The Golden Notebook (29 page)

Oct .3rd, 52

OUR BOMB GOES OFF. First British atomic weapon exploded successfully. Express 11th Oct., 52 MAU MAU SLASH COLONEL. Express 23rd Oct., 52 BIRCH THEM. Lord Goddard, Chief Justice. Express 25th Oct., 52 Colonel Robert Scott, Commanding Officer of the American Air Base at Furstenfeldbruck: 'The preliminary treaty between America and Germany has been signed. I earnestly hope that your fatherland will soon stand as a full-fledged member of the N. A. T. O. forces... I impatiently wait with you for the day when we will stand shoulder to shoulder as friends and brothers to resist the threat of Communism. I hope and pray that the moment will soon come when either I or some other American commander will turn this fine Air Base over to some German Wing Commander with the beginning of Germany's new Luftwaffe.' Statesman 17th Nov., 52 U. S. TRIES OUT H. BOMB. Express 1st Nov., 52 Korea: Total casualties since the truce talks started including civilians, will soon be getting close to the number of prisoners whose status has become the main obstacle to the truce. Statesman 27th Nov., 52 Kenya's Government announced tonight that as collective punishment for the murder of Commander Jack Meiklejohn last Saturday, 750 men and 2,200 women and children have been evacuated from their homes. Express 8th Nov. In recent years it has been fashionable to denounce the critics of Mc Carthyism as dyspeptic 'anti-Americans.' Statesman 22nd Nov., 52 It is only two years since President Truman gave the word 'Go' on the H-Bomb programme. Forthwith a billion-dollar plant was put under construction at Savannah River, South Carolina, to produce tritium (triple-atom-hydrogen); by the end of 1951, the B-bomb industry had become an industrial undertaking comparable only with U.S. Steel and General Motors. Statesman 22nd Nov., 52 But the first shot of the present campaign was fired-most conveniently to coincide with the hectic climax of a Republican election campaign which had made all possible capital out of Alger Hiss's 'contamination' of the State Department- by the Republican Senator, Alexander Wiley, of Wisconsin in his disclosure that he had demanded an investigation of the 'extensive infiltration' of the U.N. Secretariat by American Communists... Then the Senate Sub-Committee on Internal Security proceeded to cross-examine its first twelve victims in the new drive, all of them high officials... yet the refusal of the 12 witnesses to testify about any Communist affiliations did not save them from... But the witch-hunting Senators were clearly out for bigger fry than the twelve against whom the only evidence of subversion and espionage adduced was their silence. Statesman Nov .29th, 52 The Czech Sabotage Trial, though it follows the standard pattern of political justice in the People's Democracies, is of unusual interest. In the first place, Czechoslovakia was the only country in the Eastern Bloc which possessed a deeply rooted democratic way of life, including full civil liberties and an independent judiciary. Statesman Dec .3rd, 52 DARTMOOR MAN FLOGGED. Thug gets 12 lashes with the Cat. Express Dec .17th, 1952 11 COMMUNIST LEADERS HANGED IN PRAGUE. Capitalist Spies Claims Czech Government.

29th Dec, 1952

A new £10,000 atom factory designed to double Britain's output of atomic weapons. Express 13th January, 53 SOVIET MURDER-PLOT SHOCK. Moscow radio accused early today a group of Terrorist Jewish doctors of trying to assassinate Russian leaders-including some of the top Soviet military men and an atomic scientist. Express 6th March, 1953 STALIN DIES. Express 23rd March, 1953 2,500 MAU MAU ARRESTS. Express 23rd March, 1953 AMNESTY IN RUSSIA FOR PRISONERS. Express 1st April, 1953 WHAT COULD PEACE IN KOREA MEAN TO YOU? Express 7th May, 1953 PEACE HOPES RISING IN KOREA. Express 8th May, 1953 America is discussing possible United Nations action 'to curb Communist aggression in S. E. Asia.' And she is sending large quantities of planes, tanks and ammunition to Indochina. Express 13th May ATROCITIES IN EGYPT. Express 18th July, 1953 BERLIN NIGHT BATTLE .15,000 People of East Berlin were fighting a division of Soviet tanks and infantry in the dark streets early this morning. Express REVOLT IN ROUMANIA. Express 10th July, 53 BERIA TRIED AND SHOT. Express 27th July, 1953 KOREAN CEASE-FIRE. Express 7th August, 1953 MASS P.O.W. RIOT. Mass rioting by 12,000 North Korean p.o.w. was put down by U.N. guards using tear-gas and small arms fire. Express 20th Aug., 1953 300 dead in coup. Persia. Express 19th Feb., 1954 Britain has A-bomb stock-pile now. Express 27th March, 1954 2nd H-BOMB IS DELAYED-Isles still too hot from blast No .1. Express 30th March 2nd H-BOMB EXPLODED. Express [And now the personal entries began again.]

