Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [174]
He tried to cram all his knuckles into his mouth, then went downstairs and picked the biggest mirror fragment from among the pews and hurried about trying to catch a fresh new glimpse of the work. He had wanted to make a harmony of soft blue, brown and gold livened here and there by sparks of pure colour, but he could see only clumsy black and grey, glaring reds and greens. He had tried to show bodies in a depth of tender light, sharing space with clouds, hills, plants and creatures, but his space was hardly a foot deep and his people were crushed in it as if into a narrow cupboard. His mural showed the warped rat-trap world of a neurotic virgin. He hurled the mirror fragment into the chancel.
“That is not art,” he shouted, bending his head and wildly scratching. “Not art, just hungry howling. Oh, why did she hunt me out? Why didn’t she stay? How can I make her a beautiful world if she refuses to please me? Oh, God, God, God, let me kill her, kill her! I must get out of here.”
He went into the lavatory beside the vestry, stripped off dressing gown and overalls and started washing. From upstairs the voices of Cowlairs Women’s Social Club were bawling a chorus of “Who’s Sorry Now?” As he rubbed a paint stain from his knee with newspaper soaked in turpentine he noticed an advertisement for a film called Test Pilot. A strong, slightly pained male head looked skyward out of a padded husk hung with microphones, cables and dials. A woman stood nearby in profile, her back to the pilot but glancing at him with a sidelong inviting provocative smile. She had short dark hair and lips like June Haig. She was barefoot and wore bangles and black gauze trousers with a slit from ankle to waist. A sleeveless black gauze shirt covered her breasts but left bare the valley between them and her throat and midriff. Stealthily arising, his sexual imagination began slowly to rip and toy with her, but he crumpled the paper and flung it aside, thinking, “Women are never like that. Or they seem to be and then, ‘Stop touching me, Duncan.’ But that’s my fault. I’ve seen them with other men at bus stops, leaning toward them, looking into their faces, nakedly wanting to be liked or happy because they see they’re wanted. But I’m unattractive. Never mind. Prostitutes make a living from men like me. I must go to Bath Street.”
He put on his suit, noticing the two five-pound notes still in the jacket pocket. Returning to the church to switch the lights off he noticed the place was stinking, stinking so powerfully he thought for a moment it was on fire. Then he recognized the corrupt sweet odour that had come after his mother’s death. He laughed mournfully and said, “Still there, auld woman? And bigger than ever, if my nose is any judge. I must see if I can get rid of you in Bath Street.”
It was ten o’clock and the tram into town was nearly empty. He sat chewing a knuckle and staring out of the window. Visions of viciously exciting intercourse were blurred by thoughts of peaceful sleep in the arms of someone pretending to like him. He left the tram and walked up West Regent Street. Two women stood at opposite corners of Blythswood Square. He quickened as he passed them, then slowed up, cursing his cowardice. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten for two or three days. He bought a poke of chips in a shop near Charing Cross and walked, eating them, up Bath Street. A woman stood at a corner wearing a red coat and carrying a big black handbag. She looked too old and dignified to be a prostitute but though on the far side of the road she seemed to be noticing him sideways. He stood against some railings, finishing the chips while