The Golden Notebook

  Ella found herself in the grip of a sensation which, when she examined it, turned out to be loneliness. It was as if, between her and the groups of people, were a space of cold air, an emotional vacuum. The sensation was of physical cold, of physical isolation. She was thinking of Paul again: so powerfully that it seemed inconceivable that he should not simply walk in through a door and come up to her. She could feel the cold that surrounded her thawing in the powerful belief that he would soon be with her. With an effort she cut this fantasy: she thought in a panic, if I can’t stop this, this madness, I’ll never become myself again, I’ll never recover. She succeeded in banishing the immanence of Paul; felt the chilly spaces open around her again, and inside cold and isolation, leafed through the piles of French magazines and thought of nothing at all. Near her a man was sitting, absorbed in magazines which she saw were medical. He was at first glance an American; short, broad, vigorous; with close-cut glistening hair like brown fur. He was drinking glasses of fruit cordial, one after the other, and seemed unperturbed by the delay. Once their eyes met after both had inspected the aircraft outside, which was swarming with mechanics, and he said with a loud laugh: “We’re going to be stuck here all night.” He returned to his medical publications. It was now after eleven, and they were the only party still waiting in the building. Suddenly a terrific noise of French shouting and exclaiming broke out below: the mechanics were in disagreement, and they were quarrelling. One, apparently in charge, was exhorting the others, or complaining, with much waving of the arms and shrugging of the shoulders. The others at first shouted back, then became sullen. And then the group drifted off back to the main building, leaving the one, alone, under the aircraft. Who, alone, first swore vigorously, and then gave a final heavy angry shrug of the shoulders and followed the others into the building. The American and Ella again exchanged glances. He said, apparently amused: “I don’t care much for that.” while the voice from the loudspeaker invited them to take their seats. Ella and he went together. She remarked: “Perhaps we should refuse to go?” He said, showing fine, very white teeth and an enthusiastic beam from boyish blue eyes: “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning.” Apparently the appointment was so important it justified a risk of crashing. The party, most of whom must have over-looked the scene with the mechanics, climbed obediently back into their seats, apparently absorbed into the necessity of putting a good face on things. Even the air hostess, outwardly calm, showed nervousness. In the brightly-lit interior of the aircraft, forty people were in the grip of terror, and concerned with not showing it. All, that is, Ella thought, save for the American, now seated by her, and already at work on his medical books. As for Ella, she had climbed into the aircraft as she would have climbed into a death-chamber; but thinking of the shrug given by the head mechanic: that was her feeling too. As the aeroplane began to vibrate, she thought: I’m going to die, very likely, and I’m pleased.

  This discovery was not, after the first moment, a shock. She had known it all the time: I’m so enormously exhausted, so utterly, basically tired, and in every fibre of myself, that to know I haven’t got to go through with living is like a reprieve. How extraordinary! And every one of these people, with the possible exception of this exuberant young man, is terrified that the machine is going to crash, and yet we all trooped obediently into it. So perhaps we all feel the same way? Ella glanced curiously at the three people on the other side of the aisle; they were pale with fright, sweat shone on their foreheads. The aircraft again gathered itself for the spring into the air. It roared down the runway, and then, vibrating intensely, lifted itself into the air with an effort, like a tired person. Very low, it climbed over roofs; very low it climbed, painfully gathering height. The American said, on a grin: “Well, we made that,” and went on reading. The air hostess, who had been standing rigid, smiling brightly, now came to life and went back to prepare more food, and the American said: “The condemned man will now eat a hearty meal.” Ella shut her eyes. She thought: I’m quite convinced we shall crash. Or that at least there’s a good chance of it. And what about Michael? I haven’t even thought of him—well Julia will look after him. The thought of Michael was a spur to life for a moment, then she thought: For a mother to die in an aircrash—that’s sad, but it’s not damaging. Not like a suicide. How odd!—the phrase is, to give a child life; but a child gives life to its parent when the parent decides to live simply because to commit suicide would hurt the child. I wonder how many parents decide to go on living because they have decided not to hurt their children, although they don’t care for living themselves? (She was feeling drowsy now.) Well, this way it takes the responsibility off me. Of course I could have refused to get on the plane—but Michael will never know about that scene with the mechanics. It’s all over. I feel as if I had been born with a weight of fatigue on me, and I’ve been carrying it all my life. The only time I wasn’t rolling a heavy weight up hill was when I was with Paul. Well, enough of Paul and enough of love and enough of me—how boring these emotions are that we’re caught in and can’t get free of, no matter how much we want to…she could feel the machine vibrating roughly. It will fly into pieces in the air, she thought, and I will go spinning off down like a leaf into the dark, into the sea, I’ll go spinning weightlessly down into the black cold obliterating sea. Ella slept and woke to find the plane stationary and the American shaking her. They had landed. It was already one in the morning; and by the time the coach load of people were deposited at the terminus it was getting on for three. Ella was numb, cold, heavy with tiredness. The American was still beside her, still cheerful, efficient, his broad pink face gleaming with health. He invited her to share his taxi; there weren’t enough to go round.

