Do you remember when I was pregnant, and said I wanted a girl, and you said you wanted a boy so that someone would like the baby? You’ve always tried to
balance
me as if I were a badly floating boat. You’ve brought no joy to my happiness or sorrow to my misery, you’ve made me the loneliest woman in the world. I don’t love Sludden
more
than you, but life with him seems open and free. I’m sure Alex will benefit too. Sludden plays with him. You would only explain things to him.” Lanark said nothing. She said, “But we enjoyed ourselves sometimes, didn’t we? You’ve been a friend to me—I’m not sorry I met you.”
“When can I visit Sandy?”
“I thought you were going away to Provan soon.”
“Not if Sandy isn’t going.”
“If you phone us first you can come anytime. Frankie has the number and the address. We’ll be needing a babysitter.”
“Tell Sandy I’ll see him soon and I’ll visit him often. Goodbye.” She stood, lifted the case, hesitated and said, “I’m sure you would be happier if you complained more about things.”
“Would complaining make you like me and want to stay? No, it would make it easier for you to leave. So don’t think—”
He stopped with open mouth, for heavy grief came swelling up his throat till it broke out in loud, dry choking sobs like big hiccups or the slow ticking of a wooden clock. Wetness flooded his eyes and cheeks. He stretched a hand toward her and she said softly, “Poor Lanark! You really are suffering,” and went softly out and softly closed the door behind her. Eventually the sobbing stopped. He lay flat with a leaden weight in his chest. He thought wistfully of getting drunk or smashing furniture, but all activity seemed too tiring. The leaden weight kept him flat on his back till he fell asleep.
Later someone laid a hand on his shoulder and he opened his eyes sharply saying, “Rima?”
Frankie stood by the bed with food on a tray. He sighed and thanked her and she watched him eat. She said, “I’ve taken your clothes away—they were terribly dirty. But there’s a new suit and underthings laid out for you downstairs in the vestry.”
“Oh.”
“I think you need a shave and a haircut. Jack was a barber, once. Will I ask him to see to it?”
“No.”
“Can Sludden speak to you?”
He stared at her.
She flushed and said, “I mean, if he comes to see you, you won’t lose your temper or attack him, will you?”
“I certainly won’t lose my dignity because I’m faced by someone with none of his own.”
She giggled and said, “Good. I’ll tell him that.”
She removed the tray and later Sludden entered and sat by the bed, saying, “How do you feel?”
“I don’t like you, Sludden, but the only people I do like depend on you. Tell me what you want.”
“Yes, in a minute. I’m glad you agreed to see me, but of course I knew you would. What Rima and I admire in you is your instinctive self-control. That makes you a very, very valuable man.”
“Tell me what you want, Sludden.”
“We’re sensible modern men, after all, not knights who’ve been jousting for the love of a fair lady. I dare say the fair lady picked you up somewhere, but you were too weighty for her so she dropped you and picked me up instead. I’m a lightweight. Women enjoy lifting me. But you’re made of sterner stuff, which is why I’m here.”
“Please tell me what you want.”
“I want you to stop pitying yourself and get out of bed. I want you to do a difficult, important job. The committee sent me here. They ask you to go to Provan and speak for Unthank in the general assembly of council states.”
“You’re joking!” said Lanark, sitting up. Sludden said nothing.
“Why should they ask me?”
“We want someone who’s been through the institute and knows the council corridors. You’ve worked for Ozenfant. You’ve spoken to Monboddo.”
“I’ve quarrelled with the first and I don’t like the second.”
“Good. Stand up in Provan and denounce them for us. We don’t want to be represented by a diplomat now, we want someone tactless, someone who will tell delegates from other states exactly what is happening here. Use your nose and take back some of our stink to its source.”
Lanark sniffed. The air had an unpleasant familiar smell. He said, “Send Grant. He understands politics.”
“Nobody trusts Grant. He understands politics, yes, but he wants to change them.”
“Ritchie-Smollet.”
“He doesn’t understand politics at all. He believes everyone he meets is honestly doing their best.”
“Gow.”
“Gow owns shares in Cortexin, the company that fouled us up. He makes belligerent noises but he would only pretend to fight the council.”
“And you?”
