Virginia Woolf in Manhattan (24 page)

‘You’re a dreamer, Edward. I’m a realist. I want a husband and a decent bed.’

Perhaps it was inevitable that we would break up, but when I found out I was pregnant, I kept our daughter. So although we were apart, we shared Gerda. It took six or seven years for him to get a divorce, start making money, win me over.
He’d managed to get grants for his eco-projects; a research professorship, recently ended; and gigs on TV, because he was handsome. More recently
The Palace of Ice
gained a cult following, and the book which followed was a surprise success. Indeed he sold almost as well as me, though Gerda was enraged by the photographs of her, a blue bundle of clothes with a red round face. ‘You didn’t ASK me, Daddy!’

(In fact he had arranged it all from a distance, he was in the Amazon by then, and he claimed he had asked me to clear the shots with her … if he did, which I doubt, I have no memory of it.) In any case, the book did extremely well, so I don’t know what Gerda was complaining about. It was nobody’s fault but Edward’s that he’d put almost every penny of the money into this maddening new polar trip, because the grant wasn’t big enough. In the end, people make their choices.

Seeing
The Palace of Ice
had stirred it all up. They pulled at my heart, those two little figures, struggling to put tents up in the gathering dark, laughing over mugs of tea in the firelight. Sometimes he gave Gerda the microphone, and her young, clear voice described stars or wolves – I was her mother, but I still marvelled.

Of course the split had been a wrench for Gerda. She loved her father, but she took my side, her sense of justice made her take my side, and besides, Edward had been away for three months and missed her birthday, except for a phone call. His postcard arrived over three weeks late, by which time both of us were furious. ‘I’m afraid men don’t remember birthdays,’ I told her. Yes, she was becoming a feminist.

Oh, no. Virginia was struggling back along the row and calling out to me in clarion tones, ‘Does the excrement fall on the heads of the people?’

‘Virginia, please
sit down
.’ I shut my eyes so I didn’t have to see her.

I noticed that her eyes were closed. But I needed to ask her about the Balkans, and all the fighting everywhere else, and find out what she thought about it, for women were surely the pacific sex (though she herself could be aggressive!). I wanted to know if it had made any difference, my pamphlet
Three Guineas
, which nearly killed me. Half a dozen years of floundering and striving, and none of the men I knew liked it –

(not even Leonard – not even my love – )

I held back from asking for at least a second, just in case she was actually asleep.

‘Angela, have you read
Three Guineas
?’

It wasn’t my fault that she then spilled her coffee.

‘
Sorry
, so sorry. Oh no, it’s on your Bible, or Torah or whatever …’

I dabbed at him, helpless, with my paper napkin.

‘Oh let the cabin girl bring a cloth. In any case, he’s quite all right. I just wanted to know, have you read it?’

I allowed her time to stop flapping her napkin, then I continued with my theme.

‘My thoughts about aggression were in
Three Guineas
. I hope it had … some influence.’

‘Don’t ask me at this moment.’

‘I don’t mind if you haven’t.’

‘Look, it’s your fault I spilled the coffee.’

It was at times like this that one saw she had no breeding. One does not make a fuss about this type of thing. I allowed her time to stop flapping her napkin, then I continued with my theme.

‘I hope
Three Guineas
had … some influence.’

‘What do you think it would have influenced?’ (
In a furious whisper, to herself
) ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.’

‘It did make a certain stir, you know. Rhonda Cecil, who was hardly a radical, declared herself profoundly moved and excited.’

‘It cannot be recovered. Wreck-èd.’

‘Let me pay you for a replacement. I’m so sorry. I’m afraid I only have dollars …’

There was a darkish stain on the smooth surface of his Bible, which paled slightly as the page buckled, only because it was penetrating deeper, boiling and bleeding, invisibly, beneath. The man was staring at me, dark with fury, and I, alas, was getting angry with him, and before we knew it, we would have a war on. I’d had anger training to deal with Edward, I was going through the mantra,
STOPP – Stop, Think, Observe
, get
Perspective, Practice
your techniques for defusing situations – but with Virginia yattering away on my left, I couldn’t get the space I needed to
Practice
, I couldn’t take the calm ‘helicopter viewpoint’ –

‘You Americans think everything is money. Everything is not money.’

