The Golden Notebook

I couldn’t say anything. Then he asked: “Anna, are you angry?”

  I said: “You wouldn’t have thought of it at all if you hadn’t wanted to make me angry.”

  And then he let out a cry like a child, “Anna, Anna, I’m sorry, forgive me.” He began wailing and crying. I believe he was standing there beating his chest with the hand that did not hold the receiver, or banging his head against the wall—at any rate, I could hear irregular thumps that might have been either. And I knew quite well that he had planned all this from the beginning, right from the moment when he telephoned me about bringing the woman to my flat, so that he could end by beating his breast or thumping his head against the wall, and that was the point of it all. So I rang off.

  Then I got two letters. The first one cool, malicious, impertinent—but above all, irrelevant, it was off the point, a letter that might have been written after a dozen different situations, each of them quite unlike. And that was the point of the letter—its inconsequence. And then another letter, two days later, the hysterical wail of a child. The second letter upset me more than the first.

  I have dreamed of De Silva twice. He is, incarnate, the principle of joy-in-giving-pain. He was in my dream without disguise, just as he is in life, smiling, malicious, detached, interested.

  Molly telephoned me yesterday. She has heard that he has abandoned his wife without money, with the two children. His family, the rich upper-class family, have taken them all in. Molly: “The point of all this is of course that he talked his wife into having the second child, which she didn’t want, just to make sure of nailing her fast and leave him free. Then he buggered off to England where I suppose he expected me to smooth his brow. And the awful thing is, if I hadn’t been away at the crucial moment, I would, I’d have taken the whole thing at its face value: poor Cingalese intellectual unable to earn a living, has to leave his wife and two children to come to the well-paid intellectual marts of London. What fools we are, perpetually, eternally, and we never learn, and I know quite well that next time it happens I’ll have learned nothing.”

  I met B., who I’ve known for some time now, in the street by accident. Went to have coffee with him. He spoke warmly of De Silva. He said he had persuaded De Silva “to be kinder to his wife.” He said that he, B., would put up half the money for a monthly allowance for De Silva’s wife, if De Silva would promise the other half. “And does he pay the other half?” I asked. “Well, of course he won’t,” said B., his charming intelligent face full of apology, not merely for De Silva, but for the entire universe. “And where is De Silva?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “He’s going to come and live in the village next to me. There’s a woman he’s fond of. Actually the woman who comes to clean my house every morning. She’ll go on cleaning our house though, I’m glad about that. She’s very nice.”

  “I’m glad,” I said.

  “Yes, I’m so fond of him.”

  Free Women: 4

  ANNA AND MOLLY INFLUENCE TOMMY, FOR THE BETTER. MARION LEAVES RICHARD. ANNA DOES NOT FEEL HERSELF

  Anna was waiting for Richard and Molly. It was rather late, getting on for eleven. The curtains in the tall white room were drawn, the notebooks pushed out of sight, a tray with drinks and sandwiches already waiting. Anna sat loose in a chair, in a lethargy of moral exhaustion. She had now understood that she was not in control of what she did. Also, earlier that evening she had caught sight of Ronnie in a dressing-gown through Ivor’s half-open door. It seemed that he had simply moved back in, and now it was up to her to throw them both out. She had caught herself thinking: What does it matter? And even that she and Janet should pack their things and move out and leave the flat to Ivor and Ronnie, anything to avoid fighting. That this idea was not far off lunacy did not surprise her, for she had decided she was very likely mad. Nothing she thought pleased her; for some days she had been observing ideas and images pass through her mind, unconnected with any emotion, and did not recognise them as her own.