“If I left the city for more than a week our administration would collapse. There would be nobody in control but a lot of civil servants who want to clear out as soon as they can. We’re under very strong attack, inside and out.”
“So I’ve been chosen because nobody else trusts one another,” said Lanark. An intoxicating excitement began to fill him and he frowned to hide it. He saw himself on a platform, or maybe a pedestal, casting awe over a vast assembly with a few simple, forceful words about truth, justice and brotherhood. He said suddenly, “How would I get to Provan?”
“By air.”
“But do I cross a zone, I mean an incaldrical zone, I mean—”
“An intercalendrical zone? Yes, you do.”
“Won’t that age me a lot?”
“Probably.”
“I’m not going. I want to stay near Sandy. I want to help him grow up.”
“I understand that,” said Sludden gravely. “But if you love your son—if you love Rima—you’ll work for them in Provan.”
“My family isn’t in the danger area now. It’s living with you.” Sludden smiled painfully, stood up and walked the floor of the cubicle. He said, “I will tell you something only one other person knows. You’ll have to be quiet about it till you reach Provan, but then you must tell the world. The whole of the Greater Unthank region is in danger, and not just from a typhoid epidemic, though that is probable too. Mrs. Schtzngrm has analyzed a sample of the poison—two firemen died getting it for her—and she says it has begun filtering down through the Permian layer. As you probably know, the continents, though not continuous with it, are floating on a superdense mass of molten—”
“Don’t blind me with science, Sludden.”
“If the pollution isn’t cleared up we’re going to have tremors and subsidences in the earth’s crust.”
“Something must be done!” cried Lanark, aghast.
“Yes. The knowledge of what to do belongs to the institute. The machinery to do it belongs to the creature. Only the council can force them to act together.”
“I’ll go,” said Lanark quietly, and mainly to himself. “But first I must see the boy.”
“Get dressed in the vestry and I’ll take you to him,” said Sludden briskly. “And by the way, if you’ve no objection we’ll have you declared provost: Lord Provost of Greater Unthank. It doesn’t mean anything—I’ll still be senior executive officer—but you’ll be going among people with titles, and a title of your own helps to impress that kind.”
Lanark pulled on the old greatcoat like a dressing gown, thrust his bare feet into the mud-caked shoes and followed Sludden downstairs to the vestry. His feelings were pulled between a piercing sad love for Sandy and an excited love of his own importance as a provost and delegate. Nothing interrupted the colloquy between these two loves. A warm bath was ready for him, and afterward he sat in a bathrobe while Jack shaved and trimmed him and Frankie manicured his fingernails. He put on clean new underwear, socks, shirt, a dark blue necktie, and a three-piece suit of light grey tweed, and beautifully polished black shoes; then he withdrew to the lavatory, excreted into a plastic chamberpot fitted inside the lavatory pan and had the comfortable feeling that someone else was expected to empty it. There was a mirror above the blocked lavatory sink; a medicine cabinet with a mirror for a door hung on the wall facing it. By moving the door to an angle he managed to see himself in profile. Jack had removed the beard and trimmed the moustache. His greying hair, receding from the brow, swept into a bush behind the ears: the effect was impressive and statesmanlike. He placed his hands on his hips and said quietly, “When Lord Monboddo says that the council has done its best for Unthank he is lying to us—or has been lied to by others.”
He returned to the vestry and Sludden escorted him out to a long black car by the cathedral door. They climbed into the back seat and Sludden said, “Home, Angus,” to the chauffeur.
They sped swiftly through the city and Lanark was too occupied with himself to notice much, except when the pervading stink grew unusually strong as the car crossed the riverbed by a splendid new concrete bridge. Heaps of bloated black plastic bags were scattered across the cracked mud. Sludden said glumly, “Nowhere else to dump them.”
“On television you said these bags were odour-proof.”
“They are, but they burst easily.”
They came to a private housing scheme of neat little identical bungalows, each with a small garden in front and a garage alongside. The car stopped at one with a couple of old-fashioned ornamental iron lampposts outside the gate. Sludden led the way to the front door and fumbled awhile for his key. Lanark’s heart beat hard thinking he would meet Rima again. Through an uncurtained plate-glass window on one side he saw into a firelit sitting room where four people sat sipping coffee at a low table before the hearth. Lanark recognized one of them.
