Read Lanark: a life in 4 books for Free Online

told him my name was Lanark. He wrote on the card and handed it over saying, “Take that to the medical room and give it to the examining doctor.”
    I asked the purpose of the examination. He was not used to being questioned and said, “We need records to identify you. If you don’t want to cooperate there’s nothing we can do.”
    The medical room was in a hut reached by a passageway. I undressed behind a screen and was examined by a casual young doctor who whistled between his teeth as he wrote the results on my card. I was 5 feet 7¾ inches high and weighed 9 stone 12 pounds 3½ ounces. My eyes were brown, hair black, blood group Β (111). My only bodily markings were corns on the small toes and a patch of hard black skin on the right elbow. The doctor measured this with a pocket ruler and made a note saying, “Nothing exceptional there.”
    I asked what the hard patch was. He said, “We call it dragon-hide, a name more picturesque than scientific, perhaps, but the science of these things is in its infancy. You can dress now.” I asked how I could get it treated. He said, “There are several so-called medical practitioners in this city who claim to have cures for dragonhide. They advertise by small notices in tobacconists’ windows. Don’t waste money on them. It’s a common illness, as common as mouths or softs or twittering rigor. What you have there is very slight. If I were you I’d ignore it.”
    I asked why he had not ignored it. He said cheerfully, “Descriptive purposes. Diseases identify people more accurately than variable factors like height, weight, and hair colour.”
    He gave me the card and told me to take it back to the enquiry counter. And at the enquiry counter I was told to wait with the others.
    The people waiting were of most ages, none well dressed and all (except some children playing between the benches) stupid with boredom. Sometimes a voice cried out, “Will Jones”—or another name—“go to box forty-nine,” and one of us would go to a cubicle, but this happened so rarely that I stopped expecting it. My eye kept seeking a circular patch of paler paintwork on the wall behind the counter. A clock had been fixed there once and been removed, I felt sure, because people would not have borne such waiting had they been able to measure it. My impatient thoughts kept returning to their own uselessness until they stopped altogether and I grew as unconscious as possible without actually sleeping. I could have endured eternity in this state, but I was roused by a woman who sat down beside me, a new arrival still in the restless stage. Her legs were encased in tight discoloured jeans and she kept crossing and recrossing them. She wore an army tunic over a plain shirt, and glittery earrings, necklaces, brooches, bangles and rings. Thick black hair lay tangled down her back, she smelled of powder, scent and sweat and she brought several of my senses to life again, including the sense of time, for she kept smoking cigarettes from a handbag which seemed to hold several packets. When she lit the twenty-third I asked how long they would keep us waiting. She said, “As long as they feel like it. It’s a damned scandal.”
    She stared at me a moment then asked kindly if I was new here. I said I was.
    “You’ll get used to it. It’s a deliberate system. They think that by putting us through a purgatory of boredom every time we ask for money we’ll come as seldom as we can. And by God they’re right! I’ve three weans to feed, one of them almost a baby, and I work to keep them. When I can get work, that is. But not everyone pays up the way they should, so here I am again. A mug, that’s what I am, a real mug.”
    I asked what work she did. She said she did things for different people on a part-time basis and gave me a cigarette. Then she said, “Are you looking for a place to stay?”
    I said I was.
    “I could put you up. Just for a wee while, I mean. If you’re stuck, I mean.”
    She