2nd April, 1954

I realised today that I was beginning to withdraw from what Mrs. Marks calls my 'experience' with her; and because of something she said; she must have known it for some time. She said: 'You must remember that the end of an analysis does not mean the end of the experience itself.' 'You mean, the yeast goes on working?' She smiled and nodded.

4th April, 1954

I had the bad dream again-I was menaced by the anarchic principle, this time in the shape of an inhuman sort of dwarf. In the dream was Mrs. Marks, very large and powerful; like a kind of amiable witch. She heard the dream out, and said: 'When you are on your own, and you are threatened, you must summon the good witch to your aid.' 'You,' I said. 'No, you, embodied in what you have made of me.' So the thing is over, then. It was as if she had said: Now you are on your own. For she spoke casually, indifferently almost, like someone turning away. I admired the skill of this; it was as if, on leave-taking, she were handing me something- a flowering branch, perhaps, or a talisman against evil.

7th April, 1954

She asked me if I had kept notes of the 'experience.' Now she has never, not once, in the last three years mentioned the diary; so she must have known by instinct I had not kept notes. I said: 'No.' 'You have kept no record at all?' 'No. I have a very good memory, though.' A silence. 'So the diary you started has remained empty?' 'No, I stuck in cuttings from newspapers.' 'What kind of cuttings?' 'Just things that struck me-events that seemed important.' She gave me the quizzical look, which said: Well, I'm waiting for the definition. I said: 'I glanced over them the other day: what I've got is a record of war, murder, chaos, misery.' 'And that seems to you the truth about the last few years?' 'Doesn't it seem to you to be the truth?' She looked at me-ironical. She was saying without words that our 'experience' has been creative and fructifying, and that I am dishonest in saying what I did. I said: 'Very well then; the newspaper cuttings were to keep things in proportion. I've spent three years, more, wrestling with my precious soul, and meanwhile...' 'Meanwhile what?' 'It's just a matter of luck that I haven't been tortured, murdered, starved to death, or died in a prison.' She looked patiently ironical, and I said: 'Surely you must see that what happens here, in this room, doesn't only link one with what you call creativity. It links one with... but I don't know what to call it.' 'I'm glad you aren't going to use the word destruction.' 'All right, everything has two faces, etc., but for all that, whenever anything happens anywhere that is terrible, I dream about it, as if I were involved in it personally.' 'You have been cutting all the bad things out of the newspapers and sticking them in your diary of this experience, as an instruction to yourself of how to dream?' 'But Mrs. Marks, what's wrong with that?' We have reached this particular deadlock so often, neither of us try to break it. She sat smiling at me, dry and patient. I faced her, challenging her.

9th April, 1954

She said to me today as I was leaving: 'And now my dear, when are you going to start writing again?' I might have said, of course, that all this time I've been scribbling off and on in the notebooks but that is not what she meant. I said: 'Very likely never.' She made an impatient, almost irritable gesture; she looked vexed, like a housewife whose plans have gone wrong-the gesture was genuine, not one of the smiles, or nods, or shakes of the head, or impatient clicks of the tongue that she uses to conduct a session. 'Why can't you understand that,' I said, really wanting to make her understand, 'that I can't pick up a newspaper without what's in it seeming so overwhelmingly terrible that nothing I could write would seem to have any point at all?' 'Then you shouldn't read the newspapers.' I laughed. After a while she smiled with me.

15th April, 1954

I have had several dreams, all to do with Michael's leaving me. It was from my dreams that I knew he soon would; he soon will. In my sleep I watch these scenes of parting. Without emotion. In my life I am desperately, vividly unhappy; asleep I am unmoved. Mrs. Marks asked me today: 'If I were to ask you to say in a phrase what you have learned from me, what would you reply?' 'That you have taught me to cry,' I said, not without dryness. She smiled, accepting the dryness. 'And so?' 'And I'm a hundred times more vulnerable than I was.' 'And so? Is that all?' 'You mean, I am also a hundred times stronger? I don't know. I don't know at all. I hope so.' 'I know,' she said, with emphasis. 'You are very much stronger. And you will write of this experience.' A quick firm nod; then she said: 'You will see. In a few months' time, perhaps a few years' time.' I shrugged. We made an appointment for next week; it will be the last appointment.

23rd April

I had a dream for my last appointment. I took it to Mrs. Marks. I dreamed I held a kind of casket in my hands, and inside it was something very precious. I was walking up a long room, like an art gallery or a lecture hall, full of dead pictures and statues. (When I used the word dead, Mrs. Marks smiled, ironically.) There was a small crowd of people waiting at the end of the hall on a kind of platform. They were waiting for me to hand them the casket. I was incredibly happy that at last I could give them this precious object. But when I handed it over, I saw suddenly they were all businessmen, brokers, something like that. They did not open the box, but started handing me large sums of money. I began to cry. I shouted: 'Open the box, open the box,' but they couldn't hear me, or wouldn't listen. Suddenly I saw they were all characters in some film or play, and that I had written it, and was ashamed of it. It all turned into farce, flickering and grotesque, I was a character in my own play. I opened the box and forced them to look. But instead of a beautiful thing, which I thought would be there, there was a mass of fragments, and pieces. Not a whole thing, broken into fragments, but bits and pieces from everywhere, all over the world-I recognised a lump of red earth that I knew came from Africa, and then a bit of metal that came off a gun from Indo-China, and then everything was horrible, bits of flesh from people killed in the Korean War and a communist party badge off someone who died in a Soviet prison. This, looking at the mass of ugly fragments, was so painful that I couldn't look, and I shut the box. But the group of businessmen or money-people hadn't noticed. They took the box from me and opened it. I turned away so as not to see, but they were delighted. At last I looked and I saw that there was something in the box. It was a small green crocodile with a winking sardonic snout. I thought it was the image of a crocodile, made of jade, or emeralds, then I saw it was alive, for large frozen tears rolled down its cheeks and turned into diamonds. I laughed out loud when I saw how I had cheated the businessmen and I woke up. Mrs. Marks listened to this dream without comment, she seemed uninterested. We said good-bye with affection, but she has already turned away, inwardly, as I have. She said I must 'drop in to see her' if I needed her. I thought, how can I need you when you have bequeathed to me your image; I know perfectly well I shall dream of that large maternal witch every time I am in trouble. (Mrs. Marks is a very small wiry, energetic woman, yet I have always dreamed of her as large and powerful.) I went out of that darkened, solemn room in which I have spent so many hours half-in, half-out, of fantasy and dream, the room which is like a shrine to art, and I reached the cold ugly pavement. I saw myself in a shop window: a small, rather pale, dry, spiky woman, and there was a wry look on my face which I recognised as the grin on the snout of that malicious little green crocodile in the crystal casket of my dream. Two visits, some telephone calls and a tragedy THE telephone rang just as Anna was tiptoeing from the child's room. Janet started up again, and said on a satisfied grumbling note: 'That's Molly, I expect, and you'll be talking for hours and hours.' 'Shhhh,' said Anna; and went to the telephone thinking: For children like Janet the fabric of security is woven, not of grandparents, cousins, a settled home; but that friends telephone every day, and certain words are spoken. 'Janet is just going to sleep and she sends her love,' she said loudly into the instrument; and Molly replied, playing her part: 'Send my love to Janet and say she must go to sleep at once.' 'Molly says you must go to sleep, she says good night,' said Anna loudly into the darkened room. Janet said: 'How can I go to sleep when now you two are going to talk for hours and hours?' The quality of the silence from Janet's room, however, told Anna that the child was going to sleep, satisfied; and she lowered her voice and said: 'All right. How are you?' Molly said, over-casual: 'Anna, is Tommy with you?' 