The Golden Notebook

‘You were really thinking of sending her away?’ Molly’s voice had gone blank, empty even of condemnation.

‘All right, Molly, all right. But what would you do? And you needn’t worry—your lieutenant here was as shocked as you are, Anna made me feel as guilty as you like.’ He was half-laughing again, though ruefully. ‘And actually, when I leave you I ask myself if I really do deserve such total disapproval? You exaggerate so, Molly. You talk as if I’m some sort of Bluebeard. I’ve had half a dozen unimportant affairs. So do most of the men I know who have been married any length of time. Their wives don’t take to drink.’

‘Perhaps it would have been better if you had in fact chosen a stupid and insensitive woman?’ suggested Molly. ‘Or you shouldn’t have always let her know what you were doing? Stupid! She’s a thousand times better than you are.’

‘It goes without saying,’ said Richard. ‘You always take it for granted that women are better than men. But that doesn’t help me much. Now look here, Molly, Marion trusts you. Please see her as soon as you can, and talk to her.’

‘Saying what?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t care. Anything. Call me names if you like, but see if you can stop her drinking.’

Molly sighed, histrionically, and sat looking at him, a look of half-compassionate contempt around her mouth.

‘Well I really don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘It is really all very odd. Richard, why don’t you do something? Why don’t you try to make her feel you like her, at least? Take her for a holiday or something?’

‘I did take her with me to Italy.’ In spite of himself, his voice was full of resentment at the fact he had had to.

‘Richard,’ said both women together.

‘She doesn’t enjoy my company,’ said Richard. ‘She watched me all the time—I can see her watching me all the time, for me to look at some woman, waiting for me to hang myself. I can’t stand it.’

‘Did she drink while you were on holiday?’

‘No, but…’

‘There you are then,’ said Molly, spreading out her flashing white hands, which said, What more is there to say?

‘Look here, Molly, she didn’t drink because it was a kind of contest, don’t you see that? Almost a bargain—I won’t drink if you don’t look at girls. It drove me nearly around the bend. And after all, men have certain practical difficulties—I’m sure you two emancipated females will take this in your stride, but I can’t make it with a woman who’s watching me like a jailor…getting into bed with Marion after one of those lovely holiday afternoons was like an I’ll-dare-you-to-prove-yourself contest. In short, I couldn’t get a hard on with Marion. Is that clear enough for you? And we’ve been back for a week. So far she’s all right. I’ve been home every evening, like a dutiful husband, and we sit and are polite with each other. She’s careful not to ask me what I’ve been doing or who I’ve been seeing. And I’m careful not to watch the level in the whisky bottle. But when she’s not in the room I look at the bottle, and I can hear her brain ticking over, he must have been with some woman because he doesn’t want me. It’s hell, it really is. Well all right,’ he cried, leaning forward, desperate with sincerity, ‘all right, Molly. But you can’t have it both ways. You two go on about marriage, well you may be right. You probably are. I haven’t seen a marriage yet that came anywhere near what it’s supposed to be. All right. But you’re careful to keep out of it. It’s a hell of an institution, I agree. But I’m involved in it, and you’re preaching from some pretty safe sidelines.’

Anna looked at Molly, very dry. Molly raised her brows and sighed.

‘And now what?’ said Richard, good-humoured.

‘We are thinking of the safety of the sidelines,’ said Anna, meeting his good-humour.

‘Come off it,’ said Molly. ‘Have you got any idea of the sort of punishment women like us take?’

‘Well,’ said Richard, ‘I don’t know about that, and frankly, it’s your own funeral, why should I care? But I know there’s one problem you haven’t got—it’s a purely physical one. How to get an erection with a woman you’ve been married to fifteen years?’

He said this with an air of camaraderie, as if offering his last card, all the chips down.

Anna remarked, after a pause, ‘Perhaps it might be easier if you had ever got into the habit of it?’

And Molly came in with: ‘Physical you say? Physical? It’s emotional. You started sleeping around early in your marriage because you had an emotional problem, it’s nothing to do with physical.’

‘No? Easy for women.’

‘No, it’s not easy for women. But at least we’ve got more sense than to use words like physical and emotional as if they didn’t connect.’

Richard threw himself back in his chair and laughed. ‘AH right,’ he said at last. ‘I’m in the wrong. Of course. All right. I might have known. But I want to ask you two something, do you really think it’s all my fault? I’m the villain as far as you are concerned. But why?’

‘You should have loved her,’ said Anna, simply.

‘Yes,’ said Molly.

‘Good Lord,’ said Richard, at a loss. ‘Good Lord. Well I give up. After all I’ve said—and it hasn’t been easy, mind you…’ he said this almost threatening, and went red as both women rocked off into fresh peals of laughter. ‘No, it’s not easy to talk frankly about sex to women.’

‘I can’t imagine why not, it’s hardly a great new revelation, what you’ve said,’ said Molly.

‘You’re such a…such a pompous ass,’ said Anna. ‘You bring out all this stuff, as if it were the last revelation from some kind of oracle. I bet you talk about sex when you’re alone with a popsy. So why put on this club-man’s act just because there are two of us?’