‘All right, have it your way.’

I folded my dollars back into my wallet.

‘But our community is not rich. You Americans think everyone is rich.’

‘I’m not American, for God’s sake! Look do you want my money or not?’

‘Lady Rhondda thought
Three Guineas
would have a great effect. Angela, dear, you are shouting, you know.’

‘So give me the money if it makes you feel better.’

(
Angela grimly hands over the money. His hand stays outstretched. She gives another note
.)

‘It’s one of the books I am most proud of. I had such a struggle with
The Pargeters
, could it work as a fusion of fact and fiction? – but in the end, I separated the two, and the fiction part became
The Years
, which takes a family through several generations, and the wars come, and so much time passes …

It was a best-seller in America, you know. And the part that
was intellectual argument I turned into a book of its own,
Three Guineas
.’

‘I know!’

‘
Three Guineas
had a genuinely new perspective. War and women’s rights could not be disentangled. Because educated women are too rational for war – ’

‘Could you please shut up for
one
second, I am trying to sponge coffee off my good coral suit …

‘Oh
fuck
, I didn’t mean to say shut up, sorry! I will opine on every war on the planet, but now I just need a few moments’ grace.’

52

Yes, Angela was a poor traveller. I refrained from pointing out how much harder it was when we travelled to Turkey by boat and on horseback. I gave her ten minutes or so to cool down before I asked my next question. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’

‘Well, we’ve come quite a long way. We’ve flown over Portugal, Spain, the Balkans – there’s actually a little map you can look at – ’

‘Not at the moment. One tires of screens. Spain – is it still Fascist?’

Christ, she was so out of date! But yet, of course, I had no right to feel impatient. ‘No, but they outlasted the Nazis. Franco was in power until 1975.’

That was what, three decades after her death. No-one ever thinks like that though, do they? ‘This curse will go on thirty years after I die.’

When would I die? Was it really – real? That lives would be lived beyond my understanding? Gerda – a pang as I thought of her. She would be thirty, forty. How long would I know her? The loneliness of her going on, beyond my comfort, beyond my help.

How did we ever get so far apart?
Why did I send my daughter away?

‘You know my nephew was lost in Spain.’

He stayed behind, young, a sacrifice, and we grew older, and left him behind. His eternal youth became terrible.

Just a series of sunlit fragments – Julian laughing or explaining, his big hands waving, why we were all wrong – but as time went on, his hands clung, and hurt.

I will never know if Nessa recovered. It seemed to me she never would.

The year he died, even nature seemed poisoned. I barely left my sister’s side. Night after night, summer and winter. The universe was nothing but brute confusion, its rhythms pointless, lifeless, aimless.

Then, the next spring, the garden urns, casually filled with wind-blown plants. Around them, violets, daffodils. My favourites, the sweet-sharp, strong-scented narcissi, stood looking straight ahead at nothing, because I didn’t have the heart to enjoy them, didn’t, as usual, bend to look into their eyes, so even the garden became hard and blind. In that year, Nature gave no comfort. There was no point, if youth had died.

(he was Nessa’s hope
he was our future)

53

In another universe, Gerda has landed. Yes, she feels lucky as they bounce, lightly, roar down the runway, come to a halt. She has made it to America! This is more or less as far as she has let herself think. As she plink-plonks down the metal walkway, other thoughts creep into the waiting void –

– this forest of signs: Arrivals, Transfers, Baggage Claim, Immigration Control – when she’d come with Dad, she clung on to his hand and he made all the hard decisions –

yes, the young self she was with Dad, getting piggy-backs when she was tired, trying out her rollerblades in Central Park – seven years old, Mum and Dad had just got married, life was brilliant, both her parents adored her –

where had she lost that Wonder Child?)

