The Golden Notebook

Doris Lessing

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780007369133
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

The landmark novel by Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing – a powerful account of a woman searching for her personal, political and professional identity while facing rejection and betrayal.

Free Women 1

Anna meets her friend Molly in the summer of 1957 after a separation…

The two women were alone in the London flat.

‘The point is,’ said Anna, as her friend came back from the telephone on the landing, ‘the point is, that as far as I can see, everything’s cracking up.’

Molly was a woman much on the telephone. When it rang she had just enquired: ‘Well, what’s the gossip?’ Now she said, ‘That’s Richard, and he’s coming over. It seems today’s his only free moment for the next month. Or so he insists.’

‘Well I’m not leaving,’ said Anna.

‘No, you stay just where you are.’

Molly considered her own appearance—she was wearing trousers and a sweater, both the worse for wear. ‘He’ll have to take me as I come,’ she concluded, and sat down by the window. ‘He wouldn’t say what it’s about—another crisis with Marion, I suppose.’

‘Didn’t he write to you?’ asked Anna, cautious.

‘Both he and Marion wrote—ever such bonhomous letters. Odd, isn’t it?’

This odd, isn’t it? was the characteristic note of the intimate conversations they designated gossip. But having struck the note, Molly swerved off with: ‘It’s no use talking now, because he’s coming right over, he says.’

‘He’ll probably go when he sees me here,’ said Anna, cheerfully, but slightly aggressive. Molly glanced at her, keenly, and said: ‘Oh, but why?’

It had always been understood that Anna and Richard disliked each other; and before, Anna had always left when Richard was expected. Now Molly said: ‘Actually I think he rather likes you, in his heart of hearts. The point is, he’s committed to liking me, on principle—he’s such a fool he’s always got to either like or dislike someone, so all the dislike he won’t admit he has for me gets pushed off on to you.’

It’s a pleasure,’ said Anna. ‘But do you know something? I discovered while you were away that for a lot of people you and I are practically interchangeable.’

‘You’ve only just understood that?’ said Molly, triumphant as always when Anna came up with—as far as she was concerned—facts that were self-evident.

In this relationship a balance had been struck early on: Molly was altogether more worldly-wise than Anna who, for her part, had a superiority of talent.

Anna held her own private views. Now she smiled, admitting that she had been very slow.

‘When we’re so different in every way,’ said Molly, ‘it’s odd. I suppose because we both live the same kind of life—not getting married and so on. That’s all they see.’

Free women,’ said Anna, wryly. She added, with an anger new to Molly, so that she earned another quick scrutinizing glance from her friend: ‘They still define us in terms of relationships with men, even the best of them.’

‘Well, we do, don’t we?’ said Molly, rather tart. ‘Well, it’s awfully hard not to,’ she amended, hastily, because of the look of surprise Anna now gave her. There was a short pause, during which the women did not look at each other but reflected that a year apart was a long time, even for an old friendship.

Molly said at last, sighing: ‘Free. Do you know, when I was away, I was thinking about us, and I’ve decided that we’re a completely new type of woman. We must be, surely?’

‘There’s nothing new under the sun,’ said Anna, in an attempt at a German accent. Molly, irritated—she spoke half a dozen languages well—said: ‘There’s nothing new under the sun,’ in a perfect reproduction of a shrewd old woman’s voice, German accented.

Anna grimaced, acknowledging failure. She could not learn languages, and was too self-conscious ever to become somebody else: for a moment Molly had even looked like Mother Sugar, otherwise Mrs Marks, to whom both had gone for psycho-analysis. The reservations both had felt about the solemn and painful ritual were expressed by the pet name, ‘Mother Sugar’; which, as time passed, became a name for much more than a person, and indicated a whole way of looking at life—traditional, rooted, conservative, in spite of its scandalous familiarity with everything amoral. In spite of—that was how Anna and Molly, discussing the ritual, had felt it; recently Anna had been feeling more and more it was because of; and this was one of the things she was looking forward to discussing with her friend.

