Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [153]
“I don’t know,” said Thaw.
“Do you lose yourself in daydreams, then jump violently at ordinary noises?”
“Sometimes.”
The professor lifted a drawing of a winged woman from Thaw’s locker. “Artistic, too. Would you mind chatting to a psychiatrist?”
“No.”
“Good. I know you’re not bonkers, but a few talks about family, sex, money and so on can cut down feelings which might interfere with the more straightforward treatments. Your teeth need attention too. You don’t brush them often enough, do you?”
“No,” said Thaw.
The ward was murmurous with conversations which coalesced, once or twice a week, into political arguments in which lumps of language were hurled backward and forward across great distances. Sometimes in the morning a distant clanking drew near and a huge man toiled past, bowing low over a tiny complicated crutch. His face was shrunk to a bright animal eye, a lump of nose and a mouth twisted over toothless gums. He kept muttering, “God knows how I got this way.” “I’ve been a hard worker all my life.” “I’ve earned every penny I owned” and “I do nut like hospitals.”
The men in the beds on each side were more self-absorbed. On the left Mr. Clark frowned thoughtfully, moving his hands in slow descriptive gestures or lifting and letting fall the bedclothes in different folds. In the afternoon he made croaking sounds which the nurses interpreted as requests for a urine bottle, bedpan or cigarette; he was allowed to smoke if someone was there to see he didn’t burn himself. His face and neck were leathery and corded like a turtle’s, his nose high-bridged and imperious. Propped up by pillows he sometimes dozed, his head dithering in space a fraction away from them, then lurched awake with a faint cry of “Agnes!” Nobody visited him. Mr. McDade on Thaw’s left was a small man whose chest bulged like a fat stomach against his chin. He had wiry red hair and a severe face made clerkly by steel spectacles without lenses. These held up each nostril a rubber tube from an oxygen cylinder behind the bed. He removed them to sleep, and sometimes at night rose up in bed on all fours like a dog, making an orchestral noise as if forcing breath through hundreds of tiny flutes and whistles. The nurses would turn him over and restore the spectacles for a while. A small brisk wife and some very tall sons came to see him regularly and before visiting hour he was given an injection which let him talk knowledgeably about grandchildren and prizefighting in a low, clogged ably about grandchildren and prizefighting in a low, clogged voice. He and Thaw often exchanged a slight, negative heads-hake, and one day when his relatives were late he said, “Some business this, eh?”
“Aye.”
“A bad bugger, thon.”
“Who?”
“Clark.”
Thaw glanced the other way and saw Mr. Clark holding up the top edge of his sheet and studying it like a newspaper. Mr. McDade muttered, “Have you noticed? When the nurses have tucked him in he untucks himself and croaks for a bottle. Outside he’d get six months for it. Outside they call that indecent exposure.”
“He’s old.”
“Aye, he’s old. When old men reach that state there’s a place for them.”
Twice a week Thaw put on slippers and dressing gown and was pushed in a wheelchair to the psychiatric block, or walked there if he was well enough. The psychiatrist was a well-dressed man of about forty with no special characteristics. He said, “During our conversations you may experience several unexpected emotions toward me. Please don’t be ashamed to mention them, however bizarre they seem. I won’t be at all offended. They’ll be part of the treatment.”
Thaw talked about parents, childhood, work, sexual fantasies and Marjory. The words poured from him, and once or twice he burst into tears. The psychiatrist said, “In spite of your blinding resentment