Gerda has a worry – thirteen-year-olds have worries, but she hopes fourteen-year-olds would not – that every day she is growing less brilliant, further from the toddler she’s seen in photographs, pink and rosy, snub-nosed and sturdy, with carrot-red hair that shone in the sun, who, she was told, announced to the world as she was lifted out of the bath, not yet two, ‘I’m a person.’

Is she becoming less of a person? Has the grownup world nibbled her edges?

Certainly not. She steps on to the escalator and keeps on going, overtaking other people off the same plane, trying to look like a person in a hurry. Dad had told her – what had Dad told her? ‘Never take a case on an escalator.’ But it’s OK, she’s only got a backpack.

Their trip to New York had been the best trip ever, but any trip with Dad would be the best trip ever. He had bought her a Swiss Army knife at the airport (this was before everything good got banned.) The hasp was red and shiny with a small Swiss shield. ‘That shield will always keep you safe, Gerda.’ He’d explained to her what each part did – the bottle-opener, the corkscrew, the file. The bit that she wanted to use the most was the gizmo for getting stones out of hooves, which seemed to promise an adventurous life (though she always meant to live with Dad, and Mum could live nearby with a washing machine, and come in to bin the pizza boxes). This pleasant thought carried her with her backpack safely down the moving stairs.

Dad’s knife was sitting in her case right now, being whizzed towards her in Baggage Claim. She was feeling happy to think of it, though oddly, the case was otherwise empty, 1) because in general, Gerda didn’t need things, once she had her book, and socks, and money, but 2) because she’d done magical thinking, which she knew in general was a Bad Idea …

It had all happened at the very last minute this morning, she was leaving home, the cab was waiting – surely Mum would be delighted to pay for her cab? – when she remembered her phone, still charging in the kitchen, so sweating, panting, ran back up the steps to get it – saw the dirty knife and fork in the sink, and thought of her Swiss Army knife – Dad’s knife! –
fetched it, stuffed it in her backpack, but stopped mid-stuffing, cos of course, it wasn’t legal!

‘It will always keep you safe, Gerda’

She nearly put it down, then the worry assailed her, if you don’t take the knife, something bad’s going to happen, if you do take the knife, the knife will save you,

and although she knew this was Magical Thinking she grabbed Mum’s Prada suitcase to put it in, which was shell-pink, ditsy and elegant, with bits of glittering gold on it. She knew her mother would be angry about it, but it was the only case she could see, so she’d bumped it down the stairs in a frantic hurry and rushed out of the door to find the cab still waiting and didn’t forget to double lock, well done Gerda, she told herself –

– but something was missing in the sequence, she realised as she stepped off the escalator, something struck her no, no, make it not true a cold sweat prickled from her neck, her back

had she forgotten it
no she would never

no, no
but yes, yes

had she got distracted, and forgotten her phone???!!!

Was it still plugged in to the kitchen wall???!!!

Gerda stood at the entrance to Baggage Claim patting all her pockets again and again, repeating the sequence, then varying it, her level of hopelessness slowly rising.

SHE COULDN’T RING MUM TO TELL HER SHE WAS COMING.

Mum and Dad were both suddenly far away. She stood very alone, shrinking into herself.

Baggage Claim was enormous and full of strangers. When you arrive, people should meet you – the thought popped angrily into her head. Which carousel would the luggage be on? She looked around for passengers from the same plane. No, not a soul. Then she saw a sign: LONDON. Most of them must have already gone.

Unwanted bags still circled sadly, dwarfed by the spaces left by luckier ones. They all looked slightly shabby and ugly. ‘Look, they forgot us,’ they seemed to say. Gerda watched their slow dance in gathering worry (Mum only bought that case a few months ago, she claimed to cheer her up when I started boarding school). But finally, a jolt of pink, and glory – at least she still had her mum’s pet piece of luggage, at least Dad’s knife would be inside. The catches and the ‘P’ flashed gold as she swung it, light as air, to the floor. She felt loads better, instantly.