Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

VIRGINIA

‘Snobbery? Bloomsbury? We are socialists! Leonard is always out canvassing!’

ANGELA

‘Sorry, sorry. Yes, I know. Your husband was remarkable.’

I watched that past tense give her pause. Her long arms wrapped around her body, her head went down, then up again, her eyes burned, she was formidable.

VIRGINIA

‘Did you hear me? We were socialists . Anti-imperialists through and through!’

ANGELA

I wouldn’t let her hector me.

‘Perhaps that message didn’t reach your public.’

VIRGINIA

‘The public can be ridiculous …’ ( Brightening ) ‘But I have a public? — Still? — Now?’

ANGELA

‘You do.’

There was a pause. Something shifted between us. For another brief moment, we looked at each other. Sunlight, or hope, gave her skin a faint flush. Yes, she was very beautiful. (But Edward called me beautiful, too. I was still young, and she was old.)

Her brows lifted. A secret smile.

VIRGINIA

And in that moment, life poured through me. My new ‘now’. My American now! The particular. That apricot sunlight. It was just on the point of leaving the island, intensifying as it yielded to night. The vault of the sky was indigo violet, making love with the apricot. The animals straining up into it.

And I am here. Life has come back .

Indigo, violet, the pigeons circling, each vane of their wing-tips sharp on the glow.

The electric shock of life thrilled me, shivering in an instant across the tiny stalks of hair on my skin, the back of my neck, my hidden places. I was alive. And I had a public.

ANGELA

A low whoosh, then another, and another. And finally something like a thwack-whoomp . All four sea lions were back in the water.

VIRGINIA

‘Let’s go back out on the streets and walk. You say we’re in America?’

ANGELA

‘New York. But it will soon be dark.’

VIRGINIA

‘Of all places. I never went there! Never went to America. I never cared to, I loved Europe …’

I did want to go. I was afraid. Part of me wanted to stay in my room, never going out, writing, writing. Another part longed to see the world. I loved our car. I was safe inside. Leonard, me, and Mitz Marmoset, and Europe floating past outside the window …

We knew Europe, all our friends went, but America seemed a world away. I imagined the cars in endless ribbons, dozens abreast, streaming into the future, indifferent to me, a vast indifference … Terrifying. I would not exist.

In this American now , was I a different person? The night was coming, but I wasn’t afraid.

On the other hand, I had no luggage. What did they wear, these new … New Yorkers?

‘I have no clothes. Just these old rags. More to the point, I have no money — ’

ANGELA

‘Nothing at all in your pockets?’ (I had seen it, clearly, a bulge in her pockets.) ‘Alas, I’m not exactly rich.’

VIRGINIA

‘ — and nowhere to live. Where will I live?’

After all, one had to live somewhere.

Just for a moment, I felt simple pleasure. Somewhere to live. A new place. The fun I had had at Monk’s House. Finding the perfect bentwood chair, glimpsed through the window of an antique shop. Yes, I would have to find somewhere to live!

But is anyone allowed those pleasures twice? Would they suffer me to … begin again? Whichever hell-hounds had let me go.

Maybe I was just released for the day.

ANGELA

‘As I said, I’m not rich. Not rich rich. But maybe I can tide you over.’

Virginia was staring at the gravel. We followed the thinning crowd through the gate. The sun had slipped behind the towers that ringed the park like gate keepers. Would it be fun to walk through the park?

Very soon we were just two shadows, silent companions in a world of shades. Every now and then she stepped off the path to touch a plane tree. Her fingertips lingered, digging her nails into the bark. Once, I noticed she wasn’t there and saw her clutching the ordinary black railings, clinging on as if she’d never let go. She came back making small contented noises, tilted forward, smiling and nodding. But not at me. She was on her own.

I thought, if only the others knew — the tired humans walking home, the writers, students, advertising people, eyes on the path, shoulders hunched — that this tall shadow is Virginia Woolf. And she’s with me! I breathed in deep.

We were only five minutes from the gate when she suddenly said ‘I’m tired.’ She stopped. A light through leaves made her face cavernous. She was surely paler than before. She tried to say some more, but couldn’t. I found a seat. It felt cold to the hand, the wooden slats uncomfortable. She sank down with a muffled groan.

‘Virginia, are you all right?’

But she didn’t answer. She gathered herself, as if she was bringing herself back from the darkness, pulling her shoulders back like a soldier. With the faintest sigh, she was on her feet. And in a second, she’d set off again.

‘Virginia, you’re going the wrong way.’

Back on Fifth Avenue, the headlights had come on and the shop windows glowed like stained glass. Every so often she stopped and gazed. Those features, indescribably familiar, suddenly grown intimate. In lit close-up, astonished, pleased. How could it be — it couldn’t be — that face shone out from my own blue coat, those white hands gestured from its wide blue sleeves? Above my collar, the mauve veins of her temples. I thought my eyes would eat her up.

(They hypnotise us, those images. Woolf, Auden, Nabokov. Monumental, moonlit, deaf. Now she had come to live amongst us.)

VIRGINIA

‘So much electricity.’ We had paused in a wash of lemon light from a window where giant pastel easter eggs circled the air. ‘It’s dazzling. My eyes are tired. This city must be very expensive …’

ANGELA

After all, she did write A Room of One’s Own . She knew you couldn’t live without money.

VIRGINIA

‘Every so often, I’m tired to death. ’

ANGELA

‘Virginia, we’re nearly home.’

ANGELA

Back in the room, I ordered tea; luke-warm water and teabags arrived. The lack of competence invigorated her.

VIRGINIA

‘Tea was always appalling abroad. France, Germany. So nothing’s changed.’

ANGELA

I felt defensive about my century.

‘Actually, this isn’t typical. It’s just a rather poor hotel.’

VIRGINIA

‘Is it poor? Really? Then why did you choose it?’

ANGELA

Virginia was sitting on the bed. Her long elegant frame made it look short and narrow.

I contemplated the difficulties of explaining the perils of internet deals. First I must explain the internet. No, put it off until tomorrow. ‘Because it’s cheap,’ I said

She had draped my coat over the single armchair. I sank down beside her on the same twin bed, leaving a respectful gap between us.

VIRGINIA

‘Oh. Are you poor?’

ANGELA

I was furious! ‘Certainly not.’

Her interest was anthropological: I was just a human from another era. No, I wasn’t real for her.

But I was real. Money is a touchy subject. If she was going for frankness, so would I. ‘You ought to be massively rich by now. Royalties, and rights, and so forth.’

VIRGINIA

‘If so, they certainly haven’t told me. Possibly I was hard to contact.’

ANGELA

I tried not to think she was mocking me. Something to do with the class difference maybe. The elongated vowels of her ‘really’. The accent of someone who had never had to work.

All very well for her to time-travel and end up here with no means of support.