  Richard had said he would pick Molly up from her theatre where she was currently playing the part of a deliciously frivolous widow trying to choose between four new husbands, each one more attractive than the next. There was to be a conference. Three weeks before, Marion, kept late by Tommy, had slept upstairs in the empty flat once inhabited by Anna and Janet. Next day Tommy had informed his mother that Marion needed a pied-à-terre in London. She would of course pay the full rent for the flat, though she intended to use it occasionally. Since then Marion had been to her home only once, to pick up clothes. She was living upstairs, and had in fact quietly left Richard and her children. Yet she did not seem to know she had, for every morning there was a fluttering expostulating scene in Molly’s kitchen, where Marion exclaimed that she was really so naughty to have been kept so late the night before, but that she would go home and look after everything today—“yes, really, I promise, Molly”—as if Molly were the person to whom she was responsible. Molly had telephoned Richard, demanding that he should do something. But he refused. He had hired a house-keeper for form’s sake; and his secretary Jean was practically installed already. He was delighted Marion had gone.

  Then something else happened. Tommy, who had not left the shelter of his home since leaving the hospital, went with Marion to a political meeting to do with African independence. Afterwards there was a spontaneous demonstration in the street outside the London headquarters of the country in question. Marion and Tommy had followed the crowd, mostly students. There was skirmishing with the police. Tommy did not carry a white stick, there was no outward sign that he was blind. He did not “move along” when told to do so, and was arrested. Marion, who had been separated from him for a few moments by the crowd, threw herself on the policeman, shrieking hysterically. They were taken to the police station with a dozen others. Next morning they were fined. The newspapers prominently displayed a story about the “wife of a well-known city financier.” And now Richard telephoned Molly, who, in her turn, refused to help him. “You wouldn’t lift a finger about Marion, you only care now because the newspapers are on the trail and might find out about Jean.” So Richard telephoned Anna.

  During this conversation Anna watched herself standing holding the telephone receiver, a small brittle smile on her face, while Richard and she exchanged the phrases of their hostility. She felt as if she were being willed to do this; as if no word that either she or Richard used could have been any different; and as if what they were saying was the exchange of maniacs.

  He was incoherently angry: “It’s an absolute farce. Plotted it, that’s what you’ve done, to get your own back. African independence, what a farce! Spontaneous demonstration. You’ve sicked the communists on to Marion and she’s so innocent she doesn’t recognise one when she sees one. It’s all because you and Molly want to make a fool out of me.”

  “But of course that’s all it is, dear Richard.”

  “It’s your idea of a joke, company director’s wife turned red.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I’m going to see that you’re exposed.”

  Anna was thinking: the reason why this is so frightening is that if this weren’t England, Richard’s anger would mean people losing their jobs, or going to prison, or being shot. Here he’s just a man in a bad temper, but he’s a reflection of something so terrible…and I stand here making feeble sarcasms.

  She said, sarcastically: “My dear Richard, neither Marion nor Tommy planned this. They just drifted along with the crowd.”

  “Drifted along! Who do you think you are fooling?”

  “As it happens I was there. Didn’t you know that demonstrations at this particular moment are in fact spontaneous? The C.P.’s lost whatever grip it had on young people, and the Labour Party’s too respectable to organise this sort of thing. So what happens is, groups of young people go and express themselves about Africa or war and so on.”

  “I might have known you were there.”

  “No, you needn’t have known. Because it was an accident. I
was coming home from the theatre, and I saw a crowd of students rushing along the street. I got off the bus and went along to have a look. I didn’t know Marion and Tommy were there until I saw it in the newspapers.”

  “So what do you intend to do about it?”

  “I don’t intend to do anything about it. You can deal with the red menace yourself.”

  And Anna put down the receiver, knowing that this was not the end, and that in fact she would do something about it, because some kind of logic was working that would force her to.

  Molly telephoned, in a state of collapse, soon after: “Anna, you’ve got to see Tommy and try and make him see sense.”

  “Have you tried?”

  “That’s what’s so odd. I can’t even try. I keep telling myself—I can’t go on living like a guest in my own house with Marion and Tommy taking it over. Why should I? But then something odd happens, I work myself up to go and face them—but you can’t face Marion, she isn’t there. And I find myself thinking: Well why not? What does it matter? Who cares? I find myself shrugging my shoulders. I come in from the theatre and I sneak upstairs in my own home so as not to disturb Marion and Tommy, feeling rather guilty to be there at all. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, unfortunately I do.”

