The Golden Notebook (19 page)

clatter, singing. Ella did not at once move. She was thinking: If I go, I'll have to iron something to wear. She almost got up to examine her clothes, but frowned and thought: If I'm thinking of what to wear, that means that I really want to go? How odd. Perhaps I do want to go? After all, I'm always doing this, saying I won't do something, then I change my mind. The point is, my mind is probably already made up. But which way? I don't change my mind. I suddenly find myself doing something when I've said I wouldn't. Yes. And now I've no idea at all what I've decided. A few minutes later she was concentrating on her novel, which was half-finished. The theme of this book was a suicide. The death of a young man who had not known he was going to commit suicide until the moment of death, when he understood that he had in fact been preparing for it, and in great detail, for months. The point of the novel would be the contrast between the surface of his life, which was orderly and planned, yet without any long-term objective, and an underlying motif which had reference only to the suicide, which would lead up to the suicide. His plans for his future were all vague and impossible, in contrast with the sharp practicality of his present life. The undercurrent of despair or madness or illogicalness would lead on to, or rather, refer back from, the impossible fantasies of a distant future. So the real continuity of the novel would be in the at first scarcely noticed substratum of despair, the growth of the unknown intention to commit suicide. The moment of death would also be the moment when the real continuity of his life would be understood-a continuity not of order, discipline, practicality, commonsense, but of unreality. It would be understood at the moment of death that the link between the dark need for death, and death, itself, had been the wild, crazy fantasies of a beautiful life; and that the commonsense and the order had been (not as it had seemed earlier in the story) symptoms of sanity, but intimations of madness. The idea for this novel had come to Ella at a moment when she found herself getting dressed to go out to dine with people after she had told herself she did not want to go out. She said to herself, rather surprised at the thought: This is precisely how I would commit suicide. I would find myself just about to jump out of an open window or turning on the gas in a small closed-in room, and I would say to myself, without any emotion, but rather with the sense of suddenly understanding something I should have understood long before: Good Lord! So that's what I've been meaning to do. That's been it all the time! And I wonder how many people commit suicide in precisely this way? It is always imagined as some desperate mood, or a moment of crisis. Yet for many it must happen just like that-they find themselves putting their papers in order, writing farewell letters, even ringing up their friends, in a cheerful, friendly way, almost with a feeling of curiosity... they must find themselves packing newspapers under the door, against window-frames, quite calmly and efficiently, remarking to themselves, quite detached: Well, well! How very interesting. How extraordinary I didn't understand what it was all about before! Ella found this novel difficult. Not for technical reasons. On the contrary, she could imagine the young man very clearly. She knew how he lived, what all his habits were. It was as if the story were already written somewhere inside herself, and she was transcribing it. The trouble was, she was ashamed of it. She had not told Julia about it. She knew her friend would say something like: 'That's a very negative subject, isn't it?' Or: 'That's not going to point the way forward...' Or some other judgment from the current communist armoury. Ella used to laugh at Julia for these phrases, yet at the bottom of her heart it seemed that she agreed with her, for she could not see what good it would do anyone to read a novel of this kind. Yet she was writing it. And besides being surprised and ashamed of its subject, she was sometimes frightened. She had even thought: Perhaps I've made a secret decision to commit suicide that I know nothing about? (But she did not believe this to be true.) And she continued to write the novel, making excuses such as: 'Well, there's no need to get it published, I'll just write it for myself.' And in speaking of it to friends, she would joke: 'But everyone I know is writing a novel.' Which was more or less true. In fact her attitude towards this work was the same as someone with a passion for sweet-eating, indulged in solitude, or some other private pastime, like acting out scenes with an invisible alter ego, or carrying on conversation with one's image in the looking-glass. Ella had taken a dress out of the cupboard and set out the ironing-board, before she said: So, I'm going to the party after all, am I? I wonder at what point I decided that? While