She returned to bed, scowled, ground her teeth and worked hard for a while, holding his hand tight; then she relaxed and cried desperately, “Tell her to stop this pain in my back!”
“Things must get worse before they get better,” said the nurse soothingly. She was drinking tea from a thermos flask.
“Ha!” snarled Rima. She thrust Lanark’s hand away, clenched her fists outside the covers and started working again, sweating hard. For a long time spells of fretful repose were followed by spells of silent, urgent, determined labour.
At last she raised her knees high, spread them wide and said sharply, “What’s happening?”
The nurse folded back the covers. Lanark leaned against the wall by the bed foot and stared into the red widening gash between Rima’s thighs. She gasped and cried, “My back! My back! What’s happening?”
“He’s coming. I can see the face,” said Lanark, for in the depth of the gash he seemed to see a squeezed-thin face emerging, six inches high and less than half an inch wide, the nose thin as a string and ending in an absurd little flap, the eyes on each side sunk in vertical creases. The mouth was a tight-pursed hole and the nurse kept sticking her finger in it, presumably to help it breathe. Then the mouth opened into an oval with something flat inside, and the oval grew and filled the whole gash, and the flatness was a dome coming out, and the dome was a head gripped by the nurse’s hand. Then the universe seemed to go slow and silent. In slow silence a small, pale-lavender, enraged little person was lifted up, dragging after him a meaty cable. He had a penis, and his elbows and knees were bent, and his fists and eyes clenched tight, and his aghast mouth was yelling a soundless scream of fury. Rima, whose face seemed to have been scrubbed by a storm, turned on him a slow smile of loving recognition. The small person flushed red, opened an eye, then another, and after some hiccups his scream wavered out into angry sound. The universe returned to the usual speed. The nurse gave the baby to Rima and told Lanark sternly, “Go and get two soup plates from the kitchen.”
“Why?”
“Do what you’re told.”
He ran along by the arches hearing sounds of a service from the cathedral floor. A remote ministerial voice was chanting, “My buird thou hast hanselled in face o’ my faes; thou drookest my heid wi’ ile, my bicker is fou an’ skailin….” Jack sat in the kitchen listening to Ritchie-Smollet, who was leaning on a table. “I would have advised more caution, but we’ve burned our boats and must abide the issue. Ah, Lanark! How are things with you?”
“Fine. Can I have two soup plates, please?”
“Congratulations! Boy or girl? How’s the mother?” asked Ritchie-Smollet, handing over plates from a pile.
“Thank you. A boy. She seems all right.”
“One has become two: the first and best miracle of all, eh? I hope you’ll allow me the privilege of christening the little chap.”
“I’ll mention it to his mother but she isn’t religious,” said Lanark going to the door.
“Are you sure of that? Never mind. Come back when you can and we’ll drink their health. I believe we’ve some cooking sherry in the larder.”
The cubicle seemed full of women. Rima suckled the baby, Frankie poured water from a kettle into a basin, the nurse seized the plates and said, “That’s fine, you can go now.”
“But—”
“We can hardly move as it is, there’s no room for you.”
He watched his son enviously for a moment then went slowly away, but not toward the kitchen, for he didn’t want company. He suddenly wanted to use himself vigorously, to run fast or climb high. He found a spiral stair near the organ loft and climbed quickly to another open walkway under the stars. It led through a chilling wind to another little door. He opened this and entered a large, dim, square, dusty room lit by hurricane lamps on the floor. A steep iron ladder slanted upward near the centre, and six Lugworm Casanovas lay smoking in sleeping bags along a wall. One of them said, “Shut it, man, nobody’s too hot in here.”
