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“They dislike space, you see, and noise fills that up,” said Ritchie-Smollet, leading them across the nave. “The fault is really mine. I went out with a man who thought I could save his marriage because I’d performed the ceremony. Illogical, really. Didn’t know him from Adam. I hadn’t expected you to sleep so long—if we had a clock it would be safe to say you snoozed right round the bally thing. Contractions started yet?”

“No,” said Rima.

“Good. In a brace of shakes you’ll have a bed and a bite in the triforium. I’d have put you there when you came but I feared you were too feeble to face the stairs.”

He opened a little door and they saw a stair hardly two feet wide spiralling upward in the thickness of the wall. Lanark said, “Excuse me, but can’t we get a decent room in a decent house?”

“Rooms are hard to find just now. The house of God is the best I can offer.”

“When I was last here a quarter of the city stood empty.”

“Ah, that was before the new building programme started. Someone on the committee may offer you a spare room eventually. Anyway, we can wait for them in the triforium—your clothes are there.”

Ritchie-Smollet ducked through the doorway and climbed. Rima followed and Lanark came after. The stairs were laboriously steep. After several turns they passed through another door onto the inner sill of a huge window. Rima gasped and clutched a handrail. Far below a man moved like a beetle over the flagged floor and the echoing throbs of “Domestic Man” added to the insecurity. Ritchie-Smollet said, “That’s Polyphemus on his way to the chapterhouse. My word, but the Lugworms are going it some.”

A few steps took them onto a walkway between rows of organ pipes, and a few more into the end of a very long low attic. The ceiling slanted from the floor to a wall of arches overlooking the nave. As they walked down it Lanark saw partitions dividing the loft on his left into cubicles, each containing a little furniture. In one a man in a dirty coat sat trying to mend an old boot. In another a haggard woman lay drinking from a flat-sided bottle. Ritchie-Smollet said, “Here we are,” stepped into one and squatted on the carpet.

The cubicle had a homely look mitigated by a smell of disinfectant. It was lit by a pink silk-shaded lamp above a low bed that covered a third of the floor. The seats were stools and cushions but there was a low table, a chest of drawers and a tiny sink. The boards between the ceiling joists were covered by forget-me-not patterned paper, and on one of the two walls a hanger on a hook held Lanark’s clothes, newly cleaned and pressed.

“Small but snug,” said Ritchie-Smollet. “A regrettable lack of headroom but nobody will disturb us. I suggest Rima slip into bed (she’ll find a hot-water bottle there) and you get dressed. Then Jack will bring us a meal, a companion will arrive for your good lady, and we two can attend the meeting in the chapterhouse. The provost should be there by now.”

Lanark sank on a stool with elbows on knees and chin on hands. He said, “You keep moving me about and I don’t know why.” “Yes, it’s difficult. In the present state of chronological confusion it’s impossible to state things clearly. As secretary I can only arrange meetings by keeping members here till the rest arrive. But Gow’s come, and poor Scougal and Mrs. Schtzngrm and the ubiquitous Polyphemus. And chairman Sludden, praise God.”

Lanark looked at Rima. The sight soothed him. She lay smiling against the pillows, a hand touching her full breast. There was a soft calmness about her; the dimples at the corners of her mouth were unusually deep. She said fondly, “It’s all right, Lanark. Don’t worry.”

He sighed and started dressing.

Jack entered with a loaded tray and Ritchie-Smollet poured coffee into cups and passed plates around, chatting as he did so.

“All out of tins, of course, but good of its kind. Easy to serve, too, which is handy because there’s only room for a very tiny kitchen. There was amazing opposition