Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

I stopped a block or so from the hotel. Blood coursed round my body, strong as a river, my cheeks were warm, my lips were warm. I hugged myself. I patted my arms. I thought, briefly, clearly, ‘I love my body’. I had not felt that since I was a girl.

Why did I feel it then? And the answer came, as an owl hooted and the sun sank down below the roof-top. You were threatened by the angry refuse-man, then nearly killed by the passing lorry. You saved yourself. You were strong. You ran.

I wanted to tell Angela, but I knew she would tell me off for being careless.

Then I thought something else, quite clearly: I do not want to write about it. I want to be here. Here in the moment .

Being alive was all that mattered.

The birds were calling for the setting sun, wheeling in clouds above the busy city, looking to settle on the terracotta roof-tops. Surely they had let me out of the darkness so I had another chance to be alive?

One day, perhaps, I would meet this Gerda, who’d been sent away to school as if she were a boy. Angela talked about her intermittently, usually protesting what she was about to do for her: emails, money, holidays. She had red hair, she adored reading.

And Gerda writes, according to her mother. The young are interesting, and need our help. Tonight at supper I will ask about Gerda.

I had come back safe. I was nearly home. Then I looked at my watch and began to hurry.

Gerda saw her father on every corner. The pink suitcase, though light, was a nuisance. It didn’t feel right on a walk in the park, and the wheels made a self-important fol-de-rol of chattery, stuttery noise on hard surfaces (and yet, Dad’s army knife was inside, which he had told her would keep her safe, and Mum’s gold bracelet was on her wrist, gleaming in the late golden sunshine).

Then she actually saw him — a tall, skinny figure with a quiff of pale hair like a ruff of feathers, fifty metres ahead in the last of the sunlight, an egret-father, yes it was Dad, a magical presence, I have made him come by sheer longing , a voice whispered in her ear, it must be true, such things can happen –

Bending over his bike at the turn of the path, yes, his red jacket, his big boots — but as she started running, he actually vanished; she looked again, he had disappeared, he had slipped away up through the dark trees.

She could feel the air cooling as she left the path, but through the trees, she saw the sun still glinting on the islands of granite that broke through the grass, and hope broke through, because there, oh joy, the red of his jacket, there, surely …

She started to run, and nearly stumbled on a grey rootball that clutched at her foot, and she broke her nail as she stopped herself from falling, but she mustn’t lose him. Gerda ran on.

VIRGINIA

I was thinking too much, and hurrying too much, my good luck charms clutched against my body, concentrating on the mental map that had got me back where I started from, but I had not learned the basic rule for navigating Istanbul on foot –

ANGELA

‘ Oh no! Look where you’re going, Virginia! ’

I knew it was too late even as I shouted, I saw she had no clue, as she stepped into space, that the pavement she was on ended abruptly, with a two-foot drop down to gravel and dust. She was wearing a hat, which promptly fell off; she knelt quite neatly in the gutter, facing the hotel as if in prayer, a middle-aged woman in a yellow coat, the late sunlight picking up the brown in her hair, which definitely made her look younger than before.

VIRGINIA

‘Hallo-o-o! What is the Turkish for “sorry”?’

ANGELA

‘Oh, Virginia. I was looking for you. I should have known you’d wander off. Are you all right? Sure? There’s blood on your knee. You must be careful! Turkish pavements can’t be trusted!

‘“Sorry” is “ Pardon ”, as a matter of fact, though you don’t need to say sorry in Turkish.’

VIRGINIA

‘How clever of me! I said “Pardon” earlier.’

It was only a scratch, though she made a fuss, and insisted I clean up before we went out, coming back to my room as if she were my mother. I unlocked the door, we went inside –

ANGELA

‘Aaarghhh! What’s THAT?’

VIRGINIA

‘Don’t, you’ll frighten them!’

Because, yawning like young lords on my bedspread, there were two small, lazy-looking, light gold kittens. They were — what were they doing? — they were eating something, delicately chewing, one at each end — Angela ran at them, waving her hands and yelling –

ANGELA

‘Ugh, how disgusting, it’s a fish. How on earth did they get in? Oh, you left it open — ’

VIRGINIA

It was me she was disgusted with!

I did let her chase the kitties out, because I thought they might have fleas, but they looked so sweet, on my double bed, enjoying that peaceful meal together.

‘They were doing no harm,’ I said, unfairly, as she closed the window with a bang, and locked it.

‘Virginia, I told you to close it — ’

‘I suppose I went out in a hurry. I’ll tell you later what fun I had … What are you going to do with the fish?’ I asked her, spotting it lying on the carpet. It didn’t look attractive. Half-eaten and bloody. ‘You’ll have to open the window again.’

‘Why is it my job to clean up your fish?’ she shouted as she snatched it up off the floor, two fingers spraddled askew in distaste, and unlocked the window to sling it out.

‘You’ve forgotten the tail,’ I said. It glistened, small and mauve, on my pillow. She turned, very flushed, her eyes staring. She must have this sickness that came from flying, she had warned me about it: ‘jet-lag’.

‘But don’t concern yourself, I will get it.’ I pretended picking it up was easy, though in fact it felt slimy and unpleasant.

But after I had got rid of the tail, I admit I closed the window firmly. She helped clean my leg, she gave me a dressing, a small mean thing called a ‘sticking-plaster’, but I knew she was still cross with me, though she denied it. She was strangely unwilling to answer my questions (‘When did these “sticking-plasters” come in? Why are they better than bandages? Perhaps you haven’t got any bandages?’) and seemed reluctant to admire my hat.

I wanted to share my happiness. ‘Angela, I bought you a present.’ I handed her the charm against the evil eye — ‘This will protect you against demons — and critics!’ — but the attention she gave it was perfunctory. ‘Very pretty. Thank you,’ she replied, and thrust it out of sight in the pocket of her suit, its blue eye sinking in a sea of coral.

‘One day you will thank me for it, my dear,’ I wheedled, smiling at her in my most charming fashion, and really I did feel fond of her, and didn’t want her to be distressed. Usually it worked, but not that night.

‘Lobby. Ten minutes. Don’t be late,’ she said, and went to her room to collect her phone (a smaller, more tyrannical version of her laptop, which ‘ding-ed’ at intervals to make her take notice). As soon as the door closed behind her, I rang reception for new pillow-cases. I didn’t want my face to smell of raw fish.

Yet I held it in my mind for a long time, that picture of animal bliss in my bed. Their paired contentment on my pillows, their young golden bodies stretched long and slim, two small happy mouths with a kiss of sweet fish.

Afterwards, Gerda could never remember what gave her the courage to step off the path. Maybe it was just something inside her, her Gerda-ness, which had never been broken, the fact she Was A Person, always had been.