Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

Eighty thousand dollars! It was unbelievable! More money than the Press earned in a decade — more money than I probably earned in my lifetime, though in those last years we felt ourselves rich!

But Angela just said ‘Thank you. My friend and I will have to think about that. I’m sure you have made a decent offer, but in fairness to her — she’s not au fait with New York prices — I think I must encourage her to see what other dealers’ prices are.’

And then someone materialised with tea, and we sat there not quite believing our luck but trying to frown and look undecided while they all went into a huddle at the back, and within ten minutes, silver-haired Alex had returned with their ‘best offer’, ‘$90,000 if we can agree this on the spot.’

We looked at each other. We nodded ‘Yes’.

Ninety thousand dollars is a great deal of money. Thousands of fifty, twenty and ten dollar bills take up space. They counted them, lengthily, in front of us — sorted them into thousand-dollar wedges — then made two parcels of forty-five wedges, neatly wrapped in plastic & firmly taped, and put each parcel in a carrier bag, chattering and laughing — immensely complacent, & so were we, we were all happy — and all this joy was the result of money! I didn’t try to lift the bags, but Angela did, and put them down, surprised. ‘They’re actually quite heavy,’ she said. Unlike the joy we felt, which was weightless.

The young men carried the bags to a taxi. Handshakes all round. Jubilation.

One did feel slightly self-conscious, however, in a taxi loaded with bags of money. Angela and I were both over-excited, my cheeks were hot, I was gasping with laughter, we kept replaying our best moments and saying ‘I can’t believe it worked’, ‘Did you really say that? It was priceless’ — when something happened to dampen our mood. We started to hear a low buzz of voices, growing slowly louder, through the windows of the cab, which had slowed down to a walking pace.

‘Sorry, ladies,’ the cab driver said. ‘Looks like the kids are at it again. Not too many, we’ll be through in no time.’

At the next crossroads, a blockage. A mob of people, a straggle of tents, bright pink, bright yellow — whistles, singing — a forest of signs like bristling scales. The noise they were making was more jolly than angry. Some of the signs were incomprehensible, but others, one could read without difficulty: ‘OCCUPY WALL STREET’, a big banner said, crookedly supported by two young women, chewing, laughing, with an eager look. Another — oh, and then several the same — claimed ‘WE ARE THE 99 PER CENT’

‘We’ve read about this in England,’ said Angela. ‘They’re anti-capitalists, Virginia.’

‘One has always felt like the one per cent.’

What if they guessed what we had in our taxi?

‘Yeah, they’ve been doing it for years,’ said the cab driver. ‘Cuts no ice with the money guys, but maybe it makes the kids feel better.’

‘They’re not all kids, are they?’ said Angela. Certainly some were middle-aged or older, though they wore what looked like childish clothes — romper-suits, pyjama trousers. As we jerked along past the surging pavement, a thin old man with furious eyes was suddenly pushing too near the car, waving a sign that said ‘GIVE BACK OUR MONEY’ — red-rimmed eyes, a jutting chin.

It felt a little personal. ‘It’s the banks they’re demonstrating against,’ said Angela. ‘Look, behind them, that vast building.’

Yes, I could see it, a cliff of dark glass. And a line of sinister figures in helmets between the plate-glass and the rag-taggle protest — dark uniforms — and carrying guns! In front of them, a long white banner — a sheet? — bore accusatory black spiders: ‘Banks, You’re Busted’. Americans had poor handwriting. ‘Don’t worry, ladies, the cops will protect you,’ the driver said, turning and smiling.

‘Those helmets look like German helmets,’ I told him, but he just laughed and grunted.

It took an age for us to creep past them. Plenty of time for us to look at them, plenty of time for them to look at us and see the evidence at our feet, though none of them showed the slightest interest. ‘GRANDMOTHERS AGAINST GREED’ — a tanned, lined woman sat cross-legged on the pavement and waved at passers-by, her long white hair blowing out like Medusa’s. What if she caught my eye? I looked away. I felt like a criminal, caught red-handed. One was not used to having so much money.

One felt — at fault, with the mob outside, this cheerful mob of bright-coloured people. Perhaps there was a feeling that we should have been with them, for one or two of them were sitting down, their signs propped beside them, reading books, & the tents were like strange, fluorescent life-forms on these rigid streets where nothing was growing. ‘QUESTION WHAT YOU KNOW’ was like a thought that had skipped into life from my own pages. Yet soon their noise became tiresome, a cacophony of whistles scraping at our eardrums.

We had to get the loot back to the hotel .

Yes, we were there. ‘Hurray!’ said Angela. We forgot the demonstration and enjoyed the money.

VIRGINIA

For the first time I felt this writer who came from the future was pleased with me. Pleased with the real Virginia, not the dead Virginia she knew from the writing.

I was not my everyday self in my novels, because they rarely allowed me to be funny.

In life I was always hooting with laughter, people were ridiculous, life was absurd. And so was I, and Nessa, and Leonard, and all my loves, Lytton, Ottoline, Roger, old Ethel Smyth like a charging shire-horse …

Of course I was myself in my diaries, but they were my secret, and never published. By now they are destroyed — I asked Leonard to do it. He would never reveal me to the eyes of others.

The diaries were the place where I laughed, and examined myself, and found myself and others wanting. And learned my craft. Most days I wrote something. Except when the shadow came upon me, and even then, I tried to track it, tried to record my fight to stay sane. Hundreds of thousands of words I wrote.

Was it a waste, since no-one ever saw them? There in the diaries, I captured my world. The texture of the hours and minutes: the shining lawns between day and darkness.

Sadness brushes me — lost, forever.

Would I re-read it if I could?

No, no time, I am a new person. When I’m less tired, I will write all this newness (I’ve tried, as it happens, a couple of times, and I don’t want to upset Angela by complaining, but the pens she bought from that huckster are useless.)

‘We’re changing our hotel,’ Angela announced. ‘You have no need to economise, and I’m only at the Waddington by accident. I suggest a little place called the Wordsmiths Hotel. Though I’ve only got four days left in New York.’

She only had four days left in New York!

I thought, what will happen after she’s gone? Will she take me with her? Where is she going? What will happen about the money?

Wherever she goes, I must go.

GERDA

Gerda and the Furies

Part the Fourth

(This is the part after the Cliffehanger, which is where I was going to open the envelope that had the special secret surprise that my friends who were really the Furiesgave me.)

I did open it. This is what happened.

I couldn’t take in what I saw at first.

There were two squares of cardboard, one pink, one pale blue. Each of them had a tiny photo of me, which they must have taken off my Facebook site. They looked like membership cards.

They were. One said: