Lanark: a life in 4 books (54 page)

Rima said shortly, “No.”

“Why did you like him so much?”

“He was clever and amusing and kind. He was the only man among us who hadn’t a disease.”

Lanark said, “He had no disease because he
was
a disease. He was a cancer afflicting everyone who knew him.”

Rima snorted. “Huh, you don’t know who you’re talking about. Sludden liked you. He tried to help you, but you wouldn’t let him.”

Nan smiled. “You’re making Lanark jealous.”

“Oh yes, she’s making me jealous. But I can be jealous and correct.”

Rima said, “How did you get here, Nancy?”

“Well, I was in my lodgings when the pains began and I knew my baby was coming. I asked the landlord to help but he was frightened and ordered me out of the house, so I shut myself in my room and managed (I can’t remember how) to drag a heavy wardrobe in front of the door. That nearly killed me. The pains were so bad I fell down and couldn’t move. I was sure the baby had died after all. I felt I was nothing then, nothing and nobody, a nobody feeling nothing but horror, a piece of dirt as evil as the world. I suppose I screamed to get out because an opening appeared in the floor beside me.”

Lanark shuddered and said, “Going through
that
nearly killed me. I knew a soldier who jumped in with his revolver and was gored to death by it. I don’t see how a pregnant woman could survive at all.”

“But it was easy. It was like sinking through warm dark water that could be breathed. Every bit of me was supported. I still felt the labour pains but they weren’t sore, they were like bursts of music. I felt my little girl break free and float up to my breast and cling there. No, she must have drifted down for I was coming head first. I felt all kinds of muck flow out of me and vanish in the darkness. That darkness loved me. It was only when the light returned that the music became pain again and I fainted. That was a long time ago, and here I am, talking to you, in a lovely clean room.”

Lanark said abruptly, “You’ll be well cared for here.”

He rose and walked through the nearest archway. Nan’s story had recalled his own crushing descent in a way which made him long for sunlit landscapes of hill and water. Hopefully he raised the great Venetian blind, but the screen he had once thought a window was no longer there. In the centre of the wall, from floor to ceiling, was a double door of dark wood with panels of ornamental bronze. He pressed it but it was immovable, without handles or keyhole. He returned to the ward.

Nan breast-fed the baby and gossiped quietly to Rima. Lanark sat on his bed and tried to finish
The Holy War
but found it irritating. The writer was unable to imagine an honest enemy, and his only notion of virtue was total obedience to his strongest character. A nurse brought Nancy’s lunch. She only ate part and a moment later Lanark was startled to see Rima eat the rest, glancing at him defiantly between forkfuls. He pretended not to notice and nibbled a block of dense black chocolate from the rucksack. The sour taste was so unwelcome that he lay down and tried to sleep, but his imagination projected cityscapes on the insides of his eyelids: sliding views of stadiums, factories, prisons, palaces, squares, boulevards and bridges. Nancy and Rima’s conversation seemed like the murmur of distant crowds with fanfares sounding through it. He opened his eyes. The noise was not imaginary. An increasing din of trumpets shook the air. Lanark stood up and so did Rima. The trumpets grew deafening, then silent as a black and silver figure entered and stood under the central arch. It was a man in a black silver-buttoned coat, black knee breeches and white stockings. He wore white lace at the throat and wrists, silver-buckled shoes and a snowy periwig with a three-cornered black hat on top. He held a portfolio in his left hand and in his right an ebony staff tipped with a silver knob. His face was the most surprising thing about him for it was Munro’s. Lanark said, “Dr. Munro!”

“At the moment I am not a doctor, I am a chamberlain. Bring your rucksacks.”

Lanark slung a rucksack on his shoulder and carried the other in his hand. Rima said goodbye to Nan, who was comforting her crying baby. Munro turned and rapped his staff against the great doors, which clanged and swung inward. Munro led them through, Rima pressing against Lanark’s side. The doors closed.

CHAPTER 32.

Council Corridors

They were in a wood-panelled, low-ceilinged, circular room, thickly carpeted and smelling like an old railway carriage. An upholstered bench went round the wall and a mahogany pillar in the centre supported a bald bronze head wearing a laurel wreath. Munro said loudly, “The northern lobby.”