she ironed the dress, she continued to think about her novel, or rather to bring into the light a little more of what was already there, waiting, in the darkness. She had put the dress on and was looking at herself in the long glass before she finally left the young man to himself, and concentrated on what she was doing. She was dissatisfied with her appearance. She had never very much liked the dress. She had plenty of clothes in her cupboard, but did not much like any of them. And so it was with her face and hair. Her hair was not right, it never was. And yet she had everything to make her really attractive. She was small, and small-boned. Her features were good, in a small, pointed face. Julia kept saying: 'If you did yourself up properly you'd be like one of those piquant French girls, ever so sexy, you're that type.' Yet Ella always failed. Her dress tonight was a simple black wool which had looked as if it ought to be 'ever so sexy' but it was not. At least, not on Ella. And she wore her hair tied back. She looked pale, almost severe. 'But I don't care about the people I'm going to meet,' she thought, turning away from the glass. 'So it doesn't matter. I'd try harder for a party I really wanted to go to.' Her son was asleep. She shouted to Julia outside the bathroom door: 'I'm going after all.' To which Julia replied with a calm triumphant chuckle: 'I thought you would.' Ella was slightly annoyed at the triumph, but said: 'I'll be back early.' To which Julia did not reply directly. She said: 'I'll keep my bedroom door open for Michael. Good night.' To reach Dr West's house meant half an hour on the underground, changing once, and then a short trip by bus. One reason why Ella was always reluctant to drag herself out of Julia's house was because the city frightened her. To move, mile after mile, through the weight of ugliness that is London in its faceless peripheral wastes made her angry; then the anger ebbed out, leaving fear. At the bus-stop, waiting for her bus, she changed her mind and decided to walk, to punish herself for her cowardice. She would walk the mile to the house, and face what she hated. Ahead of her the street of grey mean little houses crawled endlessly. The grey light of a late summer's evening lowered a damp sky. For miles in all directions, this ugliness, this meanness. This was London- endless streets of such houses. It was hard to bear, the sheer physical weight of the knowledge because-where was the force that could shift the ugliness? And in every street, she thought, people like the woman whose letter was in her handbag. These streets were ruled by fear and ignorance, and ignorance and meanness had built them. This was the city she lived in, and she was part of it, and responsible for it... Ella walked fast, alone in the street, hearing her heels ring behind her. She was watching the curtains at the windows. At this end, the street was working-class, one could tell by the curtains, of lace and flowered stuffs. These were the people who wrote in the terrible unanswerable letters she had to deal with. But now things suddenly changed, because the curtains at the windows changed-here was a sheen of peacock blue. It was a painter's house. He had moved into the cheap house and made it beautiful. And other professional people had moved in after him. Here were a small knot of people different from the others in the area. They could not communicate with the people further down the street, who could not, and probably would not, enter these houses at all. Here was Dr West's house-he knew the first-comer, the painter, and had bought the house almost opposite. He had said: 'Just in time, the values are rising already.' The garden was untidy. He was a busy doctor with three children and his wife helped him with his practice. No time for gardens. (The gardens further down the street had been mostly well-tended.) From this world, thought Ella, came no letters to the oracles of the women's magazines. The door opened in on the brisk, kindly face of Mrs. West. She said: 'So here you are at last,' and took Ella's coat. The hall was pretty and clean and practical-Mrs. West's world. She said: 'My husband tells me you've been having another brush with him over his lunatic fringe. It's good of you to take so much trouble over these people.' 'It's my job,' said Ella. 