Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [194]
The weight on his lap was comforting at first. Her face, childish in sleep, filled him with the tender, sad superiority we usually feel for the sleeping; but the road was hard, his position uncomfortable and he began to feel trapped. His thoughts kept exploring the road ahead, wondering how to escape from it. His muscles ached with the effort of keeping still. At last he kissed her eyelids until she raised them and asked “What’s wrong?”
“Rima, we must get away from here.”
She sat up and pressed her hair back with her hands.
“If you don’t mind I’ll just stay and wait for you to come wandering back.”
“You may wait a long time. I refuse to die at the door of a place where I’ve acted wickedly.”
“Wickedly? Wickedly? You use more meaningless words than anyone I’ve ever met.”
He wondered how to be soothing and said experimentally, “I love you.”
“Shut up.”
His anger rose to the surface. “I love the reckless way you abandon courage and intelligence whenever things get really difficult.”
“Shut up! Shut up!”
“Since we’re determined to behave badly, please pass the brandy.”
“No, I need it.”
He got to his feet and said, “Are you coming, then?”
She folded her arms. He said sharply, “If you need the first-aid box, you’ll find it in the rucksack.”
She didn’t move. He said humbly, “Please come with me.” She didn’t move.
“If you knock the door hard enough, somebody might open it.”
She didn’t move. He laid the torch beside her, said quickly, “Goodbye,” and walked away. He was descending the first hill in great strides when something punched his back. He turned and saw her, tearstained and breathless. She cried, “You’d have left me! You’d have left me alone in the fog!”
“I thought you wanted that.”
“You’re a cruel nasty idiot.”
He said awkwardly, “Anyway, give me your hand.”
They joined hands and all at once his body felt aching-feeble. He even lacked strength to hold her fingers. It was Rima who kept them together and moving along the road. He loathed her. He wanted to lie down and sleep so he disguised his staggers as a carefree way of walking and thought malignantly, ‘She’ll soon tire of dragging me along,’ but Rima continued for a great distance without complaining. At last, feeling lightheaded, he pretended to hum a tune to himself. She stopped and cried, “Oh, Lanark, let’s be friends! Please, please, why can’t we be friends?”
“I’m too tired to be friendly. I want to sleep.”
She stared at him, then her face relaxed into a smile. “I thought you hated me and wanted to get away.”
“At the moment that is perfectly true.”
She said cheerfully, “Let’s sit down. I’m tired too,” and sat on the road. He would have preferred the sand at the roadside but was too tired to say so. He lay beside her. She stroked his hair and he was almost sleeping when he felt something strange and sat up.
“Rima! This asphalt is cracked! It’s covered with moss!”
“I thought it was more comfortable than usual.”
He looked uneasily around and saw through the mist a thing which shocked him out of tiredness. A dark humped headless creature, about four feet high with many legs, stood perfectly still in front of them. The feet were gathered together and the legs bent as if to jump. Lanark felt Rima grip his shoulder and whisper, “A spider.”
His scalp tightened. There was a thudding in his ears. He stood up and whispered, “Give me the torch.”
“I haven’t a torch. Come away.”
“I’m going nowhere with that behind me.”
He took a breath and stepped forward. The dark body became a cluster of bodies, each with its own leg. He called happily, “Rima, it’s toadstools!”
A clump of big toadstools grew on the yellow line so that half the domed heads tilted left and the other half to the right. Lanark bent down and stared between the stems. They were rooted