The head nodded and a faint rumbling began. Lanark realized they were in a carriage travelling sideways. Munro said, “The machinery joining the institute to the council chambers is rather antiquated. Take a seat, we’ll be some minutes here.”

They sat and Rima murmured, “Isn’t this exciting?”

Lanark nodded. He felt strong and sure of himself and thought that a lord president director could have frightened him once, but not now. He was too old. Munro was pacing round the pedestal and Lanark called out, “Where do we go when we’ve seen Lord Monboddo?”

“We’ll see what he says first.”

“But these rucksacks have been packed for a particular kind of journey!”

“You’re leaving at your own request, so you’ll have to travel on foot. It’s too late to discuss it now.”

The doors opened and someone dressed like Munro led in two plump men in evening dress. Soon after the lift stopped again and another chamberlain brought in a group of worried men in crumpled suits. The three chamberlains talked quietly by the pedestal while the rest babbled in clusters on the bench. “… not honouring us, it’s the creature he’s honouring …”

“His secretary is an algolagnics man.”

“….. but he’ll maintain the differential…..”

“If he doesn’t he’s opening the floodgates to a free-for-all.” Munro approached Lanark and said grimly, “Bad luck! I expected to have the director to ourselves but he’s receiving a deputation and conferring a couple of titles. He’s available for ten minutes, I’ll have to settle our business in three, so when we leave the lift stay close to me and say as little as possible.”

“But this meeting will shape our whole future!”

“Don’t worry, I won’t let you down.”

The doors opened and the chamberlains led them out onto such a bright floor that Lanark’s heart lurched, thinking he was in open daylight.

It was a floor of coloured marble inlaid in geometrical patterns. It was nearly a quarter of a mile across, but as the eye took in the height of the ceiling the width seemed insignificant. It was an octagonal hall where eight great corridors met below a dome, and looking down them was like looking down streets of renaissance palaces. The place seemed empty at first, but when his eyes got used to the scale Lanark noticed a great many people moving like insects about the corridor floors. The air was cool and, except for the remote sonorous echoes of distant footfalls, refreshingly quiet. Lanark looked around with open mouth. Rima sighed, slid her fingers out of his and stepped elegantly away across the marble floor. She seemed to grow taller and more graceful as she receded. Her figure and colouring blended perfectly with her surroundings. Lanark followed, saying, “This place suits you.”

“I know.”

She turned and walked past him, smoothing the amber velvet over her hips, her chin raised and face dreamy. Feeling excluded he stared around once more. Some benches upholstered in red leather lay about the floor and Munro sat on the nearest looking intently along a corridor, the staff and portfolio across his knees. Some distance behind stood a wooden medieval throne on top of three marble steps. The other chamberlains had brought their parties to it, and now the plump men in evening dress knelt side by side on the lowest step in an attitude of prayer. Close by, with folded arms, the deputation stood in a tight cluster. Their chamberlain was photographing them. Rima continued walking past Lanark in an aimless dreamy way till he said sharply, “It’s impressive, of course, but not beautiful. Look, at those chandeliers! Hundreds of tons of brass and glass pretending to be gold and diamonds and they don’t even light the place. The real light comes from behind the columns round the walls. I bet it’s neon.”

“You’re jealous because you don’t belong here.”

He was hurt by the truth of this and said in a low voice, “Quite right.”

She laid a hand on his chest and stared excitedly into his eyes. “But Lanark, we could live here if you wanted to! I’m sure they’d give you a job, you can be very clever when you try!

Tell Munro you want to stay. I’m sure it’s not too late!”

“You’ve forgotten there’s no sunlight here and we don’t like the food.”

Rima said wistfully, “Yes, I had forgotten that.”

She walked away from him again.

