Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

— the yellow-pink evening illuminated the wide washed blankness above the city, sunlight glinted on the radial cobbles, the broken kerb-stones, a plastic chair; a brown hound sneaked the eyed beak of a fish; the mosque began its call to prayer and the birds circled the chasm in the buildings through which the road ran down towards the sea — & all this had always existed in me, and I in it, and it would last forever — just round the corner it would soon appear, the vision of water I was longing for, the Sea of Marmara, so blue, it would be, now the storm had passed and the sun was out, and there would be fishermen, broad backs bent, their corded arms against the brightness –

But I looked at my watch, and it was half-past six. I would have to turn back, to meet Angela, and in any case, I saw Leonard frowning, ‘Virginia, you are too excited.’

Walking back uphill — it was harder going up, and I was perspiring in my yellow coat — I found myself thinking of the cross-eyed barber. Yes, I would have to pass him again. And I felt — what was that strange feeling? But the red-and-white pole stuck up unattended, there were just two black tom-cats outside it, bristling, padding around one another like boxers –

Presents, I remembered, and dived into a shop with a little flotilla of red Turkish flags and something very blue in the window — but ah, it was all modernity — shimmering cases for telephones, fluorescent cigarette lighters. But there against the glass, a waterfall of light! Rows of small round white and turquoise eyes on blazing glass disks of cobalt blue. Yes, they were instantly familiar, they were charms against the evil eye, Nessa was pulling me by the hand through the hectic theatre of the Grand Bazaar, plunging through stalactites of gilt and bead-work –

(we had walk-on parts the brief play was over)

Then I saw the hat, on a pile in the corner. It was casual, youthful, nothing like the navy-blue swan of a hat I’d been forced to leave behind in New York; this was a happy, summery, cream straw boater. I put it on, and in that dim corner, in that dirty mirror, I was twenty-four years old again! ‘I’ll take it, please.’ A rush of pleasure. ‘And two of the charms.’ (They would bring good fortune. Writer’s luck — one needed it.) An immensely old woman with a scored brown face took my money, wreathed in smiles.

So much to tell Angela! So much to see!

— But I could guess what she had been doing. The thing these modern people always did, switch on their machines and fret at them. If it didn’t work she would be losing her temper, as she did in front of me in New York, in the restaurant of the Empire State Building. ‘This fucking, fucking thing,’ she said loudly, but she was annoyed when I started laughing. ‘Virginia, you’re embarrassing.’ I was embarrassing! She was embarrassing!

While I was breathing in the evening air, Angela was tethered to her London friends, or worrying about her editors — (she had so many editors, her agent, first, then her publisher, then her American editor — did these modern writers not edit themselves?). She was a chained monkey, night and day, dancing to the tune of her accordion.

The laptop thing came with her everywhere, on her knee, like another baby, her real baby, now Gerda had flown. Perhaps it had always been her real baby. Had Gerda always felt alone?

Gerda is walking past the Plaza Hotel where Eloise lived in that wonderful book. She stops and stares, a laser beam of longing. Here a girl could live on her own, waited on by compliant adults, next to the park — skating rinks, cafes with caramel milk-shakes, hills, rocks. Where Dad had taught her to rollerblade (true, that was seven years ago).

It is only early afternoon. I am fine, thinks Gerda, I am wonderful. Yes it is a blow that Mum is not here, because the stupid cow has flounced off to Turkey. Yes, Mum told her pals in the lobby but didn’t bother to inform her daughter …

But Gerda’s subconscious is working overtime. Had Mum, in fact, mentioned Turkey? Why had Gerda assumed the conference was here? How on earth did you get from New York to Istanbul? Should she just give up her quest and go home? Would Mum be cross that Gerda had spent so much money — so much of Mum’s money — flying over here?

Once again, suspicion is gnawing at Gerda, a heavy shark tracking her under the pavement, snapping its jaws at her hurrying toes.

Mum did tell me. Ages ago . She was really thrilled they had invited her.

Yes, it was an international conference IN TURKEY. How had she forgotten! Retard! GAY! DIMWIT! LOSER! (Though ‘Gay’ was sexist.)

Gerda is still walking unnaturally fast as she leaves the white fountains of the Plaza behind. She is smiling in order not to cry, and focusing on the positive. Her namesake in Hans Andersen had to travel solo all round the world, probably for years, on a boat, in a carriage, on the back of a reindeer: therefore she, Gerda, can bear another journey. She has still got Mum’s card, she can fly to Turkey — but where IS Turkey? And how do you get there?

Her courage falters. But look, she’s at the park, and the driver of one of the be-plumed carriages winks at her as he pats his horse.

She’s a pretty girl with curly red hair, but as he straightens up he sees she’s crying, and a lot younger than he had thought, rather too young to be winked at, in fact, and he straightens his face into something paternal.

Soon the sun will be leaving the park.

(Gerda is crying because she has realised that without a phone, with no computer, she has no way of booking that flight. Where is my mother? Why isn’t she here? Why is she never where I want her to be? Why did both my parents go away and leave me ?)

Gerda stops and blows her nose quite long and hard on the brown paper napkin from the hamburger joint. She congratulates herself on having a hanky. She tells herself she is doing fine. She has come to the park because here she had been happy. After a brief walk, she’ll check in to a hotel. Later this will seem like a Great Adventure. Even now it’s an Experience, better than rotting away at school (but she suddenly remembers her History teacher, Miss Larman, who also taught Latin, and knew a lot, though she wasn’t popular, but Gerda liked her because she was clever, and now she is gone, Gerda misses her. In fact, she misses — anyone at all.

Anyone At All who cared about her.

No-one At All was Thinking about Her.

Which is fine, because I won’t Think about Them ).

She walks on down into the park’s green bowl, waiting to feel happy as she looks around her at knots of small children playing in the playground, children with mothers, children with fathers, leaping and shrieking against yellow-green grass or queueing to play on climbing frames or see-saws, but after a second, she turns her head away, she has grown too big, she walks on towards the trees.

Though Gerda felt too big to go into the playground, other people watching her — other lonely people — see only a small, isolated figure with a silly pink case and bright red hair.

Virginia is musing on the Istanbul pavement, an interesting figure to a middle-aged tourist who jerks past her in a yellow taxi, seeing a tall, elegant woman with full lips and a cream straw hat. Certainly a woman of distinction, standing alone, waiting for someone. Actually, she is in a brown study, thinking of the blindness of each generation.

VIRGINIA

Angela doesn’t see her own addiction.

And my generation? What didn’t we see? What did the people who came after us say?

At that moment, I was nearly knocked down by a young man rolling down the street like thunder, pulling behind him an enormous cube of shadow that completely blocked the pavement. All I saw for a moment was darkness, and his angry face as he lurched to a halt, he was shouting at me in what must have been Turkish but what I could read were his eyes, full of hatred, I raised my hands to protect myself — then realised the cube was a mountain of rubbish, and stepped into the street to let him pass, saying ‘Sorry, sorry, pardon, pardon ’, though why did I think my French would help me? — perhaps his face softened, but he had rushed on, and then there were people shouting behind me and a giant lorry had nearly hit me, its brakes squealing, then crunching metal, I covered my ears and hopped back on the pavement and a surge of adrenalin made me run, I knew for a fact I could not run, but as in a kind of dream, I was flying up the road, my legs were light and strong as steel, I was hardly panting, I was laughing with pleasure as the lights danced past me in a coloured chain and people stepped out of my way, startled.