The Golden Notebook Page 6

  Molly said: “As we all know, Richard married beneath him—oh, not socially of course, he was careful not to do that, but quote, she’s a nice ordinary woman unquote, though luckily with all those lords and ladies scattered around in the collateral branches of the family tree, so useful I’ve no doubt for the letter-heads of companies.”

  At this Anna let out a snort of laughter—the lords and ladies being so irrelevant to the sort of money Richard controlled. But Molly ignored the interruption and went on: “Of course practically all the men one knows are married to nice ordinary dreary women. So sad for them. As it happens, Marion is a good person, not stupid at all, but she’s been married for fifteen years to a man who makes her feel stupid…”

  “What would they do, these men, without their stupid wives,” sighed out Anna.

  “Oh, I simply can’t think. When I really want to depress myself, I think of all the brilliant men I know, married to their stupid wives. Enough to break your heart, it really is. So there is stupid ordinary Marion. And of course Richard was faithful to her just as long as most men are, that is, until she went into the nursing home for her first baby.”

  “Why do you have to go so far back?” exclaimed Richard involuntarily, as if this had been a serious conversation, and again both women broke into fits of laughter.

  Molly broke it, and said seriously, but impatiently, “Oh hell Richard, why talk like an idiot? You do nothing else but feel sorry for yourself because Marion is your Achilles heel, and you say why go so far back?” She snapped at him, deadly serious, accusing: “When Marion went into the nursing home.”

  “It was thirteen years ago,” said Richard, aggrieved.

  “You came straight over to me. You seemed to think I’d fall into bed with you, you were even all wounded in your masculine pride because I wouldn’t. Remember? Now we free women know that the moment the wives of our men friends go into the nursing home, dear Tom, Dick and Harry come straight over, they always want to sleep with one of their wives’ friends, God knows why, a fascinating psychological fact among so many, but it’s a fact. I wasn’t having any, so I don’t know who you went to…”

  “How do you know I went to anyone?”

  “Because Marion knows. Such a pity how these things get round. And you’ve had a succession of girls ever since, and Marion has known about them all, since you have to confess your sins to her. There wouldn’t be much fun in it, would there, if you didn’t?”

  Richard made a movement as if to get up and go—Anna again saw his thigh muscles tense, and relax. But he changed his mind and sat still. There was a curious little smile pursing his mouth. He looked like a man determined to smile under the whip.

  “In the meantime Marion brought up three children. She was very unhappy. From time to time you let it drop that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if she got herself a lover—even things up a bit. You even suggested she was such a middle-class woman, so tediously conventional…” Molly paused at this, grinning at Richard. “You are really such a pompous little hypocrite,” she said, in an almost friendly voice. Friendly with a sort of contempt. And again Richard moved his limbs uncomfortably, and said, as if hypnotised, “Go on.” Then, seeing that this was rather asking for it, he said hastily: “I’m interested to hear how you’d put it.”

  “But surely not surprised?” said Molly. “I can’t remember ever concealing what I thought of how you treated Marion. You neglected her except for the first year. When the children were small she never saw you. Except when she had to entertain your business friends and organise posh dinner parties and all that nonsense. But nothing for herself. Then a man did get interested in her, and she was naïve enough to think you wouldn’t mind—after all, you had said often enough, why don’t you get yourself a lover, when she complained of your girls. And so she had an affair and all hell let loose. You couldn’t stand it, and started threatening. Then he wanted to marry her and take the three children, yes, he cared for her that much. But no. Suddenly you got all moral, rampaging like an Old Testament prophet.”

  “He was too young for her, it wouldn’t have lasted.”

  “You mean, she might have been unhappy with him? You were worried about her being unhappy?” said Molly, laughing contemptuously. “No, your vanity was hurt. You worked really hard to make her in love with you again, it was all jealous scenes and love and kisses until that moment she broke it off with him finally. And the moment you had her safe, you lost interest and went back to the secretaries on the fancy divan in your beautiful big business office. And you think it’s so unjust that Marion is unhappy and makes scenes and drinks more than is good for her. Or perhaps I should say, more than is good for the wife of a man in your position. Well, Anna, is there anything new since I left a year ago?”

  Richard said angrily: “There’s no need to make bad theatre of it.” Now that Anna was coming in, and it was no longer a battle with his former wife, he was angry.

  “Richard came to ask me if I thought it was justified for him to send Marion away to some home or something. Because she was such a bad influence on the children.”

  Molly drew in her breath. “You didn’t, Richard?”

  “No. But I don’t see why it’s so terrible. She was drinking heavily about that time and it’s bad for the boys. Paul—he’s thirteen now, after all, found her one night when he got up for a drink of water, he found her unconscious on the floor, tight.”

  “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. “All 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, recognising 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.

  “You’re being inconsistent, mother,” said Tommy, looking towards her, but not at her. He had this way of directing his gaze towards someone, but maintaining an inward-seeming stare. His face was heavy, almost stupid-looking, with the effort he was making to give everyone their due. “You know it’s not just a question of taking a job, is it? It means I’ve got to live like them.” Richard shifted his legs and let out an explosive breath, but Tommy continued: “I don’t mean any criticism, father.”

  “If it’s not a criticism, what is it?” said Richard, laughing angrily.

  “Not a criticism, just a value judgement,” said Molly, triumphant.

  “Ah, hell,” said Richard.

  Tommy ignored them, and continued to address the part of the room in which his mother was sitting.

  “The thing is, for better or for worse, you’ve brought me up to believe in certain things, and now you say I might just as well go and take a job in Portmain’s. Why?”

  “You mean,” said Molly, bitter with self-reproach, “Why don’t I offer you something better?”

  “Perhaps there isn’t anything better. It’s not your fault—I’m not suggesting it is.” This was said with a soft, deadly finality, so that Molly frankly and loudly sighed, shrugged, and spread out her hands.