Lanark: a life in 4 books (38 page)

McAlpin was not at school that day. At tea break Judy, Molly Tierney and Rushford discussed the costumes they would wear at the fancy-dress dance. Thaw was unsure how to behave. He drew on the tabletop and grinned with the left side of his mouth.

“You should see my costume!” said Molly gleefully. “It’s terrible. All pink and nineteen-twentyish, with a cigarette holder three feet long. Here, give me a pencil.”

She seized the pencil from Thaw’s fingers and drew the costume on the tabletop. That evening he went into town to meet June and stood in an entry to a clothes shop looking at suave dummies in evening dress and sportswear. Grey dusk became black night. The entrance was a common place for appointments, and he often had the company of people waiting for boy or girlfriends. None waited longer than fifteen minutes. When it was not possible to pretend June would come he walked home feeling horribly insulted.

McAlpin entered the classroom briskly next day with a new book in one hand. He hooked his neatly rolled umbrella on a radiator, laid his coat and bag on a pedestal and came briskly to Thaw. He said, “Listen to this!” and read out the first paragraph of
Oblomov
.

Thaw heard him with embarrassment then said, “Very good” and went into a corner to sharpen a pencil. That morning he and McAlpin worked apart from each other. At lunchtime Thaw went to the main building and obtained an interview with the registrar. In a careful voice he said he thought the school’s anatomy course inadequate, that he was going to ask permission to sketch in the dissection room of the university, that he would be grateful for a letter from the registrar saying that such permission would be useful to his art. The registrar swung reflectively from side to side in his swivel chair. He said, “Well, I’m not sure, Thaw. Morbid anatomy certainly was in our curriculum till shortly after the fourteen-eighteen war. I was trained in it myself. I don’t think I benefitted from it, but of course I was not so dedicated an artist as you. But would such training do you good psychologically? I honestly think it would do harm.” “I am not—” Thaw said, then cleared his throat and knelt before the electric fire near Mr. Peel’s desk. He stared into the red-hot coil and plucked fibres out of the coconut matting. “I am not a complete person. A good painter one day, mibby, but always an inadequate man. So my work is important to me. If that work is to develop I must see how people are made.” “Your ’Last Supper’ showed a detailed grasp of anatomy, gained, I assume, by the usual methods?”

“Yah. That detail was bluff. I padded out the definite things I knew with imagination and pictures in books. But now my imagination needs more detailed knowledge to work on.”

“I am not convinced that morbid anatomy will be good for you, Thaw, but I suppose you must convince yourself of that. I’m remotely acquainted with the head of the university medical faculty. I’ll get in touch with him.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Thaw, standing up. “Some sketching in the vivisection room is really necessary at this stage.”

“Dissection room.”

“Pardon?”

“You said vivisection room.”

“Did I? I’m sorry,” said Thaw, confused.

He ran back to the classroom to work off his exhiliration. McAlpin stood at an easel near the door. Thaw stopped and muttered to him, “Peel’s getting me permission to sketch in the university dissection room.”

“Good! Good!”

“I’ve not felt so happy since I invented the bactro-chlorine bomb.”

McAlpin bent over and emitted muffled bellowing laughter. Thaw went to his seat thinking what a waste of time unfriendliness was. Later on their way to the refectory he said to McAlpin, “Why didn’t you ask me to your party?”

“We had only a few tickets for the fancy-dress ball and had to give them to people who had asked Judy and me to their parties. I wanted to invite you but—er, it just wasn’t possible. I thought you wouldn’t mind because you were taking out that girl you picked up. How did you get on with her?”

CHAPTER 23.

Meetings

One evening Thaw came down to Sauchiehall Street when the air was mild and the lamps not yet lit. So fine a lake of yellow sky lay behind the western rooftops that he walked toward them in a direction opposite home and was overtaken by Aitken Drummond at Charing Cross.

“This isn’t your usual territory, Duncan.”

“I’m just walking.”

“I suppose you’re waiting for the ball to start?”

“Is there a ball tonight? No, I cannae afford a ticket.”

“I admit money is useful but don’t bother about a ticket. Come with me.”

They walked past the Grand Hotel then turned down a stunted unlit lane into a cluttered little yard. Thaw made out heaps of coke and coal, bins overflowing with garbage, stacks of milk, beer and fish crates. Drummond opened a door.

