Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [286]
“Not much. Just now there is no feeling in your left arm; you can’t move it. In a moment it will get better again, but at five minutes after noon tomorrow your whole body will become like that. For two minutes you will be able to see and think but not move or speak. That will be the worst time. You will be dead when it stops.”
Lanark scowled with self-pity and annoyance. The chamberlain said, respectfully “Have you a complaint?”
“I ought to have more love before I die. I’ve not had enough.”
“That is everyone’s complaint. You can appeal against the death sentence if you have something better to do.”
“If you’re hinting that I should go in for more adventures, no thank you, I don’t want them. But how will my son—how will the world manage when I’m not here?”
The chamberlain shrugged and spread his hands.
“Well go away, go away,” said Lanark more kindly. “You can tell the earth I would have preferred a less common end, like being struck by lightning. But I’m prepared to take death as it comes.”
The chamberlain vanished. Lanark forgot him, propped his chin on his hands and sat a long time watching the moving clouds. He was a slightly worried, ordinary old man but glad to see the light in the sky.
I STARTED MAKING MAPS WHEN I WAS SMALL SHOWING PLACE, RESOURCES, WHERE THE ENEMY AND WHERE LOVE LAY. I DID NOT KNOW TIME ADDS TO LAND. EVENTS DRIFT CONTINUALLY DOWN, EFFACING LANDMARKS, RAISING THE LEVEL, LIKE SNOW.
I HAVE GROWN UP. MY MAPS ARE OUT OF DATE. THE LAND LIES OVER ME NOW. I CANNOT MOVE. IT IS TIME TO GO.
GOODBYE
TAILPIECE: How Lanark Grew
Hullo again. When Canongate published Lanark in 1981 I was 45 and thought the book would become famous, when I was dead. A London publisher told me Lanark might get a cult following in the USA and would do less well in Britain. But since 1981 it has been steadily reprinted here, and I have often been asked the following questions.
Q What is your background?
A If background means surroundings: first 25 years were lived in Riddrie, east Glasgow, a well-maintained district of stone-fronted corporation tenements and semi-detached villas. Our neighbours were a nurse, postman, printer and tobacconist, so I was a bit of a snob. I took it for granted that Britain was mainly owned and ruled by Riddrie people – people like my dad who knew Glasgow’s deputy town clerk (he also lived in Riddrie) and others who seemed important men but not more important than my dad. If background means family: it was hardworking, well-read and very sober. My English grandad was a Northampton foreman shoemaker who came north because the southern employers blacklisted him for trade-union activities. My Scottish grandad was an industrial blacksmith and congregational elder. My dad fought in the First World War, which made an agnostic Socialist of him. He received a stomach wound that got him a small government pension, worked a cardboard-box cutting machine in a factory that survived the 1930s depression of trade, and in 1931 married Amy Fleming, a shop assistant in a Glasgow department store. She was a good housewife and efficient mother who liked music and had sung in the Glasgow Orpheus Choir. Dad hiked and climbed mountains for a hobby, and did voluntary secretarial work for the Camping Club of Great Britain and the Scottish Youth Hostel Association. Mum had fewer ways of enjoying herself after marriage and I now realise wanted more from life, though she seldom grumbled. So they were a typical couple. I had a younger sister I bullied and fought with until we started living in separate houses. Then she became one of my best friends.
Q What was childhood like?
A Apart from the attacks of asthma and eczema, mostly painless but frequently boring. My parents ‘main wish for me was that I go to university. They wanted me to get a professional job, you see, because professional people are not so likely to lose their income during a depression. To enter university I had to pass exams in Latin and mathematics which I hated. So half my school experience was passed in activities which felt to my brain like