Lanark said, “Sorry,” closed the door and crossed to the ladder. Its rungs were cold and gritty with rust, it shuddered at each step. When the upper shadows hid him from the eyes below he climbed more slowly, not lifting a foot until both hands gripped a rung, not raising a hand till both feet were firmly placed. He came to a floor of narrow planks set an inch apart. Light shining up between them showed the foot of a steeper ladder. He climbed this more slowly than ever. In the wall before, to each side, and behind him, were huge windows barred by horizontal stone slats. He looked down through them onto the black cathedral roof edged with city lights. He stood on thin rungs high up in an old stone cage and listened to the faintly whistling breeze. With each extra step he tried to remember that the ladder was solid, and braced by an occasional rod against a wall that had stood for many centuries, and would probably not collapse suddenly without warning. At last he reached, not a floor, but a narrow metal bridge. Black machinery overhung it. He made out timber beams, a big wheel and a bell whose rim, when he stepped underneath, came down to his shoulders. He raised a hand to the massive clapper and carefully pushed it forward, meaning gently to touch the side, but the weight increased with the angle, he had to use unexpected force and the shock of contact bathed him in a sudden sonorous Dong. Half deafened, half intoxicated by the sound, he laughed aloud, let the clapper fall back and shoved it at the rim with both hands, ducked as it swung back again and then reached up again to hurl it forward. The detonation of the strokes grew inaudible. He felt only a great droning reverberating the bell, the bridge, his bones, the tower, the air. His arms were tired. He ducked out from under the bell and gripped a handrail for support, though at first the sound in it hurt his palms like an electric current.
The droning faded. He seemed to hear protesting cries from below and, ashamed of the noise he had made, climbed a ladder away from them. He came to a higher floor of wooden slats where the blackness was total, except for a chink of light below a door. He groped toward it, slid the bolt and went out onto a windy platform at the foot of the floodlit steeple. The racket from the intersection was audible again, sometimes louder, sometimes fainter. He wondered if this was caused by the blustering wind and stepped to the parapet facing the Necropolis, for the din seemed to come from behind it. The highest monuments were silhouetted against a pulsing glow in the sky. Wedges of shadow moved over this like the arms of a windmill. The yattering noise sank to a dull stutter, hesitated, coughed and stopped. The majestic beams of shadow swept the sky in silence for a while, then suddenly widened as the glow faded. The main light now was cast by the great lamp standards on the motorway. A remote mechanical braying began and came swiftly nearer. A line of red fire engines with braying sirens appeared round a curving bridge from the intersection and sped down the gorge between Necropolis and cathedral. The air began filling with traffic sounds. Lanark walked round the platform to the far side of the tower and looked down onto the square. A couple of trucks rumbled across it pulling trailers with metal wreckage on them; then a trickle of cars began flowing in the opposite direction. A mobile crane drove through a gateway to the cathedral grounds, crossed the stones of the old graveyard and parked against a wall. Lanark suddenly felt his chilled ears, hands and body and returned to the door in the spire.
Coming down on the ladders he found the light from below much stronger than before. The room where the Lugworms had lain was lit by bulbs hung from improvised brackets. Two electricians were working near the door and one of them said, “A bloke was looking for you, Jimmy.”
“Who was he?”
“A young bloke. Long hair.”
“What did he want?”
“He didnae say.”
Near the cubicle he heard a strange, steady little song. Sludden lay on the bed singing “Dadadada” and dandling a robust little boy in a blue woollen suit. Rima, in a blouse and skirt, sat knitting beside them. The sight filled Lanark with a large cold rage. Rima gave him an unfriendly glance and Sludden said brightly, “The w
anderer returns!”
Lanark went to the tiny sink, washed his hands, then turned to Sludden and said, “Give him to me.”
He took the child, who started wailing. “Oh, put him down!” said Rima impatiently. “He needs a rest and so do I.”
Lanark sat on the bed foot and sang quietly, “Dadadada.” The boy stopped complaining and settled in his arms. The small compact body was warm and comforting and gave such a pleasant feeling of peace that Lanark wondered uneasily if this was a right thing for a father to feel. He laid the boy in a pram by the bed and tucked a soft blanket round him.
Sludden stood up and stretched his arms, saying, “Great! That’s really great. I came here for several reasons, of course, but one is to congratulate you on your performance. Don’t sneer at him, Rima, he’s a good committee man when he accepts discipline. He jostled Gow, and that allowed us to act. The committee is in permanent session now. I don’t mean we’re all in the chapterhouse all the time, but some of us are in the chapterhouse all the time.”