  “Yes. But what frightens me is this—if you actually describe the situation in words—you know, my husband’s second wife moving into my house because she can’t live without my son, etc.—it’s not merely odd, it’s—but of course, that’s got nothing to do with anything. Do you know what I was thinking yesterday, Anna? I was sitting upstairs, quiet as a mouse, so as not to disturb Marion and Tommy and thinking I’d simply pack a bag and wander off somewhere and leave them to it, and I thought that the generation after us are going to take one look at us, and get married at eighteen, forbid divorces, and go in for strict moral codes and all that, because the chaos otherwise is just too terrifying…” Here Molly’s voice wavered, and she ended quickly: “Please see them Anna, you’ve got to, because I simply can’t cope with anything.”

  Anna put on her coat, picked up her bag, was ready to “cope.” She had no idea at all of what to say, or even what she thought. She was standing in the middle of her room, empty as a paper bag, ready to walk over to Marion, to Tommy, and say—what? She thought of Richard, of his conventional thwarted anger; of Molly, all her courage drained into listless weeping; of Marion gone beyond pain into a cool hysteria; of Tommy—but she could only see him, see the blinded stubborn face, she could feel a kind of force coming from him, but she could not put a name to it.

  Suddenly she giggled. Anna heard the giggle: yes, that was how Tommy giggled that night he came to see me before he tried to kill himself. How odd, I’ve never heard myself laugh like that before.

  What has happened to that person inside Tommy who giggled like that? He’s gone completely—I suppose Tommy killed him when the bullet went through his head. How strange I should let out that bright meaningless giggle! What am I going to say to Tommy? I don’t even know what’s happening.

  What’s it all about? I have to walk up to Marion and Tommy and say: You must stop this pretence of caring about African nationalism, you both know quite well it’s nonsense?

  Anna giggled again, at the meaninglessness of it.

  Well, what would Tom Mathlong say? She imagined herself sitting across the table in a café with Tom Mathlong telling him about Marion and Tommy. He would listen and say: “Anna, you tell me these two people have chosen to work for African liberation? And why should I care about their motives?” But then he would laugh. Yes. Anna could hear his laugh, deep, full, shaken out of his stomach. Yes. He would put his hands on his knees and laugh, then shake his head and say: “My dear Anna, I wish we had your problems.”

  Anna, hearing the laugh, felt better. She hastily picked up various bits of paper suggested to her by thinking of Tom Mathlong; she stuffed them into her bag and ran down into the street and along to Molly’s house. She thought as she went of the demonstration Marion and Tommy had been arrested at. The demonstration was not at all like the orderly political demonstrations of the Communist Party in the old days; or like a Labour Party meeting. No, it was fluid, experimental—people were doing things without knowing why. The stream of young people had flowed down the street to the headquarters like water. No one directed or controlled them. Then the flood of people around the building, shouting slogans almost tentatively, as if listening to hear how they would sound. Then the arrival of the police. And the police were hesitant and tentative too. They didn’t know what to expect. Anna, standing to one side, had watched: under the restless, fluid movement of people and police was an inner pattern or motif. About a dozen or twenty young men, all with the same look on their faces—a set, stern, dedicated look, were moving in such a way as to deliberately taunt and provoke the police. They would rush past a policeman, or up to him, so close that a helmet was tipped forward or an arm jogged, apparently accidentally. They would dodge off, then come back. The policemen were watching this group of young men. One by one, they were arrested; because they were behaving in such a way that they would have to be arrested. And at the moment of arrest each face wore a look of satisfaction, of achievement. There was a moment of private struggle—the policeman using as much brutality as he dared; and on his face a sudden look of cruelty.

  Meanwhile the masses of students who had not come to pursue their private need to challenge and be punished by authority continued to chant slogans, to test out their political voices, and their relationship with the police was a different one altogether, there was no bond between them and the police.

  And what look had Tommy’s face worn when he had been arrested? Anna knew without having seen it.