They entered so hot an air that Thaw felt stifled for a minute or two. Below a weak electric bulb an old man in a boiler suit sat smoking a pipe beside the furnace door. Drummond said, “This is Duncan Thaw, Dad. We’re going to the art school ball.”

Mr. Drummond took the pipe from his mouth and directed Thaw to an empty chair with the stem. His amused sunken mouth indicated a lack of teeth; his nose was almost as big as his son’s but more craggy; spectacles were pushed up on his brow, the legs mended with insulating tape. He said, “So you’re going dancing? It’s a waste of time, Douglas, a damned waste of time.”

“He’s called Duncan!” shouted Drummond.

“That doesn’t matter, it’s still a waste of time.”

“Who’s in the kitchen tonight?”

“Eh? Luigi.”

“Why not get Duncan and me something to eat? He’s hungry.”

“No, I’m not,” said Thaw.

Mr. Drummond left the room. Drummond pulled his father’s chair to the furnace door and opened it, showing a red-hot gullet of flame-roaring coal. He sat and spread his palms to the blaze saying, “It’s only a coincidence that I look like the Devil but I do enjoy heat. Pull your chair nearer, Duncan.” Mr. Drummond returned with a big plate of sandwiches and placed it on the floor between Thaw and Drummond. He said, “There’s cheese, there’s egg, there’s salmon, there’s meat paste. Help yourselves.”

He brought another chair from a corner, sat down and lifted a library book from the floor. “Do you read this man, Duncan?” he asked, showing the title of a novel by Aldous Huxley.

“Yes, but he annoys me. He shows a world with too little in it to believe or enjoy.”

“Too little?” said Mr. Drummond with a cackle of anarchic glee. “He leaves you with
nothing
, Duncan. Nothing whatsoever. Nothing at all. And he’s right.”

He turned a page and read while Thaw and Drummond ate.

“Tonight’s pay night!” said Drummond suddenly in a loud voice. Mr. Drummond looked up.

“I said you got paid tonight. Can I have some money?”

“The Glasgow Corporation, Duncan, gives this man one hundred and twenty pounds a year. He spends it on nothing but clothes and pocket money. He lives—”

“And materials,” said Drummond.

“And painting materials. He lives at home—he’s twenty-four—he pays nothing toward his rent or rates or fuel or light or food—”

“Food!” cried Drummond triumphantly. “I’m glad you mentioned food! Do you know what my father gave me for dinner today, Duncan? Fried kippers. Kippers, mind you, and fried with their heads and tails on.”

“Well, if you don’t like it you know what to do,” said Mr. Drummond mildly, returning the pipe to his mouth.

“Give me ten shillings,” said Drummond. His father fished four half crowns from his overalls pocket, handed them over, saw the plate was empty and stood up.

“Have some more sandwiches,” he told Duncan.

“No thanks, Mr. Drummond. That was good, but more would be too much.”

“Well, the cook’s a friend of mine. I’m not buying them and I’m not stealing them. You wouldn’t like some more?”

“No thanks, Mr. Drummond.”

“Duncan has to go now, Dad. We’ve an appointment. Would you like more coal?”

“If you can spare the time from your
urgent
appointment
.”

A wooden hatch opened upon the coal heap outside. Thaw and Drummond pulled lumps onto the boiler-room floor with clumsy wooden rakes. Drummond shovelled them into the furnace and they left after washing their hands below a tap in the darkened yard.

They walked into the Cowcaddens and entered a close where the narrow stairs were worn to such a slant that the foot trod them uneasily. Thaw grew breathless and leaned a moment on a windowsill. He could see the flat back of a dingy church across a window box in which the soot-freckled crests of three stunted cauliflowers rose above a clump of weeds. On the top landing, Drummond pushed open a bright yellow door (the lock was broken), stuck his head inside and shouted, “Ma!” After a moment he said, “Come in, Duncan. I have to be careful in case my mother’s at home. If she dislikes someone she’s liable to retire to her bedroom and burn a pheasant’s tail feather.”

“What does that do?”

“I shudder to think.”

Thaw entered the queerest house he had ever seen. Parts of it were very like a home but these lay like valleys between piled furniture and objects salvaged from scrap heaps, middens and junk shops. As he edged into the kitchen he felt threatened by empty picture frames, stringless instruments and old wireless sets. The ceilings were loftier than in his own home but there was no open space and no planning.

