The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online

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. 'I wouldn't mind being like your lot, it's not that. I've been around listening to your friends for years and years now, you all of you seem to be in such a mess, or think you are even if you're hot,' he said, knitting his brows, and bringing out every phrase after careful thought. 'I don't mind that, but it was an accident for you, you didn't say to yourselves at some point: I am going to be a certain kind of person. I mean, I think that for both you and Anna there was a moment when you said, and you were even surprised, Oh, so I'm that kind of person, am I?' Anna and Molly smiled at each other, and at him, acknowledging it was true. 'Well then,' said Richard jauntily. 'That's settled. If you don't want to be like Anna and Molly, there's the alternative.' 'No,' said Tommy. 'I haven't explained myself, if you can say that. No.' 'But you've got to do something,' cried Molly, not at all humorous, but sounding sharp and frightened. 'You don't,' said Tommy, as if it were self-evident. 'But you've just said you didn't want to be like us,' said Molly. 'It's not that I wouldn't want to be, but I don't think I could.' Now he turned to his father, in patient explanation. 'The thing about mother and Anna is this; one doesn't say, Anna Wulf the writer, or Molly Jacobs the actress-or only if you don't know them. They aren't-what I mean is-they aren't what they do; but if I start working with you, then I'll be what I do. Don't you see that?' 'Frankly, no.' 'What I mean is, I'd rather be...' he floundered, and was silent a moment, moving his lips together, frowning. 'I've been thinking about it because I knew I'd have to explain it to you.' He said this patiently, quite prepared to meet his parents' unjust demands. 'People like Anna or Molly and that lot, they're not just one thing, but several things. And you know they could change and be something different. I don't mean their characters would change, but they haven't set into a mould. You know if something happened in the world, or there was a change of some kind, a revolution or something...' He waited, a moment, patiently, for Richard's sharply irritated indrawn breath over the word revolution, to be expelled, and went on: 'they'd be something different if they had to be. But you'll never be different, father. You'll always have to live the way you do now. Well I don't want that