Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [112]
Thaw said, “You’re an apprentice. You won’t be in the machine shop for good.”
“No. Six months in the machine shop, six months in the drawing office, two nights a week at the technical college, and if I pass the exams I’ll be a qualified engineering draughtsman in three years.”
“And then things won’t be too bad.”
“Won’t they? How did you feel about becoming a librarian?”
They crossed a stream by a plank bridge and came to an acre or two of level turf with a white flagpole in the middle. Lovers and picnic parties sat in the shade at the edge of the wood and children charged about playing anarchic ball games.
A few benches on the other side of this green space overlooked the sky and had one or two elderly couples on them. Thaw and Coulter crossed to the benches and sat on one. They were on the edge of a plateau near the top of the Cathkin Braes, and a small rocky cliff went down from their feet to another level space noisy with child play and fringed by trees. From there the land sank in steep wooded terraces to a valley floor carpeted with rooftops and prickly with factory chimneys. To the east the Clyde could be seen meandering among farms, fields, pitheads and slag-bings, then Glasgow hid it till the course was marked by a skeletal procession of cranes marching into the west. Behind the city stood the long northern ridge of the Campsie Fells, bare and heather-green and creased by watercourses, and at this height they could see the Highland bens beyond them like a line of broken teeth. Everything looked unusually distinct, for it was Fair fortnight when big foundries stopped production and the smoke was allowed to clear.
“D’ye see Riddrie?” asked Thaw. “That reddish patch? Look, there’s my old primary school on one side and Alexandra Park on the other. Where’s your house?”
“Garngad’s too low to be seen from here. I’m trying to see McHargs. It should be near those cranes behind Ibrox. Aye, there! There! The top of the machine shop is showing above those tenements.”
“I should be able to see the art school, it’s on top of a hill behind Sauchiehall Street—Glasgow seems all built on hills. Why don’t we notice them when we’re in it?”
“Because none of the main roads touch them. The main roads run east and west and the hills are all between.”
On the grass at the foot of the cliff a big strong-bodied girl of about fourteen stood with legs apart and hands on hips between two piles of jackets. She wore a blue dress and grumbled impatiently as her younger brothers placed a football some distance in front of her and prepared to kick it at the goal mouth. Thaw stared at her in admiration. He said, “She’s great. I’d like to draw her.”
“Nude?”
“Anyhow.”
“She’s not exactly an oil painting. She’s no Kate Caldwell.” “Damn Kate Caldwell.”
They got up and walked on.
“Yes,” said Coulter glumly. “You know what you want and you’re in a place where they’ll help you get it.”
“It was an accident,” said Thaw defensively. “If the head librarian hadnae been in America, and my Dad hadnae insisted I go to night classes, and the registrar hadnae been English and liked my work—”
“Aye, but it was an accident that could happen to you. Not to me. No accident but an atom bomb can get me out of engineering. I’ve no ambitions, Duncan. I’m like the man in Hemingway’s story, I don’t want to be special, I just want to feel good. And I’m in work that’s only bearable if I feel as little as I can.”
“In four months you’ll be in the drawing office and learning something creative.”
“Creative? What’s creative about designing casings for machine units? I’ll be better off, but because it’s better wearing a clean suit than dirty overalls. And I’ll get more money. But I won’t feel good.”
“It’ll be years before I earn money.