  “I thought we’d had it,” Ella said, noting that her voice sounded as cheerfully unconcerned as his.

  “Yeah. It certainly looked like it.” He laughed, all his teeth showing. “When I saw that guy shrug his shoulders back there—I thought, boy! that’s it. Where do you live?” Ella told him, and added: “Have you got somewhere?” “I’ll find myself a hotel.” “At this time of night it won’t be easy. I’d ask you to stay with me, but I’ve got two rooms, and my son’s in one of them.” “That’s very sweet of you, no, I’m not worried.” And he wasn’t. It would soon be dawn; he had no place to sleep; and he was as exuberant and fresh as he had been early in the evening. He dropped her, saying that he would be very happy if she would dine with him. Ella hesitated, then agreed. They would meet, therefore, the following evening, or rather, that evening. Ella went upstairs, thinking that she and the American would have nothing to say to each other and that the thought of the coming evening already bored her. She found her son sleeping in a room that was like the cave of a young animal; it smelled of healthy sleep. She adjusted the covers over him, and sat for a while to watch the pink young face, already visible in the creeping grey light from the window, to see the soft gleam from his tufted brown hair. She thought: He’s like the American in type—both are square and large and loaded with strong pink flesh. Yet the American repels me physically; yet I don’t dislike him, the way I disliked that fine young ox, Robert Brun. Why not? Ella went to bed, and for the first time in many nights, did not summon the memory of Paul. She was thinking that forty people who had given themselves up for dead were lying in bed, alive, scattered all over the city.

  Her son woke her two hours later, radiant with surprise at her being there. Since she was still officially on holiday, she did not go to the office, but informed Patricia on the telephone that the serial was unbought, and that she was unredeemed by Paris. Julia was rehearsing for a new play. Ella spent the day alone, cleaning, cooking, rearranging the flat; and playing with the boy when he came home from school. It was not until late that the American, whose name now turned out to be Cy Maitland, telephoned to say he was in her hands: what would she like to do? The theatre? The opera? Ballet? Ella said it was too late for any of these, and suggested dinner. He was at once relieved. “To tell you the tr
uth, shows aren’t in my line, I don’t go to shows much. Now tell me where you’d like to have dinner?” “Do you want to go somewhere special? Or a place where you can get steak, something like that?” Again he was relieved. “That’d suit me fine—I’ve got pretty simple tastes in the food line.” Ella named a good solid restaurant and put aside the dress she had chosen for the evening: it was the kind of dress she had never worn with Paul, out of all kinds of inhibitions; and which she had been wearing since, defiantly. She now put on a skirt and a shirt, and made herself up to look healthy rather than interesting. Michael was sitting up in bed surrounded by comics. “Why are you going out when you only just got home?” He sounded deliberately aggrieved. “Because I feel like it,” she said, grinning in answer to his tone. He gave a conscious smile, then frowned, and said in an injured voice: “It isn’t fair.” “But you’ll be asleep in an hour—I hope.” “Is Julia going to read to me?” “But I’ve already read to you for hours. Besides, it’s a school-day tomorrow, and you’ve got to go to sleep.” “But when you’ve gone I expect I’ll talk her into it.” “You’d better not tell me about it then, because I’ll be cross!” He sauced her with his eyes; sitting up broad, solid, pink-checked; very sure of himself and his world in this house. “Why haven’t you put on the dress you said you were going to wear?” “I’ve decided to wear this instead.” “Women,” said the nine-year-old, in a lordly way. “Women and their dresses.” “Well, good night,” she said, holding her lips for a moment against the smooth warm cheek; sniffing with pleasure at the fresh soap smell of his hair. She went downstairs, and found Julia in her bath. She shouted: “I’m off?” and Julia shouted back: “You’d better get home early, you didn’t get any sleep last night.”

  In the restaurant Cy Maitland was waiting for her. He looked fresh and vital. His clear blue eyes were undimmed by sleeplessness; and Ella said, sliding into the seat beside him and feeling suddenly fatigued: “Aren’t you sleepy at all?” He said, at once triumphant: “I never sleep more than three or four hours a night.” “Why not?” “Because I’ll never get where I want if I waste time sleeping.” “You tell me about you,” said Ella, “and then I’ll tell you about me.” “Fine,” he said. “Fine. To tell you the truth, you are an enigma to me, so you’ll have to do a lot of talking.” But now the waiters were ostensibly at their service, and Cy Maitland ordered “the biggest steak they had in the place” and coca-cola, no potatoes because he had to lose a stone in weight, and tomato sauce. “Don’t you ever drink alcohol?” “Never, only fruit juice.” “Well, I’m afraid you are going to have to order me wine.” “It’s a pleasure,” he said; and instructed the wine waiter to bring a bottle of “the best he had.” The waiters having departed, Cy Maitland said, relishing it: “In Paris the garcongs go out of their way to let you know you’re a hick; but here I see they just let you know it, without trying.” “And are you a hick?” “Sure, sure,” he said, his batteries of fine teeth gleaming. “Well now it’s time for the story of your life.” It took them to the end of the meal—over, as far as Cy was concerned, in ten minutes. But he waited agreeably enough for her, answering her questions. He had been born a poor boy. But he had also been born with brains and had used them. Scholarships and grants had taken him where he wanted to be—a brain surgeon, on his way up, married well with five children, a position and a great future, even if he said it himself. “And what does a poor boy mean in America?” “My pop was selling ladies’ hose all his life and he still is. I’m not saying anyone ever went hungry, but there aren’t any brain surgeons anywhere in our family, you can bet your life.” His boasting was so simple, so natural to him, that it was not boasting. And his vitality was beginning to infect Ella. She had forgotten she was tired. When he suggested it was now time for her to tell him about herself, she postponed what she now understood would be an ordeal. For one thing, it occurred to her that her life, as far as she was concerned, could not be described by simple succession of statements: my parents were so and so; I’ve lived in such and such places; I do such and such work. And for another, she had understood that she was attracted to him, and this discovery had upset her. When he laid his large white hand on her arm, she felt her breasts lift and sting. Her thighs were wet. But she had nothing in common with him. She could not remember ever, not once in her life, feeling a physical response for a man who was not in some way kin to her. She had always responded to a look, a smile, the tone of a voice, a laugh. As far as she was concerned, this man was a healthy savage; and the discovery that she wanted to be in bed with him split her. She felt irritation and annoyance; she remembered feeling precisely like this when her husband attempted to rouse her by physical manipulation against her emotions. The end of that was frigidity. She thought: I might easily be a frigid woman. Then she was struck by the humour of it: she was sitting here, soft with desire for this man; worrying about a hypothetical frigidity. She laughed, and he enquired: “What’s funny?” She replied at random, and he said good-humouredly: “O.K., you think I’m a hick too. Well that’s O.K. with me. Now I have a suggestion. I’ve got about twenty telephone calls to make, and I want to make them from my hotel. Come back with me, I’ll give you a drink, and then when I’ve finished the telephone calls, you can tell me about you.” Ella agreed; then wondered if he interpreted this as a willingness on her part to go to bed with him? If so, he showed no signs of it. It struck her that with the men she met in her world, she could interpret what they felt or were thinking from a glance, a gesture, or an atmosphere; so that words told her nothing about them she did not know already, But with this man, she knew nothing at all. He was married; but she did not know, as she would have done for instance with Robert Brun, what his attitude would be to infidelity. Since she knew nothing about him, it followed he knew nothing about her: he did not know, for instance, that her nipples were burning. She agreed, therefore, and casually, to go with him to his hotel.