He said, “Gilchrist is in there!”
“Good. I invited him.”
“But Gilchrist is on the side of the council!”
“Not on the sanitary question. He’s on our side on that, and it’s important to present a broad front when dealing with journalists. Don’t worry, he’s a great fan of yours.”
They entered a small lobby. Sludden took a note from a telephone stand, read it and frowned. He said, “Rima’s gone out. Alex will be upstairs in the television room. I suppose you’d prefer to see him first.”
“Yes.”
“Go through the first door on your right at the top.”
He climbed a narrow, thick-carpeted stair and quietly opened a door. The room he entered was small and had three armchairs facing a television set in the corner. Two dolls wearing different kinds of soldier uniform lay on the floor among a litter of plastic toy weapons. A table had a monopoly game spread on it and some drawings on sheets of paper. Alexander sat on the arm of the middle chair, stroking a cat curled on the seat and watching the television screen. Without turning he said, “Hullo, Rima,” and then, glancing round, “Hullo.” “Hullo, Sandy.”
Lanark went to the table and looked at the drawings. He said, “What are these?”
“A walking flower, a crane lifting a spider over a wall, and a space invasion by a lot of different aliens. Would you like to sit down and watch television with me?”
“Yes.”
Alexander shoved the cat off the seat and Lanark sat down. Alexander leaned against him and they watched a film like the film Lanark had seen in Macfee’s mohome, but the people killing each other in it were soldiers, not road users. Alexander said, “Don’t you like films about killing?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Films about killing are my favourites. They’re very real, aren’t they?”
“Sandy. I’m going to leave this city for a long time.”
“Oh.”
“I wish I could stay.”
“Mum said you would come and see me often. She doesn’t mind us being friends.”
“I know. When I told her I would visit you often I didn’t know I would have to go away.”
“Oh.”
Lanark felt tears behind his eyes and realized his mouth was straining to girn aloud. He felt it would be horrible for a boy to remember a pitiable father and turned his face away and hardened the muscles of it to keep the grief inside. Alexander had turned his face to the television set. Lanark got up and moved clumsily to the door. He said, “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
“I’ve always liked you. I always will like you.”
“Good,” said Alexander, staring at the screen. Lanark went outside, sat on the stairs and rubbed his face hard with both hands. Sludden appeared at the foot and said, “I’m sorry but the press are in a hurry.”
“Sludden, will you look after him properly?”
Sludden climbed some steps toward him and said, “Don’t worry! I know I played around a lot when I was younger but I’ve always liked Rima and I’m past wanting a change. Alex will be safe with me. I
need
a home life nowadays.”
Lanark looked hard into Sludden’s face. The shape seemed the same but the substance had changed. This was the eager, slightly desperate face of a burdened and caring man. With a pang of pity Lanark knew Sludden would have very little domestic peace with Rima. Lanark said, “I don’t want to talk to journalists.”
“Don’t worry. Just appearing to them is the main thing.”
A shaded lamp on the mantelpiece cast an oval of soft light on the small group before the hearth. Sludden, Gilchrist, a quiet-looking man and a reckless-looking man sat on a long leather sofa facing the fire. A grey-haired lady Lanark had seen in the chapterhouse sat on an armchair with a briefcase on her lap. Lanark pushed his own chair as far back into the shadow as possible. Sludden said, “These two gentlemen fully understand the situation. They’re on our side, so there’s no need to worry.”
The quiet man said quietly, “We aren’t interested in the detailed character stuff. We just want to convey that the right man has been found for the right job.”
“A new figure strides into the political arena,” said the reckless man. “Where does he come from?”
“From Unthank,” said Sludden. “He and I were close friends in our early days. We hung about sowing our wild oats with the same bohemian crowd, measuring out our life with coffee spoons and trying to find a meaning. I did nothing at all in those days but Lanark, to his credit, produced one of the finest fragments of autobiographical prose
and
social commentary it has been my privilege to criticize.”
“No use to our readers,” said the reckless man. The quiet man said, “We can use it. What happened then?”
“He entered the institute and worked with Ozenfant. Although a mainstay of the energy division, his qualities were
not
appreciated and eventually, sickened by bureaucratic ineptitude, he returned to Unthank: but not before registering a strong personal protest to the lord president director.”