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‘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 recognized 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.’
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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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