Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [203]
GOD = LOVE = MONEY = SHIT.
“Well, that seems all right,” said Ritchie-Smollet loudly. Lanark turned and saw him repacking the case. “The little fellow seems the correct way up and round and so forth. If she insists on having it here I suppose we can manage.”
“Here?” said Lanark, startled.
“Not in hospital, I mean. Anyway, I’ll leave you to some well-earned rest.”
He went out, pulling a red curtain across the door. Rima murmured, “Get in behind me.”
He obeyed and she pressed her freezing soles greedily to his shins, but her back was familiar and cosy and soon they grew warm and slept.
He wakened among whispering and rustling. Chains of bright spots flowed zigzag over the dark vault and pillars and crowded floor. They were cast by a silver-faceted globe revolving where the orange lamp had hung, and now the only steady light shone on the steps to the entrance. These were the breadth of the wall. Young men in overalls were arranging electrical machines on them which sometimes filled the chapel with huge hoarse sighs. Three older men sat on the lower steps holding instruments joined by wires to the machinery, and a fourth was setting up a percussion kit with BROWN’S LUGWORM CASANOVAS printed on the big drum. Lanark saw he was part of an audience: the whole floor was paved with mattresses and covered with people squatting shoulder to shoulder. Beside him a delicate girl in a silver sari was leaning on a hairy, bare-chested man in a sheepskin waistcoat. Just in front a girl in the tartan trews and scarlet mess jacket of a highland regiment was whispering to a man with the braided hair, headband and fringed buckskin of an Indian squaw. People from every culture and century seemed gathered here in silk, canvas, fur, feathers, wool, gauze, nylon and leather. Hair was frizzed out like the African, crewcut like the Roman, piled high like Pompadour, straightened like the Sphinx or rippled over the shoulders like periwigs. There was every kind of ornament and an amount of nakedness. Lanark looked unsuccessfully for his clothes. He felt he had rested a long time but Rima was still sleeping, so he decided not to move. Other couples were reclining at length and even caressing in the shelter of sleeping bags.
There was applause and a small gloomy man with a heavy moustache stood with a microphone on the steps. He said, “Glad to be back, folks, in legendary Unthank where I’ve had so many legendary experiences. I’m going to lead off with a new thing, it bombed them in Troy and Trebizond, it sank like stone-cold turkey in Atlantis, let’s see what happens here. ‘Domestic Man.’”
He threw his head back and shouted:
“The cake she baked me bit me till I cried!”
The instruments and machines said BAWAM so loudly that hearing and thought were destroyed for a second.
“The bed she made me was so hard I nearly died!”
(BAWAM)
“The shirt she washed me folded its arms and tied me up inside!”
(BAWAM)
“She’s going domestic, she’s got a great big domestic plan, But please baby believe me lady I am
not a domestic man
not a domestic man
not a domestic man.”
(BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM BAWAM)
Rima was sitting up, hands pressed over ears and tears pouring down her cheeks. She spoke but the words were inaudible. Lanark saw Ritchie-Smollet beckoning violently from the doorway behind the singer. He pulled Rima up and they stumbled through the audience. The singer shouted:
“She cleans windows till they shine so I can’t see!”
(BAWAM)
“She polishes floors till they suck my foot in up to the knee!”
(BAWAM)
“She papers rooms till the walls start squeezing in on me!”
(BAWAM)
As they passed the singer Rima waved so threateningly at a bank of loudspeakers that someone grabbed her arm. Lanark pulled him off and clumsy punches were exchanged on the way to the door. Ritchie-Smollet separated them, his voice coming through the BAWAMing like a far-off whisper: “… entirely my fault … delicate condition … failure of liaison….”
It was quieter outside the door where