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Go to the Beginning Free Women 3: "Tommy adjusts himself to being blind while the older people try to help him." (Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) After spending a week in the hospital, it turns out that Tommy will live but be blind for life. Molly brings him home where he adjusts extremely well to learning all over again how to do stuff for himself. It soon becomes apparent to Molly and Anna that Tommy has turned into a smug, malevolent presence that dominates the house and sucks the life out of Molly. The two women find themselves way too self-conscious to speak to each other on the telephone, bring home dates, or hang out together because of Tommy's all-encompassing presence. Anna visits Richard at his luxurious office at his invitation: he pours out his problems to her. First he admits that Marion is spending all her time with Tommy now, and she has quit drinking, and has started dabbling in political activism. He's infuriated that Marion now ignores him. Yet he wants to divorce Marion and marry his little 23 year-old secretary Jean. Anna tells him to talk to Tommy who is "the key to all this" and leaves. On the subway home, Anna feels her identity dissolving again. Feeling on the verge of a breakdown, she notices a creepy man leering at her, and she hurries off the subway, feeling afraid as he follows her. She manages to shake him off at a fruit stand, and reflects on how sad it is that she's become so afraid of everything since Michael has left her. Back at her house, Anna comes in and hears Ivor, a gay man to whom she's renting a room, reading a story to her young daughter Janet. It used to be that they never saw Ivor, but he has made friends with Janet while Anna spent all her time with Molly watching over Tommy in the hospital. Now Anna thinks about Ivor and his lover Ronnie. Apparently Ronnie has unofficially moved into Ivor's room (and bed) without paying any rent to Anna. Until now, Anna has uncomfortably overlooked the situation, perhaps out of liberal guilt. Now Anna broods for three pages on how homosexuals like Ivor and Ronnie make her skin crawl, and how Janet needs the wholesome presence of a "real man" in her life. Anna goes into the front room of her house and finds Marion sitting there in the dark. Marion apologizes for startling her and claims she's dropped by to chat. Marion talks for awhile about her recent revelation that she's wasted her life over a worthless man like Richard. Apparently she's fine with granting Richard a divorce but Tommy has convinced her that she must think about what's best for Richard in the long run: that she should make Richard face up to his responsibilities. According to Tommy, this is all part of Marion learning to live "for others and not just myself." Marion then brings up a project that she and Tommy supposedly want to do: sending letters of support to a black African activist whom Anna used to know who is apparently now rotting in an African prison. Marion would like the address to write to him. Anna gets frightened and angry. She tries to tell Marion that the activist is not in a well-organized, humane prison like at Brixton, but in a place where no letters get through. She knows that even though Marion wouldn't know all this, Tommy does. He is pretending to throw Anna a good cause to "save her soul." Marion leaves and Anna calls up Tommy and questions him, but gets little clue as to his motives except for him claiming that Marion needs a project, however futile. Anna then gets dinner for Janet who asks her if she likes Ivor and Ronnie. Anna claims to like them both -- though she's lying about Ronnie. She puts Janet to bed, resolving that she's going to kick Ronnie out. She goes to her own bathroom to get ready for bed, and finds Ronnie helping himself to her hand lotion! He starts chatting with her in an artificial "girl-talk" way, trying to be charming, and she feels repelled. She shoos him out. Later when she comes out in the hallway, Ivor and Ronnie have deliberately left their door open so that she can hear them discussing her cattily. Anna goes to sleep and has baleful dreams about the desert. She wakes up and catches Ivor before he leaves for work, telling him that he and Ronnie have to go. Ivor ducks out, but when he returns that evening, she insists on it. Ivor agrees to kick Ronnie out, but wheedles Anna into letting him (Ivor) stay. But she feels his resentment towards her. Things go back to the way they used to be where she and Janet almost never saw Ivor at home. Anna does find out that Ivor has moved Ronnie into a small room down the street and is "keeping" him. |
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