Lanark: a life in 4 books (17 page)

“A specialist told me nobody is ever cured.”

Noakes glanced furtively at Rima and said in a low voice, “That specialist is employed to do what others try to prevent. Her view of our curative functions is necessarily pessimistic.”

“If all that is true, why warn folk against it at all?”

Noakes sat upright and said strongly, “Because it is mad with greed and spreading like cancer, because it is fouling the continents and destroying the handiwork of God! It is horrible for a priest to confess this, but sometimes I care less for those the institute eats than for the plants, beasts, pure air and water it destroys. I have nightmares of a world where nothing exists outside our corridors and everyone is a member of the staff. We eat worms grown in bottles. Between meals we perform Beethoven’s Choral Symphony for hours on end with Ozenfant conducting, while the viewing screens show ancient colour films of naked adolescents dancing through flowers and sunlight that no longer exist.”

Rima stopped eating and Lanark stared fearfully at the window. A dazzling sun rested on the horizon of a sea of clouds with an eagle speeding across it. Lanark pointed and said, “That is not? That is not a…?”

Noakes wiped his brow and said, “That is not a film. What I dread has not yet happened.”

He shut his suitcase and stood up, saying, “My health is poor. I embarrass you and embarrass myself. God bless you, my children.”

With thumb and forefinger he sketched a cross in the air above their heads and hurried out in a posture so like someone escaping that it would have been brutal to shout thank you or good-bye. Rima said, “Do you think he’s mad?”

“No. He’s been too decent.”

“Yes, he’s sweet, but I bet
he
never cures anyone.”

The nurses brought lunch and were told to take it away and not bring food again. Lanark and Rima ate a quarter of the salami, a little cheese and a few figs; then he helped her walk to the lavatory, where she bathed and he washed her back. They returned to bed and drank cherry brandy and kissed drowsily. The silver was starting to glow under her skin when he thought of something and said, “Rima, in the ignition chamber you sometimes called me Thaw.”

She pondered and said finally, “Yes, I dreamed a lot of strange things in that armour. You were called Thaw, or Coulter, and we stood on a bridge at night with the moon above us and an old man watching from among some trees. You wanted to kill me. I don’t remember the rest.”

“I wonder how I could discover more.”

“Why bother? Aren’t we happy, when we don’t quarrel?”

“Yes, but I’ll have to work soon and I’ve forgotten what I’m able to do. I should have asked Noakes if there was a way of learning about life before Unthank.”

“Call him on the radio.”

“No, I’ll call Munro. I’ve more confidence in Munro.”

He was linked to Munro with surprising speed and said, “I called to tell you we’re all right: we’ve our own supply of food.”

“Quite so. Is that your only reason for calling?”

“No. I’m wondering about the past, you see I can’t remember it ….”

There was crackling and a smooth voice said, “These are the archives. May I help?”

“I’m trying to find out about my past. My name is Lanark….” There was a loud whirring then the voice spoke in a quick monotone: “You reached Unthank on the 3rd day of the 10th month of the 1956th solar year of the Nazarene calendar. Calling yourself Lanark you attended the central social security office, were registered as a dragon and awarded 8 pounds, 19 shillings, and 6 pence. You lodged with Bella Fleck, 738 Ashfield Street, Unthank N. 2 for 30 days and then applied for admission to the institute. You were delivered in human form on the 75th day of the 4999th decimal year from the foundation and on the 80th became a junior assistant to Professor Ozenfant in the energy division. Your talent was vitiated by acts of aimless violence. On the 85th you interrupted a recording session, insulted the catalyst, blocked the current and shattered a viewing lens. Your relocation is scheduled for the 88th subject to confirmation by Lord Monboddo, director of the institute, moderator of the expansion project and president of the council.”

There was a brief, unexpectedly noisy fanfare of trumpets.

Lanark said irritably, “I know that. I want to learn what I did
before
I came to Unthank.”

“You reached Unthank through water, which is outwith the jurisdiction of the council. Do you wish to consult an oracle?” “Of course, if that will help.”

The cool white plastic of the little radio went red hot. Lanark dropped it on the coverlet, Rima screamed, he brushed it with his sleeve to the floor, it exploded with a loud bang.

The space round the bed was dim with blue smoke which hurt the eyes. Rima lay staring at him. He pulled his scorched fingers from his mouth and asked if she was all right, but the detonation had numbed his eardrums. Her reply was remote and interrupted by a distant voice saying Help help, can nobody hear me?

