The Golden Notebook

At the beginning of this section of Free Women, Anna is in an agitated state. This is left over from Richard’s harassment of her, from Ivor’s and Ronnie’s dismissive treatment of her, from her earlier inability to talk sense into Tommy: “She had now understood that she was not in control of what she did” (507). Her attempts to make sense of the world, even merely of her own small world, via the writing in the notebooks, have failed her. Before Richard and Molly come over, Anna ensures that “the notebooks [are] pushed out of sight” (507). She does not want to allow anyone else access to her inner world.

Still, this “hysteria,” as she later characterizes it, serves her well during her talk with Marion and Tommy. It is as if she must meet them at their heightened level in order to break through to them. When she speaks with Marion, she is trying to impress upon her the broader significance of the political protests in which she participates. Before she even meets Marion, she must deal with Richard’s anger; he blames Anna and Molly for getting Tommy involved in the protests, since it was Tommy who dragged Marion into the fray. Anna recognizes what the others do not, based upon her experiences in Africa: “Anna was thinking: the reason why this is so frightening is that if this weren’t England, Richard’s anger would mean people losing their jobs, going to prison, or being shot. Here he’s just a man in a bad temper, but he’s a reflection of something so terrible…” (509). This is why she brings up Tom Mathlong and Charlie Themba; the price they might pay for protest is far greater than anything Marion or Tommy might face. In fact, Anna is extremely critical of Marion’s talk of “poor Africans” and her “winsome and coquettish” manner (513).

The end of the British empire is fast approaching, but it will not be a toppling of political order that comes easily or without casualty. Anna recalls the words of Tom Mathlong in her discussion with Marion: “I don’t get discouraged by the white settlers […]—history’s on the side of our people. But this afternoon,” he told her on a visit two years previously, “I feel the weight of the British empire on me like a gravestone” (515). Anna suggests that Mathlong is “a sort of saint” (515), which implies that, in comparison, Marion is certainly no martyr to a cause she takes so lightly. As she bluntly says to Marion, “it’s one thing to think poor things and another to allow that African politics could have any resemblance at all to English politics” (517). Marion, at least, has the conscience to blush.

This conversation seems to strengthen Anna’s resolve—her brief break with rationality ironically pulls her back together—and she is able to convince Tommy to take Marion abroad for a while, letting everything settle down. After they leave and she watches her daughter sleeping peacefully, Anna has again found her voice. She tells Ivor to leave, knowing that he will try to soften her with flowers, plead with her so that he can stay. But something in her new-found voice indicates to Ivor that Anna has made up her mind: He pays his back rent, “which meant that he had expected her to stay firm, in spite of the flowers” (523). She will enter the final chapter of Free Women in a stronger, more confident place.