Virginia Woolf in Manhattan. Maggie Gee
side, the place I never
believed could be.
At first I thought, banally, I was dreaming.
Now, all round me, this dream has flesh
bars bricks towers trees tall silver-grey trees
beside the library crows yes flown out of my past
friendly crows ‘Kaar, Virginia’
& now I have to find the others.
(I don’t think everyone is here. No matter, so long as Leonard is.)
He must be here. He wouldn’t leave me.
6
‘This is Fifth Avenue,’ Angela says, as Woolf steps tremulously along the pavement. ‘Incredibly famous street, Virginia.’
Yes. The greatest, straightest avenue in one of the greatest cities in the world. Shining street surfaces, traffic lights, pavements without cracks or pot-holes. City of dreams: city of films.
‘Yes,’ Woolf says, ‘I’m not a bumpkin.’ She looks to her left: streaming ribbons of cars, and windows as far as her eye can see. Rare yellow-green trees wave messages; there’s a faint green fingerprint, Central Park.
And back to her right: more towers, more cars, the blinding glass of skyscraper windows. She turns, like a horse fretting in its collar, to the left again, irritable, hoping against hope for something different. How can buildings have grown so tall?
Her great eyes search for that slim glimpse of green. There, yes. Still yellow with spring.
I could go there and be happy.
A half-thought forming: Alive again.
But they’re both hemmed in with right-angles.
Two lost ants. Tiny nets of nerves. Glittering scraps of spider’s web.
7
ANGELA
She was like a trapped animal.
Of course, they have built over the past. Once Manhattan must have had fields.
And then – oh shit – she launched herself forward.
VIRGINIA
It was the noise, roaring, blasting. And sun on a thousand surfaces. Shards of sky, elbows of trees, clouds leaping out at me from strange tall buildings. The sky and the city had been smashed together, with jagged pieces thrown everywhere. I thrust the books deep into my pockets, I would need my hands to protect myself, my head spun, I walked forward, blind –
‘What in hell are you DOING! Madness! Beyakoof!’
A yellow car had almost hit me. The wind knocked me sideways, and I saw the furious face of the driver. He had small wire glasses under his turban. Where was this place & who were these people? I stood quite still in the middle of the road & cars screamed past me & I wasn’t afraid.
I had been changed, because I wasn’t afraid. Perhaps the darkness had finally left me. Wherever I had been – for however many years – I had left my fear behind like a parcel, & something began in the midst of my confusion, although I was dazed, something started – a jolt of joy, which could not be stifled, small as a child set free in a hayfield, stunned for a second then gathering pace, dancing across, the yellow dust flying –
‘Kaar, Virginia.’ A crow welcomed me back to the pavement where it pecked at a crack, pecked at the gap between the worlds.
ANGELA
She almost died before her new life started!
VIRGINIA
She dragged me – pulled me hard by the arm, I nearly struck her for her impudence – into a place that smelled of fried meat. I have always hated restaurants. Music I had never heard before – loud drumming & someone shouting – I placed my hands over my ears & said, ‘Where is the telephone?’
ANGELA
‘Please sit here, where you are safe. There are things I must explain to you, but first I will get some coffee – I don’t remember if you drank coffee?’
VIRGINIA
The woman spoke as if she knew me!
ANGELA
I mean, there’s been coffee since the eighteenth century, but God knows which modern kind she’d like, latte, cappuccino, Americano … Expresso seemed like the safest choice. Was there anything about it in the Diaries?
VIRGINIA
‘Yes, of course. I adore coffee.’
ANGELA
I came back from the counter balancing my tray and saw her, for the first time, clearly, from a distance.
First, though old, she was beautiful. Very pale, drawn like a bow. Thin and tall. Her eyes, avid.
Second, she was extremely odd. Two small children were staring at her, American children with little round bellies. She was like a great mayfly, long neck poking forward. Straggling limbs, her knees jutting out. Then two long feet like heavy boats that might float away from her altogether. Greasy grey hair pulled back in a knot at the nape of her long column of neck. She wore a long woollen suit that might have been tailored, but didn’t fit, as if she’d tried to shrug it off but then given up in embarrassment. Yet her long white hands and blue-white wrists had escaped, and couldn’t wriggle back in again. She didn’t look unhappy, but intensely self-conscious. At the same time, she was curious. Her eyes flicked up, her eyes flicked down. Her eyes went swooping round the room, hungry to see everything. I thought, what will she think of us? – Plastic surfaces, harsh colours, half-dressed people celebrating New York’s unnatural spring heat-wave.
I brought back an expresso for her, and my normal creamy half-shot latte, which came in a rather attractive tall glass. Without hesitation, her starved bony hand reached across the table and closed on my latte.
She left me the small, bitter cup.
She got the cream, and I the grounds. Her tall angular shape between me and the window, a cone of darkness drinking my prize.
Yes, I thought, we are in her shadow.
I watched her grey-green orbs dipping and sweeping. She was almost in a trance. What was she learning?
I saw she didn’t want to talk to me. Her mind was working on its own, and her bony hands like sea-creatures scampered across the table-top, climbing the curve of her narrow glass (my narrow glass, I reminded myself), skating down to the base again, twisting the metal frame that contained it, lifting her tea-spoon, putting it down.
And suddenly I remembered The Waves. ‘Let me sit here for ever with bare things, this coffee cup … things in themselves, myself being myself.’
‘Myself being myself.’ I knew what she meant. It was why I fled home and its social duties – why I fled Gerda, which makes me ashamed. Because I wanted to be myself. Was I myself in my writing, at least?
Was I good enough to stand naked?
She was good enough. God, she was good. She even managed to write well about coffee.
I watched her swallowing my latte. Yes, of course, she was ravenous. She was sucking it down in great raw gulps, as if she was trying to drink the world. She hadn’t eaten or drunk for decades!
She said ‘Could you bring me another, please? Then I will telephone my husband.’
Bring me another! Did she think it was free? Unlike her, I did not inherit money. She spoke to me as if I were a servant. Of course I would try not to hold it against her, but well – my grandma was a servant.
Still – ‘I will telephone