Rima asked who was there and a moment after the voice spoke directly into his ear. It was sexless and eager but on an odd unemphatic note, as if its words could never be printed between quotation marks.

It said I am glad you called.

Lanark shook his head very hard then said firmly, “Could you tell me about my past, please? Starting with childhood?”

The voice said I’m very keen on this kind of work but you’ll have to give me a clue. Have you anything belonging to that past?

“Nothing.”

No clothes, for instance?

“My clothes were dissolved on the way here.”

Had you nothing insoluble in the pockets?

“There was only … wait a minute.”

Lanark remembered Munro’s taking the pistol from the drawer in his dead neighbour’s locker. He opened his own drawer and looked in. Most of the space was filled with food but in a corner he found a tiny fluted cockle and a quartz pebble with grey and cream veins through it. He said, “I’ve found a seashell and a stone.”

Hold one in each hand. Yes, I can see the way backward now. You were called Thaw. Will I start the story when you’re five or fifteen or ten?

“Five, please.”

Lanark lay down comfortably and the oracle, in the voice of a precocious child, said Duncan Thaw made a blue line along the top of a paper and a brown line at the bottom. He drew a giant running along the brown line with a captured princess, but as he couldn’t draw the princess beautiful enough he made the giant carry a sack. The princess was inside it. His father—

“Excuse me,” said Lanark. “That’s a very abrupt beginning. Could you not start by telling me something of the geographical and social surroundings?”

After a moment of silence the voice said in a dry academic voice The river Clyde enters the Irish Sea low down among Britain’s back hair of islands and peninsula. Before widening to a firth it flows through Glasgow, the sort of industrial city where most people live nowadays but nobody imagines living. Apart from the cathedral, the university gatehouse and a gawky medieval clocktower it was almost all put up in this and the last century—

“I’m sorry to interrupt again,” said Lanark, “but how do you know this? Who are you anyway?”

A voice to help you see yourself.

“But I’ve heard too many of these voices. None of them belonged to liars, even Sludden and Ozenfant told a lot of truth, but only the truth which suited their plans. What plans have you? What bits will you leave out?”

The voice said mournfully I’ve no plans at all. The only things I’ll try to leave out are the repetitions, and I’ll probably fail.

I’ve grown obsessed with detail since I faded into nothing.

“I don’t understand.”

Then I’ll tell you my history before I go on to yours. It’s less amusing but the lack of detail makes it shorter, and since I once lived in your country it will tell you something about the economics of the place.

The oracle began speaking in a male, pompous elderly voice and Lanark settled comfortably to listen. Rima yawned and snuggled against his back. Five minutes later he noticed she was asleep.

PROLOGUE

From an early age I only wanted to deal with what I was sure of, and like all thinkers I soon came to distrust what could only be seen and touched. The majority believe that floors, ceilings, each other’s bodies, the sun, etc. are the surest things in the world, but soon after going to school I saw that everything was untrustworthy when compared with numbers. Take the simplest kind of number, a telephone number, 339-6286 for example. It exists outside us for we find it in a directory, but we can carry it in our heads precisely as it is, for the number and our idea of it are identical. Compared with his phone number our closest friend is shifty and treacherous. He certainly exists outside us, and since we remember him he also, in a feeble way, exists in our heads, but experience shows that our idea of the man is only slightly like him. No matter how well we know him, how often we meet him, how conservative his habits, he will constantly insult our notion of him by wearing new clothes, changing his mind, growing old or sick or even dying. Moreover, my idea of a man is never the same as someone else’s. Most quarrels come from conflicting ideas of a man’s character but nobody fights over his phone number, and if we were content to describe each other numerically, giving height, weight, date of birth, size of family, home address, business address and (most informative of all) annual income, we would see that below the jangling opinions was no disagreement on the main realities.

