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Janet eats dreamily, conveying her spoon back and forth to her mouth, listening while I create her day, give it form. I watch her, seeing Anna watch Janet. Next door the baby is crying. Again the feeling of continuity, of gay intimacy, starts, and I finish the story: ‘And then Janet had a lovely supper of spinach and eggs and apples with cream and the baby next door cried a little, and then it stopped crying and went to sleep, and Janet cleaned her teeth and went to sleep.’ I take the tray and Janet says: ‘Do I have to clean my teeth?’ ‘Of course, it’s in the story.’ She slides her feet over the edge of the bed, into her slippers, goes like a sleep-walker to the basin, cleans her teeth, comes back. I turn off her fire and draw the curtains. Janet has an adult way of lying in bed before sleeping: on her back, her hands behind the back of her neck, staring at the softly moving curtains. It is raining again, hard. I hear the door at the bottom of the house shut: Molly has gone to her theatre. Janet hears it and says: ‘When I grow up I’m going to be an actress.’ Yesterday she said, a teacher. She says sleepily: ‘Sing to me.’ She shuts her eyes, and mumbles: ‘Tonight I’m a baby. I’m a baby.’ So I sing over and over again, while Janet listens for what known change I will use, for I have all kinds of variations in the words: ‘Rockabye baby, in your warm bed, there are lovely new dreams coming into your head, you will dream, dream, all through the dark night and wake warm and safe with the morning light.’ Often if Janet finds the words I’ve chosen don’t fit her mood, she stops me and demands another variation; but tonight I’ve guessed right, and I sing it again and again and again, until I see she’s asleep. She looks defenceless and tiny when she’s asleep, and I have to check in myself a powerful impulse to protect her, to shut her away from possible harm. This evening it is more powerful than usual; but I know it is because I have my period and need to cling to somebody myself. I go out, shutting the door softly.
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About
The Golden Notebook is a collaboration between if:book London and Apt.
Principal funding by Arts Council England.
HarperCollins, the publisher of The Golden Notebook, digitized the book for us and generously gave permission to reproduce it here in its entirety at no cost.
Additional support from The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and New York University
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