Lanark said, “Listen, Sludden, I want the company of my wife and child. Do you understand me?”
“Of course!” said Sludden cheerily. “I’m just leaving. I’ll come back for you all later.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sludden has offered us room in his house,” said Rima.
“We’re not taking it.”
“I don’t want to force anything on you,” said Sludden. “But this seems a strange place to bring up a child.”
“Unthank is dead and done for, don’t you realize that?” cried Lanark. “The boy and Rima and I are leaving for a much brighter city. Wilkins promised us.”
“Don’t trust your council friends too far,” said Sludden gravely.
“We’ve cleared the motorway, the food trucks are rolling in again. And even if Wilkins did tell the truth, you’re forgetting differences in timescale. The decimal calendar hasn’t been introduced here and what the council calls days can be months—years, where we’re concerned. And remember, Alexander was born here. You have a council passport. He hasn’t.”
“Who is Alexander?”
Sludden pointed to the pram. Rima said, “Ritchie-Smollet christened him that.”
Lanark jumped up shouting, “Christened?”
Alexander started crying. “Shushush,” whispered Rima, reaching for the pram handle and gently rocking it. “Shushushush.” “Why Alexander?” whispered Lanark furiously. “Why couldn’t you wait for me? Why the bloody hurry?”
“We waited as long as we could—why didn’t you come when we called?”
“You never called me!”
“We did. Jack went to the tower when you started your row and shouted up the ladder, but you wouldn’t come down.” “I didn’t know that was Jack shouting,” said Lanark, confused. “Were you drunk?” asked Rima.
“Of course not. You’ve never seen me drunk.”
“Perhaps, but you often act that way. And Ritchie-Smollet says a bottle of cooking sherry has vanished from the kitchen.”
“I’m leaving,” said Sludden with a chuckle. “Outsiders should never mix in a lovers’ quarrel. I’ll see you later.”
“Thank you,” said Lanark. “We’ll manage by ourselves.” Sludden shrugged and left. Alexander gradually fell asleep.
Rima sat with tight-shut lips, knitting hard. Lanark lay on the bed with hands behind his head and said gloomily, “I didn’t want to leave you. And I didn’t think I was long.”
“You were away for hours—ages, it seemed to me. You’ve no sense of time. None at all.”
“Alexander is quite a good name. We can shorten it to Alex. Or Sandy.”
“He’s called Alexander.”
“What are you knitting?”
“Clothes. Children need clothes, hadn’t you noticed? We can’t always live on Ritchie-Smollet’s charity.”
“If Sludden is right about calendars,” Lanark mused, “we’ll be a long time in this place. I’ll have to look for work.”
“So you’re going to leave me alone again. I see. Why did you ring that bell? Are you sure you weren’t drunk?”
“I rang it because I was happy then. Why are you attacking me?”
“To defend myself.”
“I’m sorry I shouted at you, Rima. I was surprised and angry. I’m very glad to be back with you.”
“Yes, it’s easy for you to live in a box, you can run off to your towers and committee meetings whenever you like. When will I get some freedom?”
“Whenever you need it.”
“And you’ll stay here and look after Alex?”
“Of course. That’s only fair.”
Rima sighed and then smiled and rolled up her knitting. She came to the bed, kissed him quickly on the brow, then went to the chest of drawers and peered at her face in a mirror.
Lanark said, “Are you leaving already?”
“Yes, Lanark. I really do need a change.”
She made up her mouth with lipstick. Lanark said, “Who gave you that?”
“Frankie. We’re going dancing. We’re going to get ourselves picked up by a couple of young young young boys. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not if you only dance with them.”
“Oh, but we’ll flirt with them too. We’ll madden them with desire. Middle-aged women need to madden somebody some times.”
“You aren’t middle-aged.”
“I’m no chicken, anyway. When Alex wakens you can change his nappy—there’s a clean one in the top drawer. Put the dirty one in the plastic bag under the bed. If he cries you must heat some milk in the kitchen—not too hot, mind. Test it with your finger.”