On leaving school my teachers suggested a career in physics, but I rejected the idea. Science certainly controls the physical world by describing it mathematically, but I have already mentioned my distrust of physical things. They are too remote from the mind. I chose to live by those numbers which are most purely a product of the mind and therefore influence it most strongly: in a word, money. I became an accountant, and later a stockbroker. It puzzles me that people who live by owning or managing big sums of money are commonly called materialistic, for finance is the most purely intellectual, the most sheerly spiritual of activities, being concerned less with material objects than with values. Of course finance needs objects, since money is the value of objects and could no more exist without them than mind can exist without body, but the objects come second. If you doubt this, think which you would rather own: fifty thousand pounds or a piece of land valued at fifty thousand pounds. The only people likely to prefer the land are financiers who know how to increase its value by renting or reselling, so either answer proves that money is preferable to things. Perhaps you will say that in some circumstances a millionaire would give his wealth for a cup of water, but these circumstances happen more in arguments than in life, and a better indication of how folk regard money is the instinctive reverence which all but ignorant savages feel toward the rich. Many deny this, but introduce them to a really wealthy man and see how unable they are to treat him casually.

I was thirty-five when I became really wealthy, but long before then I was living in a service flat, driving a Humber, playing golf at weekends and bridge in the evenings. People who did not understand financial reports thought my life a dull one: they could not see the steep determined climb from one level of prosperity to the next, the excitement of the barely avoided loss, the triumph of the suddenly realized profit. This adventure was purely emotional, for I was physically secure. I feared the greed of the working classes and the incompetence of governments, but only because they threatened some of the numbers in my accounts; I did not feel in danger of hunger or cold. My acquaintances lived like myself in the world of numbers rather than the muddle of seeable, touchable things which used to be called reality, but they had wives, which meant that as they grew richer they had to move into bigger houses and buy new cars and reproduction antique cocktail cabinets. These things naturally occurred in their conversation, but I also heard them gloat on other objects with an enthusiasm which seemed greater the more useless the object was. “I see the daffodils are with us again,” they would say, or “My God! Harrison has shaved his moustache off.” Where I saw a leaf they saw a “lovely green” leaf. Where I saw a new power station they saw “technological progress” or “industry ravaging the countryside.” Once at a party a couple started fighting. I was explaining something to a client and the noise made me raise my voice, but the other guests were greatly excited and began whispering and spitting adjectives: “disgraceful,” “pathetic,” “ludicrous,” “distressing,” “inconsiderate.” I saw that most people had excessive funds of emotion which they got rid of by investing in objects they could not use. I had no excess emotion, my work absorbed it all, but now I know that these casual investments showed a profit. Like vain women, the objects postured before their admirers in light and colours I was never allowed to see. They showed me just enough of themselves to let me know they existed. And one day they began to stop doing even that.

I was studying a document when my attention was nagged by some difference outside the printed paper. I examined the top of my desk. It had been polished wood with a slightly rippled grain, but now the grain had vanished and the surface was as blank as a sheet of plastic. I looked round the office, which was furnished in the modern manner for I detested fussy details. The white walls and plain carpet were as usual but the view through the window had altered. What had been a typical street in the business centre of an old-fashioned industrial city, a street of elaborately carved and pillared façades, was now bordered by blank surfaces punctured by rectangular holes. I saw at once what was happening. Not content with showing itself in poorer materials than it kept for others, reality was economizing further. Where I had once seen irrelevant details and colours I saw none at all. Stone, wood and patterned surfaces became plain surfaces. The weaves of cloths were indistinguishable, and all doors looked flush-panelled.

Yet I did not feel ill-treated, for there was still enough outer reality for me to work with and in some ways I could work better. On entering a room of employees before this I usually had to look at several before recognizing the one I wanted, which wasted time, especially if I felt obliged to smile or nod at the men I noticed first. Now, when I entered a room, everyone but the man I wanted was as faceless as an egg, so I knew him at once. And later I only saw the man I wanted—nobody else was visible, unless they were slacking or wanted to speak to me, in which case they displayed enough substance to let me deal with them. You may wonder why I never collided with those surrounding me. Well, in my office it was other people’s business to keep out of my way, and when driving there I noticed traffic signs and adjacent vehicles, though pedestrians and scenery were invisible. But one day I parked the car in the usual side street, opened the door to walk to the office and could see neither street nor pavement, just a clear general greyness, and leading through it to the dim silhouette of my office (there were no other buildings) a line of solid, pavement-coloured stepping stones, each the size and shape of the sole of my shoe. I could only leave the car by walking along these; each vanished as I took my weight from it; I had spasms of vertigo and was in terror of what would happen if I stepped
between
the stones. On reaching the office doorstep (which was completely visible) I squatted and moved the palm of my hand experimentally down into the emptiness. A piece of pavement the shape of the hand appeared underneath it. Simultaneously three clerks solidified round me, asking if I felt unwell. I pretended, not convincingly, to tie a shoelace.