But now Molly, reacting as she had often done in the past, to the slightest suggestion of a criticism from Anna of Mother Sugar, said quickly: ‘All the same, she was wonderful and I was in much too bad a shape to criticize.’

‘Mother Sugar used to say, “You’re Electra”, or ‘You’re Antigone”, and that was the end, as far as she was concerned,’ said Anna.

‘Well, not quite the end,’ said Molly, wryly insisting on the painful probing hours both had spent.

‘Yes,’ said Anna, unexpectedly insisting, so that Molly, for the third time, looked at her curiously. ‘Yes. Oh I’m not saying she didn’t do me all the good in the world. I’m sure I’d never have coped with what I’ve had to cope with without her. But all the same…I remember quite clearly one afternoon, sitting there—the big room, and the discreet wall lights, and the Buddha and the pictures and the statues.’

‘Well?’ said Molly, now very critical.

Anna, in the face of this unspoken but clear determination not to discuss it, said: ‘I’ve been thinking about it all during the last few months…no, I’d like to talk about it with you. After all, we both went through it, and with the same person…’

‘Well?’

Anna persisted: ‘I remember that afternoon, knowing I’d never go back. It was all that damned art all over the place.’

Molly drew in her breath, sharp. She said, quickly: ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ As Anna did not reply, she said, accusing: ‘And have you written anything since I’ve been away?’

‘No.’

‘I keep telling you,’ said Molly, her voice shrill, ‘I’ll never forgive you if you throw that talent away. I mean it. I’ve done it, and I can’t stand watching you—I’ve messed with painting and dancing and acting and scribbling, and now…you’re so talented, Anna. Why? I simply don’t understand.’

‘How can I ever say why, when you’re always so bitter and accusing?’

Molly even had tears in her eyes, which were fastened in the most painful reproach on her friend. She brought out with difficulty: ‘At the back of my mind I always thought, well, I’ll get married, so it doesn’t matter my wasting all the talents I was born with. Until recently I was even dreaming about having more children—yes I know it’s idiotic but it’s true. And now I’m forty and Tommy’s grown up. But the point is, if you’re not writing simply because you’re thinking about getting married…’

‘But we both want to get married,’ said Anna, making it humorous; the tone restored reserve to the conversation; she had understood, with pain, that she was not, after all, going to be able to discuss certain subjects with Molly.

Molly smiled, drily, gave her friend an acute, bitter look, and said: ‘All right, but you’ll be sorry later.’

‘Sorry,’ said Anna, laughing, out of surprise. ‘Molly, why is it you’ll never believe other people have the disabilities you have?’

‘You were lucky enough to be given one talent, and not four.’

‘Perhaps my one talent has had as much pressure on it as your four?’

‘I can’t talk to you in this mood. Shall I make you some tea while we’re waiting for Richard?’

‘I’d rather have beer or something.’ She added, provocative: ‘I’ve been thinking I might very well take to drink later on.’

Molly said, in the older sister’s tone Anna had invited: ‘You shouldn’t make jokes, Anna. Not when you see what it does to people—look at Marion. I wonder if she’s been drinking while I was away?’

‘I can tell you. She has—yes, she came to see me several times.’

‘She came to see you?’

‘That’s what I was leading up to, when I said you and I seem to be interchangeable.’

Molly tended to be possessive—she showed resentment, as Anna had known she would, as she said: ‘I suppose you’re going to say Richard came to see you too?’ Anna nodded; and Molly said, briskly, ‘I’ll get us some beer.’ She returned from the kitchen with two long cold-beaded glasses, and said: ‘Well you’d better tell me all about it before Richard comes, hadn’t you?’

