• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1254 0

a sense of homecoming, the five beds of his own ward. It seemed strange that the silver dragon had been so near him since his arrival. He went to his locker, lifted the books and hurried back to the curtain. From the other side it had slid open at the touch of a finger, he knew it was a paper-thin membrane with no locking device, and yet he couldn’t open it; and though he stood back and ran his shoulder into it several times it only quivered and rumbled like a struck drum. He was about to kick it in a fit of bad temper when he noticed the view from the window. He was looking down on a quiet street with a skin of frost over it and a three-storey red sandstone tenement on the far side. The windows glinted cleanly in early morning sunlight; smoke from a few chimney-pots flowed upward into a pale winter sky. A boy of six or seven with a dark blue raincoat, woollen helmet and schoolbag came down some steps from a close and turned left along the pavement. Directly opposite Lanark a thin woman with a tired face appeared between the curtains of a bay window. She stood watching the boy, who turned and waved to her as he reached the street corner and banged the side of his head into a lamppost. Lanark felt inside himself the shock, then amusement, which showed on the mother’s face. The boy went round the corner, rubbing his ear mournfully. The woman turned and looked straight across at Lanark, then lifted a hand to her mouth in a startled puzzled way. He wanted to wave to her as the boy had waved, to open the window and shout something comforting, but a milk cart pulled by a brown horse came along the street, and when he looked back from it the bay window was empty.

This vision hit Lanark poignantly. He lowered the blind to prevent a new scene from replacing it and wandered into the ward feeling very tired. It seemed many days since he had been there, though the clock showed it was not three hours. He put the books and white coat on the chair, slid his shoes off and lay on the bed, intending to rest for ten or fifteen minutes.

He was wakened by the radio saying plin-plong, plin-plong, pin-plong. He reached across, took it from the coat pocket and switched it on. Ozenfant said, “My dear fellow, sleep is not enough, sometimes you must eat. Come to the staff club. Leave the white coat behind. Evening is a time for mirth and gaiety.”

“How do I reach the staff club?”

“Go to the nearest hall and enter any lift. If you ask it nicely it will bring you direct. Mention my name.”

Lanark put on the shoes, took the books under his arm and passed through the curtain into the noise of the exit corridors. This time he ignored the voices and studied how to move as swiftly as those around him. The usual laws governing the motion of bodies seemed not to apply here. If you leaned backward against the force of the current you were certain to fall, but the farther you bowed before it the faster it carried you with no danger of falling whatsoever. Most people were content to move rapidly at an angle of forty-five degrees, but one or two flashed past Lanark’s knees like rockets, and these were bent so far forward that they appeared to be crawling. The great hall was less crowded than last time. Lanark entered a lift which seemed waiting to be filled before ascending. Two men carrying a surveyor’s pole and tripod were chatting in a corner.

“It’s a big job, the biggest we’ve handled.”

“The Noble Lord wants it ready in twelve days.”

“He’s off his rocker.”

“The creature is sending tungtanium suction delvers through the Algolagnics group.”

“Where will we get power to drive those?”

“From Ozenfant. Ozenfant and his tiny catalyst.”

“Has he said he’ll give it?”

“No, but he can’t oppose the president of the council.”

“I doubt if the president of the council could oppose Ozenfant.” The lift filled and the door closed. Voices said: “The drawing rooms.” “Leech-dormitory Q.” “The sponge-sump club.”

Lanark said, “The staff club.”

The lift said, “Whose staff club?”

“Professor Ozenfant’s.”

The lift hummed. The people near Lanark were silent but the farthest