The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing Read Free Book Online Page A

for myself,' he concluded, allowing his lips to set, pouting, over his finished explanation. 'You're going to be very unhappy,' said Molly, almost moaning it. 'Yes, that's another thing,' said Tommy. 'The last time we discussed everything, you ended by saying, "Oh, but you're going to be unhappy." As if it's the worst thing to be. But if it comes to unhappiness, I wouldn't call either you or Anna happy people, but at least you're much happier than my father. Let alone Marion.' He added the last softly, in direct accusation of his father. Richard said, hotly, 'Why don't you hear my side of the story, as well as Marion's?' Tommy ignored this, and went on: 'I know I must sound ridiculous. I knew before I even started I was going to sound naive.' 'Of course you're naive,' said Richard. 'You're not naive,' said Anna. 'When I finished talking to you last time, Anna, I came home and I thought, Well, Anna must think I'm terribly naive.' 'No, I didn't. That's not the point. What you don't seem to understand is, we'd like you to do better than we have done.' 'Why should I?' 'Well perhaps we might still change and be better,' said Anna, with deference towards youth. Hearing the appeal in her own voice she laughed and said, 'Good Lord, Tommy, don't you realise how judged you make us feel?' For the first time Tommy showed a touch of humour. He really looked at them, first at her, and then at his mother, smiling. 'You forget that I've listened to you two talk all my life. I know about you, don't I? I do think that you are both rather childish sometimes, but I prefer that to...' He did not look at his father, but left it. 'It's a pity you've never given me a chance to talk,' said Richard, but with self-pity; and Tommy reacted by a quick, dogged withdrawal away from him. He said to Anna and Molly, 'I'd rather be a failure, like you, than succeed and all that sort of thing. But I'm not saying I'm choosing failure. I mean, one doesn't choose failure, does one? I know what I don't want, but not what I do want.' 'One or two practical questions,' said Richard, while Anna and Molly wryly looked at the word failure, used by this boy in exactly the same sense they would have used it. All the same, neither had applied it themselves-or not so pat and final, at least. 'What are you going to live on?' said Richard. Molly was angry. She did not want Tommy flushed out of the safe period of contemplation she was offering him by the fire of Richard's ridicule. But Tommy said: 'If mother doesn't mind, I don't mind living off her for a bit. After all, I hardly spend anything. But if I have to earn money, I can always be a teacher.' 'Which you'll find a much more straitened way of life than what I'm offering you,' said Richard. Tommy was embarrassed. 'I don't think you really understood what I'm trying to say. Perhaps I didn't say it right.' 'You're going to become some sort of a coffee-bar bum,' said Richard. 'No. I don't see that. You only say that because you only like people who have a lot of money.' Now the three adults were silent. Molly and Anna because the boy could be trusted to stand up for himself; Richard because he was afraid of unleashing his anger. After a time Tommy remarked: 'Perhaps I might try to be a writer.' Richard let out a groan. Molly said nothing, with an effort. But Anna exclaimed: 'Oh Tommy, and after all that good advice I gave you.' He met her with affection, but stubbornly: 'You forget Anna, I don't have your complicated ideas about writing.' 'What complicated ideas?' asked Molly, sharply. Tommy said to Anna: 'I've been thinking about all the things you said.' 'What things?' demanded Molly. Anna said: 'Tommy, you're frightening to know. One says something, and you take it all up so seriously.' 'But you were serious?' Anna suppressed an impulse to turn it off with a joke, and said: 'Yes, I was serious.' 'Yes, I know you were. So I thought about what you said. There was something arrogant in it.' 'Arrogant?' 'Yes, I think so. Both