'No, why should he be?' 'Oh, I just wondered... If he knew I was worrying he'd be furious, of course.' For the last month, Molly's daily bulletins from the house half a mile away had consisted of nothing but Tommy; who was sitting hour after hour in his room, alone, not moving, apparently not even thinking. Now Molly abandoned the topic of her son, and gave Anna a long, humorous, grumbling account of the dinner she had had the night before with some old flame from America. Anna listened, hearing the under-current of hysteria in her friend's voice, waiting for her to conclude: 'Well anyway, I looked at that pompous middle-aged slob sitting there, and I thought of what he used to be like-well, I expect he was thinking, what a pity Molly's turned out the way she has- but why do I criticise everyone so? There isn't anyone good enough for me ever? And it isn't even as if I can compare present offerings with some beautiful past experience, because I can't remember ever being really satisfied, I've never said: Yes, this is it. But I've been remembering Sam for years ever so nostalgically, as the best of the bunch, and even wondering why I was such a fool to turn him down, and today I was remembering how much he bored me even then-what are you going to do when Janet is asleep? Are you going out?' 'No. I'm staying in.' 'I've got to dash to the theatre. I'm late as it is. Anna would you telephone Tommy here, in about an hour-make some excuse or other.' 'What's worrying you?' 'Tommy went down to Richard's office this afternoon. Yes, I know, you could have knocked me down with a feather. Richard rang me and said: "I insist Tommy comes to see me at once." So I said to Tommy: "Your father insists you go to see him at once." Tommy said, "all right mother," and got up and went. Just like that. To humour me. I got the feeling if I'd said, Jump out of the window, he'd have jumped.' 'Has Richard said anything?' 'He rang about three hours ago, ever so sarcastic and superior, saying I didn't understand Tommy. I said I was glad he did, at least. But he said Tommy had just left. But he hasn't come home. I went up to Tommy's room and he's got half a dozen books on psychology from the library on his bed. He's been reading them all at once from the look of it... I must rush, Anna, it takes me half an hour to make up for this part-bloody stupid play, why did I ever say I'd be in it? Well, good night.' Ten minutes later Anna was standing by her trestle table, preparing to work on her blue notebook, when Molly rang again. I've just had a call from Marion. Can you believe it?-Tommy went down to see her. He must have taken the first train after leaving Richard's office. He stayed twenty minutes and then left again. Marion said he was very quiet. And he hasn't been there for ages. Anna, don't you think it's odd?' 'He was very quiet?' 'Well, Marion was drunk again. Of course Richard hadn't come. He's never home before midnight these days-there's that girl in his office. Marion went on and on about it. She was probably going on and on to Tommy too. She was talking about you-she's got it in for you all right. So I suppose Richard must have told her he had been having a thing with you.' 'But we didn't.' 'Have you seen him again?' 'No. Nor Marion either.' The two women stood by their respective telephones, silent; if they had been in the same room they would have exchanged wry glances or smiles. Suddenly Anna heard: 'I'm terrified, Anna. Something awful is happening, I'm sure of it. Oh God, I don't know what to do, and I must rush-I'll have to take a taxi now. Good-bye.' Usually, at the sound of feet on the stairs, Anna removed herself from the part of the big room where she would be forced into an unnecessary exchange of greetings with the young man from Wales. This time she looked sharply around and only just prevented an exclamation of relief as the footsteps turned out to be Tommy's. His smile acknowledged her, her room, the pencil in her hand, and her spread notebooks, as a scene he had expected to see. But having smiled, his dark eyes focused inwards again, and his face set solemn. Anna had instinctively reached for the telephone, and checked herself, thinking she should make an excuse to go upstairs and telephone from there. But Tommy said: 'I suppose you are thinking you must telephone my mother?' 'Yes. She has just rung me.' 'Then go upstairs if you want, I don't mind.' This was kindly, to set her at ease. 'No, I'll ring from here.' 'I suppose she's been snooping in my room and she's upset because of all those madness books.' At the word madness, Anna felt her face tighten in shock; saw Tommy notice it; then exclaimed, with energy: 'Tommy, sit down. I've got to talk to you. But first I must ring Molly.' Tommy showed no surprise at her sudden decisiveness. He sat down, arranged himself neatly, legs together, arms before him on the chair-arms, and watched Anna as she telephoned. But Molly had already left. Anna sat on her bed, frowning with annoyance: she had become convinced that Tommy was enjoying frightening them all. Tommy remarked: 'Anna, your bed's just like a coffin.' Anna saw herself, small, pale, neat, wearing black trousers and a black shirt, squatting cross-legged on the narrow black-draped bed. 