“Excuse the mess,” said Drummond. “I haven’t had time to tidy up. I’m hoping to get a studio nearer the art school soon. What can we use?”

He began shifting things from in front of a cupboard. Thaw bent to help but Drummond said, “Leave it to me, Duncan. If you shift these I won’t know precisely where to find them.” When the cupboard door could be opened about twelve inches Drummond thrust his arm into the crevice and brought out, one at a time, a top hat, a Roman helmet, a pith helmet, a deerstalker, a mortarboard and an Indian feathered headdress, all with labels saying they belonged to the Acme Costume Hiring Agency.

“I used to work there,” said Drummond. “They stored their best things with an almost criminal carelessness.”

Drummond put on the top hat, a tail coat and spats. He cut himself a gleaming shirtfront, collar and cuffs from a sheet of glossy cardboard and fixed these in place with pins and drops of glue, then took a long pair of green rubber fangs from a drawer and inserted them carefully between his teeth and upper lip. He rubbed green greasepaint into his cheeks and, glaring balefully, asked with difficulty, “Dracula?”

“Oh yes,” said Thaw, nodding.

Drummond slipped the rubber teeth into his pocket and said, “Who do you want to be?”

“A sorcerer. But I’ll settle for an academic.”

He put on the mortarboard.

“Not enough,” said Drummond. “Go in there.”

He moved a tailor’s dummy and opened another door. Thaw entered a neat little room which clearly belonged to a woman. There were flowered curtains, striped wallpaper and a pink satin quilt on the bed. There was a scrolled and gilded bird cage, an ashtray shaped like a skull, and sweet peas blooming in a window box.

“Open the wardrobe,” commanded Drummond from outside. “I don’t think I should be here.”

“You should do exactly what I tell you.”

The wardrobe door was ajar and as Thaw opened it a ginger cat strolled out.

“Is there a black silk dressing gown among the coats to the right?” called Drummond.

“Yes.”

“Bring it here. Touch nothing else.”

Thaw returned to the chaotic kitchen. Drummond said, “Sorry, I would have fetched it myself but my mother made me promise not to go into her bedroom. Put it on. It’ll work rather well as an academic robe.”

“Won’t she find out?”

“No no. She’s managing a tearoom in Largs and her visits home are erratic, to say the least.”

Drummond took a knobbed cane in one hand and they set off for the ball.

Outside the lamps were lit and tramcars clanged and sparkled. A cryptic drama seemed unfolding throughout the city. An old woman and man argued quietly at a street corner watched by two little girls keeking round the corner of a lighted fruit shop. In a firelit room, seen through a ground-floor window, a man stood with a towel round his neck, shaving perhaps. Near the school they stepped into a room full of smoke, noise and people. Drummond forced a way to the bar and Thaw slid after him between backs and shoulders. Drummond handed him a large whisky and told him to knock it back in one. A blonde and a brunette leaned smiling toward Thaw and the blonde said, “Does your mother know you’re here?”

He said, “Mibby. She’s dead,” and turned away, pleased by his harshness. Drummond bought two cigars. They lit them, went out and marched up Sauchiehall Street issuing smoke like chimneys. Thaw was surprised to find the stares of the bypassers amusing. He began laughing violently but coughed violently instead.

“For God’s sake don’t inhale, Duncan!” said Drummond, slapping his back.

“There’s prestige in looking ridiculous with you, Aitken.”

The door of the annexe was thronged with people trying to buy tickets or bribe an entrance from the doorkeepers. Drummond and Thaw mounted the steps side by side, Drummond cleaving a path with his great axe-blade-edged nose, Thaw opening one with the pallid inclined carapace of his brow. Officials in exotic costumes shouted “It’s the Drummond!” “It’s the Thaw!” and cheerily ushered them in. The janitor gripped Thaw’s sleeve, drew him aside and indicated Drummond, saying, “Beware of that lad. When drunk he’s fit company for neither man nor brute.”

The triumph of arrival faded. He sat at the edge of the dance hall grinning unhappily at the revolving carnival of couples brushing past his knees, his eyes sucking visions of thighs and hips, fluttering breasts, throats and glances. Molly Tierney, dressed like an oriental dancing girl, spun gleefully in the arms of a white-robed Arab who was McAlpin and saluted Thaw with a raised forefinger. Suddenly two girls said “Hullo!” and sat on each side of him. “Don’t you recognize us?” asked the smaller girl on the left.