  He had a bed-sitting-room and a bath in an expensive hotel. The rooms were in the heart of the building, air-conditioned, windowless, claustrophobic, neatly and anonymously furnished. Ella felt caged; but he seemed quite at home. He supplied her with a whisky, then drew the telephone to him and made, as he had said he would, about twenty telephone calls, a process that took half an hour. Ella listened, and noted that tomorrow he had at least ten appointments, including four visits to well-known London hospitals. When he had finished the calls, he began striding exuberantly up and down the small room. “Boy,” he exclaimed, “boy! But I feel great.” “If I weren’t here, what would you be doing?” “I’d be working.” There was a great heap of medical journals on his night-table, and she said: “Reading?” “Yes. There’s a lot to read, if you’re going to keep up.” “Do you ever read, except for your work?” “Nope.” He laughed, and said: “My wife’s the one for culture. I haven’t time.” “Tell me about her.” He instantly produced a photograph. She was a pretty baby-faced blonde surrounded by five small children. “Boy! Isn’t she pretty? She’s the prettiest girl in the whole town!” “Is that why you married her?” “Why, sure…” He caught her tone, laughed at himself with her, and said, shaking his head as if in wonder at himself: “Sure! I said to myself, I’m going to marry the prettiest and classiest girl in this town and I did. That’s just what I did.” “And you’re happy?” “She’s a great girl,” he said at once, enthusiastic. “She’s fine, and I’ve got five fine boys. I wish I had a girl, but my boys are fine. And I just wish I had more time to be with them, but when I am, then I feel fine.”

  Ella was thinking: If I get up now and say I must go, he’d agree, without rancour, with good-nature. Perhaps I’ll see him again. Perhaps not. Neither of us will care. But I have to do the directing now, because he doesn’t know what to do with me. I ought to go—but why? Only yesterday I decided it was ridiculous, women like me, having emotions that don’t fit our lives. A man now, in this situation, the sort of man I would be if I’d been born a man, would go to bed and think no more of it. He was saying:
“And now, Ella, I’ve been talking about myself, and you’re a darned fine listener, I must say that, but do you know, I don’t know the first thing about you, not the first thing.”

  Now, thought Ella. Now.

  But she temporised: “Did you know it was after twelve?”

  “No? Is it? Too bad. I never go to bed before three or four and I’m up by seven, every day of my life.”

  Now, thought Ella. It’s ridiculous, she thought, that it should be so difficult. To say what she now said was going against every one of her deepest instincts, and she was surprised that it came out apparently casual, and only slightly breathless: “Would you like to go to bed with me?”

  He looked at her, grinning. He was not surprised. He was—interested. Yes, thought Ella, he’s interested. Well good for him; she liked him for it. Suddenly he put back his broad healthy head and whooped: “Boy, oh boy, would I? Yes, sir, Ella, if you hadn’t said that I wouldn’t have known what to say.”

  “I know,” she said, smiling demurely. (She could feel this demure smile, and marvelled at it.) She said, demurely: “Well, now, sir, I think you should set me at my ease, or something.”

  He grinned. He was standing across the room from her; and she saw him as all flesh, a body of warm, abundant, exuberant flesh. Very well then, that’s what it would be. (At this point, Ella detached herself from Ella, and stood to one side, watching and marvelling.)

  She got up, smiling, and deliberately pulled off her dress. He, smiling, took off his jacket, and stripped off his shirt.

  In bed, it was a delightful shock of warm tense flesh. (Ella was standing to one side, thinking ironically: Well, well!) He penetrated her almost at once, and came after a few seconds. She was about to console or be tactful, when he rolled on his back, flung up his arms, and exclaimed: “Boy. Oh boy!”