'Then it's like a coffin,' she said; but she got off the bed and sat opposite him in a chair. His eyes were now moving, slow and careful, from object to object around the room, giving Anna exactly the same allowance of attention as chair, books, fireplace, a picture. 'I hear you went to see your father?' 'Yes.' 'What did he want you for?' 'You were going to say, If you don't mind my asking-' he said. Then he giggled. The giggle was new-harsh, uncontrolled, and malicious. At the sound Anna felt rise in her a wave of panic. She even felt a desire to giggle herself. She calmed herself, thinking: He hasn't been here five minutes, but his hysteria's infecting me already. Be careful. She said, smiling: 'I was going to say it, but I stopped myself.' 'What's the point of that? I know you and my mother discuss me all the time. You're worried about me.' Again he was calmly but triumphantly malicious. Anna had never associated malice or spite with Tommy; and she felt as if there were a stranger in her room. He even looked strange, for his blunt dark obstinate face was twisted into a mask of smiling spite: he was looking upwards at her from slitted spiteful eyes and smiling. 'What did your father want?' 'He said that one of the firms his firm controls is building a dam in Ghana. He said would I like to go out and take a job looking after the Africans-welfare work.' 'You said no?' 'I said I didn't see the point-I mean, the point of them is being cheap labour for him. So even if I did make them a bit healthier and feed them better and that kind of thing, or even get schools for the children, it wouldn't be the point at all. So he said another of his company's companies is doing some engineering job in North Canada, and he offered me a welfare job there.' He waited, looking at Anna. The malicious stranger had vanished from the room; Tommy was himself, frowning, thoughtful, puzzled. He said unexpectedly: 'You know, he's not stupid at all.' 'I don't think we've said he is.' Tommy smiled patiently, saying: You're dishonest. He said aloud: 'When I said I didn't want those jobs he asked why, and I told him, and he said, I reacted like that because of the influence of the communist party.' Anna laughed: I told you so; and said: 'He means your mother and me.' Tommy waited for her to have finished saying what he had expected her to say, and said: 'There you are. That's not what he meant. No wonder you all think each other stupid; you expect each other to be. When I see my father and my mother together, I don't recognise them, they're so stupid. And you too, when you are with Richard.' 'Well what did he mean, then?' 'He said that what I replied to his offers summed up the real influence of the communist parties on the West. He said that anyone who has been, or is, in the C. P., or who has had anything to do with it is a megalomaniac. He said that if he was Chief of Police trying to root out communists somewhere, he'd ask one question: Would you go to an undeveloped country and run a country clinic for fifty people? All the Reds would answer: 'No, because what's the point of improving the health of fifty people when the basic organisation of society is unchanged.' He leaned forward, confronting her, and insisted: 'Well, Anna?' She smiled and nodded: All right; but it was not enough. She said: 'No, that's not stupid at all.' 'No.' He leaned back, relieved. But having rescued his father, so to speak, from Molly's and Anna's scorn, he now paid them their due: 'But I said to him, that test wouldn't rule you or my mother out, because both of you would go to that clinic, wouldn't you?' It was important to him that she should say yes; but Anna insisted on honesty, for her own sake. 'Yes, I would, but he's right. That's exactly how I'd feel.' 'But you'd go?' 'Yes.' 'I wonder if you would? Because I don't think I would. I mean, I'm not taking either of these jobs so that proves it. And I haven't even been a communist-I've just seen you and my mother and your friends at it, and it's influenced me. I'm suffering from a paralysis of the will.' 'Richard used the words, paralysis of the will?' said Anna, disbelieving. 'No. It's what he meant. I found the words in one of the madness books. What he actually said was, the result of the communist countries on Europe is that people can't be bothered. Because everyone's got used to the idea of whole countries changing completely in about three years-like China or Russia. And if they can't see a complete change ahead, they can't be bothered... do you think that's true?' 'It's partly true. It's true of people who have been inside the communist myth.' 'Not so long ago you were a communist and now you use words like communist myth.' 'Sometimes I get the impression you blame me and your mother and the rest of us for not still being communists.' Tommy lowered his head, sat frowning. 'Well I remember when you used to be so active, rushing around doing things. You don't now.' 'Any activity being better than none?' He raised his head and said sharply, accusing: 'You know what I mean.' 'Do you know what I said to my father? I said if I went out to do his dishonest welfare work I'd start organising revolutionary groups among the workers. He wasn't angry at all. He said revolutions were a primary risk of big business these days and he'd be careful to take out an insurance policy against the revolution I'd stir up.' Anna said nothing and Tommy said: 'It was a joke, do you see?' 'Yes, I see.' 'But I told him not to lose any sleep on my account. Because I wouldn't
