Lanark: a life in 4 books (83 page)

He stepped into the cavity, sat down and straightened his legs. The space lengthened and narrowed to fit him. He lay staring up at a circle of cream-coloured ceiling surrounded by blackness. He heard Monboddo murmur “Bon voyage,” and a round black shape slid sideways across the circle of ceiling and eclipsed it with a low clang. Then the space he lay in dropped.

The drop was a long down-rushing swoop stopped by a jarring jerk. Then came another drop. With an indrawn scream he knew he was going down the great gullet again. The tiny office, the great round table, Provan, Greater Unthank, Alexander, cathedral, Rima, Zone, council corridors, institute had been a brief rest from the horror of endless falling. Monboddo had tricked him back into it. He screamed with hatred. He pissed with panic. He writhed and his face came out into a rush of milky mist. He was plunging downward in the bird-machine. The panic changed. He was the mind of this bird, an old bird in poor repair. Each wingstroke tore out feathers he needed for landing and the land was far below. He kept falling as far as he dared, then levelling in a thrash of pinions which thinned and flew back like darts. His bald breast and sides were freezing in the fall. The misty air thinned to black and the black map of a city lay below, the streets dotted lines of light. Bits of the map were on fire. A big red flower of flame drew him down to it. He saw a flaming glass tower, a square of statues, engines and seething heads; he heard roaring and sirens, tried to level and crashed sideways on cracking wings through sparks, heat and choking smoke where a great dim column swung at him, missed, swung away and swung back like a mace to strike him down.

He woke, sore and bandaged, in bed with a tube running into his arm. He lay there dreaming and dozing and hardly thinking at all. He assumed he was in the institute again but the ward had windows with darkness outside them, and the beds were packed together with hardly a foot of space between. The patients were all very old. All cleaning and some nursing was done by those fit enough to walk, for there was a very small staff. The light fittings were peculiar. Electric globes hung from the ceiling by slim rods which were parallel to each other but slanted toward a corner of the ward. When a nurse took the tube from his arm and changed the bandages he said, “Is the hospital sloping?”

“So you’ve found your tongue at last.”

“Is the hospital sloping?”

“If that was all, we’d be laughing.”

The meals were mainly beans and this pleased him, though he couldn’t remember why. The doctor was a hurried, haggard, unshaven man in a dirty smock. He said, “Have you any friends, old man?”

“I used to have.”

“Where can we contact them?”

“They used to hang around the cathedral.”

“Were you one of Smollet’s mob?”

“I knew Ritchie-Smollet, yes. I knew Sludden too.”

“Best not to mention that, Sludden is far from popular at present. But well find if Smollet can take you. We have to evacuate this place, there’s going to be another shock. What’s your name?”

“Lanark.”

“A common name in these parts. We had a provost called that once. He wasn’t much good.”

Lanark slept and wakened to screams and shouting. He was sweating and sticky. The air was very hot and the ward was empty except for a bed in a far corner; an old woman sat in it crying, “They shouldn’t leave us here, it isn’t right.” A soldier came in, looking carefully round, avoided the old woman’s eye and edged toward Lanark between the empty beds. He was a tall man with a sullen, handsome, slightly babyish face and did not seem to be carrying a weapon. His only insignia was a badge on his beret shaped like a hand with an eye in the palm. He stood looking down at Lanark, then sat on the edge of the bed and said, after a moment, “Hullo, Dad.”

Lanark whispered “Sandy?” and smiled and touched his hand. He felt very happy. The soldier said, “We’ve got to get out of here. The foundation is cracked.”

He opened the bedside locker, took out trousers, jacket and shoes and helped Lanark into them, saying, “I wish you’d kept in touch with us.”

“I didn’t know how.”

“You could have written or phoned.”

“I never seemed to have time. Yet I did no good, Sandy. I changed nothing.”

“Of course you changed nothing. The world is only improved by people who do ordinary jobs and refuse to be bullied. Nobody can persuade owners to share with makers when makers won’t shift for themselves.”

“I could never understand politics. How do you live, Sandy?”

“I report for movers and menders.”

“What kind of work is that?”

“We have to hurry, Dad. Are you able to stand?”

Lanark managed to stand, though his knees trembled. The old woman in the corner bed wailed, “Son, could you help me too, son?”

