The Golden Notebook Read Online Free PDF Page A

We're discussing Tommy. He came to see me and I told him he should go and see you, Richard, and see if he couldn't do one of those expert jobs, not business, it's stupid to be just business, but something constructive, like the United Nations or Unesco. He could get in through you, couldn't he?' 'Yes, he could.' 'What did he say, Anna?' asked Molly. 'He said he wanted to be left alone to think. And why not? He's twenty. Why shouldn't he think and experiment with life, if that's what he wants? Why should we bully him?' 'The trouble with Tommy is he's never been bullied,' said Richard. 'Thank you,' said Molly. 'He's never had any direction. Molly's simply left him alone as if he was an adult, always. What sort of sense do you suppose it makes to a child-freedom, make-up-your-own-mind, I'm-not-going-to-put-any-pressure-on-you; and at the same time, the comrades, discipline, self-sacrifice, and kow-towing to authority...' 'What you have to do is this,' said Molly. 'Find a place in one of your things that isn't just share-pushing or promoting or money-making. See if you can't find something constructive. Then show it to Tommy and let him decide.' Richard, his face red with anger over his too-yellow, too-tight shirt, held a glass of whisky between two hands, turning it round and round, looking down into it. 'Thanks,' he said at last, 'I will.' He spoke with such a stubborn confidence in the quality of what he was going to offer his son, that Anna and Molly again raised their eyebrows at each other, conveying that the whole conversation had been wasted, as usual. Richard intercepted this glance, and said: 'You two are so extraordinarily naive.' 'About business?' said Molly, with her loud jolly laugh. 'About big business,' said Anna quietly, amused, who had been surprised, during her conversations with Richard, to discover the extent of his power. This had not caused his image to enlarge, for her; rather he had seemed to shrink, against a background of international money. And she had loved Molly the more for her total lack of respect for this man who had been her husband, and who was in fact one of the financial powers of the country. 'Ohhh,' groaned Molly, impatient. 'Very big business,' said Anna laughing, trying to make Molly meet this, but the actress shrugged it off, with her characteristic big shrug of the shoulders, her white hands spreading out, palms out, until they came to rest on her knees. 'I'll impress her with it later,' said Anna to Richard. 'Or at least try to.' 'What is all this?' asked Molly. 'It's no good,' said Richard, sarcastic, grudging, resentful. 'Do you know that in all these years she's never been interested enough even to ask?' 'You've paid Tommy's school fees, and that's all I ever wanted from you.' 'You've been putting Richard across to everyone for years as a sort of-well an enterprising little businessman, like a jumped-up grocer,' said Anna. 'And it turns out that all the time he's a tycoon. But really. A big shot. One of the people we have to hate-on principle,' Anna added laughing. 'Really?' said Molly, interested, regarding her former husband with mild surprise that this ordinary and-as far as she was concerned-not very intelligent man could be anything at all. Anna recognised the look-it was what she felt-and laughed. 'Good God,' said Richard, 'talking to you two, it's like talking to a couple of savages.' 'Why?' said Molly. 'Should we be impressed? You aren't even self-made. You just inherited it' 'What does it matter? It's the thing that matters. It may be a bad system, I'm not even going to argue-not that I could with either of you, you are both as ignorant as monkeys about economics, but it's what runs this country.' 'Well of course,' said Molly. Her hands still lay, palms upward, on her knees. She now brought them together in her lap, in an unconscious mimicry of the gesture of a child waiting for a lesson. 'But why despise it?' Richard, who had obviously been meaning to go on, stopped,