Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [17]
He was nearly seven feet high and wore a polo-necked sweater and well-cut khaki trousers and, though perhaps fifty, gave an impression of youthful fitness. He had a bronzed bald head with tufts of white hair behind the ears, a clipped white moustache and good-humoured, boyishly alert features. Lanark said awkwardly, “I’m afraid I don’t know you.”
“Quite so. Not many of your crowd know me. Yet the whole place belongs to me. Funny, isn’t it? I often have a laugh about that.”
“Does Sludden know you?”
“Oh yes, Sludden and I are great buddies. What would you like to drink?”
He turned to a sideboard with bottles and glasses on it.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Well, sit down anyway, I want you to tell me something. Meanwhile I will pour myself … a drop … of Smith’s Glenlivet Malt. Here’s health.”
The warm fire, the mild light, the host’s calm manner made Lanark feel this a pleasant place to relax. He sat in one of the chairs.
The tall man returned with a glass in his hand, sat down and crossed his legs. He said, “What makes you chaps tick? What satisfaction do you, personally, get from being a writer?” Lanark tried to remember. He said, “It’s the only disciplined work I remember trying. I sleep better after it.”
“Really? But wouldn’t you sleep better after other kinds of discipline?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”
“And you’ve never thought of joining the army?”
“Why should I?”
“Because in a couple of terse, commonplace sentences you connected the ideas of work, discipline and health. So I suspect that, in spite of your association with sponges and leeches, you are still a vertebrate. Am I wrong?”
Lanark thought about this for a while, then asked, “What use is the army?”
“What use to society, you mean? Defence and employment. We defend and we employ. I believe you lodge with a woman called Fleck in a tenement beside Turk’s Head Forge.”
“How do you know?”
“Aha! There’s not much we don’t know. The point is that the Turk’s Head Forge produces components for our Q39. Industry is slack just now, as you may have noticed. If it wasn’t for the Q39 programme the Forge would have to close, thousands would be unemployed and they’d have to cut the social security allowance. Think of that next time you feel like knocking the army.”
“What is the Q39?”
“You’ve seen them. They’re being assembled in the yards near the river.”
“Do you mean these big metal constructions like bombs or bullets?”
“You think they look like bombs, do you? Good! Good! That cheers me greatly. Actually they’re shelters to protect the civilian population. Each one is capable of housing five hundred souls when the balloon goes up.”
“What do you mean?”
“About the balloon? It’s a figure of speech derived from an outmoded combat system. It means, when the sign goes out that the big show is starting.”
“What show?”
“I can’t tell you precisely, because it could take several different forms. We could be on the receiving end of any one of sixty-eight different types of attack, and I don’t mind telling you that we’re only capable of defending ourselves against three of them.’ Hopeless! Why bother?’ you say, and miss the point entirely. The other side is as badly placed as we are. These preparations for the big show may be pretty inadequate, but if we stop them the balloon will go up. Am I depressing you?”
“No, but I’m confused.”
The tall man nodded sympathetically, “I know, it’s difficult. Metaphor is one of thought’s most essential tools. It illuminates what would otherwise be totally obscure. But the illumination is sometimes so bright that it dazzles instead of revealing.”
It struck Lanark that in spite of his smooth flow of words the tall man was drunk. Somebody grunted nearby. Lanark turned and saw a stout elderly man sitting immobile in one of the chairs. He wore a dark blue suit and waistcoat. His eyes were shut but he was not asleep, for his hands were grasping his knees. Lanark gasped and said, “Who is that?”
“That is one of our city fathers. That is Baillie Dodd.”
The man in the chair said, “No.