Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [270]
Wilkins, Senior Adviser on Population Energy Transfer.
“Listen!” said Lanark. “I’ll phone every Wilkins in the list till I get the—no! No, I’ll phone Monboddo and get the full name from him; he knows me even if his damned robots don’t. I’m sorry the hour is so early, but …”
He hesitated, for his voice sounded unconvincing again and the sergeant was slowly shaking his head. “Let me prove who I am!” said Lanark wildly. “My briefcase is in Nastler’s room in the stadium—no, I gave it to Joy, a Red Girl, a hostess in the executive gallery; she put it behind the bar for me I must get it back it contains a vitally important document please this is vital—”
The sergeant, who was writing in the ledger, said “All right, lads.”
Lanark felt a hand clapped on each shoulder and cried, “But what am I charged with? I’ve hurt nobody, molested nobody, insulted nobody. What am I charged with?”
“With being a pisser,” said a policeman holding him.
“All men are pissers!”
“I am charging you,” said the sergeant, writing, “under the General Powers (Consolidation) Order, and what you need is a nice long rest.”
And as he was led away Lanark found himself yawning hugely. The hands on his shoulder grew strangly comforting. Surely he had often been pushed forward by strong people who thought he was wicked? The feeling was less dreamlike than childlike.
He was led into a small narrow room with what looked like bunks piled with folded blankets along one wall. He climbed at once to the top bunk and lay down, but they laughed and said, “No, no, Jimmy!”
He climbed down and they gave him two blankets to carry and led him to another door. He went through and it was slammed and locked behind him. He wrapped the blankets round him, lay on a platform in a corner and slept.
And now he was awake and wildly miserable. He sprang up and walked in a circle round the floor, crying, “Oh! I have been wicked, stupid, evil, stupid, daft daft daft daft and stupid, stupid! And it happened exactly when I thought myself a fine great special splendid man! How did it happen? I meant to find Wilkins and talk to him sensibly, but the women made me feel famous. Did they want to destroy me? No, no, they treated me like something special because it made them feel special but all the time nothing good was being made, nothing useful was done. I was drunk, yes, with white rainbows, yes, but mostly with vanity; nobody is as crazy as a man who thinks he is important. People tried to tell me things and I ignored them. What was Kodac hinting at? Valuable minerals, special reports, government ignorance, it sounded like dirty trickery but I should have listened carefully. And … Catalyst … why didn’t I ask her name? She tried to warn me and I thought she wanted to sleep with me. Yah! Greed and idiocy. I forgot the reports! I lost the reports without even reading them, I was seduced by people I can’t even remember (but it was lovely). And how did I come to be paddling in that burn with Sandy? What was that but a useless bit of happiness put in to make my fall more dreadful? (But it was wonderful.) Oh, Sandy, what kind of father have you been cursed with? I left you to defend you and have turned into a ludicrous lecherous discredited stinking goat!”
He stopped and stared at some things he had not noticed beside the platform: three plastic mugs of cold tea and three paper plates of rolls with cold fried sausages in them. He grabbed the rolls and with tears trickling down his cheeks gulped and swallowed between sentences, saying, “Three mugs, three plates, three meals: I’ve been a whole day in here, the first day of the assembly is over…. When will I be let out?… I was fooled by false love because I never knew the true kind, not even with Rima. Why? I was faithful to her not because I loved her but because I wanted love, it is right that she left me it is right that I’m locked up here, I deserve much worse. … But who will speak for Unthank? … Who will cry out against that second-hand second-rate creator who thinks