Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [122]
CHAPTER 22.
Kenneth McAlpin
Once a week they queued outside the lecture theatre for a talk on the history of art. Everyone seemed friendly; lightly chattering currents of emotion flowed easily between them and Thaw stood in the flow feeling as dense and conspicuous as a lump of rock. One day he arrived when the queue had gone in but before the lecturer came. Pausing outside the door he made his face expressionless, softened it with a thoughtful frown and entered. There was an explosion of laughter and someone shouted, “This was the noblest Roman of them all!” The theatre confronted him with a collection of grinning, glaring and roaring heads. The mirth crashed like a wave into his shell of loneliness and gravity. He grinned and said, “Is my nose green or something?” sitting down beside the fair-moustached student he had once instinctively hated.
“No, but you looked like Caesar pondering over the head of Pompey.”
After the lecture they walked to the refectory together. The moustached student was called Kenneth McAlpin. Thaw said, “It’s queer to be enjoying a coffee here.”
“I’ve noticed you hardly ever use the place.”
“I never know where to sit. The world sometimes seems a chessboard where the pieces move themselves. I’m never sure what square to go to. Yet it can’t be a difficult game, most folk play it instinctively.”
“The rules are fairly simple,” said McAlpin. “You stick near pieces like yourself and move along with them. The people at that table are in the school choir. The clan over there are highlanders. These four in the corner are serious Catholics. After the second year your group is usually decided by the subject you specialize in.”
“Have you a group?”
McAlpin pursed his lips then said, “Yes. I suppose I’m a snob. My family used to be rather well off so I’ve grown up feeling a bit grander than the majority, and I’m slightly uncomfortable when I’m in a group who don’t feel the same. I suppose the people I sit with are snobs too. They’ll be here soon, so you can judge for yourself.”
Thaw smiled and said, “I’ll leave when they come. I don’t want to embarrass you.”
“Actually I’d be glad if you stayed. I enjoy your conversation more than theirs. With the exception of Judy, of course.”
“Judy?”
“My girlfriend. Don’t mistake me, they’re nice people, you know some of them already. But it’s snobbery which keeps us together, I sometimes think.”
Judy and Rushford arrived. Judy was a handsome, sturdy girl with a vaguely displeased expression. Rushford wore an embroidered waistcoat copied from one worn by Benjamin Disraeli. “The Victorians were far from being the stuffy monsters we used to assume,” he said in a fluting, meticulous voice. Molly Tierney arrived followed by Macbeth and some others, and the group was complete. Macbeth looked lost and unhappy because Molly ignored him but Thaw felt perfectly comfortable. The conversation was about people he never met and parties he never visited but his occasional remarks were heard politely.
After this Thaw and McAlpin worked side by side in the studio, drank coffee together, brought to school books they enjoyed and read the best parts aloud to each other. Thaw preferred poetry and drama, McAlpin music and