The Gap of Time

by Jeanette Winterson

  “I’m glad you’re not my brother.”

  —

  In this night-soaked bed with you it is courage for the day I seek. That when the light comes I will turn towards it. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing could be harder. And in the morning we will get dressed together and go.

  In the game, Xeno had defeated an Angel and taken his wings. For a short time he could fly. Not for long. Part of the game was to avoid falling when the wings failed—as they always did—like Icarus staring at the sun.

  But now he could move upwards through the feathery snow and snowy feathers and look in through MiMi’s window. He held himself there in slow swoops, looking in.

  She was as she was. Lying like a tomb knight in a chapel. White and made of stone. The room with the double windows that overlooked Notre Dame was a tiny white world where nothing moved or changed. She was Sleeping Beauty who wouldn’t wake up. There was no kiss.

  She was always here but she could be elsewhere. Walking like a statue through a statue garden. Alive and not alive. Sleeping and not sleeping. She is by the river sometimes. They say it’s her.

  Xeno fluttered at the window like a moth.

  He wasn’t her only visitor. Leo came and hurled himself at the glass that would not break. Battered the building with his wings. Promised. Begged. Raged. Wept. On the windowsill on his knees in a snowstorm of his own making.

  Nothing changed.

  Pauline had arranged for Sicilia to meet local residents at the Roundhouse in London’s Chalk Farm, to discuss Sicilia’s plans to demolish the theatre and rebuild the site with two twenty-storey towers for what the architects called “purposeful contemporary living.”

  Included in the plan was a purposeful purpose-built 250-seat theatre with funding guaranteed for ten years. And there was a block of purposefully affordable homes facing the mainline railway into Euston Station.

  The purposefully affordable homes were purposefully low-rise, screened from the prestige part of the development behind a wall of water designed by the artist Roni Horn. The wall of water’s purposeful purpose was to protect the luxury apartments from railway noise.

  Critics said that life in the affordable homes would be like life behind a perpetually flushing toilet.

  “Give people something for nothing and they complain,” said Leo. “When they pay for it they appreciate it.”

  “Not everybody likes water,” said Pauline. “Especially designed water designed to keep them out.”

  “What about the Living Forest? OK, so it’s a DESIGNED living forest (bitch). This is a development surrounded by birch trees—romantic as Old Russia.”

  “That will make your purchasers feel at home,” said Pauline.

  “You’re always negative,” said Leo. “Why hooray when you can oy vey?”

  “You are a purpose-built schmuck,” said Pauline. “The houses on the railway line won’t see the living forest any more than they will see the waterfall. You should give them something green.”

  “So throw in a year’s supply of tinned peas.”

  “Leo! If you want this to go smoothly be realistic!”

  “It will go smoothly! I’ve bribed everybody. By which I mean I’ve given everybody who matters something of what they want. I’ve funded the arts, paid for a local crèche, designated land for low-paid key workers in London and…”

  “So give the housing association a playground for the kids. That’s what they want.”

  “Kids don’t go out unless you force them to go out. Kids have no idea that OUTSIDE even exists. They do school, car, bedroom, friends’ bedrooms, more car, shopping, Facebook, Twitter, eBay, online porn, beach. They only know there is a sun because they have to wear sunscreen to protect their pale little faces.”

  “Have you lost touch with everything about the real world?”

  “What? Poverty is real and money isn’t?”

  “Something along those lines—in fact, for you, that’s profound.”

  Leo looked pleased. “Can I use it in one of my charity talks?”

  Pauline raised her eyes to where she would be going if the Jews believed in an afterlife. “The kids in the affordable houses need a playground.”

  “What, so they can smoke skunk and have a freezing shag on a broken swing?”

  “Sixty per cent of the children in the Affordable Living will be under ten.”

  “That’s who I was talking about! The playground idea is just a fantasy of childhood.”

  “But Old Russia birch trees and Zen water is uber-reality?”

  “I am not only selling to the Russians and the Chinese!”

  “That’s true—you’re selling to anyone with a million or so to get started.”

  “Since when were you poor?”

  “Since when did money have no conscience?”

  Leo had wanted to kill Pauline since the day he met her—but more than thirty years later she was still alive and kicking (him). How had he allowed this to happen?

  “So where would we put this fantasy playground? I know!” Leo clapped his hands and punched the air-conditioned air. “Let’s put it in Israel! How come you never relocated to Israel? Live the dream, sister.”

  Leo took a pencil and drew angry arrows all over his plans like a convicted serial killer flagging the bodies.

  “I’m not moving the yoga studio or the sushi bar or the quad bike and ski shed or the guest suites or the outdoor heated swimming pool or the on-site porter’s bungalow.”

  “It’s not a bungalow—it’s a garage with a shower behind the fridge.”

  “It’s a fantastic perk—a job with living quarters.”

  “Quarter is right—it’s a quarter of the size of the penthouse dog kennel.”

  “Vladimir Oshitavitch has four dogs and he’s bought the penthouse off-plan for an undisclosed sum.”

  “So he needs to bring his huskies to pull his sledge to Harrods?”

  “Can’t you read a drawing? The site is full. Spacious and gracious. And FULL.”

