Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [21]
After a time the dense freezing fog and his arctic brain and body blended. He moved along streets in them, a numb kernel of soul kept going by feet somewhere underneath. The only thing he felt very conscious of was his itching right arm, and several times he stopped and rubbed it backward and forward against corners of walls to scratch it through the sleeve. The sounds and lights of tramcars passed him frequently now, and after crossing a street he was puzzled by a complicated shape between himself and the flow of a high lamp. Going nearer he discerned a queen with a long train riding side-saddle on a rearing horse. It was a statue in the great square. He considered going for warmth to the security office but decided he needed something to drink. He crossed other streets till he saw red neon shining above the pavement. He opened the tinkling door of a small aromatic tobacconist shop, crossed to a staircase and went down into Galloway’s Tearoom. This was a low-ceilinged place much bigger than the shop upstairs. Most of it was alcoves, some opening from others, each with a sofa, table and chairs in it and a stag’s head on a plaque. Lanark ordered lemon tea, sat in the corner of a sofa and fell asleep.
He awoke long afterward. The glass of tea was cold on the table before him and he was listening to a conversation between two businessmen. His ear was an inch from a thick brown curtain separating his sofa from where they sat and clearly they had no sense of being overheard.
“… Dodd is on our side. After all, the Corporation has nothing to do but light the streets and keep the trams running, and these services don’t pay for themselves. They have to be subsidized by the sale of municipal property, so Dodd is selling and I’m buying.”
“But what will you do with it?”
“Sublet. The smallest of these rooms could contain sixteen single apartments if we divided them up with matchboard partitions. I’ve measured.”
“Don’t be mad! Why should anyone want a tiny apartment just because it’s on the square? There’s no profit in being a landlord with a third of the city standing empty.”
“No profit at the moment. I mean to sublet these eventually.”
“Don’t be mysterious, Aitcheson. You can trust me.”
“All right. You know the population is smaller than it used to be. Have you faced the fact that it gets smaller all the time?”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
There was a silence. “What about the new arrivals?”
“Not enough of them. You live in a hotel, don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Of course. So do I. Nobody notices disappearances in a hotel. In the normal way you expect the man in the next room to disappear after a while. Life is different in a tenement. Suddenly the house across the landing is empty. A little later the one upstairs goes empty too. Then you notice there are no lights in half the windows across the street. It’s disturbing! Mind you, people are still pretending not to notice. Wait till they have no neighbours left. Wait till they’re lonely and the panic starts! They’ll crowd to the city centre like drowning men onto a raft. If the city chambers are still empty they’ll break in and squat. But they won’t be empty because I’ll be subletting them.”
After a pause, the other voice said grudgingly, “Very clever. But aren’t you being a bit optimistic? You’re gambling on a trend that may not continue.”
“What is there to stop it?”
Lanark stood up, feeling terribly afraid. A short while ago he had told Sludden he was content. Now everything he heard or saw or remembered was pushing him toward panic. He desperately wanted Rima beside him, a Rima who would smile and be sad with him, a Rima whose fears he could soothe and who would not fling words at him like stones. He paid for the tea and went back to his own room and undressed. When jacket and jersey were removed he saw the right shirtsleeve was stiff with dried blood, and on taking off the shirt he found the arm was dragonhide from shoulder to wrist, with spots of it on the back of his hand. He put on his pyjamas, got into bed and fell asleep.