Read Virginia Woolf in Manhattan for Free Online

Because she did it for all of us. Showed she was cleverer than the men. Showed what we were capable of. I told Gerda, ‘She’s a genius.’
    All the same – she was privileged.
GERDA
    I hated the idea of Virginia Woolf. I mean, my mum was a writer herself. Why did she have to be obsessed with this Virginia? Why’s
she
s’posed to be such a genius? I might be a Genius myself one day.
    But mum didn’t care, she just ignored my emails, or sent back three lines about her own life.
    I felt so lonely in that phonebox. Geniuses need encouragement.
ANGELA
    What hope is there for the rest of us, who don’t have Woolf’s advantages?
GERDA
    Then I remembered Hans Andersen. He had to leave home when he was younger than me. His parents were actual
peasants
. I don’t suppose anyone encouraged
him
.
    He just ran away to Copenhagen, and became a great writer all on his own. His
Fairy Tales
is my favourite book. No wonder, I was named for one of them, Gerda, the hero of ‘TheSnow Queen’, who was brave and went off On Her Own around the world
    So that encouraged me in my plan.
ANGELA
    I had more advantages than my own mother. Which is partly why I’ve done better than her. Of course I’ve passed them on to Gerda. That child doesn’t know how lucky she is.
    I suppose she might actually do better than me!
    I couldn’t be jealous of my own daughter.
GERDA
    These girls at school started calling me fat. I was going through a sturdy phase. They can all shut up, I like my food, and I know I’ll be beautiful in the end. My mum and dad always told me I was, and two boys fought over me at St Mark’s. But then these girls did something really bad, and I had to pull one of them’s hair quite hard, and two of them fell in the swimming pool, after I gave them a tiny shove.
    I may be fat, but I’m quite strong. I’d forgotten one of them couldn’t swim.
    So then I was in a lot of trouble. But it wasn’t fair to call me a bully. I tried to tell my mum what had happened but I know from her emails she didn’t take it in – ‘Marvellous, Gerda, I’m glad you’re having fun.’
    I love my mum but she’s slightly defective. Which is a word she uses for Dad. Or men in general. My mum is Sexist! Although she tells me not to be.
    I am recording criticisms, in a notebook I aim to leave in my room in the holidays, so she can read it.
    In fact that wouldn’t work at all, because I don’t think Mum’s a sneak. In fact she couldn’t be arsed to sneak.
    Meaning, she isn’t that interested.
    Only because she has so much ‘Pressure’. She talks a lot about ‘Stress’ and ‘Pressure’.
    Being successful is a ‘Pressure’!
    She should go back to being poor again.
    (I take that back, she needs money for ME.)
    So I will have to read my list aloud. Possibly at bed-time, when she’s tired. She gives readings, so will I.
    Later I’ll be more famous than her. Har har har on Mum.
    I do love her though. I don’t mind admitting it.
    I like her when she tickles me, and when I lie down and she pulls my feet, which sounds perverted, but is Normal. I liked her to do that since I was a baby, and when she hasn’t got Pressure, she will.
    Mummy. Mum. She’s in my heart. But the words have started to feel weird and echo-ey. As if she’s floated off somewhere, or both of us are floating away.
    (Maybe I’ll start to call her ‘Mother’. That word’s like an enemy.)

14
ANGELA
    Zoos are always remarkably expensive. I don’t want to sound mean-spirited, but it didn’t seem to have occurred to Virginia that someone was having to pay for it: $40 is not nothing!
    I’m not asking for much, just a ‘thank you’.
VIRGINIA
    The zoo crouched close to Fifth Avenue. A short walk across a burst of green. The architecture was … suburban. Some of those people were staring at me.
    It was frightening to see how much things cost. I pretended not to notice her paying. I had no money, no money at all.
    This expensive zoo was small and old. This couldn’t