Molly said quickly: ‘We still haven’t decided about Tommy.’

There was a movement outside the door, which Anna and Molly heard, but Richard did not. He said, ‘All right, Anna, I bow to your sophistication. There’s no more to be said. Right. Now I want you two superior women to arrange something. I want Tommy to come and stay with me and Marion. If he’ll condescend to. Or doesn’t he like Marion?’

Molly lowered her voice and said, looking at the door, ‘You needn’t worry. When Marion comes to see me, Tommy and she talk for hours and hours.’

There was another sound, like a cough, or something being knocked. The three sat silent as the door opened and Tommy came in.

It was not possible to guess whether he had heard anything or not. He greeted his father first, carefully: ‘Hullo, father,’ nodded at Anna, his eyes lowered against a possible reminder from her that the last time they met he had opened himself to her sympathetic curiosity, and offered his mother a friendly but ironic smile. Then he turned his back on them, to arrange for himself some strawberries remaining in the white bowl, and with his back still turned enquired: ‘And how is Marion?’

So he had heard. Anna thought that she could believe him capable of standing outside the door to listen. Yes, she could imagine him listening with precisely the same detached ironic smile with which he had greeted his mother.

Richard, disconcerted, did not reply, and Tommy insisted: ‘How is Marion?’

‘Fine,’ said Richard, heartily. ‘Very well indeed.’

‘Good. Because when I met her for a cup of coffee yesterday she seemed in a pretty bad way.’

Molly raised swift eyebrows towards Richard, Anna made a small grimace, and Richard positively glared at both of them, saying the whole situation was their fault.

Tommy, continuing not to meet their eyes, and indicating with every line of his body that they underestimated his comprehension of their situations and the implacability of his judgement on them, sat down, and slowly ate strawberries. He looked like his father. That is to say he was a closely-welded, round youth, dark, like his father, with not a trace of Molly’s dash and vivacity. But unlike Richard, whose tenacious obstinacy was open, smouldering in his dark eyes and displayed in every impatient efficient movement, Tommy had a look of being buttoned in, a prisoner of his own nature. He was wearing, this morning, a scarlet sweat shirt and loose blue jeans, but would have looked better in a sober business suit. Every movement he ever made, every word he said, seemed in slow motion. Molly had used to complain, humorously, of course, that he sounded like someone who had taken an oath to count ten before he spoke. And she had complained, humorously, one summer when he had grown a beard, that he looked as if he had glued the rakish beard on to his solemn face. She had continued to make these loud, jolly complaints until Tommy had remarked: ‘Yes, I know you’d rather I looked like you—been attractive I mean. But it’s bad luck, I’ve got your character, and it should have been the other way around—well surely, if I’d had your looks and my father’s character—well, his staying power, at any rate, it would have been better?’—he had persisted with it, doggedly, as he did when trying to make her see a point that she was being wilfully obtuse about. Molly had worried about this for some days, even ringing Anna up: ‘Isn’t it awful, Anna? Who would have believed it? You think something for years, and come to terms with it, and then suddenly, they come out with something and you see they’ve been thinking it too?’

‘But surely you wouldn’t want him to be like Richard?’

‘No, but he’s right about the staying power. And the way he came out with it—it’s bad luck I’ve got your character, he said.’

Tommy ate his strawberries until there were none left, berry after berry. He did not speak, and neither did they. They sat watching him eat, as if he had willed them to do this. He ate carefully. His mouth moved in the act of eating as it did in the act of speaking, every word separate, each berry whole and separate. And he frowned steadily, his soft dark brows knitted, like a small boy’s over lessons. His lips even made small preliminary movements before a mouthful, like an old person’s. Or like a blind man, thought Anna, recognizing the movement; once she had sat opposite a blind man on the train. So had his mouth been set, rather full and controlled, a soft, self-absorbed pout. And so had his eyes been, like Tommy’s even when he was looking at someone: as if turned inwards on himself. Though of course he was blind. Anna felt a small rising hysteria, as she had sitting opposite the blind man, looking at the sightless eyes that seemed as if they were clouded with introspection. And she knew that Richard and Molly felt the same; they were frowning and making restless nervous movements. He’s bullying us all, thought Anna, annoyed; he’s bullying us horribly. And again she imagined how he had stood outside the door, listening, probably for a long time; she was by now unfairly convinced of it, and disliking the boy, because of how he was willing them to sit and wait for his pleasure.

Anna was just forcing herself, against a most extraordinary prohibition, emanating from Tommy, to say something, to break the silence, when Tommy laid down his plate, and the spoon neatly across it, and said calmly: ‘You three have been discussing me again.’

‘Of course not,’ said Richard, hearty and convincing.

‘Of course,’ said Molly.

Tommy allowed them both a tolerant smile, and said: ‘You’ve come about a job in one of your companies. Well I did think it over, as you suggested, but I think if you don’t mind I’ll turn it down.’

‘Oh Tommy,’ said Molly, in despair.