Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [47]
“Have you anything brown, dry and crumbly?”
“No sir, but we’ve something pink, moist and crumbly.”
“I’ll have a quarter of a plateful, please.”
He had begun to eat when a hard, slightly hesitant voice said,“Can I sit here?”
He looked up and saw the big girl in the khaki overalls. She stood with hands in pockets staring at him fiercely. With a sense of relief he said, “Oh, yes.”
She sat opposite. Her face had straight clear handsome lines like a Greek statue, though the chin was heavy and forward-jutting. She did not hold her fine shoulders erect but slumped and hunched them forward. Her brown hair was twisted loosely into a thick plait which hung over her left breast. Her fingers stroked it with short quick movements. She said abruptly, “Do you hate this place too?”
“Yes.”
“What do you hate most?”
Lanark considered. “The manners of the staff. I know they have to be professional to keep things clean and orderly, but even their jokes and smiles seem to have professional reasons.
What do you dislike?”
“The hypocrisy. The way they pretend to care while using the patients up.”
“But they could help nobody if they didn’t use their failures.” The girl bent her head so that he only saw the top of it and muttered, “You don’t hate this place if you can say that.”
“I do hate it. I’m leaving, when I find a companion.”
She looked up.
“I’ll go with you. I want to leave too.”
Lanark was confused. He said, “Well, thank you, but—but—I have a patient, not a very hopeful case, but I can’t leave until I’ve definitely cured her or failed.”
She said disgustedly, “You know nobody is ever cured, that the treatment only keeps the bodies fresh until we need fuel or clothes or food.”
Lanark looked at her, said “Foooo?” and dropped his spoon in the plate.
“Of course! What do you think you’ve been eating? Have you never looked into the sink? Has nobody shown you the drains under the sponge-wards?”
Lanark rubbed his clenched fists into his eye sockets. He wanted to be sick but the pink stuff had nourished him well: he had never felt stronger or more stable. He told himself wildly,
“I’ll never eat here again!”
“Then you’ll leave with me?”
He looked at her blindly, not thinking of her at all. She said, “I frighten you, I frighten most men. But I can be very sweet for short times. Look.”
He looked vaguely round the room for a way out until there was nowhere to look but in front, and the expression on her face made him lean forward to see it clearly. She had a slight, disdainful smile but within her defiant eyes he saw discontent, and beyond that a vast humility and willingness to become, for a while, anything he wanted. Looking into her eyes became like a rapid flight across shifting worlds, all of them sexual, and when he returned from the flight he saw that her fierceness was pleading and the smile timid. He began trembling with feelings of dizzy power. She said anxiously, “I can be very sweet?”
He nodded and whispered, “Where can we go?”
“Come to my room.”
They stood together and she led the way out, Lanark walking awkwardly because of the pressure of his penis against his trousers. As they passed Ozenfant’s table the Professor cried in mock alarm, “Oh, Dr. Lanark, you must not deprive us of our little catalyst!”
In the lift she said, “The specialist apartments.” The lift vibrated. They embraced and the feel of her strongly female body made him mutter, “Let’s stop the lift between floors.”
“That would be silly.”
“Give me that contemptuous smile you’re good at.” She gave it and he kissed her fiercely. She pulled her mouth away and said, “Open your eyes, you must look at me while we kiss.”
“Why?”
“I’ll do anything but you must keep looking.”
The door slid open