Richard was Molly’s husband; or rather, he had been her husband. Molly was the product of what she referred to as ‘one of those ’twenties marriages’. Her mother and father had both glittered, but briefly, in the intellectual and bohemian circles that had spun around the great central lights of Huxley, Lawrence, Joyce, etc. Her childhood had been disastrous, since this marriage only lasted a few months. She had married, at the age of eighteen, the son of a friend of her father’s. She knew now she had married out of a need for security and even respectability. The boy Tommy was a product of this marriage. Richard at twenty had already been on the way to becoming the very solid businessman he had since proved himself: and Molly and he had stood their incompatibility for not much more than a year. He had then married Marion, and there were three boys. Tommy had remained with Molly. Richard and she, once the business of the divorce was over, became friends again. Later, Marion became her friend. This, then, was the situation to which Molly often referred as: ‘It’s all very odd, isn’t it?’

‘Richard came to see me about Tommy,’ said Anna.

‘What? Why?’

‘Oh—idiotic! He asked me if I thought it was good for Tommy to spend so much time brooding. I said I thought it was good for everyone to brood, if by that he meant, thinking; and that since Tommy was twenty and grown up it was not for us to interfere anyway.’

‘Well it isn’t good for him,’ said Molly.

‘He asked me if I thought it would be good for Tommy to go off on some trip or other to Germany—a business trip, with him. I told him to ask Tommy, not me. Of course Tommy said no.’

‘Of course. Well I’m sorry Tommy didn’t go.’

‘But the real reason he came, I think, was because of Marion. But Marion had just been to see me, and had a prior claim, so to speak. So I wouldn’t discuss Marion at all. I think it’s likely he’s coming to discuss Marion with you.’

Molly was watching Anna closely. ‘How many times did Richard come?’

‘About five or six times.’

After a silence, Molly let her anger spurt out with: ‘It’s very odd he seems to expect me almost to control Marion. Why me? Or you? Well, perhaps you’d better go after all. It’s going to be difficult if all sorts of complications have been going on while my back was turned.’

Anna said firmly: ‘No, Molly. I didn’t ask Richard to come and see me. I didn’t ask Marion to come and see me. After all, it’s not your fault or mine that we seem to play the same role for people. I said what you would have said—at least, I think so.’

There was a note of humorous, even childish pleading in this. But it was deliberate. Molly, the older sister, smiled and said: ‘Well, all right.’ She continued to observe Anna narrowly; and Anna was careful to appear unaware of it. She did not want to tell Molly what had happened between her and Richard now; not until she could tell her the whole story of the last miserable year.

‘Is Marion drinking badly?’

‘Yes, I think she is.’

‘And she told you all about it?’

‘Yes. In detail. And what’s odd is, I swear she talked as if I were you—even making slips of the tongue, calling me Molly and so on.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said Molly. ‘Who would ever have thought? And you and I are different as chalk and cheese.’

‘Perhaps not so different,’ said Anna, drily; but Molly laughed in disbelief.

She was a tallish woman, and big-boned, but she appeared slight, and even boyish. This was because of how she did her hair, which was a rough, streaky gold, cut like a boy’s; and because of her clothes, for which she had a great natural talent. She took pleasure in the various guises she could use: for instance, being a hoyden in lean trousers and sweaters, and then a siren, her large green eyes made-up, her cheekbones prominent, wearing a dress which made the most of her full breasts.

This was one of the private games she played with life, which Anna envied her; yet in moments of self-rebuke she would tell Anna she was ashamed of herself, she so much enjoyed the different roles: ‘It’s as if I were really different—don’t you see? I even feel a different person. And there’s something spiteful in it—that man, you know, I told you about him last week—he saw me the first time in my old slacks and my sloppy old jersey, and then I rolled into the restaurant, nothing less than a femme fatale, and he didn’t know how to have me, he couldn’t say a word all evening, and I enjoyed it. Well, Anna?’

‘But you do enjoy it,’ Anna would say, laughing.

But Anna was small, thin, dark, brittle, with large black always-on-guard eyes, and a fluffy haircut. She was, on the whole, satisfied with herself, but she was always the same. She envied Molly’s capacity to project her own changes of mood. Anna wore neat, delicate clothes, which tended to be either prim, or perhaps a little odd; and relied upon her delicate white hands, and her small, pointed white face to make an impression. But she was shy, unable to assert herself, and, she was convinced, easily overlooked.

