Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [217]
He stared, astonished, and said, “I can’t make love when you’ve made me feel small and absurd.”
“I’ve made you fell absurd, have I? I’m glad. I’m delighted. You make me feel small all the time. You’ve never paid attention to my feelings, never once. You dragged us here from a perfectly comfortable place because you disliked the food, and what good did it do? We still eat the same food. You laughed when I gave you a son and you can’t even give him a home. You use use use me all the time, and you’re so smugly sure you’re right all the time. You’re heavy and dismal and humourless, yet you want me to pet you and make you feel big and important. I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I’m too tired.” She went to the seat by the pram and resumed knitting.
Lanark sat on the bed with his face in his hands. He said, “This is Hell.”
“Yes. I know.”
“I wish you could love me.”
“You take me for granted, so I can’t. You don’t know how to make me love you. Some men can do it.”
He looked up and said, “Which men?”
She continued to knit. He stood up and cried, “Which men?” “I might tell you if you wouldn’t get hysterical.”
Alexander sat up and asked in an interested voice, “Is Dad going to get hysterical?”
Lanark shook his head dumbly then whispered, “I must get out of here.”
“Yes, I think you should,” said Rima. “Look for a job. You need one.”
He went to the entrance and turned, hoping for a look of friendship or recognition, but her face was so full of stony pain that he could only shake his head.
“Goodbye Dad,” said Alexander casually. Lanark waved to him, hesitated, then left.
CHAPTER 38.
Greater Unthank
The shadowy nave seemed vast and empty till he neared the door and saw Jack sitting on the font. Lanark meant to pass him with a slight nod but Jack was watching with such a frank stare that he stopped and said tensely, “Could you please direct me to a labour exchange?”
“They’re not called labour exchanges now, they’re called job centres,” said Jack, springing down. “I’ll take you to one.”
“Can Ritchie-Smollet spare you?”
“Maybe not, but I can spare him. I change bosses when I like.”
Jack led him through the cathedral grounds to a bus stop on the edge of the square. Lanark said, “I can’t afford a bus fare.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got cash. What do you want at a job centre?”
“An unskilled job doing something useful exactly the way I’m told.”
“Not many jobs like that in Unthank nowadays. Except in cleansing, perhaps. And cleansing workers have to be young and healthy.”
“How old do you think I am?”
“Past the halfway mark, at least.”
Lanark looked down at the prominent veins on the back of his hands and muttered after a while, “No dragonhide, anyway.”
“What did you say?”
“I may not be young but I don’t have dragonhide.”
“Of course you don’t. We aren’t living in the dark ages.”
Lanark felt like the victim of a sudden horrible accident. He thought, ‘Over halfway through life and what have I achieved? What have I made? Only a son, and he was mostly his mother’s work. Who have I ever helped? Nobody but Rima, and I’ve only helped her out of messes she’d have missed if she had been with someone else. All I have is a wife and child. I must make them a home, a secure comfortable home.’
As if answering the thought a bus crossed a corner of the square with a painting on the side of a mother and child. Printed over it were the words A HOME IS MONEY. MONEY IS TIME. BUY TIME FOR YOUR FAMILY FROM THE QUANTUM CHRONOLOGICAL. (THEY’LL LOVE YOU FOR IT.)
“I need a lot of money,” said Lanark. “If I can’t get work I’ll have to beg from the security people.”
“The name’s changed,” said Jack. “They’re called social stability now. And they don’t give money, they give three-in-one.”
“What’s that?”
“A special kind of bread. It nourishes and tranquillizes and stops your feeling cold, which is useful if you’re homeless. But I don’t think you should eat any.”
“Why?”
“A little does no harm, but after a while it damages the intelligence. Of course the unemployment problem would be a catastrophe without it. Here comes our