Lanark_ a life in 4 books - Alasdair Gray [99]
“Er … is this meant to be humorous, Duncan?”
“No sir.”
“Why have you given him a bowler hat and umbrella?”
“What’s humorous about bowler hats and umbrellas?”
“Nothing! I use an umbrella myself, in wet weather…. Do you mean to do anything special with this when you have completed it?”
Thaw meant to give it to Kate Caldwell. He mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Well, I think you should make it less elaborate and finish it as soon as possible. No doubt it will impress the examiner, but he’s more likely to be impressed by another still life or a drawing of a plaster cast.”
Occasionally at playtime he went onto the balcony outside the art room and looked into the hall below where the captain of the football team, the school swimming champion and several prefects usually stood laughing and chatting with Kate Caldwell, who sat with a girlfriend on the edge of a table under the war memorial. Her laughter and hushed breathless voice floated up to him; he thought of going down and joining them, but his arrival would produce an expectant silence and revive the rumour that he loved her.
One day he came from the art room and saw her walk along the balcony on the other side of the hall. She smiled and waved and on an impulse he glared back timidly, opened the door behind him and beckoned. She came round, smiling with her mouth open. He said, “Would you like to see what I’m doing? In art, I mean?”
“Oh, that would be lovely, Duncan.”
The only other student in the art room was a prefect called MacGregor Ross who was copying a sheet of Roman lettering. Thaw brought a folder of work from a locker and laid the pictures one after another on a desk in front of her.
“Christ arguing with the doctors in the temple,” he said. “The mouth of Hell. This is a fantastic landscape. Mad flowers. These are illustrations I did for a debating society lecture….”
She greeted each picture with small gasps of admiration and surprise. He showed her the unfinished Book of Jonah. She said, “That’s wonderful, Duncan, but why have you given him a bowler hat and an umbrella?”
“Because he was that kind of man. Jonah is the only prophet who didn’t want to be a prophet. God forced it on him. I see him as a fat middle-aged man with a job in an insurance office, someone naturally quiet and mediocre whom God has to goad into courage and greatness.”
Kate nodded dubiously.
“I see. And what will you do with it when it’s finished?” Duncan’s heart started thumping against his ribs. He said, “I’ll mibby give it to you. If you’d like it.”
She smiled flashingly and said, “Oh, thank you, Duncan, I’d love to have it. That’s wonderful of you. It really is…. And what are you so busy with?” she asked, going over to MacGregor Ross. She pulled a stool up to MacGregor Ross’s desk and spent twenty minutes with her head close beside his while he showed her how to use a lettering pen.
Mrs. Thaw left the Infirmary early in the new year. Mrs. Gilchrist downstairs and one or two other neighbours came into the house to prepare it for her, and dusted, washed and polished into the obscurest corner of every room.
“You’ll have to be specially nice to your mother and help her all you can now,” they said severely. “Remember, she won’t be able to leave bed for a long time.”
“Interfering old bitches,” said Ruth.
“They mean well,” said Thaw tolerantly. “They just have an unfortunate way of putting things.”
Mrs. Thaw came home by ambulance and was tucked into the big bed in the front bedroom. She was allowed to sit by the fire in the evenings and soon gained enough