The Golden Notebook. Doris Lessing

he looked as if he had glued the rakish beard on to his solemn face. She had continued to make these loud, jolly complaints until Tommy had remarked: ‘Yes, I know you’d rather I looked like you—been attractive I mean. But it’s bad luck, I’ve got your character, and it should have been the other way around—well surely, if I’d had your looks and my father’s character—well, his staying power, at any rate, it would have been better?’—he had persisted with it, doggedly, as he did when trying to make her see a point that she was being wilfully obtuse about. Molly had worried about this for some days, even ringing Anna up: ‘Isn’t it awful, Anna? Who would have believed it? You think something for years, and come to terms with it, and then suddenly, they come out with something and you see they’ve been thinking it too?’

      ‘But surely you wouldn’t want him to be like Richard?’

      ‘No, but he’s right about the staying power. And the way he came out with it—it’s bad luck I’ve got your character, he said.’

      Tommy ate his strawberries until there were none left, berry after berry. He did not speak, and neither did they. They sat watching him eat, as if he had willed them to do this. He ate carefully. His mouth moved in the act of eating as it did in the act of speaking, every word separate, each berry whole and separate. And he frowned steadily, his soft dark brows knitted, like a small boy’s over lessons. His lips even made small preliminary movements before a mouthful, like an old person’s. Or like a blind man, thought Anna, recognizing the movement; once she had sat opposite a blind man on the train. So had his mouth been set, rather full and controlled, a soft, self-absorbed pout. And so had his eyes been, like Tommy’s even when he was looking at someone: as if turned inwards on himself. Though of course he was blind. Anna felt a small rising hysteria, as she had sitting opposite the blind man, looking at the sightless eyes that seemed as if they were clouded with introspection. And she knew that Richard and Molly felt the same; they were frowning and making restless nervous movements. He’s bullying us all, thought Anna, annoyed; he’s bullying us horribly. And again she imagined how he had stood outside the door, listening, probably for a long time; she was by now unfairly convinced of it, and disliking the boy, because of how he was willing them to sit and wait for his pleasure.

      Anna was just forcing herself, against a most extraordinary prohibition, emanating from Tommy, to say something, to break the silence, when Tommy laid down his plate, and the spoon neatly across it, and said calmly: ‘You three have been discussing me again.’

      ‘Of course not,’ said Richard, hearty and convincing.

      ‘Of course,’ said Molly.

      Tommy allowed them both a tolerant smile, and said: ‘You’ve come about a job in one of your companies. Well I did think it over, as you suggested, but I think if you don’t mind I’ll turn it down.’

      ‘Oh Tommy,’ said Molly, in despair.

      ‘You’re being inconsistent, mother,’ said Tommy, looking towards her, but not at her. He had this way of directing his gaze towards someone, but maintaining an inward-seeming stare. His face was heavy, almost stupid-looking, with the effort he was making to give everyone their due. ‘You know it’s not just a question of taking a job, is it? It means I’ve got to live like them.’ Richard shifted his legs and let out an explosive breath, but Tommy continued: ‘I don’t mean any criticism, father.’

      ‘If it’s not a criticism, what is it?’ said Richard, laughing angrily.

      ‘Not a criticism, just a value judgement,’ said Molly, triumphant.

      ‘Ah, hell,’ said Richard.

      Tommy ignored them, and continued to address the part of the room in which his mother was sitting.

      ‘The thing is, for better or for worse, you’ve brought me up to believe in certain things, and now you say I might just as well go and take a job in Portmain’s. Why?’

      ‘You mean,’ said Molly, bitter with self-reproach, ‘why don’t I offer you something better?’

      ‘Perhaps there isn’t anything better. It’s not your fault—I’m not suggesting it is.’ This was said with a soft, deadly finality, so that Molly frankly and loudly sighed, shrugged and spread out her hands.

      ‘I wouldn’t mind being like your lot, it’s not that. I’ve been around listening to your friends for years and years now, you all of you seem to be in such a mess, or think you are even if you’re not,’ he said, knitting his brows, and bringing out every phrase after careful thought, ‘I don’t mind that, but it was an accident for you, you didn’t say to yourselves at some point: I am going to be a certain kind of person. I mean, I think that for both you and Anna there was a moment when you said, and you were even surprised, Oh, so I’m that kind of person, am I?’

      Anna and Molly smiled at each other, and at him, acknowledging it was true.

      ‘Well then,’ said Richard jauntily. ‘That’s settled. If you don’t want to be like Anna and Molly, there’s the alternative.’

      ‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘I haven’t explained myself, if you can say that. No.’

      ‘But you’ve got to do something,’ cried Molly, not at all humorous, but sounding sharp and frightened.

      ‘You don’t,’ said Tommy, as if it were self-evident.

      ‘But you’ve just said you didn’t want to be like us,’ said Molly.

      ‘It’s not that I wouldn’t want to be, but I don’t think I could.’ Now he turned to his father, in patient explanation. ‘The thing about mother and Anna is this; one doesn’t say, Anna Wulf the writer, or Molly Jacobs the actress—or only if you don’t know them. They aren’t—what I mean is—they aren’t what they do; but if I start working with you, then I’ll be what I do. Don’t you see that?’

      ‘Frankly, no.’

      ‘What I mean is, I’d rather be…’ he floundered, and was silent a moment, moving his lips together, frowning. ‘I’ve been thinking about it because I knew I’d have to explain it to you.’ He said this patiently, quite prepared to meet his parents’ unjust demands. ‘People like Anna or Molly and that lot, they’re not just one thing, but several things. And you know they could change and be something different. I don’t mean their characters would change, but they haven’t set into a mould. You know if something happened in the world, or there was a change of some kind, a revolution or something…’ He waited, a moment, patiently, for Richard’s sharply irritated indrawn breath over the word revolution, to be expelled, and went on: ‘they’d be something different if they had to be. But you’ll never be different, father. You’ll always have to live the way you do now. Well I don’t want that for myself,’ he concluded, allowing his lips to set, pouting over his finished explanation.

      ‘You’re going to be very unhappy,’ said Molly, almost moaning it.

      ‘Yes, that’s another thing,’ said Tommy. ‘The last time we discussed everything, you ended by saying, Oh, but you’re going to be unhappy. As if it’s the worst thing to be. But if it comes to unhappiness, I wouldn’t call either you or Anna happy people, but at least you’re much happier than my father. Let alone Marion.’ He added the last softly, in direct accusation of his father.

      Richard said, hotly, ‘Why don’t you hear my side of the story, as well as Marion’s?’

      Tommy ignored this, and went on: ‘I know I must sound ridiculous. I knew before I even started I was going to sound naïve.’

      ‘Of course you’re naïve,’ said Richard.

      ‘You’re not naïve,’ said Anna.

      ‘When I finished talking to you last time, Anna, I came home and I thought, Well, Anna must think I’m terribly naïve.’

      ‘No, I didn’t. That’s not the point. What you don’t seem to understand is, we’d like you to do better than we have done.’

      ‘Why