organise revolutions. Twenty years ago I would. But not now. Because now we know what happens to revolutionary groups-we'd be murdering each other inside five years.' 'Not necessarily.' Tommy's look at her said: You're dishonest. He said: 'I remember about two years ago, you and my mother were talking. You said to my mother, If we'd been unlucky enough to be communists in Russia or Hungary or somewhere, one of us would very likely have shot the other as a traitor. That was a joke too.' Anna said: 'Tommy, your mother and I have both led somewhat complicated lives, and we've done a lot of things. You can't expect us to be full of youthful certainties and slogans and battle-cries. We're both of us getting on for being middle-aged.' Anna heard herself make these remarks with a certain amount of wry surprise, even dislike. She was saying to herself: I sound like a tired old liberal. She decided, however, to stand by them, and looked at Tommy to find him very critically looking at her. He said: 'You mean, I've no right to make middle-aged remarks at my age? Well, Anna, I feel middle-aged. Now what do you have to say?' The malicious stranger had come back, and was sitting in front of her, his eyes full of spite. She said quickly: 'Tommy, tell me something: how would you sum up your interview with your father?' Tommy sighed and became himself. 'Whenever I go to his office I am surprised. I remember the first time-I'd always seen him in our house, and once or twice at Marion's. Well, I'd always thought him very-ordinary, you know? Commonplace. Dull. Like you and my mother do. Well, the first time I saw him in his office I felt confused-I know you're going to say it's the power he has, all that money. But it was more than that. He suddenly didn't seem ordinary and second-rate.' Anna sat silent, thinking: What is he getting at? What am I failing to see? He said: 'Oh I know what you're thinking, you're thinking Tommy is ordinary and second-rate himself.' Anna blushed: she had, in the past, thought that of Tommy. He saw her blush and smiled malignantly. He said: 'Ordinary people aren't necessarily stupid, Anna. I know quite well what I am. And that's why I am confused when I'm in my father's office, watching him being a sort of tycoon. Because I'd do that well too. But I couldn't, ever, because I'd do it with a divided mind-because of you and my mother. The difference between my father and me is that I know I'm commonplace and he doesn't. I know quite well that people like you and my mother are a hundred times better than he is-even though you're such failures and in such a mess. But I'm sorry I know it. You mustn't tell my mother this, but I'm very sorry my father didn't bring me up-if he had I'd have been very happy to inherit his shoes.' Anna could not prevent herself giving him a sharp glance- she suspected he had said this so that she should in fact tell Molly what he had said, so as to hurt her. But on his face was the patient, earnest, inward-looking stare of his introspection. Anna could feel, however, a wave of hysteria rise in herself; and knew it reflected his; and searched wildly for words which could check him. She saw him turn his heavy head on the pivot of his thick short neck and look at her notebooks lying exposed on the trestle; and thought: Good Lord, I hope he hasn't come here to talk about them? About me? She said quickly: 'I think you're making your father out to be much more simple than he is. I don't think he has an undivided mind: he once said being a big businessman these days was like being a rather superior office boy. And you forget that in the 'thirties he had a spell of being a communist, and he was even a bit of a bohemian for a while.' 'And his way of remembering that now is to have affairs with his secretaries-that's his way of persuading himself he's not just an ordinary respectable cog in the middle-class wheel.' This came out shrill and revengeful, and Anna thought: That's what he has come to talk about. She felt relief. Tommy said: 'After I went to my father's office this afternoon I went down to see Marion. I just wanted to see her. I usually see her in our house. She was drunk, and those kids were pretending not to notice it. She was talking about my father and his secretary and they were pretending not to know what she was talking about.' Now he waited for her to say something, leaning forward, his eyes slitted in accusation. When she did not speak, he said: 'Well, why don't you say what you think? I know you despise my father. It's because he's not a good man.' At the word good, Anna involuntarily laughed, and saw his frown. She said: 'I'm sorry, but it's not a word I use.' 