“Aren’t you breastfeeding him?”
“Yes, but he has to learn to drink like an ordinary human being. But I’ll probably be back before he wakens. How do I look?”
She posed before him, hands on hips. He said, “Very young. Very beautiful.”
She kissed him warmly and left. He lay back on the bed, missing her, and fell asleep.
He was wakened by Alexander crying so he changed his nappy and carried him to the kitchen. Jack and Frankie were eating a meal at a table there. Frankie said, “Hullo, passionate man. How’s Rima?”
He stared at her, confused, and blushed hotly. He muttered, “Gone for a walk. The boy needs milk.”
“I’ll make him a bottle.”
Lanark strayed round the kitchen murmuring nonsense to Alexander, for there was a strange appalling pain in his chest and he didn’t want to talk to adults. Frankie handed him a warm bottle with teat folded in a white napkin. He muttered some thanks and went back to the cubicle. He sat on the bed and held the teat to Alexander’s mouth but Alexander twisted aside, screaming, “NononononoMumumumum!”
“She’ll be back soon, Sandy.”
“NononononononononononoMumumumumumumumumum!” Alexander kept screaming and Lanark walked the floor with him. He felt he was carrying a dwarf who kept hitting him on the head with a stick, a dwarf he could neither disarm nor put down. People in neighbouring cubicles began banging their walls, then a man came in and said, “There are folk trying to sleep in this building, Jimmy.”
“I can’t help that, and I’m not called Jimmy.”
The man was tall and bald with white stubble on his cheeks, a single black tooth in his upper jaw, and wore a dirty grey raincoat. He stared at Lanark for a while then pulled a brown bottle from his pocket and said, “Milk’s no use. Give him a slug of this—it’s a great quietener.”
“No.”
“Then take a slug yourself.”
“No.”
The man sighed, squatted on a stool and said, “Tell me your woes.”
“I have no woes!” yelled Lanark who was too plagued to think. Alexander was screaming “Mumumumumumumumumum!”
“If it’s woman trouble,” said the man, “I can advise you because I was married once. I had a wife who did terrible things, things I cannae mention in the presence of a wean. You see, women are diffe
rent from us. They’re seventy-five percent water. You can read that in Pavlov.”
Alexander fastened his gums on the teat and started sucking. Lanark sighed with relief. After a moment he said, “Men are mostly water too.”
“Yes, but only seventy percent. The extra five percent makes the difference. Women have notions and feelings like us but they’ve got tides too, tides that keep floating the bits of a human being together inside them and washing it apart again. They’re governed by lunar gravity; you can read that in Newton. How can they follow ordinary notions of decency when they’re driven by the moon?”
Lanark laid Alexander in the pram with the bottle beside him and gently rocked the handle.
The man said, “I was ignorant when I was married. I hadnae read Newton, I hadnae read Pavlov, so I kicked the bitch out—pardon the language, I am referring to my wife. I wish now that I’d cut my throat instead. Do me a favour, pal. Give yourself a holiday. Have a drink.”
Lanark glanced at the brown bottle held toward him, then took it and swigged. The taste was horrible. He passed it back, trying to say thank you, but there were tears in his eyes and he could only gulp and pull faces. A warm stupidity began to spread softly through him. He heard the man say, “You have to like women but not care for them: not care what they do, I mean. Nobody can help what they do. We do as things do with us.” “What is for us,” said Lanark, with a feeling of profound understanding, “will not go past us.”
“A hundred years from now,” said the man, “it’ll all be the same.”
Lanark heard Alexander asking sadly, “When will she come?”
“Soon, son. Very soon.”
“When is soon?”
“Near to now but not now.”
“I need her now.”
“Then you need her badly. You must try to need her properly.”
“What is proply?”
“Silently. Silence is always proper. When I understand this better I’ll stop talking. You won’t be able to hear me for miles. I will radiate silence like a dark star shining in the gaps between syllables and conversation.”
“You’re ignoring politics,” said the man aggressively. “Politics depend on noise. All parties subscribe to that opinion, if to no other.”
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