‘But you kept them?’
‘Well I’m not going to use them in a court of law, if that’s what you mean.’
Molly stood slowly wiping glasses on a pink and mauve striped cloth, and holding each one up to the light before setting it down. ‘Well I’m so sick of it all I don’t think I want ever to bother with it again.’
‘But Molly, we can’t do that, surely? We were communists or near-communists or whatever you like for years and years. We can’t suddenly say, Oh well, I’m bored.’
‘The funny thing is I’m bored. Yes, I know it’s odd. Two or three years ago I felt guilty if I didn’t spend all my free time organizing something or other. Now I don’t feel at all guilty if I simply do my job and laze around for the rest. I don’t care any more, Anna. I simply don’t.’
‘It’s not a question of feeling guilty. It’s a question of thinking out what it all means.’
Molly did not reply, so Anna went on quickly: ‘Would you like to hear about the Colony?’
The Colony was the name they gave to a group of Americans, all living in London for political reasons.
‘Oh God, no. I’m sick of them too. No, I’d like to know what happened to Nelson, I’m fond of him.’
‘He’s writing the American masterpiece. He left his wife. Because she was neurotic. Got himself a girl. Very nice one. Decided she was neurotic. Went back to his wife. Decided she was neurotic. Left her. Has got himself another girl who so far hasn’t become neurotic’
‘And the others?’
‘In one way and another, ditto, ditto, ditto.’
‘Well let’s skip them. I met the American colony in Rome. Bloody miserable lot they are.’
‘Yes. Who else?’
‘Your friend Mr Mathlong—you know, the African?’
‘Of course I know. Well he’s currently in prison so I suppose by this time next year he’ll be Prime Minister.’
Molly laughed.
‘And there’s your friend de Silva.’
‘He was my friend,’ said Molly laughing again, but resisting Anna’s already critical tone.
‘Then the facts are as follows. He went back to Ceylon with his wife—if you remember she didn’t want to go. He wrote to me because he had written to you and got no reply. He wrote that Ceylon is marvellous and full of poetry and that his wife was expecting another child.’
‘But she didn’t want another child.’
Suddenly Anna and Molly both laughed; they were suddenly in harmony.
‘Then he wrote to say he missed London and all its cultural freedoms.’
‘Then I suppose we can expect him any moment.’
‘He came back. A couple of months ago. He’s abandoned his wife, apparently. She’s much too good for him, he says, weeping big tears, but not too big, because after all she is stuck with two kids in Ceylon and no money; so he’s safe.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Yes.’ But Anna found herself unable to tell Molly what had happened. What would be the use? They’d end up, as she had sworn they would not, spending the afternoon in the dry bitter exchange that came so easily to them.
‘And how about you, Anna?’
And now, for the first time, Molly had asked in a way which Anna could reply to, and she said at once:
‘Michael came to see me. About a month ago.’ She had lived with Michael for five years. This affair had broken up three years ago, against her will.
‘How was it?’
‘Oh, in some ways, as if nothing had happened.’
‘Of course, when you know each other so well.’
‘But he was behaving—how shall I put it? I was a dear old friend, you know. He drove me to some place I wanted to go. He was talking about a colleague of his. He said, Do you remember Dick? Odd, don’t you think, that he couldn’t remember if I remembered Dick, since we saw a lot of him then. Dick’s got a job in Ghana, he said. He took his wife. His mistress wanted to go too, said Michael. Very difficult these mistresses are, said Michael, and then he laughed. Quite genuinely, you know, the debonair touch. That was what was painful. Then he looked embarrassed, because he remembered that I had been his mistress, and went red and guilty.’
Molly said nothing. She watched Anna closely.
‘That’s all, I suppose.’
‘A lot of swine they all are,’ said Molly cheerfully, deliberately striking the note that would make Anna laugh.
‘Molly?’ said Anna painfully, in appeal.
‘What? It’s no good going on about it, is it?’
‘Well, I’ve been thinking. You know, it’s possible we made a mistake.’
‘What? Only one?’
But Anna would not laugh. ‘No. It’s serious. Both of us are dedicated to the proposition that we’re tough—no listen, I’m serious. I mean—a marriage breaks up, well, we say, our marriage was a failure, too bad. A man ditches us—too bad we say, it’s not important. We bring up kids without men—nothing to it, we say, we can cope. We spend years in the Communist Party and then we say, Well, well, we made a mistake, too bad.’
‘What are you trying to say?’ said Molly, very cautious, and at a great distance from Anna.
‘Well, don’t you think it’s at least possible, just possible that things can happen to us so bad that we don’t ever get over them? Because when I really face it I don’t think I’ve really got over Michael. I think it’s done for me. Oh I know, what I am supposed to say is, Well well, he’s ditched me—what’s five years after all, on with the next thing.’
‘But it has to be, on with the next thing.’
‘Why do our lot never admit failure? Never. It might be better for us if we did. And it’s not only love and men. Why can’t we say something like this—we are people, because of the accident of how we were situated in history, who were so powerfully part—but only in our imaginations, and that’s the point—of the great dream, that now we have to admit that the great dream has faded and the truth is something else—that we’ll never be any use. After all, Molly, it’s not much loss is it, a few people, a few people of a certain type, saying that they’ve had it, they’re finished. Why not? It’s almost arrogant not to be able to.’
‘Oh Anna! All this is simply because of Michael. And probably he’ll come in again one of these days and you’ll pick up where you left off. And if he doesn’t, what are you complaining of? You’ve got your writing.’
‘Good Lord,’ said Anna softly. ‘Good Lord.’ Then after a moment, she forced