'Why not? It's what you mean. My father's ruined Marion and he's ruining those children. Well, isn't he? Well, you're not going to say it's Marion's fault?' 'Tommy, I don't know what to say-you come here, and I know you want me to say things that make sense. But I simply don't know...' Tommy's pale sweating face was deadly earnest, and his eyes shone with sincerity. But with something else-in them was a gleam of the spiteful satisfaction; he was convicting her of failing him; and pleased that she was failing him. Again he turned his head and looked at the notebooks. Now, thought Anna; now I must say what he wants to hear. But before she could think, he had got up and walked over to the notebooks. Anna tensed herself and sat quiet; she could not endure that anyone should see those notebooks and yet she felt that Tommy had a right to see them: but she could not have explained why. He stood with his back to her, looking down at the notebooks. Then he turned his head and said: 'Why do you have four notebooks?' 'You must know.' 'I didn't ever say to myself: I'm going to keep four notebooks, it just happened.' 'Why not one notebook?' She thought a while and said: 'Perhaps because it would be such a-scramble. Such a mess.' 'Why shouldn't it be a mess?' Anna was trying for just the right words to offer him when Janet's voice sounded from upstairs: 'Mummy?' 'Yes? I thought you were asleep.' 'I was asleep. I'm thirsty. Who are you talking to?' 'Tommy. Do you want him to come up and say good night?' 'Yes. And I want some water.' Tommy quietly turned himself and went out; Anna heard him running water from the tap in the kitchen, and then plodding up the stairs. Meanwhile she was in an extraordinary tumult of sensations; as if every particle and cell of her body had been touched with some irritant. Tommy's presence in the room and the necessity to think of how to face him had kept her more or less Anna, more or less herself. But now she hardly recognised herself. She wanted to laugh, to cry, even to scream; she wanted to hurt some object by taking hold of it and shaking and shaking until-this object was of course Tommy. She told herself that his state of mind had infected her; that she was being invaded by his emotions; marvelled that what appeared in his face as gleams of spite and hatred appeared in his voice briefly as shrillness or hardness-should be the outward signs of such a violent inward storm; and suddenly understood that her palms and her armpits were cold and wet. She was afraid. All her various and conflicting sensations amounted to this: she was terrified. It surely wasn't possible that she was physically frightened of Tommy? So frightened and yet she had sent him upstairs to talk to her child? But no, she was not in the least frightened for Janet. She could hear the two voices upstairs in cheerful exchange. Then a laugh-Janet's. Then the slow determined steps and Tommy came back. He said at once: 'What do you think Janet will be when she grows up?' His face was pale and obstinate, but no more; and Anna felt easier. He stood by the trestle table, one hand on it, and Anna said: 'I don't know. She's only eleven.' 'Don't you worry about it?' 'No. Children keep changing. How do I know what she'll want later on?' His mouth pouted forward in a critical smile, and she said: 'Why, have I said something stupid again?' 'It's the way you say it. Your attitude.' 'I'm sorry.' But in spite of herself, this sounded aggrieved, certainly irritated; and Tommy very briefly smiled with satisfaction. 'Do you ever think about Janet's father?' This shock reached Anna's diaphragm; she felt it tighten. She said, however: 'No, hardly ever.' He stared at her; and she went on: 'You want me to say what I really feel, don't you? You sounded just then like Mother Sugar. She would say to me things like: He's the father of your child. Or: He was your husband. But it didn't mean anything to me. What's troubling you-that your mother didn't really care for Richard? Well she was much more involved with Richard than I ever was with Max Wulf.' He was standing straight, very pale, and his stare was all inwards; Anna doubted whether he saw her at all. It appeared however that he was listening, so she went on: 'I understand what it means: having a child by the man you love. But I didn't understand it until I loved a man. I wanted to have a child by Michael. But the fact is, I had a child by a man I didn't love...' She trailed off, wondering if he were listening. His eyes were directed at the wall at a point some feet away. He turned his dark abstracted gaze towards her, and said in a tone of feeble sarcasm she had never heard from him: 'Go on, Anna. It's a great revelation to me, hearing an experienced person talk of their emotions.' His eyes, however, were deadly serious, so she swallowed the annoyance that the sarcasm had released in her, and went on: 'It seems to me like this. It's not a terrible thing-I mean, it may be terrible, but it's not damaging, it's not poisoning, to do without something one wants. It's not bad to say: My work is not what I really want, I'm capable of doing something bigger. Or I'm a person who needs love, and I'm doing without it. What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better. It would be very bad if I said, out of guilt or something: I loved Janet's father, when I know quite well I didn't. Or for your mother to say: I loved Richard. Or I'm doing work I love...' Anna stopped. Tommy had nodded. She could not make out whether he was pleased with what she had said, or whether it was a thought so obvious he didn't want to hear it said. He turned back to the notebooks, and opened the blue-covered one. Anna saw his shoulders heave in sarcastic laughter, designed to provoke her. 