He sat beside Munro and tried to keep calm by looking up into the deep blue dome. It was painted with angels blowing trumpets and scattering blossoms around figures on clouds. He specially noted four ponderous horsemen on some puffs of cumulus. They wore Roman armour, curly wigs and laurel wreaths and managed the horses with their knees, for each held a sword in the left hand and a mason’s trowel in the right. On similar clouds facing them stood four venerable men in togas holding scrolls and queerly shaped walking sticks. Both groups were gazing at the height of the dome where a massive man sat upon a throne. His strong face looked benevolent, but something peering in it suggested he was shortsighted or deaf. The painter had tried to distract from this by loading him with impressive instruments. A globe lay in his lap and a sword across his knees. He held scales in one hand and a trowel in the other. An eagle with a thunderbolt in its beak hovered over his head and an owl looked out from under the hem of his robe. A turbaned Indian, a Red Indian, a Negro and a Chinaman knelt before him with gifts of spice, tobacco, ivory and silk. Lanark heard Munro ask, “Do you like it?”

“Not much. Who are these horsemen?”

“Nimrod, Imhotep, Tsin-Shi Hwang and Augustus, early presidents of the council. Of course the titles were different then.” “Why the wigs and armour?”

“An eighteenth-century convention—the mural was painted then. The men facing them are former directors of the institute: Prometheus, Pythagoras, Aquinas and Descartes. The figure on the throne is the first Lord Monboddo. He was an insignificant legislator and an unimportant philosopher, but when council and institute combined he was a member of both, which made him symbolically useful. He knew Adam Smith.”

“But what is the institute? What is the council?

“The council is a political structure to lift men nearer Heaven. The institute is a conspiracy of thinkers to bring the light of Heaven down to mankind. They’ve sometimes been distinct organizations and have even quarrelled, though never for long. The last great reconciliation happened during the Age of Reason, and two world wars have only united us more firmly.”

“But what is this heavenly light? If you mean the sun, why doesn’t it shine here?”

“Oh, in recent years the heavenly light has never been confused with an actual
sun
. It is a metaphor, a symbol we no longer need. Since the collapse of feudalism we’ve left long-term goals to our enemies. They’re misleading. Society develops faster without them. If you look closely into the dome, you’ll see that though the artist painted a sun in the centre it’s almost hidden by the first Monboddo’s crown. Stand up, here comes the twenty-ninth.”

A tall man in a pale grey suit was crossing the smooth marble floor accompanied by three men in dark suits. A herald in medieval tabard marched in front with a sword on a velvet cushion; another came behind carrying a coloured silk robe. The whole party was advancing briskly to the throne when Munro stepped into the path and bowed saying, “Hector Munro, my lord.”

Monboddo had a long narrow face with a thin, high-bridged nose. His hair was pale yellow and his eyes grey behind gold-rimmed spectacles, yet his voice was richly, resonantly masculine. He said, “Yes, I know. I never forget a face. Well?”

“This man and woman have applied for relocation.”

Munro handed his portfolio to someone at Monboddo’s side, who pulled out a document and read it. Monboddo glanced from Lanark to Rima.

“Relocation? Extraordinary. Who’s going to take them?” “Unthank is keen.”

“Well, if they understand the dangers, let them go. Let them go. Is that paper in order, Wilkins?”

“In perfect order, sir.”

Wilkins held out the document at an angle supported by the portfolio. Monboddo glanced at it and made snatching movements with his right hand until Munro placed a pen between the fingers. He was going to sign when Lanark shouted, “Stop!” Monboddo looked at him with raised eyebrows. Lanark turned on Munro and cried, “You know we don’t want to return to Unthank! There’s no sunlight in Unthank! I asked for a town with sunlight!”

“A man with your reputation can’t be allowed to pick and choose.”

Monboddo said, “Has his chief given him a poor report?”

“A very poor report.”

There was a silence in which Lanark felt something vital being filched from him. He said fiercely, “If that report was written by Ozenfant it ought not to count. We dislike each other.”

Munro murmured, “It is written by Ozenfant.”

Monboddo touched his brow with a fingertip. Wilkins murmured, “The dragonmaster. A strong energy man.”

“I know, I know. I never forget a name. An abominable musician but an excellent administrator. Here’s your pen, Munro. Uxbridge, give me that cape, will you?”

A herald placed a heavy green cloak lined with crimson silk round Monboddo’s shoulders and helped him adjust the folds. Monboddo said, “No, we won’t go against Ozenfant. Look, Wilkins, sort this out while I attend to these other chaps. We haven’t much time, you know.”

Monboddo strode onward to the throne, the cape billowing behind him. Most of his retinue followed.