  When she opened the door of Tommy’s room he was alone and he asked at once: “Is that Anna?”

  Anna stopped herself from saying: How did you know? and asked: “Where’s Marion?”

  He said, stiff and suspicious: “She’s upstairs.” He might have said aloud: “I don’t want you to see her.” His dark blank eyes were fixed on Anna, almost centred on her, so that she felt exposed, so heavy was that dark stare. Yet it was not quite centred; the Anna whom he was forbidding or warning was very slightly to her left. Anna felt, with a touch of hysteria, that she was being forced to move left, into his direct line of vision, or no-vision. Anna said: “I’ll go up, no please don’t bother.” For he had half-raised himself, in a movement to stop her. She shut the door and went straight up the stairs to the flat she had lived in with Janet. She was thinking that she had left Tommy because she had no connection with him, had nothing to say; that she was going to see Marion, to whom she had nothing to say.

  The stairs were narrow and dark. Anna’s head lifted out of the well of dark into the white painted cleanliness of a tiny landing. Through the door she saw Marion, bent over a newspaper. She greeted Anna with a gay social smile. “Look!” she cried, thrusting the paper triumphantly at Anna. There was a photograph of Marion, and the words: “It’s absolutely sickening the way the poor Africans are being treated.” And so on. The comment was malicious, but apparently Marion couldn’t see that it was. She read over Anna’s shoulder, smiling, giving naughty little hunches to her shoulders, almost wriggling with guilty delight. “My mother and my sisters are absolutely furious, they are absolutely beside themselves.”

  “I can imagine,” said Anna, drily. She heard her dry critical little voice, saw Marion wince away from it. Anna sat in the white-covered armchair. Marion sat on the bed. She looked like a great girl, this untidy handsome matron. She looked winsome and coquettish.

  Anna thought: I’m here, presumably, to make Marion face reality. What is her reality? An awful honesty lit by liquor. Why shouldn’t she be like this, why shouldn’t she spend the rest of her life giggling and tipping policemen’s helmets and conspiring with Tommy?

  “It’s lovely to see you, Anna,” said Marion, after waiting for Anna to say something. “Would you like some te
a?”

  “No,” said Anna, rousing herself. But it was too late. Marion was already out of the room and in the little kitchen next door. Anna followed her.

  “Such a lovely little flat, how I love it, how lucky you were to live here, I wouldn’t have been able to tear myself away.”

  Anna looked at it, the charming little flat, with its low ceilings, its neat gleaming windows. Everything was white, bright, fresh. Every object in it caused her pain, because these small smiling rooms had held hers and Michael’s love, four years of Janet’s childhood, her growing friendship with Molly. Anna leaned against a wall and looked at Marion, whose eyes were glazed with hysteria while she acted the role of a tripping hostess, and behind the hysteria was a mortal terror that Anna was going to send her home and away from this white refuge from responsibility.

  Anna switched off; something inside her went dead, or moved apart from what was happening. She became a shell. She stood there, looking at words like love, friendship, duty, responsibility, and knew them to be all lies. She felt herself shrug. And as Marion saw the shrug real terror claimed her face and she said: “Anna!” It was an appeal.

  Anna faced Marion with a smile, which she knew to be empty, and thought well, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. She went back into the other room and sat down, empty.

  Soon Marion came in with the tea-tray. She looked guilty and defiant, because of the Anna she had expected to face her. She began with a great fussing of teaspoons and teacups, to put off the Anna that was not there; then she sighed, she pushed away the tea-tray, and her face went soft.

  She said: “I know Richard and Molly told you to come and talk to me.”

  Anna sat silent. She felt she would sit silent forever. And then she knew she was going to begin talking. She thought: I wonder what I’m going to say? And I wonder who the person is who will say it? How odd, to sit here, waiting to hear what one will say. She said, almost dreamily: “Marion, do you remember Mr Mathlong?” (She thought: I’m going to talk about Tom Mathlong, am I, how odd!)