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‘It’s a pity you’ve never given me a chance to talk,’ said Richard, but with self-pity; and Tommy reacted by a quick, dogged withdrawal away from him. He said to Anna and Molly, ‘I’d rather be a failure, like you, than succeed and all that sort of thing. But I’m not saying I’m choosing failure. I mean, one doesn’t choose failure, does one? I know what I don’t want, but not what I do want.’
‘One or two practical questions,’ said Richard, while Anna and Molly wryly looked at the word failure, used by this boy in exactly the same sense they would have used it. All the same, neither had applied it to themselves — or not so pat and final, at least.
‘What are you going to live on?’ said Richard.
Molly was angry. She did not want Tommy flushed out of the safe period of contemplation she was offering him by the fire of Richard’s ridicule.
But Tommy said: ‘If mother doesn’t mind I don’t mind living off her for a bit. After all, I hardly spend anything. But if I have to earn money, I can always be a teacher.’
‘Which you’ll find a much more straitened way of life than what I’m offering you,’ said Richard.
Tommy was embarrassed. ‘I don’t think you really understood what I’m trying to say. Perhaps I didn’t say it right.’
‘You’re going to become some sort of a coffee-bar bum,’ said Richard.
‘No. I don’t see that. You only say that because you only like people who have a lot of money.’
Now the three adults were silent. Molly and Anna because the boy could be trusted to stand up for himself; Richard because he was afraid of unleashing his anger. After a time Tommy remarked: ‘Perhaps I might try to be a writer.’
Richard let out a groan. Molly said nothing, with an effort. But Anna exclaimed: ‘Oh Tommy, and after all that good advice I gave you.’
He met her with affection, but stubbornly: ‘You forget, Anna, I don’t have your complicated ideas about writing.’
‘What complicated ideas?’ asked Molly sharply.
Tommy said to Anna: ‘I’ve been thinking about all the things you said.’
‘What things?’ demanded Molly.
Anna said: ‘Tommy, you’re frightening to know. One says something and you take it all up so seriously.’
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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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