Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [285]
“Be quiet, I’m trying to contact Defence Command,” said Alexander.
“Nothing can be defended now, I hear the water coming,” said Lanark. There was a faraway rushing mingled with faint squeals. He hobbled between two monuments to the edge of a slope and gazed eagerly down, holding himself erect by a branch of a twisty thorn tree.
A blast of cold wind freshened the air. The rushing grew to surges and gurglings and up the low road between Necropolis and cathedral sped a white foam followed by ripples and plunging waves with gulls swooping and crying over them. He laughed aloud, following the flood with his mind’s eye back to the river it flowed from, a full river widening to the ocean. His cheek was touched by something moving in the wind, a black twig with pointed little pink and grey-green buds. The colours of things seemed to be brightening although the fiery light over the roofs had paled to silver streaked with delicate rose. A long silver line marked the horizon. Dim rooftops against it grew solid in the increasing light. The broken buildings were fewer than he had thought. Beyond them a long faint bank of cloud became clear hills, not walling the city in but receding, edge behind pearl-grey edge of farmland and woodland gently rising to a faraway ridge of moor. The darkness overheard shifted and broke in the wind becoming clouds with blue air between. He looked sideways and saw the sun coming up golden behind a laurel bush, light blinking, space dancing among the shifting leaves. Drunk with spaciousness he turned every way, gazing with wide-open mouth and eyes as light created colours, clouds, distances and solid, graspable things close at hand. Among all this light the flaming buildings seemed small blazes which would soon burn out. With only mild disappointment he saw the flood ebbing back down the slope of the road.
Rima came beside him and said teasingly, “Wrong again, Lanark.”
He nodded, sighed, and said, “Rima, did you ever love me?” She laughed, held him and kissed his cheek. She said, “Of course I did, even though you kept driving me away so nastily and so often. They’ve started shooting again.”
They stood awhile listening to the snapping and crackings. She said, “Defence command have called Alex over to maintenance. It’s very urgent, but he says he’ll come back for you as soon as he can. You’re to stay here and not worry if he’s late.”
“Good.”
“I’m sorry you can’t come with me, but Horace is an idiot sometimes. Why should a young man like him be jealous of you?”
“I don’t know.”
She laughed, kissed his cheek and went away.
After a while he hobbled back to the space between the monuments and sat once again on the edge of the granite slab. He was tired and chilly but perfectly content to wait. There was nobody about, but after a while he heard the crunch of a foot on gravel. A figure approached him wearing the black and white clothes and carrying the silver-tipped staff of a chamberlain. Lanark had trouble focusing on the face under the wig: sometimes it seemed to be Munro, sometimes Gloopy. He said, “Munro? Gloopy?”
“Correct sir,” said the figure, bowing respectfully. “We have been sent to bestow on you an extraordinary privilege.”
“Who sent you?” said Lanark peevishly. “Institute or council? I dislike both.”
“Knowledge and government are dissolving. I now represent the ministry of earth.”
“Everything keeps getting renamed. I’ve stopped caring. Don’t try to explain.”
The figure bowed again and said, “You will die tomorrow at seven minutes after noon.”
The words were almost drowned by a squawking gull turning in the sky overhead, but Lanark understood them perfectly. Like a mother’s fall in a narrow lobby, like a policeman’s hand on his shoulder, he had known or expected this all his life. A roaring like a terrified crowd filled his ears; he whispered, “Death is not a privilege.”
“The privilege is knowing when.”
“But I … I seem to remember passing through several deaths.”
“They were rehearsals. After the next death nothing personal will remain of you.”
“Will it hurt?