Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [117]
“Home, usually.”
“Why not come to Brown’s? A few of us meet there. It’s a change from the concentration camp.”
Thaw felt excited. Macbeth was the only first-year student who looked like an artist. He walked with a defiant slouch, wore a beret, rolled his own cigarettes and smelled of whisky in the afternoon. He was often seen on the edge of older groups of students: elegant tight-trousered girls and tall bearded men who laughed freely in public places. In class he did what the teachers wanted with an ease which looked contemptuous, but he impressed Thaw most by keeping company with Molly Tierney, the velvet-voiced girl with blond curls. He sat beside her in class, gave her cigarettes and carried her drawing board from place to place. His face usually had an anxious, babyish look.
Brown’s cakeshop in Sauchiehall Street had a narrow staircase going down to a wide low-ceilinged room. The tobacco smoke and faded luxury were so dense here that Thaw, like a diver in the saloon of a sunk liner, felt them press against his eardrums. In an alcove to his right Molly Tierney reclined on a sofa, smiling and lightly fingering the curl overhanging her brow. Others from Thaw’s class sat at a table beside her sipping coffee and looking bored. Thaw slid into a chair next to Macbeth without being specially noticed. Sounds of people moving and conversing at other tables blurred and receded, but tiny noises nearby (Macbeth’s breathing, a spoon striking a saucer) were magnified and distinct. Molly Tierney came into sharp focus. The colours of her hair, skin, mouth and dress grew clearer like a stained-glass figure with light increasing behind it. Second by second her body was infused with the significance of mermaids on rocks and Cleopatra in her barge. He heard someone say, “Has anyone started their monthly painting yet? I haven’t even thought of it.”
Molly said, “I began mine last night. At least I meant to, only my mother wanted me to watch television and we had a fight. It ended with me being pushed out of doors into the co-o-ld bla-a-a-ck night.” She giggled. “Me! In my high-heeled shoes.”
A voice said venomously, “Parents just won’t allow you a life of your own.”
Other voices supported this.
“My father won’t let me …”
“My mother keeps saying …”
“Last week my mother …”
“Last year my father …”
He thought of entering the conversation by recalling fights with his mother but the details had grown dim; all he remembered was their inevitability. Molly Tierney sighed and said,
“I think I’ll become a nun.”
Thaw said, “I think I’ll become a lighthouse keeper.”
There was silence, and then someone asked why.
“So I’ll be able to walk in spirals.”
Molly giggled and Thaw leaned toward her. He criticized the theme of the monthly painting, quoting Blake and Shaw and describing shapes in the air with his hands. People raised objections and he quoted folk tales from many lands to show how fact and fancy, geography and legend were linked. Molly was clearly listening. She put her feet on the floor and leaned toward him saying, “You know a lot of fairy stories.”
“Yes. They used to be my favourite reading.”
“Mine too.” She chuckled huskily. “In fact they still are. I like Russian tales best. Have you noticed how many of them are about children?”
They talked of ugly and beautiful witches, enchanted mountains, magic gifts, monsters, princesses and lucky younger sons. With feelings of wonder and freedom he found she loved and remembered much that he loved himself. Suddenly she curled her legs back on the sofa and said to Macbeth, “Give me a cigarette, Jimmy.”
Macbeth rolled a cigarette and held a match to the tip while she inhaled it.
“And Jimmy, would you do me a favour? Please, Jimmy, a very special favour?”
“What is it?”
Her voice became a mixture of babyish and whorish. “Jimmy, it’s my architecture homework. This model cathedral we’ve to make. I’ve tried to