Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [183]
Nan smiled in an almost motherly way and Lanark, with a pang of jealousy, saw the same soft, remembering look on Rima’s face. Nan sighed and said, “But they drove even Sludden away in the end (the mouths did), because as I grew worse I needed him more and he didn’t like that. He was going into politics and he had a lot to do.”
Lanark and Rima cried out together, “Politics?” and Rima said, “He always made fun of people who went into politics.”
“I know, but when you disappeared he replaced you with a protest girl, a big brassy blonde who played the guitar and kept telling us her father was a brigadier. I didn’t like her at all. She said we should prepare to seize the reins of the economy, and it was very important to care for people, but she always talked too much to listen to anyone. While she was speaking Sludden would wink at us behind her back. A lot of the Elite crowd went Protestant then. Hundreds of new cliques appeared with names and badges I can’t even remember. Even criminals wore badges. Suddenly Sludden came in wearing a badge and laughing his head off. He’d gone with the blonde to a protest meeting and been elected to a committee. He said we should all become protestants because nobody had confidence nowadays in Provost Dodd and we had a real chance of seizing the city. None of that made sense to me. You see I was pregnant and Sludden wouldn’t allow me near enough to tell him. When I managed it at last he grew very serious. He said it was a crime to bring children into the world before it had been redeemed by revolution. He wanted the baby killed before it was born but I wouldn’t allow that. Pass her to me, please.” Rima lifted the baby into Nan’s arms. It opened its eyes, gave a small mew of complaint and returned to sleep against her breast. She said,” He called me selfish, and he was right, I suppose. I had never known anyone who wanted me before I met Sludden, and now he didn’t want me at all, and I needed someone else, though the thought of the coming baby often made me quite mad and sick. I felt I was being crushed under a whole pile of women with Sludden jumping up and down on top, wearing a crown and laughing. Then the baby would move inside me and I would suddenly feel calm and complete. I was sorry for Sludden then. He seemed a frantic greedy child running everywhere looking for breasts to grab and mothers to feed him and who would never, never have enough. Did you feel that, Rima?”
Rima said shortly, “No.”
“Why did you like him so much?”
“He was clever and amusing and kind. He was the only man among us who hadn’t a disease.”
Lanark said, “He had no disease because he was a disease. He was a cancer afflicting everyone who knew him.”
Rima snorted. “Huh, you don’t know who you’re talking about. Sludden liked you. He tried to help you, but you wouldn’t let him.”
Nan smiled. “You’re making Lanark jealous.”
“Oh yes, she’s making me jealous. But I can be jealous and correct.”
Rima said, “How did you get here, Nancy?”
“Well, I was in my lodgings when the pains began and I knew my baby was coming. I asked the landlord to help but he was frightened and ordered me out of the house, so I shut myself in my room and managed (I can’t remember how) to drag a heavy wardrobe in front of the door. That nearly killed me. The pains were so bad I fell down and couldn’t move. I was sure the baby had died after all. I felt I was nothing then, nothing and nobody, a nobody feeling nothing but horror, a piece of dirt as evil as the world. I suppose I screamed to get out because an opening appeared in the floor beside me.”
Lanark shuddered and said, “Going through that nearly killed me. I knew a soldier who jumped in with his revolver and was gored to death by it. I don’t see how a pregnant woman could survive at all.”
“But it was easy. It was like sinking through warm dark water that could be breathed. Every bit of me was supported. I still felt the labour pains but they weren’t sore, they were like bursts of music. I felt my little girl break free and float up to my breast and cling