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Now it is nearly eight o’clock and another pressure starts; this is Michael’s day for going to the hospital in South London, so he must wake at eight to be in time. He prefers Janet to have left for school before he wakes. And I prefer it, because it divides me. The two personalities — Janet’s mother, Michael’s mistress, are happier separated. It is a strain having to be both at once. It is no longer raining. I wipe the fog of condensed breath and night-sweat from the window-pane, and see it is a cool, damp, but clear day. Janet’s school is close, a short walk. I say: ‘You must take your raincoat.’ Instantly her voice rises into protest: ‘Oh no, mummy, I hate my raincoat, I want my duffle coat.’ I say, calm and firm: ‘No. Your raincoat. It’s been raining all night.’ ‘How do you know when you were asleep?’ This triumphant retort puts her into a good-humour. She will now take the raincoat and put on her gum-boots without any further fuss. ‘Are you going to fetch me from school this afternoon?’ ‘Yes, I think so, but if I’m not there, then come back, and Molly will be here.’ ‘Or Tommy.’ ‘No, not Tommy.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Tommy’s grown-up now, and he’s got a girlfriend.’ I say this on purpose because she has shown signs of jealousy of Tommy’s girl. She says, calmly: ‘Tommy will always like me best.’ And adds: ‘If you’re not there to pick me up, I’ll go and play at Barbara’s house.’ ‘Well, if you do I’ll come and fetch you at six.’ She rushes off down the stairs, making a terrific din. It sounds like an avalanche sliding down the centre of the house. I am afraid Molly might wake. I stand at the head of the stairs, listening, until, ten seconds later, the front door slams; and I make myself shut out all thoughts of Janet until the proper time. I go back into the bedroom. Michael is a dark hump under the bedclothes. I draw the curtains right back, and sit on the bed and kiss Michael awake. He grips me and says: ‘Come back to bed.’ I say: ‘It’s eight o’clock. After.’ He puts his hands on my breasts. My nipples begin to burn, and I control my response to him and say: ‘It’s eight o’clock.’ ‘Oh, Anna, but you’re always so efficient and practical in the morning.’ ‘It’s just as well I am,’ I say, lightly, but I can hear the annoyance in my voice. ‘Where is Janet?’ ‘Gone to school.’ He lets his hands fall from my breasts, and now I feel disappointment — perversely — because we won’t make love. Also relief; because if we did he would be late, and short-tempered with me. And of course, the resentment: my affliction, my burden, and my cross. The resentment is because he said: ‘You are always so efficient and practical,’ when it is precisely my efficiency and practicality that gains him an extra two hours in bed.
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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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Naomi Alderman December 2nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
This section is brutal, but in such a calm, logical, unarguable way. It is, in fact, efficient and practical, the virtues that Michael turns into a complaint when Anna won’t have sex with him (again!) before he leaves for work.
This is devastating: “it is precisely my efficiency and practicality that gains him an extra two hours in bed.”
I begin to understand, in this section, why Anna is so keen for Michael to marry her. Perhaps she longs for that declaration of love, but also… she is behaving exactly as “a good wife” anyway, but without any of the security of that legal contract. Making him breakfast! Kissing him awake. Making sure Janet doesn’t disturb him. She is his servant, for no apparent reason other than that she is a woman and he is a man.
I love this section because it makes me so angry. It reminds me, actually, of Look Back In Anger. Such an allegedly revolutionary play, supposedly so critical of all ‘established’ rules, and yet the women are still the ones doing the ironing and the cooking and the mending and the cleaning, while the men discuss philosophy.
It reminds me also of Thoreau, supposedly in such poetic exclusion at Walden, but in fact taking his dirty laundry back home to be washed by his mother and sisters. In Thoreau’s mind (and I suppose the idea was general at the time) women were provided by nature to do chores, just as rain was provided by nature to water the crops. How long these ideas take to be stamped into the dust.
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Lenelle Moïse December 3rd, 2008 at 1:18 pm
“The two personalities — Janet’s mother, Michael’s mistress, are happier separated. It is a strain having to be both at once…I make myself shut out all thoughts of Janet until the proper time…I control my response to him…”
Self-compartmentalization. Self-control. It’s all so devastating! Why is Anna keen on playing the role of the happy housewife heroine when the performance makes her feel so insecure, resentful and “perversely” disappointed? It can’t be because she wants to keep Michael. He–cruelly and clearly–tells her that her efficiency turns him off. But Anna cannot imagine how to demonstrate her love for this man without playing the doting, dutiful, sexually detached stereotypical housewife. And yet this very role–this tired, overplayed, comfortable-old-shoe of a stock character–is who Michael cannot imagine staying romantically involved with.
What does a woman’s love–a mother’s love, a lover’s love, a daughter’s love, a sister’s love–look like? Anna seems to express her woman’s love through feigned serenity and service. She hides herself, splits herself, limits herself, loathes herself. Depressing!
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Nona Willis Aronowitz December 9th, 2008 at 3:58 pm
I read Lenelle’s comment after I posted on UK 307, and I realize there’s a fine line between destructive and constructive compartmentalization. Sanitizing yourself before a professional meeting is one sort of control; separating your children from your lover for the sake of self-control is quite another. Yes, this is devastating…the self-limitation becomes to seem truly hopeless when you are shutting off one of your loves from another. It makes me feel like Anna doesn’t know what love is at all, that she is unable to place the burden of emotion on anyone. The flood that she feels is pushed inward, even with her daughter.
Here, it becomes crystal clear that she is attracted to Michael because of his emotional *over*indulgence–that is, nurturing her masochism by telling it to her straight. Ouch. Cmon girl–you must know this is not what he wants you to be!
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