Doris Lessing Three-Book Edition: The Golden Notebook, The Grass is Singing, The Good Terrorist. Doris Lessing
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‘Of course. I used to know him.’
‘Well, there was an announcement in the paper, he said he’d never paint again. He said it was because the world is so chaotic, art is irrelevant.’ There was a silence, until Anna appealed: ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
‘No. And certainly not from you. After all, you aren’t someone who writes little novels about the emotions. You write about what’s real.’
Anna almost laughed again, and then said soberly: ‘Do you realize how many of the things we say are just echoes? That remark you’ve just made is an echo from Communist Party criticism—at its worst moments, moreover. God knows what that remark means, I don’t. I never did. If Marxism means anything, it means that a little novel about the emotions should reflect “what’s real” since the emotions are a function and a product of a society…’. She stopped, because of Molly’s expression. ‘Don’t look like that, Molly. You said you wanted me to talk about it, so I am. And there’s something else. Fascinating, if it wasn’t so depressing. Here we are, 1957, waters under bridges, etc. And suddenly in England, we have a phenomenon in the arts I’m damned if I’d foreseen—a whole lot of people, who’ve never had anything to do with the Party, suddenly standing up, and exclaiming, just as if they had just thought it out for themselves, that little novels or plays about the emotions don’t reflect reality. The reality, it would surprise you to hear, is economics, or machine-guns mowing people down who object to the new order.’
‘Just because I can’t express myself, I think it’s unfair,’ said Molly quickly.
‘Anyway, I only wrote one novel.’
‘Yes, and what are you going to do when the money from that stops coming in? You were lucky over that one, but it’s going to stop sometime.’
Anna held herself quiet, with effort. What Molly had said was pure spite: she was saying, I’m glad that you are going to be subjected to the pressures the rest of us have to face. Anna thought, I wish I hadn’t become so conscious of everything, every little nuance. Once I wouldn’t have noticed: now every conversation, every encounter with a person seems like crossing a mined field; and why can’t I accept that one’s closest friends at moments stick a knife in, deep, between the ribs?
She almost said, drily: ‘You’ll be glad to hear the money’s only trickling in and I’ll have to get a job soon.’ But she said, cheerfully, replying to the surface of Molly’s words: ‘Yes, I think I’ll be short of money very soon, and I’ll have to get a job.’
‘And you haven’t done anything while I was away.’
‘I’ve certainly done a lot of complicated living.’ Molly looked sceptical again, so Anna gave up. She said, humorous, light, plaintive: ‘It’s been a bad year. For one thing, I nearly had an affair with Richard.’
‘So it would seem. It must have been a bad year for you even to think of Richard.’
‘You know, there’s a very interesting state of anarchy up there. You’d be surprised—why haven’t you ever talked to Richard about his work, it’s so odd.’
‘You mean, you were interested in him because he’s so rich?’
‘Oh, Molly. Obviously not. No. I told you, everything’s cracking up. That lot up there, they don’t believe in anything. They remind me of the white people in Central Africa—they used to say: Well of course, the blacks will drive us into the sea in fifty years’ time. They used to say it cheerfully. In other words, “We know that what we are doing is wrong.” But it’s turned out to be a good deal shorter than fifty years.’
‘But about Richard.’
‘Well he took me out to a posh dinner. It was an occasion. He had just bought a controlling interest in all the aluminium saucepans, or pot-cleaners, or aircraft propellers in Europe—something like that. There were four tycoons and four popsies. I was one of the popsies. I sat there and looked at those faces around the table. Good God, it was terrifying. I reverted to my most primitive communist phase—you remember, when one thinks all one has to do is to shoot the bastards—that is, before one learned their opposite numbers are just as irresponsible. I looked at those faces, I just sat and looked at those faces.’
‘But that’s what we’ve always said,’ said Molly. ‘So what’s new?’
‘It did rather bring it all home. And then the way they treat their women—all quite unconscious, of course. My God, we might have moments of feeling bad about our lives, but how lucky we are, our lot are at least half-civilized.’
‘But about Richard.’
‘Oh yes. Well. It wasn’t important. He was just an incident. But he brought me home all in his new Jaguar. I gave him coffee. He was all ready. I sat there and thought, Well he’s no worse than some of the morons I’ve slept with.’
‘Anna, what has got into you?’
‘You mean you’ve never felt that awful moral exhaustion, what the hell does it matter?’
‘It’s the way you talk. It’s new.’
‘I daresay. But it occurred to me—if we lead what is known as free lives, that is, lives like men, why shouldn’t we use the same language?’
‘Because we aren’t the same. That is the point.’
Anna laughed. ‘Men. Women. Bound. Free. Good. Bad. Yes. No. Capitalism. Socialism. Sex. Love…’
‘Anna, what happened with Richard?’
‘Nothing. You’re making too much of it. I sat drinking coffee and looking at that stupid face of his and I was thinking, If I was a man I’d go to bed, quite likely simply because I thought he was stupid—if he were a woman, I mean. And then I was so bored, so bored, so bored. Then he felt my boredom and decided to reclaim me. So he stood up and said: Oh well, I suppose I’d better be getting home to 16 Plane Avenue, or whatever it is. Expecting me to say, Oh no, I can’t bear you to leave. You know, the poor married man, bound to wife and kiddies. They all do it. Please be sorry for me, I have to get home to 16 Plane Avenue and the dreary labour-saving house in the suburbs. He said it once. He said it three times—just as if he didn’t live there, weren’t married to her, as if it had nothing to do with him. The little house at 16 Plane Avenue and the missus.’
‘As a matter of accuracy, a bloody great mansion with two maids and three cars at Richmond.’
‘You must admit he radiates an atmosphere of the suburbs. Odd. But they all do—I mean those tycoons, they all did. One could positively see the labour-saving devices and the kiddies all in their slumber-wear, coming down to kiss daddy good night. Bloody complacent swine they all are.’
‘You are talking like a whore,’ said Molly; then looked conscious, smiling, because she was surprised she had used the word.
‘Oddly enough it’s only by the greatest effort of will I don’t feel like one. They put so much effort—oh unconsciously, of course, and that’s where they win, every time, into making one feel it. Well. Anyway. I said Good night, Richard, I’m so sleepy, and thank you so much for showing me all that high life. He stood there wondering if he shouldn’t say, Oh dear, I’ve got to go home to my dreary wife, for the fourth time. He was wondering why that unimaginative woman Anna was so unsympathetic to him. Then I could see him thinking, Of course, she’s nothing but an intellectual, what a pity I didn’t take one of my other girls. So then I waited—you know, for that moment when they have to pay one back? He said: Anna, you should take more care of yourself, you’re looking ten years older than you should, you are getting positively wizened. So I said, But Richard, if I’d said to you, Oh yes, do come into bed, at this very moment you’d be saying how beautiful I was. Surely the truth lies somewhere in between?…’
Molly was holding a cushion to her breasts, and hugging it and laughing.
‘So he said: But Anna, when you invited me up