When the two women went out together, Anna deliberately effaced herself and played to the dramatic Molly. When they were alone, she tended to take the lead. But this had by no means been true at the beginning of their friendship. Molly, abrupt, straightforward, tactless, had frankly domineered Anna. Slowly, and the offices of Mother Sugar had had a good deal to do with it, Anna learned to stand up for herself. Even now there were moments when she should challenge Molly when she did not. She admitted to herself she was a coward; she would always give in rather than have fights or scenes. A quarrel would lay Anna low for days, whereas Molly thrived on them. She would burst into exuberant tears, say unforgivable things, and have forgotten all about it half a day later. Meanwhile Anna would be limply recovering in her flat.

That they were both ‘insecure’ and ‘unrooted’, words which dated from the era of Mother Sugar, they both freely acknowledged. But Anna had recently been learning to use these words in a different way, not as something to be apologized for, but as flags or banners for an attitude that amounted to a different philosophy. She had enjoyed fantasies of saying to Molly: We’ve had the wrong attitude to the whole thing, and it’s Mother Sugar’s fault—what is this security and balance that’s supposed to be so good? What’s wrong with living emotionally from hand-to-mouth in a world that’s changing as fast as it is?

But now, sitting with Molly talking, as they had so many hundreds of times before, Anna was saying to herself: Why do I always have this awful need to make other people see things as I do? It’s childish, why should they? What it amounts to is that I’m scared of being alone in what I feel.

The room they sat in was on the first floor, overlooking a narrow side street, whose windows had flower boxes and painted shutters, and whose pavements were decorated with three basking cats, a pekinese and the milk-cart, late because it was Sunday. The milkman had white shirt-sleeves, rolled up; and his son, a boy of sixteen, was sliding the gleaming white bottles from a wire basket on to the doorsteps. When he reached under their window, the man looked up and nodded. Molly said: ‘Yesterday he came in for coffee. Full of triumph, he was. His son’s got a scholarship and Mr Gates wanted me to know it. I said to him, getting in before he could, “My son’s had all these advantages, and all that education, and look at him, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. And yours hasn’t had a penny spent on him and he’s got a scholarship.” “That’s right,” he said, “that’s the way of it.” Then I thought, well I’m damned if I’ll sit here, taking it, so I said: “Mr Gates, your son’s up into the middle-class now, with us lot, and you won’t be speaking the same language. You know that, don’t you?” “It’s the way of the world,” he says. I said, “It’s not the way of the world at all, it’s the way of this damned class-ridden country.” He’s one of those bloody working-class Tories, Mr Gates is, and he said: “It’s the way of the world, Miss Jacobs, you say your son doesn’t see his way forward? That’s a sad thing.” And off he went on his milk-round, and I went upstairs and there was Tommy sitting on his bed, just sitting. He’s probably sitting there now, if he’s in. The Gates boy, he’s all of a piece, he’s going out for what he wants. But Tommy—since I came back three days ago, that’s all he’s done, sat on his bed and thought.’

‘Oh, Molly, don’t worry so much. He’ll turn out all right.’ They were leaning over the sill, watching Mr Gates and his son. A short, brisk, tough little man; and his son was tall, tough and good-looking. The women watched how the boy, returning with an empty basket, swung out a filled one from the back of the milk-cart, receiving instructions from his father with a smile and a nod. There was perfect understanding there; and the two women, both of them bringing up children without men, exchanged a grimacing envious smile.

‘The point is,’ said Anna, ‘neither of us was prepared to get married simply to give our children fathers. So now we must take the consequences. If there are any. Why should there be?’

‘It’s very well for you,’ said Molly, sour; ‘you never worry about anything, you just let things slide.’

Anna braced herself—almost did not reply, and then with an effort said: ‘I don’t agree, we try to have things both ways. We’ve always refused to live by the book and the rule; but then why start worrying because the world doesn’t treat us by rule? That’s what it amounts to.’

‘There you are,’ said Molly, antagonistic; ‘but I’m not a theoretical type. You ...