Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [175]
It was midnight but there were people about: one or two smart-suited men walking briskly, a lounger in a dirty coat reading a newspaper at a street corner. Two women halted across the road from him. They were young, tall and wore fur-trimmed black coats open over their dresses. One of them put a leg forward, pulled the hem of her dress halfway up her thigh and did something for a while to the top of her stocking. The woman at her side glanced around disdainfully. Thaw stopped, his stomach transbarbed by a shaft of nervous excitement. He raised his hand and crossed over, trying to smile. He said to the woman, who was now pulling down the hem of her dress, “Hullo. I think we know each other.”
The other woman said, “You’re wrong. It’s me ye know,” and stared at him. He said, “All right.”
The bending woman stood up and said, “I’ll be seeing ye, Greta.”
“Aye, all right. Wait, come here a minute.”
They moved aside and whispered together. Both had bright bronze hair permed exactly alike. Greta wore a tight dress which showed the urn-like curves of her thighs and hips. It was fastened down the front with buttons from which creases ran round her body like lines of latitude. Thaw was excited and puzzled that things were going so easily. The smaller girl said, “Goodnight, Greta. Goodnight, big boy,” and walked away. The other took his arm. His nostrils were buffeted by cheap sweet perfume. He said, “Have you a place of your own?”
“Sure I’ve a place.”
“Will we take a taxi?”
“Aye. Let’s be stylish.”
He waved to an approaching taxi and with a feeling of competence saw it come to the kerb. They entered and the woman gave an address. He leaned back, feeling cared for. The woman said, “Is it a short time you’re after?”
“All night, please. I’m a bit tired.”
“It’ll cost ye.”
“How much?”
“Oh, ten pounds, easy.”
Thaw was slightly shocked. “As much as that? … I’ve only nine pounds sixteen and tenpence. Less, when I’ve paid for the taxi.”
“I suppose that’ll have to do.”
He hesitated, then said, “You’ll have trouble warming me up. I’m as cold as a fish.”
She patted his knee. “Oh, I’ll warm you up. I’m good.”
The taxi stopped at the white portico of a church. He paid the driver and joined the woman on the pavement saying, “Are we getting married?”
“I live just round the corner.”
They entered a close in the block of buildings which held his old studio. He had difficulty climbing the stairs. She said,
“You aren’t well, are you?”
“Just a bit tired.”
A frosted glass window beside the door had a black triangular hole in it. She put her hand through the hole and took out a key. She opened the door, carefully closed it behind them, and whispered to Thaw to be quiet. She led him in darkness up narrow creaking stairs, opened another door, closed it behind them, touched a switch and he saw the rosy light of a table lamp in a pink satin shade. They were in a cosy attic bedroom with a sloping ceiling. The woman switched on an electric fire, took off her coat and sat down on the bed looking at him. He started to undress.
Sometime later she said in a sudden suspicious voice, “What’s that?”
Thaw was breathing hard and didn’t answer. She said, “Stop! What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“You call that nothing?”
“It’s eczema, it isn’t infectious,