  “So take a slice out of the car-parking.”

  “The apartments need two car spaces each. If I dig any deeper I might as well start fracking.”

  “You mean you didn’t buy the energy rights?”

  “Oh, fuck off.”

  “Will you listen to me?”

  “Like I have any choice?”

  “Sell eight of the apartments as zero-carbon. The smallest ones. Pied-à-terre becomes eco-terre. Make it sound like it’s doing good in the world. And you know what? It IS doing good in the world. You know that old saying?”

  “Spare me,” said Leo.

  “The more you give the more you get.”

  Pauline took a thick marker-pen from the pen-pot on the desk and wrote on the vast plan pinned on the wall the word “PLAY.”

  Leo snatched the pen from her. Pauline held on. Leo pulled and won.

  “FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! Now I’ve got PEN all over my SHIRT! Just tell me this, Pauline of the forty fucking years in the wilderness: HOW MUCH good do I have to do in the world?”

  Pauline said, “Is that a real question?”

  Leo didn’t hold her gaze. There was another time, before it happened, and it was like a place he could see and never go back to, because you can’t go back in time, can you? It’s not a real question.

  “This has to stop some time, Pauline.”

  “I didn’t start it. I can’t stop it.”

  Leo wrote GROUND next to PLAY.

  —

  It was evening and Leo was walking home. His office was in Shepherd’s Market, long since lost of its sheep. He liked to walk home to his house in Westminster, not far from the Thames.

  After it had happened, and he and MiMi were divorcing, he had sold their house in Little Venice and moved the offices. To stay was like hitting himself in the face with his fist.

  He walked along the river every night. He didn’t know why. Why do we do the things we do?

  And that night he was thinking about MiMi.
r />   —

  He didn’t think about MiMi because he couldn’t think about her. She was radioactive. She had to be sealed.

  The memory of her had to be encased in waterproof concrete. He didn’t deny what he had done or the consequences of what he had done. To think about that was to think about himself. His stupidity. His jealousy. His crime. He knew how to think about himself.

  But her? It was the thought of her that threatened him. He could not allow her inside his head.

  That she had become a recluse made it easier. After the newspapers and the TV programme and the accusations and the contempt and the celebrity discussions and the in-depth superficiality and the exclusive content, it happened as it always does and everyone forgot.

  There were sightings of her, in dark glasses and a scruffy coat.

  Is that her, early morning, getting coffee in a paper cup before they’ve finished washing the floor of the café, and the chairs are still up on the tables?

  Is that her, going down the steps by Notre Dame to the Seine, before 7 a.m., and there’s no one around except a square-shaped woman with a long-shaped dog? The woman notices her most mornings, walking with her head down as far as the mouth of the Canal Saint-Martin, where she stands like a statue, her hands in her pockets, watching the water that has no memory and wanting to be like water.

  She does this every day.

  They say it’s her.

  And the cars begin on the roads above as regular as time, one day the same as any other but for sun or rain. And do we reach enlightenment by setting out or by sitting still? And what is enlightenment anyway but delusions we can live with?

  She wonders about that.

  Paris is full of angels. Every day she finds another carving, another statue, and she imagines what it would be like if they came to life. And who trapped them in stone? She feels trapped in stone.

  She remembers what Michelangelo said: that when he took a block of granite or marble he saw the figure trapped there and his duty was to free it.

  See him, sweat-soaked and dust-coated, chiselling free a toe, a finger, a tight belt of stomach muscle, the upward pull of a tricep, the clean line of the clavicle. The closed life made visible.

  But what sculptor out of hell had taken a living woman and rendered her flesh and carved her into a monument of herself?

  She was held in time as they all were, the statues, friezes, reliefs, that watched and watched over the changing city. She was one of them.

  The present that disappears like water over the waterfall. The rush of time that passes so slowly and so fast. How long has it been?

  She walks to stop herself standing still. As though she could walk out of time, put it behind her where it belongs. But she can’t because it’s always there, right in front of her, the past is right in front of her and every day she walks slam into it like a door that locks the future on the other side.

  She keeps walking but nothing is moving and nothing is changing. And at the end of her morning walk when she stands still for a long time she feels that this, at least, has some reality to it.

  Maybe it’s someone else. Maybe it’s not her. There’s no shortage of heartbreak.

  —

  Leo arrived home. The lights were on because he had programmed the timer. Why can’t you have time on a timer?

  Switch it on when you want it? Switch it off when you don’t? Switch off time at night—why waste it while you sleep? Switch off, Leo. Just switch off.

  He got a drink. Vodka. Ice.

  He went upstairs. There was a room where he kept her clothes. She had never come back to their house before he had sold it. She had never taken anything away. Like a dead person she had gone forever, leaving everything behind. So he had kept her clothes. And when he moved into this house he had a room made that was her dressing room, except that she never got dressed in it. Or undressed in it.

  Her body. Don’t think about her body.

  —

  The clothes were just as she had left them. Racks of her but not her. Plastic dress-protectors, suit-carriers, coat hangers, bags. Dresses on one side, skirts and shirts on the other side. Cedar shelves of sweaters and T-shirts. Leo stood like a man who has broken into a room where he doesn’t belong.

