Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [107]
“Yes,” said Thaw. “Thankyou very much.”
He smiled and wondered if the smile looked bitter. It felt bitter. Mr. Tulloch conducted him to the head of the staircase and gave him a tired smile and an unexpectedly firm handshake. “Goodbye. I’m sorry,” he said.
Thaw hurried into the drab street, feeling cheapened and defeated. He remembered with an odd pang that Mr. Tulloch had not once asked about his father.
A week later Thaw and his father saw the headmaster of Whitehill School, a white-moustached man who regarded them kindly from behind his desk. He said “Duncan, Mr. Thaw, has very strong imaginative powers. And undoubted talent. And his own way of seeing things, unfortunately.” He smiled. “I say unfortunately because this makes it hard for plodding mediocrities like you and me to help him. You agree?”
Mr. Thaw laughed and said, “Oh, I agree all right. However, we must do our best.”
“However, we must do our best. Now I think Duncan would be happiest in some job without too much responsibility, a job that would leave him plenty of spare time to develop his talents as he pleases. I see him as a librarian. He’s good with books. I see him as a librarian in some small highland town like Oban or Fort William. What do you think, Mr. Thaw?” “I think, Mr. McEwan, it is a very satisfactory idea. But is it a possibility?”
“I think so. To enter the library service two higher and two lower certificates are required. Duncan’s higher art and english and lower history are guaranteed. The maths results aren’t out yet. How do you think he did?”
Mr. Thaw said, “Well, Duncan?”
As the firm responsible voices passed his future gravely backward and forward between them Thaw sank into a fatalistic doze. It took him a moment to notice he was expected to speak. He said, “I’ve failed in maths.”
“Why are you sure?”
“To pass I need full marks for everything I wrote, and what I wrote was mostly nonsense.”
“Why does someone of your intelligence write nonsense after four years of study?”
“Laziness, I suppose.”
The headmaster raised his eyebrows. “Indeed? The problem is, would you continue to be so lazy if your father was prepared to allow you another year at school?”
Mr. Thaw said, “In other words, Duncan, will you study for a certificate in lower maths if Mr. McEwan allows you another year at school?”
As Thaw considered this a grin began upon his face. He tried to suppress it and failed. The headmaster smiled and said to Mr. Thaw, “He’s thinking of all the reading and painting he’ll be able to do with practically no supervision at all. Is that not so, Duncan?”
Thaw said, “And mibby I’ll be able to go to evening classes at the art school.”
The headmaster struck the desk with his hand and leaned over it. “Yes!” he said seriously. “A year of freedom! But it has to be bought. The price is not high, but are you prepared to pay it? Do you faithfully promise your father to study and master your trigonometry and algebra and geometry? Do you promise to attend your mathematic lessons, not only in body but in spirit?”
Thaw hung his head and muttered, “Yes, sir.”
“Good, good. Mr. Thaw, I think you have an assurance you can depend upon.”
Next day Thaw met the mathematics teacher as he crossed the hall. She looked at him brightly and said, “What happened to you, Thaw?”
He was puzzled. She smiled and said, “Haven’t you been going around telling people you’d failed in maths?”
“Yes, Miss.”
“Well, the official results have just been published. You’ve passed. Congratulations.”
Thaw stared at her in horror.
Later that week he walked into the white marble entrance of the Mitchell Library. He had often come to this place to see facsimiles of Blake’s prophetic books, and as a plump man in a brass-buttoned coat led him upstairs the air of scholastic calm and polite attention produced a lightening of the spirit. It might not be a bad thing to work in this place. He was conducted to a door at the end of a corridor with chequered marble floor and low white vaulted ceiling. The room