'Well?' He read out: 'March 12, 1956. Janet is suddenly aggressive and difficult. Altogether a difficult phase.' 'Well?' 'I remember your once saying to my mother, how's Tommy? My mother's voice is not exactly designed for confidences. She said in a ringing whisper: Oh, he's in a difficult phase.' 'Perhaps you were.' 'A phase-it was one night when you were having supper with my mother in the kitchen. I lay in bed and listened, you were laughing and talking. I came down the stairs to get a glass of water. I was unhappy just then, worrying about everything. I couldn't do my school-work and I was frightened at night. Of course the glass of water was just a pretence. I wanted to be in the kitchen-because of the way you two laughed. I wanted to be near the laughter. I didn't want either of you to know I was scared. Outside the door I heard you say: How's Tommy, and my mother said, He's in a difficult phase.' 'Well?' Anna was in a trough of exhaustion: she was thinking of Janet. Janet had just woken up and asked for a glass of water. Was Tommy meaning to say to her that Janet was unhappy? 'It cancelled me out,' said Tommy sullenly. 'All through my childhood I kept reaching something that seemed new and important. I kept gaining victories. That night I had won a victory-being able to come down the dark stairs pretending that nothing was wrong. I was clinging on to something, a feeling of who I really was. Then my mother says, just a phase. In other words, what I felt just then didn't matter, it was a product of glands or something, and it would pass.' Anna said nothing; she was worrying about Janet. Yet the child seemed friendly, cheerful, and she was doing well at school. She very seldom woke at night and had never said anything about being afraid of the dark. Tommy was saying: 'I suppose you and my mother have been saying that I am in a difficult phase?' 'I don't think we've said it. But I expect we've implied it,' said Anna wryly. 'What I feel now doesn't matter at all? But at what point am I entitled to say to myself, what I am feeling now is valid? After all, Anna-' Here Tommy turned to face her: 'one can't go through one's whole life in phases. There must be a goal somewhere.' His eyes gleamed out hatred; and it was with difficulty that Anna said: 'If you're suggesting that I've reached a goal, and I'm judging you from some superior point, then it's not true.' 'Phases,' he insisted. 'Stages. Growing pains.' 'But I think that's how women see-people. Certainly their own children. In the first place, there's always been nine months of not knowing whether the baby would be a girl or a boy. Sometimes I wonder what Janet would have been like if she'd been born a boy. Don't you see! And then babies go through one stage after another, and then they are children. When a woman looks at a child she sees all the things he's been at the same time. When I look at Janet sometimes I see her as a small baby and I feel her inside my belly and I see her as various sizes of small girl, all at the same time.' Tommy's stare was accusing and sarcastic, but she persisted: 'That's how women see things. Everything in a sort of continuous creative stream-well, isn't it natural we should?' 'But we're not individuals for you at all. We are simply temporary shapes of something. Phases' And he laughed, angrily. Anna thought that this was the first time he had really laughed, and was encouraged. For a while they were both silent, while he fingered the notebooks, half turned away from her, and she watched him, trying to calm herself, trying to breathe deeply and remain quiet and steady. But her palms were still wet; the thought kept coming into her mind: it's as if I were fighting something, fighting some invisible enemy. She could almost see the enemy-something evil, she was sure of it; an almost tangible shape of malice and destruction, that stood between her and Tommy, trying to destroy them both. She said at last: 'I know what you've come here for. You've come so that I can tell you what we are alive for. But you know in advance what I'm likely to say, because you know me so well. So that means you've come here already knowing what I'm going to say-to confirm something.' She added in a low voice, not meaning to say it: 'That's why I'm so frightened.' It was an appeal; Tommy gave her a quick glance; it was an acknowledgement that she was right to be