Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [140]
“Janet, ask him to stay!” said Drummond. “Tell him it’s stupid going back to Riddrie at this hour of night.”
“I think you should stay, Duncan,” said Janet.
“Well, if you’re convinced of that …” said Thaw, sitting down. For the first time since waiting for June he felt relaxed and cheerful.
Thaw drew, Drummond painted, they gossiped and improvised jokes and sometimes chuckled continuously for many minutes. They had spells of listlessness when Janet made the tea. Each time he drew her his hand moved more easily and depicted more of the surrounding room. It was as if Janet’s body gave out light which clarified nearby things and turned the cluttered furniture, Drummond working at the sideboard, Mr. Drummond reading or dozing, even stale breadcrusts on the table, into parts of a cunning harmony. She sat still easily under his concentrated stare. Sometimes her eyes returned it for a second, then glanced slyly sideways at Drummond. Thaw said, “You’re a flower beneath the foot, Janet.”
“What do you mean, Duncan?”
“You’re beautiful and neglected and dishevelled.”
“Don’t encourage her,” said Drummond grimly. “Don’t you know it’s deliberate? She probably wants the girls at school to think I beat her.”
“Why have you always to be offensive?” said Janet.
“Why have I …? Why have you always to be offensive? Stupid!” said Drummond, almost kindly, for he was staring at his painting. He had taken out all but one white ball and said,
“How’s that, Duncan?”
“Good. But I preferred it with more balls.”
Drummond frowned at the picture, took a saw from a drawer and cut off the part with the snooker table on it. He placed the self-portrait on the mantelpiece and said “How about that, Duncan?”
“More perfect but less worthwhile.”
Drummond said, “Make the tea, Janet.”
He took a small gilt frame from under the sideboard, measured it, sawed the head off the portrait and fitted it into the frame. He hung it on the wall and stood back regarding it with arms folded and head on one side. He said, “More perfect? You’re right, Duncan, it is more perfect. Yes, I’m pleased with my night’s work.”
“All sheer bloody nonsense!” snorted Mr. Drummond from his bed.
“Yes, I’m pleased with my night’s work,” said Drummond, accepting a cup of tea from Janet.
The darkness outside the window paled and soft pink came into the sky behind the pinnacles of the dingy little church. Drummond shot up the window to let in a cool draught. From grey rooftops on the left rose the mock Gothic spire of the university, then the Kilpatrick hills, patched with woodlands and with the clear distant top of Ben Lomond behind the eastward slope. Thaw thought it queer that a man on that summit, surrounded by the highlands and overlooking deep lochs, might see with a telescope this kitchen window, a speck of light in a low haze to the south. The dim sky broke into cloudbergs with dazzling silver between. Mr. Drummond lay back on his pillow snoring wheezily through open mouth.
“The dairy will be open now,” said Drummond. “Janet, here’s half a crown. Go and buy something nice for breakfast. Duncan and I will get ready for bed.”
Thaw and Drummond went into a room with an open bed settee in the middle. They undressed to their underwear, removed their socks and got between rough blankets. They heard Janet return and do something in the kitchen, then she entered with three plates of stewed pears and cream. She ate on the edge of the bed and when Thaw and Drummond lay down she wrapped herself in a khaki greatcoat and lay across their ankles with the cat curled against her stomach. Thaw said sleepily, “I would now be getting out of my bed at home if—”
Suddenly he was struck by an image, not of June Haig but of Marjory. He imagined her breasts trembling under skilful hands and sat up, saying, “Janet! You’re Marjory’s friend. Is she carrying on with somebody else?”
“I don’t think so, Duncan.”
“Then what is wrong with her? What is wrong with her?”
“I think she’s too contented at home, Duncan. She’s very happy with her father