Virginia Woolf in Manhattan (18 page)

‘Perhaps champagne? Or a nice red?’

‘I’ll have champagne. A vat. A bucket.’

Angela’s painted eyes flicked wide with shock.

She hadn’t had a drink for over half a century. Is it surprising that it went to her head?

We toasted each other. As I chinked her glass – she recoiled minutely, as from a
faux pas
– the volume of the music rose to meet us.

Jazz standards of the 1930s. Sadness blew across the sands. A cold sea-mist. The room was thinning …

Her pupils widened, and she was lost. I watched a veil come between us. She put down her glass and played with her hands, one clutching the other, wringing and squeezing.

‘Virginia?’ She looked at the floor. ‘Virginia, are you all right?’

She picked up her glass and drank deep before she answered.

‘Yes. No. I’m not sure.’

Her champagne flute was two-thirds empty.

For a moment I felt cold as death. But as I drank, the bubbles expanded, blood came coursing back through my veins. Briefly, I felt warm towards her, and yes, I had to talk to somebody. ‘You see, I have been trying to write …’

‘Trying to write? Yes, I saw you. That evening in your room at the Wordsmith. Have you been writing every day?’ At last, the longed-for conversation! Might we talk, one writer to another?

Her beautiful mouth twitched at the corner.

‘Something’s … amiss. Things keep going wrong.’

‘You mean, with the writing?’

Something in her eyes: an avid glint. A dog scenting a whiff of death.

‘I didn’t say that.’ But the drink drove me. ‘It’s not easy to talk about. I’m not, it isn’t, it isn’t getting done.’

‘Virginia, I’m all ears.’

I saw ears bursting from her face, fat and shiny and obscene. Budding from her pouter-pigeon chest, rose-pink fungi on her arms, her hands. Yes, all ears. Was she leering at me?

‘If anyone can understand it, it’s me.’

No answer. Virginia leaned back in her chair.

Two twins walked past, with identical frowns, heading over to the table at the back where there were booklets of Algonquin history. Their hair fell straight in long fringed bobs, heavy as rulers, a style they were too old for. Matching suits. Combative heels. I thought, they will never escape one another.

Virginia had finished her champagne. Maybe I should have sat and waited. But how was I to contain myself?
Now, at last, we could talk about writing
. What I had longed for from the very start, when she appeared, like an answer to my prayer –

I summoned a waiter to play for time. ‘Two more glasses.’

‘No problem, Ma’am.’

I had to grope to find the words. Yes, I was shy, but I was excited. Our drinks were delivered, I raised my glass, she looked away, but I plunged in.

‘I’m not surprised you find writing hard. This world’s so new and strange to you. I myself have been blocked of late. I
mean, I published only last year, the reviews were fine, the sales were great, but it’s not like turning on a tap, is it?’ (Virginia twitched slightly. I hoped we’d connected.) ‘There’ve been the problems with, you know, Edward … And you and I have been quite busy.’ (I meant: ‘I’ve been busy looking after you.’) ‘I’m not totally sure what to write about, though something, somewhere, may be coming together … You get to a certain stage in your career – you haven’t read me, Virginia, that’s fine, but I am quite famous, and it
is
a pressure – didn’t you find? Was it true for you?’

Her eyes were fixed, cold and still. A distant pool I could not see into. ‘It’s even harder for you, of course, because in a way, this would be your comeback novel!’

Her fingers clenched on the stem of the glass, her great lids dropped. What was she thinking?

I wondered,
is this going well?

But I took a gulp and pressed on regardless. ‘That’s partly why I came to New York. And why I wanted to write about you. I thought, get back to first principles. Why, you know, is your writing so – great? What is the point of – what we do?’

I found myself blushing. Had I been clumsy?

I wanted to spit. Did she think we were the same? Did this woman presume to share my feelings? She thought she saw into my soul. She thought we would share ‘confidences’. She thought I was ‘blocked’, like any novice! Soon she would be giving me ‘advice’. I held my lids shut for a long, long time, and hid inside my world of darkness.

Was it possible she had gone to sleep?

Very slowly the anger drained away. Foolish of me to confide in her. Foolish to let the world peer in. Yield a chink, and they forced one open, left one wet and crushed on the sand.

I did not believe she was a cruel woman.

Nor, indeed, completely stupid. I had never read a word she had written. Now I vowed I never would.

‘The pens,’ I snapped. ‘Those stupid pens.’ I had decided not to complain, but the words leaped out of their own accord. ‘That old man sold us defective pens.’

‘Pens?’ she said, puzzled. ‘Oh, the pens from Moshe … The one I used was quite OK. Here, borrow my biro. It’s a pen, Virginia. Just so you have something. Just for now.’

I took the thing. It looked cheap and synthetic. I held it firmly away from me.

No, I was growing angry again. I put the biro in my bag, breathed deeply, managed to say ‘Thank you.’ Let it all leak away into the music.

My fault, mine, to have shown my wound.

That terrible feeling of nakedness, akin to what I once felt with Gerald, when I was a child, helpless, small. Or that terrifying sense of being undressed when I sent my first novels to publishers. It was why we started the Hogarth Press, so that never again – never again – would I feel I had been passed around among strangers, naked as a baby from the waist down, to be judged and prodded, discussed, handled.

I drank down the wine, and became the jazz.

Angela sat beside me looking worried, her stupid frown, anxious mouth, as if she knew things had gone astray.

Yes she should be nervous. True, she admired me. She was big and awkward and unhappy.

Yet she was the only friend I had.

‘They have obviously forgotten the nibbles. I think I’m pissed. Are you OK?’

Saxophone, piano, a blue swell of memories. It was the music of the past. ‘A foggy day … in London town …’

‘Virginia? Do you want to go home? Is it the music? You look so sad.’

