Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [24]
The girl looked up from the guitar and said, “I think you’re being too hard on the boss class. They feel in their bones that the system is unfair and unwieldy, so the intelligent ones get terribly bored and join us. That’s what I did. My daddy’s a brigadier.”
“We contain all shades of opinion,” said the white-haired woman, becoming flustered, “but we are agreed upon one thing: the need for sunlight. You need that too, so why not join us?”
Lanark stared at her and she smiled bravely back but eventually shrugged her shoulders and resumed work with the envelopes. The clergyman beside her leaned forward toward Lanark and said in a low voice, “You’re on the edge of a pit, aren’t you?” In spite of the beard his face looked childish and eager, with a blue mark like a bruise above the right eyebrow. He said quietly, “People in this organization see the pit a long way ahead, so put your glove on, we can’t help you.” Lanark bit his underlip and pulled on the glove. The man said, “If you get out of the pit I hope you’ll join us all the same. You won’t need us then but we will certainly need you.”
Lanark said heavily, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” and walked away.
He crossed the square and walked to the Elite because it was the only other place he could think of and Rima might be there. Her kindly moments had become radiant in the coldness he moved through, and she had dragonhide too, and what had it made of her? He leaped flooded gutters and plunged through ridges of slush; he pushed open the glass doors of the foyer and rushed upstairs, and the café was empty. He stood in the entrance and stared unbelievingly around but nobody was there, not even the man who had stood so fixedly behind the counter. Lanark turned and went downstairs.
Crossing the halfway landing he saw a girl below in the foyer buying cigarettes at the cash desk. It was Gay. He called her name and hurried down. She looked whiter and thinner but greeted him with surprising vivacity, bobbing lightly up to kiss his lips. She said, “Where have you been, Lanark? Why those mysterious disappearances?”
“I’ve been in bed. Come upstairs with me.”
“Upstairs? Nobody goes upstairs nowadays. It’s so horrible. We use the downstairs café now, the light is more soothing.” She pointed to a thick red curtain which Lanark had thought covered a door to the cinema. She pulled it slightly aside, saying, “Come and join us. All the old gang are here.”
Beyond the curtain was perfect blackness. Lanark said, “There’s no light here at all.”
“Yes there is, but your eyes take a while to get used to it.”
“And is Rima in there?”
Gay let the curtain go and said uneasily, “I don’t think I’ve seen Rima since my … my engagement party.”
“Then she’s at home?”
“I suppose so.”
“Could you tell me how to get to it? I went there in the fog and I couldn’t find it now.”
Gay’s face seemed suddenly ancient. She folded her arms, bowed her head and shoulders, looked at him sideways and said faintly, “I could take you there. But Sludden wouldn’t like it.”
“Take me there, Gay! She helped you when you were sick at the party. I’m afraid something is happening to her too.”
She gave him a sly, frightened look and said. “Sludden sent me to buy cigarettes and he hates waiting for anything.”
Lanark saw that his dragon hand was clenching to strike her. He thrust it into his pocket where it squirmed like a crab. Gay did not notice. She said wistfully, “You’re very solid, Lanark. I can go with you if you hold me, I think. But Sludden never lets go.”
She held out a hand to him. He seized it gladly and they went into the street.
Gay’s footsteps were so feeble that he put his good arm round her waist to help her onward. At first they went quickly, then the pressure on his arm began to increase. Her feet were not engaging the slippery pavement, and though her body was light it felt as if an elastic cord fixed to her back were making forward