“Wait here! Help is coming!” shouted Alexander fiercely. He took Lanark’s right arm over his shoulder, gripped him round the waist and moved him toward the door, cursing below his breath. They were labouring uphill for the slope of the floor was against them. The screams and yelling grew louder. Alexander halted and said, “Listen, you used to be a sentimental man in some ways, so shut your eyes when you get out of here. Some things are happening which we just can’t help.”

“Anything you say son,” said Lanark, closing his eyes. The arm round his waist gave such a strong feeling of happiness and safety that he started chuckling.

He was helped down many stairs amid loud crying and across a space where his ankles brushed past fingertips and then, though the air was no cooler, an uproar of voices and running feet suggested they were outside. He opened his eyes. The sight threw him off balance and he lost more balance trying to recover it. Alexander held him up, saying, “Steady, Dad.” A great loose crowd, much of it children shepherded by women, slid and stumbled down a hillside toward a wide-open gate. But the hillside was a city square. The slanting lamp-standards lighting the scene, the slanting buildings on each side, the slanting spire of the nearby cathedral showed the whole landscape was tilted like a board.

“What happened?” cried Lanark.

“Subsidence,” said Alexander, carrying him with the crowd. “There’s going to be another soon, a bad one. Hurry.”

Whenever Lanark’s feet touched the ground he felt a vibration like a continuous electric shock. It seemed to strengthen his legs. He began moving almost briskly, chuckling and saying, “I like this.”

“Jesus Christ,” muttered Alexander.

“Do I sound senile, Sandy? I’m not. This gate leads to the graveyard, the Necropolis, doesn’t it?”

“We’ll be safer away from the buildings.”

“I know this graveyard well, Sandy. So did your mother. I could tell you a lot about it. This bridge we’re coming to, for instance, had a tributary of the river flowing under it once.” “Shut up and keep
moving
, Dad.”

In the dim cemetery folk crouched on the grass plots or dispersed up the many little paths. From the height of the hill a loudspeaker was telling people to keep clear of high monuments. Alexander said, “Rima should be up at the top, can you go on?”

“Yes, yes!” said Lanark excitedly. “Yes, we must all get to the top, there’s going to be a flood, a huge immense deluge.” “Don’t be stupid, Dad.”

“I’m not stupid. Someone told me everything would end in a deluge; he was very very definite about it. Yes, we must go as high as possible, if only for the view.”

As they climbed the steep little paths Lanark felt more and more energetic and cheerful. He tried to skip a little.

“Are you married, Sandy?”

“Steady, Dad, I wish you’d call me by my full name. No, I’m not married. I’ve a daughter, if that’s any consolation.”

“It is! It is! Will she be at the top of the hill too?”

“No, she’s in a safer place than this, thank goodness. Do you hear the guns?”

There was a distant snapping sound.

“How can men fight like that at a time like this?” said Lanark, his voice squeaky with indignation.

“The Corquantal Galaxy are trying to liquidate their Unthank plant but Makers, Movers and Menders backed Defence Command in supporting the One-Wagers against them, so the council rump have sent in the Cocquigrues.”

“I understand none of that. What are Cocquigrues?”

“I’ll tell you when there’s time.”

Buildings burned in the city below. The glossy walls of the tower blocks reflected flickering glares upon a small knot of people between the monuments and the summit. Lanark couldn’t see them clearly because tears came to his eyes. It struck him that Rima must be an old woman now and the thought was an unexpected pain. He muttered “Must sit” and settled on the edge of a granite slab. The vibration through it irritated his backside. He made out a nearby knot of men wearing armbands and stooping over an old-fashioned radio transmitter. Beside them a stout woman in a black dress waved to Alexander, then came over and laid a hand on Lanark’s shoulder. He gazed up, astonished, into her large-eyed, large-nosed face with small straight childishly serious mouth. Though a little weary, and the glossy hair slightly streaked with grey, this seemed exactly the face he had first seen in the Elite Cafe. He said, “You aren’t Rima?”

She laughed and said, “You always found it hard to recognize me. You’ve grown old, Lanark, but I knew you at once.” Lanark smiled and said, “You’ve grown fat.”

“She’s pregnant,” said Alexander glumly. “At
her
age”.

