Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [19]
The Provost stared about the room as if Lanark were not in it and muttered, “No great loss, I would have thought.”
Lanark was filled with the conviction that every footstep in that room might land in an invisible trap. He managed to move to the door without running. The Provost said, “Wait.”
Lanark stepped into the hall before turning to him. The Provost pushed out his lower lip, frowned down at his shoes, then said, “You came with a girl. She had black hair and wore a black sweater and her skirt was … I forget the colour.”
“Black.”
“Quite so. Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
The Provost stared at him for a while then turned away, saying heavily, “Anyway, it’s all the same. It’s all the same.”
Lanark hurried out, slamming the door hard behind him.
CHAPTER 5.
Rima
There was fog outside. The light from the windows saturated it so that the mansion seemed wrapped in a cocoon of milky light, but outside the cocoon Lanark walked in total obscurity and only found his way down the drive by the crunch of gravel underfoot and the touch of rimy leaves on his hands and face.
On the pavement it was possible to steer through the murk by the glow of the street lamp ahead. The clammy air made his footsteps resound loudly but after five minutes he decided that what seemed like echoes were the footsteps of someone behind. His back prickled apprehensively. He stood against a hedge and waited. The other footsteps hesitated, then came boldly on. In the fog’s cloudy dimness a shadow appeared and developed an unusual density of black, then the slim black figure of Rima passed by giving him only the flicker of a glance. He hurried after her crying gladly, “Rima! It’s me!”
“So I see.”
“Provost Dodd was looking for you.”
“Who’s Provost Dodd?”
The question seemed meant to stop conversation rather than aid it. He walked beside her, thinking of what he had seen of her friends in the bedroom. This memory no longer horrified. It combined with his words to the blond girl, with Gloopy’s disappearance and with the fog; it cast around her an odour of exciting malign sexual possibility. He asked abruptly, “Did you enjoy the party?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“If you must know I spent most of the time in the bathroom with Gay. She was very sick.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you want to talk to me at all?”
“No.”
His heart and penis hardened in angry amazement. He gripped her arms and pulled her round to face him saying softly, “Why?” She glared into his eyes and yelled, “Because I’m afraid of you!”
He was hit by a feeling of shame and weariness. He let her go, shrugging his shoulders and muttering, “Well, maybe that’s wise of you.”
Half a minute later he was surprised to find her walking beside him. She said, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Maybe I am a dangerous man.”
She began laughing but quickly smothered this and slipped a hand through his arm. The light pressure made him calmer and stronger.
They came to a street corner. The fog was very thick. A tramcar clanged past a few feet in front of them, but nothing could be seen of it. Rima said, “Where’s your coat? You’re shivering.”
“So are you. I’d take you for a coffee but I don’t know where we are.”
“You’d better come with me. I live nearby and I stole a bottle of brandy from the party.”
“You shouldn’t have done that.”
Rima withdrew her hand sharply and said, “You, are a very, big, wet, drip!”
Lanark was stung by this. He said, “Rima, I am not clever or imaginative. I have only a few rules to live by. These rules may annoy folk who are clever enough to live without them, but I can’t help that and you ought not to blame me.”
“All right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You can make me apologize by breathing on me, it seems.”
They turned the corner. Lanark said, “But I can frighten you too.”
She was silent.
“And I can make you laugh.”
She laughed slightly and took his arm again.
They seemed to enter a lane between low buildings like private garages. Rima unlocked a door, led him