Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [235]
“Eva Schtzngrm, yes. There is von other matter personal to yourself,” she said, lowering her voice. “In crossing the intercal-endrical zone by air I think you vill pass very rapidly through the menopause barrier.”
“What?” said Lanark, alarmed.
“No neet to worry. You are not a voman and so vill not be greatly changed. But you may haf very odd experiences of contraction and expansion which neet not be referred to after-vards. Don’t vorry about them. Don’t vorry.”
Sludden looked round the door and said, “Angus has set up the lights. Let’s go to the airfield.”
They went through a kitchen to a back door and followed an electric cable which snaked up a path between seedy cabbage stumps.
“Remember,” said Sludden, “your best tactic is open denunciation. It’s pointless complaining to the council chiefs when the other delegates aren’t present, and vice versa. The leaders must be shamed into making concrete promises in the hearing of the rest.”
“I wish you were going instead,” said Lanark. They reached an overgrown privet hedge whose top leaves were black against a low glowing light. Sludden, then Lanark, then Mrs. Schtzngrm pushed through a gap onto the airfield. This was almost too narrow to be called a field, being a grassy triangular space on the summit of a hill completely surrounded by back gardens. A square tarpaulin was spread on the grass with three electric lights placed round it, and in the centre of the tarpaulin, upon very broad feet and short bowed legs, stood something like a bird. Though too large for an eagle it had the same shape and brownish gold feathers. The figures U-1 were stencilled on the breast. In the back between the folded wings was an opening about eighteen inches wide, though overlapping feathers made it seem narrower. As far as Lanark could see the interior was quilted with blue satin. He said, “Is this a bird or a machine?”
“A bit of both,” said Sludden, taking the briefcase from Lanark’s hand and tossing it into the cavity.
“But how can it fly when it’s hollow inside?”
“It draws vital energy from the passenger,” said Mrs. Schtzngrm.
“I haven’t enough energy to fly that to another city.”
“A credit cart vill allow the vehicle to draw energy from your future. You haf a cart?”
“Here,” said Sludden. “I took it from his other suit. Angus, the chair, please.”
The chauffeur brought a kitchen chair from the darkness and placed it beside the bird; Lanark, feebly protesting, was helped onto it by Sludden.
“I don’t like doing this.”
“Just step inside, Mr. Delegate.”
Lanark put one foot in the cavity, then the other. The bird rocked and settled as he slid down inside; then the head came up and turned completely round so that he was faced by the down-curving dagger point of the great beak. “Give it this,” said Sludden, handing him the credit card. Lanark held it by an extreme corner and thrust it shyly toward the beak, which snapped it up. A yellow light went on in the glassy eyes. The head turned away and lowered out of sight. Mrs. Schtzngrm said, “He cannot fly till you haf put yourself mostly inside. Remember, the less you think the faster he vill go. Do not fear for your goot clothing, the interior is sanitizing and vill launder and trim you while you sleep.”
The smooth strong satin inside the bird supported Lanark as though he sat in a chair, but when he pulled his arms in it stretched him out and the rear end sank until his feet inside the neck felt higher than his face. This looked out of the cleft between two brown wings, which started rising higher and higher on each side. Squinting forward he could see a bungalow roof with a yellow square of window. The black shape of someone’s head and shoulders looked out of this, and if the window belonged to Sludden’s house the watcher was surely Sandy and at once the grotesque flimsy aircraft and being a delegate and a provost seemed stupid evasions of the realest thing in the world and he shouted