“You don’t know my age,” said Rima sharply and added, “I’m sorry I can’t introduce you to Horace, Lanark, but he refuses to meet you. He’s an idiot sometimes.”

“Who is Horace?”

Alexander said dourly, “Someone who doesn’t want to meet you. And a rotten wireless operator.”

Lanark stood up. The vibration in the ground had become a strong, almost audible throbbing and Rima said tensely, “I’m frightened, Alex, don’t be nasty to me.”

The throbbing stopped. In a great quietness the hot air seemed to scald the skin. Lanark felt so heavy that he crashed on his knees to the ground, then so light that he rose in the air. When he came down again the ground was not where he expected. He lay listening to rumbling and shouting and looked at the firelit pinnacle of an obelisk; it leaned so far over him that he knew it must crack or topple. He got heavy, then light again, and this time only his head left the ground and fell back with a thump which dazed him slightly. When he next saw the obelisk it pointed perfectly upright and the glow on it was very strong.

“Tell me what’s happening, please,” said Rima. She lay curled on the ground with her hands over her eyes. Everybody lay on the ground except Alexander, who knelt beside the radio transmitter earnestly turning knobs.

“The ground is level again,” said Lanark, getting up, “and the fire is spreading.”

“Is it horrible?”

“It’s wonderful. It’s universal. You should look.”

Behind the burning building was a great band of ruddy light with clouds rising into it from collapsed and collapsing roofs. There were no other lights. “First the fire, then the flood!” cried Lanark exultingly, “Well, I have had an interesting life.”

“You’re as selfish as ever!” shrieked Rima.

“Be quiet, I’m trying to contact Defence Command,” said Alexander.

“Nothing can be defended now, I hear the water coming,” said Lanark. There was a faraway rushing mingled with faint squeals. He hobbled between two monuments to the edge of a slope and gazed eagerly down, holding himself erect by a branch of a twisty thorn tree.

A blast of cold wind freshened the air. The rushing grew to surges and gurglings and up the low road between Necropolis and cathedral sped a white foam followed by ripples and plunging waves with gulls swooping and crying over them. He laughed aloud, following the flood with his mind’s eye back to the river it flowed from, a full river widening to the ocean. His cheek was touched by something moving in the wind, a black twig with pointed little pink and grey-green buds. The colours of things seemed to be brightening although the fiery light over the roofs had paled to silver streaked with delicate rose. A long silver line marked the horizon. Dim rooftops against it grew solid in the increasing light. The broken buildings were fewer than he had thought. Beyond them a long faint bank of cloud became clear hills, not walling the city in but receding, edge behind pearl-grey edge of farmland and woodland gently rising to a faraway ridge of moor. The darkness overheard shifted and broke in the wind becoming clouds with blue air between. He looked sideways and saw the sun coming up golden behind a laurel bush, light blinking, space dancing among the shifting leaves. Drunk with spaciousness he turned every way, gazing with wide-open mouth and eyes as light created colours, clouds, distances and solid, graspable things close at hand. Among all this light the flaming buildings seemed small blazes which would soon burn out. With only mild disappointment he saw the flood ebbing back down the slope of the road.

Rima came beside him and said teasingly, “Wrong again, Lanark.”

He nodded, sighed, and said, “Rima, did you ever love me?” She laughed, held him and kissed his cheek. She said, “Of course I did, even though you kept driving me away so nastily and so often. They’ve started shooting again.”

They stood awhile listening to the snapping and crackings. She said, “Defence command have called Alex over to maintenance. It’s very urgent, but he says he’ll come back for you as soon as he can. You’re to stay here and not worry if he’s late.”

“Good.”

“I’m sorry you can’t come with me, but Horace is an idiot sometimes. Why should a young man like him be jealous of you?”

“I don’t know.”

She laughed, kissed his cheek and went away.

After a while he hobbled back to the space between the monuments and sat once again on the edge of the granite slab. He was tired and chilly but perfectly content to wait. There was nobody about, but after a while he heard the crunch of a foot on gravel. A figure approached him wearing the black and white clothes and carrying the silver-tipped staff of a chamberlain. Lanark had trouble focusing on the face under the wig: sometimes it seemed to be Munro, sometimes Gloopy. He said, “Munro? Gloopy?”