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Anna, rested and restored, left Janet’s room, shut the door and stood on the landing in the dark. Now was the moment to face Ivor. She knocked on the door, opened it a few inches and said into the dark: ‘Ivor, you’ve got to go. You’ve got to leave here tomorrow.’ A silence, then a slow and almost good-humoured voice: ‘I must say that I see your point, Anna.’
‘Thank you, I hoped that you would.’
She shut the door and went upstairs. How easy! she thought. Why did I imagine it would be difficult? Then she had a clear mental picture of Ivor coming up the stairs with a bunch of flowers. Of course, she thought, tomorrow he would try to get round her, he would come up the stairs with a bunch of flowers in his hand, humouring her.
She was so certain this would happen that at lunch-time she was waiting, when he climbed the stairs holding a big bunch of flowers, and the weary smile of a man determined to humour a woman.
‘To the nicest landlady in the world,’ he murmured.
Anna took the flowers, hesitated, then hit him across the face with them. She was trembling with anger.
He stood smiling, his face averted in the parody of a man suffering unjust punishment.
‘Well well,’ he murmured. ‘Well well well.’
‘Get out,’ said Anna. She had never in her life been angry like this.
He went upstairs and in a few moments she heard the noises of his packing. Soon he came down, a suitcase in each hand. His possessions. All he had in the world. Oh how sad, this poor young man, all his possessions locked in a couple of suitcases.
He laid the rent he owed — five back weeks, for he was bad about money, on the table. Anna noted, with interest, that she had to suppress an impulse to give it to him back. Meanwhile he stood, weary with disgust: this money-grubbing woman, well what can one expect?
But he must have taken the money out of the bank or borrowed it that morning, which meant that he had expected her to stay firm, in spite of the flowers. He must have said: There’s a chance I’ll get round her with flowers, I’ll try it, it’s worth risking five shillings on it.
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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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