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By Root 1240 0

I asked if he could tell me the name of the city. He said, “Mr. Lanark, I am a clerk, not a geographer.” The cash desk was a small shuttered hatch in the wall of a room full of benches, but few people were sitting on them. The shutter was soon raised. We queued and were swiftly paid by a woman who asked our names in turn, then shoved out between the bars a heap of notes and coin. I was surprised by the size of these heaps and the careless way the clerk handled them. The notes were creased and dirty and drawn from several currencies. The coins were thick copper pennies, worn silver with milled edges, frail nickel counters and plain brass discs with holes through the centre. I distributed this money into several pockets but I’ve never learned to use it for everyone has a different notion of its value. When buying anything I hold out a handful and let the waiter or shopman or conductor take what he thinks right.

The directions on the cigarette packet led me to the house where I write this, thirty-one days later. I have not looked for work in that time or made friends, and I count the days only to enjoy their emptiness. Sludden thinks I am content with too little. I believe there are cities where work is a prison and time a goad and love a burden, and this makes my freedom feel worthwhile. My one worry is the scab on my arm. There is no feeling in it, but when I grow tired the healthy skin round the edge starts itching and when I scratch this the scab spreads. I must scratch in my sleep, for when I waken the hard patch is always bigger. So I take the doctor’s advice and try to forget it.

CHAPTER 4.

A Party

Lanark was wakened by someone bumping up and down on his chest. It was the small girl from next door. Her brother and sister stood astride his legs, holding his coat aloft on the head of a floor brush and swaying from side to side so that the struts of the frail bed creaked. “The sea! The sea!” they chanted. “We’re sailing into the sea!”

Lanark sat up rubbing his eyes. He said, “Get away! What do you know about the sea?”

They jumped to the floor where the boy shouted, “We know all about the sea! Your pockets are full of seashells, hahaha! We searched them!”

They ran out giggling and slammed the door. Lanark arose feeling unusually fresh and relaxed. The hard skin on his elbow had spread no farther. He dressed, rolled up the manuscript and went outside.

There was a surprising change in the weather. The dreary rain, the buffeting winds had given way to an air so piercingly still and cold that he had to walk quickly, flapping his arms to keep warm, the breath snorting from his nostrils in jets of mist. His toes and ears were painfully chilled aboard the tram and after climbing the cinema stairs the crowded Elite seemed wonderfully warm and homelike. In the usual corner sat Sludden with Gay, McPake with Frankie, Toal with Nan, and Rima reading a fashion magazine. Rima nodded to him and continued reading but the rest looked surprised and said, “Where have you been?” “What have you been doing?” “We thought you’d disappeared.”

Lanark dropped the manuscript on the table beside Sludden who raised an eyebrow and asked what it was.

“Something I’ve written. I took your advice.”

There was no room near Rima so Lanark squeezed onto the sofa between Sludden and Frankie. Sludden read a couple of pages, flicked through the rest, then handed it back saying, “It’s dead. Perhaps you’re more naturally a painter. I mean, it’s good that you’ve tried to do something, I’m pleased about that, but what you’ve written there is dead.”

Lanark blushed with anger. He could think of nothing to say which wouldn’t show injured vanity so he pressed his lips into a smile. Sludden said, “I’m afraid I’ve hurt you.”

“No no. But I wish you had read it carefully before judging.”

“No need. Two pages showed me that your prose is totally flat, never departing an inch from your dull experiences. If a writer doesn’t enjoy words for their own sake how can the reader enjoy them?”

“But I do enjoy words—some words—for their own sake! Words like river, and