‘Partly sad … also happy. The music makes me think of Leonard.’ I could share my heart, perhaps, my woman’s heart, but never, never would I share my writing.

‘I hope I didn’t offend you, just now. Talking, you know, about the work?’ I hated myself for sounding meek.

She shook her head in a definite manner that closed the door upon that room. It was unspoken, but I understood. She would not talk to me about writing. It hurt me, but I had to accept it.

‘It’s all forgotten. I wasn’t even listening.’

Why did she have to humiliate me?
No, I wouldn’t let her make me angry.

Probably she was just unhappy.

I thought, I told her I published last year. She hadn’t written
a book in decades. Was it that – Virginia was jealous?

Yes, of course. She was jealous of me
. My mood picked up. I could afford to be generous.

‘More champagne?’ She didn’t answer. ‘Two more glasses.’ I made myself smile. We were getting into a drinker’s rhythm. Thank God, some canapés arrived. Both of us fell on them like gulls, our fingers stumbling together on the plate. Soon we would be holding hands.

‘Something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Something about – about – Leonard.’

I had tried to ask her many times before. My tongue tangled; my tongue tumbled.

But all round the room, the flowers helped me, the white faces, the white hands, the writers reaching from another world. Don’t abandon us. We need you. Tell of your love. Remember us. Mention our names, or else we die. The lilies and I became pure longing.

‘I hope Leonard wasn’t alone, that’s all. I hope he did not live alone. You won’t tell me – will you tell me, please?’

The question I dreaded and expected.

How could I tell her? That he loved Trekkie Parsons, that they lived side by side for much of his life. The thing he’d said that saddened me, even though it was in another lifetime, with Virginia dead and long past caring: ‘Knowing and loving Trekkie has been the best thing in my life.’

I mumbled my way out of it. ‘I think he was all right.’

‘Isn’t it in your – laptop? You said that everything was there.’

Her voice was sharp, her eyes suspicious. I did not want to lie to her. ‘You have to search. There are millions of words. Sometimes you cannot find the answer.’

As if I were a child to be lied to. There must have been another woman.

But Leonard loved me. His wild monkey. I know he found me beautiful.

Yes, I was loved. That I never doubted.

In any life there are losses, sadnesses. Nessa loved Duncan more than he loved her. But Leonard loved me while I lived, as I loved Leonard. Equally.

Dearly, deeply we loved each other; lived for each other in our moment.

They thought I was cold, but what did they know of the way my love and I lay together? On summer nights. Those summer nights … even if I failed him. In the ultimate place. He was my love. We lay together. Is one caress better than another?

Because I was clever, they had to gloat that I was not a proper woman.

Yes, they were glad I could not be a mother

 
grim old men, refusing me

Leonard’s young face
 
mimicking theirs

 
‘Virginia, it’s not sensible
 
we must refrain

you are too fragile’

I could have been a mother too

 
could have been loved as Nessa was

but they all refused
 
‘
the Goat is mad
’

 
‘
everyone knows the Goat is mad
’

No, I must not go down that track

 
the more I drink, it surfaces

 
fin like a blade
 
black, flashing

 
dark water beside the path

under the weed, the arid rock

 
(the pen-nib breaks, my fingers bleed)

shrunken shapes at the turn of the road

 
beckoning me to confide in them

rope ready to slip round my neck

 
stopping me writing
 
staring, pointing

‘
Can’t you write, Virginia?
’

 
‘
Oh, so sorry to see your pain
’

‘
Maybe we could talk about it?
’

 
holding their sides and cackling

Get away, run, while they are still distant,

 
cartoon enemies, weak and small,

 
hunkered down to wait by the roadside

‘Tell them to turn the music up!’ I heard my own voice, loud, confident. Angela went to do my bidding.

Dance me away into this tune
 
Take it away, Snakehips Johnson

Oh dear yes, I will conquer this mood

 
it doesn’t matter

San fairy ann

 
A foggy day in London Town

They bombed the Café de Paris
 
No-one can say we were not

happy
…

   We will defeat them
 
England will win

I won’t be beaten
 
I’ll write again

‘Virginia, you’re not drinking your champagne. You asked for that last glass. Don’t waste it. Virginia? – oh, well done!’

Suddenly she had tipped it down.

‘Something very practical – our trip to the Statue of Liberty.’ (Those ‘s’es came out thick, slurred.) ‘If you want to go, must be tomorrow. My last day.’

She looked at me and repeated it blankly.

‘Your last day.’

(
my last day
 
I must not think about my last day
)

The drink had lessened my inhibitions. I reached out and stroked her hand. ‘Virginia, dear, are you all right? Still on for the Statue of Liberty tomorrow?’

‘I like the sound of “tomorrow”.’

A beautiful word, so sweet and light. I used to be afraid of tomorrow.

At the corner of my eye, those three tiny figures.

No, I have left them behind in hell.

‘What time shall we go? Late morning? Virginia?
Virginia
?’

She slow-danced a spoon around the table.

‘Yes, it will have to be tomorrow.’

I let myself be lifted by the music.
I was a stranger in a city … I had a feeling of surrender … the outlook was decidedly blue
…

And happiness was suddenly stirring, the music was yearning for its major key and I was on the pavements of London with Leonard, we saw two magpies, the sky was bright blue, I drank the rest of my glass in one, and inside my bloodstream there were dancing bubbles.

‘So are we on for tomorrow? No hats, Virginia, it will be breezy. Please bring that nice yellow coat you bought. If you don’t mind, I’ll wear my blue one. We will both look beautiful!’ I found myself giggling inanely. (I must get home and drink strong coffee.) She might have a hangover, but what the hell? ‘We’ll ask a tourist to photograph us. I do want
a record of us together.’ In her weakened state I thought I’d risk asking.