The Golden Notebook: Free Women: 4 Summary & Analysis

Exhausted and irritated that Ronnie has seemingly moved back into the flat without permission, Anna waits for Molly and Richard to come over. They are coming to discuss Marion, who has already begun renting Molly’s spare room. Marion had left Richard and their children, seemingly without realizing it, by simply never returning home, where Richard’s “secretary Jean was practically installed already.”

Then, Tommy and Marion went to a meeting and protest for African independence, and Tommy was arrested when he did not follow police orders due to his blindness. Marion attacked the policeman, “shrieking hysterically,” and ended up in the papers. Richard called Anna to accuse everyone of orchestrating the scandal to take him down—she hung up on him and soon picked up a call from Molly, who complained about Marion and Tommy dominating the house and the next generation’s apparent inability to confront chaos.

Going to talk with Marion and Tommy, Anna giggles the same dark giggle that Tommy did before shooting himself—she wonders what happened to the part of Tommy that giggled, and then what Tom Mathlong would advise her to do. She remembers watching the demonstration, which was “fluid, experimental,” unlike the Party’s old, well-organized protests. The protestors and police did not know what to expect; young men were proud to be arrested. She opens Tommy’s door, and he tells her that Marion is upstairs but not to go—which she does anyway, despite having nothing to say to either of them.

Marion is delighted to have been arrested and drawn her family’s ire; Anna wonders what, if anything, was wrong with this, and looks around the flat, where she used to live and which is still full of painful memories. These memories start to go dead, with “words like love, friendship, duty, responsibility” suddenly seeming “to be all lies.” Marion brings tea, and Anna tells her about Tom Mathlong, who felt no discouragement or doubt about his independence struggle until he gazed out upon London and thought, “do you realize how many generations it takes to make a society where buses run on time? Where business letters get answered efficiently? Where you can trust your ministers not to take bribes?”

Anna calls Tom Mathlong “a sort of saint,” and her voice cracks as she thinks she is going hysterical—“saint” is not her kind of word, but she repeats it. She starts crying, remembering that Mathlong expected to spend much of his life in prison and thought little of himself as a political leader. Anna also thinks that she would “feel quite sick at all this sentimentality” if she were observing their conversation. She insists that “we shouldn’t make what he stands for look cheap,” realizing she is doing precisely that.

Marion asks about the other revolutionaries, and Anna mentions Charlie Themba, who “cracked up” lately: he had a breakdown that nobody recognized until it was too late, when he had started writing letters accusing his co-conspirators and friends of plotting against him. He sent one of these letters to Anna, who reads it to Marion.

Marion declares that she hates and could not return to Richard, and then fills a glass of whiskey and said she hopes to stay with Tommy, who has started methodically working his way up the stairs. He joins them and suggests Marion start supper, so they can eat before the big meeting they are planning to attend. Marion tells Tommy that “Anna thinks we are going about things the wrong way,” and for the first time his mouth quivers—he looks uncertain and vulnerable, and he asks why. Anna suggests he and Marion “study everything and become experts” rather than running around to protests.

Anna proposes Tommy and Marion go on a vacation and affirms that he is good for her, but reminds him that her divorce from Richard will be difficult, and also not “to be so hard on us.” Tommy jokes that he knows what Anna is thinking: “I’m nothing but a bloody welfare worker, what a waste of time!” She laughs, and he says that “people need other people to be kind to them,” and that all anyone truly wants is “just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who’d be kind to me.” Anna asks how he was treating Molly and sees “the blood come up in his face.” Tommy clearly wants Anna to leave, and she does, feeling that they have surpassed “some barrier,” “that now everything would be changed.”

When Molly and Richard finally come to Anna’s flat, they are not arguing but “almost like friends.” Anna tells them Marion is definitely leaving, and that they should send her on vacation with Tommy, perhaps to go “investigate conditions” at one of his projects. She tells Richard to talk with Marion, and Molly with Tommy. Richard thanks Anna, and Molly is happy to see “all this politeness” among them.

Anna sits next to her sleeping daughter, feeling her “usual surge of protective love” but wondering why she seems to think Janet will not end up “incomplete and tormented and fighting” like everyone else. Anna tells Ivor to vacate the next day, but she knows he will bring her flowers and an apology instead, which he does. She hits him in the face with the flowers, for  “she had never in her life been angry like this.” After a few minutes, he walks out with two suitcases and pays her the five weeks’ back rent he owed—with interest.