yah! Greed and idiocy.
I forgot
the reports!
I lost the reports without even reading them, I was seduced by people I can’t even remember (but it was lovely). And how did I come to be paddling in that burn with Sandy? What was that but a useless bit of happiness put in to make my fall more dreadful? (But it was wonderful.) Oh, Sandy, what kind of father have you been cursed with? I left you to defend you and have turned into a ludicrous lecherous discredited stinking goat!”

He stopped and stared at some things he had not noticed beside the platform: three plastic mugs of cold tea and three paper plates of rolls with cold fried sausages in them. He grabbed the rolls and with tears trickling down his cheeks gulped and swallowed between sentences, saying, “Three mugs, three plates, three meals: I’ve been a whole day in here, the first day of the assembly is over…. When will I be let out?… I was fooled by false love because I never knew the true kind, not even with Rima. Why? I was faithful to her not because I loved her but because I
wanted
love, it is
right
that she left me it is
right
that I’m locked up here, I deserve much worse. … But who will speak for Unthank? … Who will cry out against that second-hand second-rate creator who thinks a cheap stupid
disaster
is the best ending for mankind? O, heavens, heavens fall and crush me! ….”

He noticed that self-denunciation was becoming a pleasure and sprang up and beat his head hard against the door; then stopped because it hurt too much. Then he noticed someone else was shouting and banging too. The door had a slit like a small letterbox at eye level. He looked through and saw another door with a slit immediately opposite. A voice from there said,

“Have you a cigarette Jimmy?”

“I don’t smoke. Do you know the time?”

“It was two in the morning when they brought me in and that was a while ago. What did they get you for?”

“I pissed off a bridge.”

“The police,” said the voice bitterly, “are a shower of bastards. Are you sure you don’t have a cigarette?”

“No, I don’t smoke. What did they get you for?”

“I hammered a man up a close and called the police a shower of bastards. Listen, they can’t treat us like this. Let’s batter our doors and yell till they give us some fags.”

“But I don’t smoke,” said Lanark, turning away.

His main feeling now was of physical filth. The lavatory pan suddenly flushed and he examined it. The water looked and smelled pure. He undressed, wet a corner of a blanket and scrubbed himself hard all over. He draped a dry blanket round him like a toga, rinsed his underclothes several times in the pan and hung them on the rim to dry. He scraped with his nails the crust of vomit from the trouser leg and rubbed the place with the wettened blanket. The creased cloth offended him. Though thirsty he had only been able to empty one mug of cold tea. He spread the trousers on the platform and rubbed them steadily in small circles with the mug base, pressing down hard. He did this a long time without seeing an improvement, but whenever he stopped there was nothing else to do. The door opened and a policeman entered with a mug and a plate of rolls. He said, “What are you doing?”

“Pressing my trousers.”

The man collected the other mugs and plates. Lanark said, “When will I get out, please?”

“That’s up to the magistrate.”

“When will I see the magistrate?”

The policeman went outside, slamming the door. Lanark ate, drank the hot tea and thought, ‘The assembly has begun the work of the second day.’ He began pressing again. Whenever he stopped he felt so evil and useless, evil and trivial that he bit his hands till the pain was an excuse for screaming, though he did it quietly and undramatically. Another policeman brought lunch and Lanark said, “When will I see the magistrate?”

“The court sits tomorrow morning.”

“Could you take my underclothes please and hang them somewhere to dry?”

The policeman went out, laughing heartily. Lanark ate, drank, then walked in a circle, flapping the underpants in one hand, the vest in the other. He thought, ‘I suppose the assembly is discussing world order just now.’ A feeling of hatred grew in him, hatred of the assembly, the police and everyone who wasn’t in the cell with him. He decided that when he was released he would immediately piss on the police station steps, or smash a window, or set fire to a car. He bit his hands some more, then worked at pressing trousers and drying underclothes till long after the evening tea and rolls. He felt too restless to lie down, and when the underwear was only slightly damp he dressed, polished his shoes with the blanket and sat waiting for breakfast and the magistrates ‘court. He thought drearily, ‘Perhaps I’ll be in time for the pollution debate.’

And then he wakened with a headache, feeling filthy again. Three mugs of cold tea, three plates of rolls lay beside the platform. He thought, ‘My life is moving in circles. Will I always come back to this point?’ He didn’t feel wicked any more, only trivial and useless. Another policeman opened the door and said, “Outside. Come on. Outside.”