Virginia Woolf in Manhattan Read Free Page B

was?
    ‘You’ll have to come with me,’ I said, almost brusque (people were starting to stare at her). And then, as kindly as I could, ‘Come with me, I’ll look after you.’
    And yes, that’s what I tried to do.

4
GERDA
    My mum picked up this weird old woman. That’s what I thought till I googled her. For a bit, Mum thought about nothing else. She claimed this person was ‘very famous’. Mum didn’t bother to explain to me. I just thought, ‘Yeah, she’s got a loony in tow.’
    She should have told me. I would have believed her. And in the end – but that’s much later.

5
ANGELA
    Virginia smelled. Of mud, and roots. People were pausing and sniffing the air as they pressed through those great library doors. I wasn’t able to be objective. I thought, it’s a dream, of course it’s a dream, but please don’t make me wake up until –
    I needed to learn what she had to teach me. Maybe everything. About life, and writing. She had the secrets. She’d reached the end. The hard truth people can never tell us. At least, that’s something I’ve always thought. Not till the end is the pattern complete. But then they slip away through the gate. They can’t come back, we can’t ask questions.
    Yet here she was. Virginia.
VIRGINIA
    Have I slipped my leash?
    I think that’s it.
    I’ve made it through to the other 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