Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [44]
“Then read something else.”
“Here is a story about a small boy called Oor Wullie, and it is told in pictures. The first picture shows him coming with his father out of the front door, which is separated from the pavement by a single step. His hair is brushed and his boots are shining. His mother looks after them and says,’ Since it’s Sunday, ye can tak Wullie a walk before dinner, but see he doesnae dirty his good claes, Paw.’ His father, who is tall and thin with a flat cap, says, ‘Leave it tae me, Maw!’ Wullie is thinking, ‘Crivens! Some fun this walk is going to be!’ In the next picture they’re walking beside a fence made of upright pieces of timber joined edge to edge. I can’t read what Wullie is saying because the words have been scored out with crayon, but his father—”
“Is this meant to be entertaining?”
“I wish you could see the pictures. They have a humorous, homely look which is very comforting.”
“Have you no other book?”
“Only one.”
He opened No Orchids for Miss Blandish and read:
“It began on a summer morning in July. The sun up early in the morning mist, and the pavements already steaming a little from the heavy dew. The air in the streets was stale and lifeless. It had been an exhausting month of intense heat, rainless skies, and warm, dust-laden winds.
Bailey walked into Minny’s hash-house, leaving Old Sam asleep in the Packard. Bailey was feeling lousy. Hard liquor and heat don’t mix. His mouth felt like a birdcage and his eyes were gritty….”
He read for a long time. Once or twice he asked, “Are you enjoying this?” and she said, “Go on.”
At last she interrupted with a harsh rattle of laughter. “Oh, yes, I like this book! Crazy hopes of a glamorous, rich, colourful life and then abduction, rape, slavery. That book, at least, is true.”
“It is not true. It is a male sex fantasy.”
“And life for most women is just that, a performance in a male sex fantasy. The stupid ones don’t notice, they’ve been trained for it since they were babies, so they’re happy. And of course the writer of that book made things obvious by speeding them up. What happens to the Blandish girl in a few weeks takes a lifetime for the rest of us.”
“I deny that,” said Lanark fiercely. “I deny that life is more of a trap for women than men. I know that most women have to work at home because people grow in them, but working at home is more like freedom than working in offices and factories; furthermore—”
His voice raised an echo which competed with the words. To end the sentence audibly he began shouting and caused a deafening explosion which took minutes to fade. Afterward he sat scowling at the air before him until the voice said, “Just go on reading.”
CHAPTER 10.
Explosions
He visited her chamber twice a day and read aloud there, only stopping when he was hoarse. He soon lost count of the times he had read No Orchids for Miss Blandish. Once, to have a different story to tell his patient, he watched a cowboy film in the staff club cinema, but mention of it threw her into a cold violent rage. She only believed in repetitious accounts of brutal men and humiliated women and thought anything else was deliberate mockery. Lanark left her chamber each time with a sore throat and a determination not to return, and had there been anywhere to go but the staff club he might have stayed away. The soft, brightly lit rooms with their warm air and comfortable furniture made him feel oppressively enclosed. The members were polite and friendly but talked as if there was nothing important outside the club, and Lanark was afraid of coming to believe them. At other times he suspected that his own ungraciousness made him dislike gracious people. He spent most of his free time on his bed in the ward. The window was no longer enjoyable for it had begun giving views of small rooms with worried people in them. Once he thought he glimpsed Mrs. Fleck, his old landlady, tucking the children into the kitchen bed. After