  He picked up a sweater from the shelves and unfolded it. He buried his face in it. He sat down, his back against the wall, knees up, his head resting on his arms.

  No excuses. No reasons. No forgiveness. No hope.

  Perdita and Zel had come to London.

  She’d slept with her head against his shoulder through the noisy night of other people’s packed-together lives.

  For the last few hours they had been waiting to check into their room at the King’s Cross Travelodge.

  “How much money do we have?”

  “Enough for three weeks.”

  —

  Perdita had taken the $1,000 in the attaché case—she reckoned it was hers—and Zel had paid for the flights.

  Perdita had left a long voicemail for Clo. Zel had just disappeared.

  At last the tired woman in the tight suit gave them the keys to their room. It wasn’t big and it wasn’t beautiful but it was theirs. Zel began putting his T-shirts in a drawer. Perdita was running a shower. He stood and watched her. He loved the miracle of her body. How could she be so beautiful? He unfolded the towel for her and wrapped her in it, holding her to him. “What’s the plan?”

  “I’ll go to his office tomorrow.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “I have to do this part by myself.”

  “But he knows me.”

  “He knew you when you were eight!”

  Perdita went into the bedroom. Zel followed her.

  “I don’t want you to go on your own.”

  She shrugged like she was dismissing him. He took her wrists. Too tight.

  “Let go of me! I’m not your possession.”

  Zel let go. “I’m sorry.” He sat on the bed, his body absolutely still the way it was when he was upset. Like a hiding animal. “I guess I’m taking it out on you.”

  “What?”

  “That you’ll suddenly find a whole new family and forget about me.”

  Perdita sat next to him on the bed. She took his hand. “I’m not going to forget you.”

  —

  Sicilia Ltd. was above an art gallery. Two young men in tailored suits were directing a smart black van to unload. They smiled at Perdita because she was pretty. “Are you looking for a job? Come and work for us.”

  Perdita shook her head and buzzed the intercom. There was no answer. One of the young men took out a bunch of keys and opened the door. “Don’t tell her.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll see. Would you like to go out for a drink tonight?”

  He was handsome, confident, floppy hair. Perdita smiled and shook her head. He sighed. “If you change your mind—I’m Adam.”

  He stood back to let Perdita up the wide, well-carpeted stairs to the first floor. Tracey Emin prints lined the walls.

  The Receptionist had only just gone upstairs herself and she came out of the ladies’ as Perdita appeared in the big, comfortable, quietly expensive waiting area, its walls hung with drawings this time, not prints. There was a big neon sign that said RISK = VALUE.

  “Who let you in?” said the Receptionist.

  “I’m here to enquire about an internship,” said Perdita.

  The Receptionist was six feet tall and perfectly made up. Her legs were long, sleek and threatening. Perdita was wearing a simple summer dress, strappy sandals and no makeup. She wasn’t tall. The Receptionist looked at her without smiling.

  “Did you send in your CV?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Levy isn’t here today.”

  “What about Mr. Kaiser?”

  “Mr. Kaiser has appointments all day.”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Perdita, sitting down with such finality on one of the linen-covered sofas that the Receptionis
t could do nothing but swing her computer screen round to block Perdita from her view.

  There was a name block on her desk. Lorraine LaTrobe.

  “Are you from New Orleans? I wondered because LaTrobe is a Louisiana name. I’m from New Bohemia.”

  “I’m not,” said Miss LaTrobe, swivelling her chair to mark an end to the exchange.

  Perdita waited.

  After about an hour Leo arrived. He was heavier than she had expected. He had less hair than she had imagined. Xeno’s photograph was not this man but this was the man.

  Leo glanced at her. “Morning, Lorraine. Pauline here yet?”

  “Good morning, Mr. Kaiser. Mrs. Levy isn’t in today.”

  “Why not? She finally dropped dead?”

  “She’s booked out in the Diary today and tomorrow.”

  “Did you tell me?”

  “It’s in the Diary,” said Miss LaTrobe again, as though the Diary were a confident scripture to turn to in times of need.

  “If I wanted to look at the Diary myself I could save money on a PA,” said Leo. “Where’s my PA? Or is Virginia booked out as well?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  Leo turned to Perdita. “Who are you?”

  “She’s waiting to see Mrs. Levy. I told her Mrs. Levy isn’t in the Diary today.”

  Leo looked at Perdita again. “Are you from the housing association? About the Roundhouse project?”

  Perdita shook her head. She couldn’t speak.

  Leo said, “I thought I recognised you.”

  “She wants an internship,” said Miss LaTrobe, making it sound like a colonic torpedo suppository.

  Leo grimaced and went to the lift. The doors closed across his back but Perdita saw him for a second in the mirror, still frowning at her.

  “When is Mrs. Levy back?” said Perdita.

  “According to the Diary, Monday,” said Miss LaTrobe, without moving her lips or making eye contact.

  Perdita thought she would be a great ventriloquist. But she continued to sit on the sofa. And Miss LaTrobe continued to ignore her.

  At five minutes to 1 p.m. Leo reappeared to go to lunch.