'I'm paid for it.' Mrs. West smiled, with a kindly tolerance. She resented Ella. Not because she worked with her husband-no, this was too crude an emotion for Mrs. West. Ella had not understood Mrs. West's resentment until one day she had used the phrase: You career girls. It was a phrase so discordant, like 'lunatic fringe' and 'these people' that Ella had been unable to reply to it. And now Mrs. West had made a point of letting her know that her husband discussed his work with her, establishing wifely rights. In the past, Ella had said to herself: But she's a nice woman, in spite of everything. Now, angry, she said: She's not a nice woman. These people are all dead and damned, with their disinfecting phrases, lunatic fringe and career girls. I don't like her and I'm not going to pretend I do... She followed Mrs. West into the living-room, which held faces she knew. The woman for whom she worked at the magazine, for instance. She was also middle-aged, but smart and well-dressed, with bright curling grey hair. She was a professional woman, her appearance part of her job, unlike Mrs. West, who was pleasant to look at, but not at all smart. Her name was Patricia Brent, and the name was also part of her profession-Mrs. Patricia Brent, editress. Ella went to sit by Patricia, who said: 'Dr West's been telling us you've been quarrelling with him over his letters.' Ella looked swiftly around, and saw people smiling expectantly. The incident had been served up as party fare, and she was expected to play along with it a little, then allow the thing to be dropped. But there must not be any real discussion, or discordance. Ella said smiling: 'Hardly quarrelling.' She added, on a carefully plaintive-humorous note, which was what they were waiting for: 'But it's very depressing, after all, these people you can't do anything for.' She saw she had used the phrase, these people, and was angry and dispirited. I shouldn't have come, she thought. These people (meaning, this time, the Wests and what they stood for) only tolerate you if you're like them. 'Ah, but that's the point,' said Dr West. He said it briskly. He was an altogether brisk, competent man. He added, teasing Ella: 'Unless the whole system's changed of course. Our Ella's a revolutionary without knowing it.' 'I imagined,' said Ella, 'that we all wanted the system changed.' But that was altogether the wrong note. Dr West involuntarily frowned, then smiled. 'But of course we do,' he said. 'And the sooner the better.' The Wests voted for the Labour Party. That Dr West was 'Labour' was a matter of pride to Patricia Brent, who was a Tory. Her tolerance was thus proved. Ella had no politics, but she was also important to Patricia, for the ironical reason that she made no secret of the contempt she felt for the magazine. She shared an office with Patricia. The atmosphere of this office, and all the others connected with the magazine, had the same atmosphere, the atmosphere of the magazine-coy, little-womanish, snobbish. And all the women working there seemed to acquire the same tone, despite themselves, even Patricia herself, who was not at all like this. For Patricia was kind, hearty, direct, full of a battling self-respect. Yet in the office she would say things quite out of character, and Ella, afraid for herself, criticised her for it. Then she went on to say that while they were both in a position where they had to earn their livings, they didn't have to lie to themselves about what they had to do. She had expected, even half-wished, that Patricia would tell her to leave. Instead she had been taken out to an expensive lunch where Patricia defended herself. It turned out that for her this job was a defeat. She had been fashion editress of one of the big smart woman's magazines, but apparently had not been considered up to it. It was a magazine with a fashionable cultural gloss, and it was necessary to have an editress with a nose for what was fashionable in the arts. Patricia had no feeling at all for the cultural band-waggon, which, as far as Ella was concerned, was a point in her favour, but the proprietor of this particular group of woman's magazines had shifted Patricia over to Women at Home, which was angled towards working-class women, and had not even a pretence of cultural tone. Patricia was now well-suited for her work, and it was this which secretly chagrined her. She had wistfully enjoyed the atmosphere of the other magazine which had fashionable authors and artists associated with it. She was the daughter of a county family, rich but philistine; her childhood had been well supported by servants, and it was this, an early contact with 'the lower-classes'-she referred to them as such, inside the office, coyly; outside, unself-consciously-that gave her her shrewd direct understanding of what to serve her readers. Far from giving Ella the sack, she had developed the same wistful respect for her that she had for the glossy magazine she had had to leave. She would casually remark that she had working for her someone who was a 'highbrow'-someone whose stories had been published in the 'highbrow papers.' And she had a far warmer, more human understanding of the letters which came into the office than Dr West. She now protected Ella by saying: 'I agree with Ella. Whenever I take a look at her weekly dose of misery, I don't know how she does it. It depresses me so I can't even eat. And believe me, when my appetite goes, things are serious.' Now everybody laughed, and Ella smiled gratefully at Patricia who nodded, as if to say: 'It's all right, we weren't criticising you.' Now the talk began again and Ella was free