Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [8]
“Yes, Mrs. Fleck.”
“Come here and see this.”
The kitchen was a clean, very cluttered room. It contained armchairs, a sideboard, a scrubbed white table, a clumsy gas cooker with shelves of pots above it. An iron range filled most of one wall and there was a sink and draining board under the window. All horizontal surfaces were covered with brass and china ornaments and bottles and jam-jars of artificial flowers, some made of plastic, some of coloured wax, some of paper. One wall had a bed recess and Mrs. Fleck, a small middle-aged lady, stood beside it. She beckoned Lanark over and said grimly, “Look at this!”
Three children with serious wide-open mouths and eyes lay in a row under the quilt. There was a thin boy and girl of about eight years and a plump wee girl of four or five. Lanark recognized them as children from the house across the landing. He said, “Hullo you lot.”
The older ones grinned, the young one giggled and spread her hands on her face as if hiding behind them. Mrs. Fleck said morosely, “Their bloody mother’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Where to?”
“How do I know where folk disappear to? One minute she was there, the next she had gone. Well, what could I do? I couldn’t leave them to look after themselves. Look at the size of them! But I’m too old, Lanark, to be pestered by bloody weans.”
“But surely she’ll come back?”
“Her? She won’t come back. Nobody comes back who disappears when the lights go out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was standing at the sink washing dishes when the lights went out. I knew it wasn’t a power cut because I could see the streetlights through the window, and right away I thought, ‘SusySomebody’s disappearing,’ and then I thought, Oh, what if it’s me?’ My heart was thumping like a drum, though I don’t know why I should be scared. I get so tired and my back is so sore that I often feel I’d be glad to disappear. Anyway, the lights went on again, so I went and had a look in your bedroom. I thought you were out but you might have come back without letting me know and it might have happened to you.”
Lanark said uneasily, “Why should I disappear?”
“I’ve told you already I don’t know why folk disappear.”
“If I had been in the bedroom and … and disappeared, how would you have known?”
“Oh, there’s usually a sign. My last lodger left a hell of a mess, bedclothes all over the room, the wardrobe on its side, half the plaster out of the ceiling—I haven’t been able to let that room since. And his screams! They were awful. But I knew you wouldn’t go like that, Lanark. You’re the quiet type. Anyway, you hadn’t been in so I crossed the landing. The door was open so I stuck my head in and shouted ‘Susy!’ I was always friendly with her even if she was a tart and didn’t look after the kids. Sweets, sweets, sweets, that was all she fed them on, and look at the result. Open your mouth!” she commanded the smallest girl, who obediently opened her mouth to show, on the top and bottom gums, a row of little brown points with gaps between them.
“Look at that! Hardly older than a baby and without a sound tooth in her head.”
“What happened then?” said Lanark.
“I shouted ‘Susy!’ and the kids yelled to me that their mammy had disappeared. Isn’t that so?”
She glared at the children, who nodded vigorously.
“Well, Lanark, that house is a bloody midden. It’s like a pigsty. I couldn’t leave them in it, could I? I brought them here and washed them and put them to bed and now I’m washing their clothes. But you’d better look out if I’m going to see to you!” she told the children fiercely. “I’m not soft like your mammy!