The Gap of Time

by Jeanette Winterson

  “Is that him? Is that Leo?”

  “You don’t recognise him?”

  “Not without his hair. And he wasn’t fat.”

  “He’s seen me. You should go—I’ll text.”

  Perdita ran across the road. She’s lovely, thought Leo, watching her, and she has no idea that she is. His current date was a Russian lingerie model who Vaped during sex.

  Leo was smiling. “Good you could come, Miranda. I thought if you’re going to intern with us you should see our next project. It’s quite a building, isn’t it?”

  Just then the crowd started chanting—“OUT OUT OUT. OUT OUT OUT.”

  “We’d better get inside,” said Leo. “Security can handle this.”

  Leo put his hand on the small of Perdita’s back and bundled her through the doors.

  “Good morning, Mr. Kaiser,” said the security man. Leo relaxed. He was back in his world.

  “Let me show you round, Miranda. This place was built as a turning shed for the trams. Trams can’t reverse, so this is where they changed direction—by going round in a circle—in this vast theatre space here. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?”

  Perdita was looking at the framed posters on the bare brick walls. Circus, theatre, bands, and then she saw it—MiMi at the Roundhouse. She wasn’t listening to Leo. He didn’t notice.

  “Underneath—directly below us—is where the machinery was kept: the cogs, chains, engines that turned the plates. For a long time it’s been an entertainment venue—now it’s time for a new life. Come up to the gallery.”

  He put his hand on her shoulder and escorted her up the stairs. Outside she could hear police sirens.

  “Why are you pulling it down?”

  “The site is fantastic and there’s no public money anymore for places like this. You can’t subsidise everything forever—nice as that would be. Private money has to fill the gap. I’m building a small theatre space and some public housing—because I like to think I am socially aware. The centrepiece will be a pair of incredible apartment towers—some of the most beautiful lateral living in London.”

  “What is everyone protesting about, then?”

  “People don’t like change, Miranda. It’s human nature. And money has a bad press these days. None of those people outside pay tax—well, not much tax—but they hate people like me who really are the people supporting the country. What I am doing is saving this place—they can’t see that. But you’ve got an economics degree—did you say Harvard?”

  “No,” said Perdita.

  “Yes, I thought you said Harvard. You’ll find out for yourself as you make money just how easy it is to be misunderstood. All I am trying to do is help everyone and they treat me like a tyrant.”

  Leo and Perdita arrived in the gallery. Leo leaned on the rail and looked down. “You see the stage? We’ll do a final concert. It’s part of the deal—a fully funded farewell week culminating in a musicfest for Save the Children. Then the wrecking ball arrives.”

  “Why are you knocking it down?”

  “We’re reusing all the Victorian bricks.”

  “Why are you knocking it down?”

  “We have planning permission.”

  “Why are you knocking it down?”

  “Is this a knock-knock joke? Do Americans do knock-knock jokes? Were you born in New Bohemia?”

  “MiMi sang here, didn’t she?”

  —

  Leo looked straight ahead over the gallery rail. “She was my wife in those days,” he said.

  Leo turned and went towards the stairs. “I just wanted you to see the building.”

  —

  At the foot of the stairs a security man in a suit with a walkie-talkie came over to Leo. “Someone called Ronnie is waiting for you.”

  “Ronnie?”

  “Says he’s the artist. From New York. Out there.”

  Leo looked through the glass at the demonstrators on the street. A short-cropped figure was standing at the front with a placard that said ARTISTS AGAINST ASSHOLES.

  “That’s Roni Horn and she’s a woman.” Leo walked swiftly out of the door, holding out his hand and smiling. “Roni! Roni! It’s an honour!”

  Roni Horn didn’t look like she was an honour. She looked dangerous. She said, “You told me my wall of water was for the community. You have turned it into water-boarding against the poor. Who wants to sleep next to a wall of water?”

  “We can adjust the plans,” said Leo, “don’t worry! This is an honour. Can I get a photograph with you? Jerry! Jerry!” Leo waved his smartphone at the man from Security and moved in closer to Roni. He went to put his arm around her. She pushed him away.

  “I am here to protest!”

  The crowd cheered and the chanting began again: OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT. Leo’s mood changed like a weatherstorm. “Didn’t I buy that wall of water from you? Did I misunderstand something? Weren’t you paid?”

  “I was paid. I wasn’t bought,” said Roni.

  “If I buy a painting from you and you don’t like where I hang it—too bad. If I buy a wall of water from you and you don’t like where I put it—too bad! You know why artists can afford to shout about their values? Because people like me are paying your bills.”

  Perdita was behind Leo. She said, “Don’t talk to her like that!”

  Leo rounded on Perdita. “Who do you think you are?”

  Perdita looked at Leo. She said nothing. Perdita looked at Leo and he flinched like she had slapped him. He thought…he almost thought…but he was thinking of MiMi. Somebody threw a brick. Was that a brick? The past hit him in the face like a brick.

  He tried to speak but his face hurt. Then there was a surge from the crowd pushing forward as the police dragged a tarpaulin from under a group of protesters sitting down in front of the building.

  Perdita saw Zel jostling to get through the press. He was arguing with a security guard. The guard shoved him. Zel shoved back. “Zel!” shouted Perdita. “ZEL!”

  Leo turned in slow motion. What did she say? What was happening to time? He felt like time was being demolished brick by brick. The walled place was falling.

  Leo saw Zel. Zel? No, it couldn’t be him. It wasn’t Tony in the cemetery this morning. He wiped his face with the back of his hand. Blood from where the brick had hit him. Everyone was shouting. He couldn’t hear.

  Perdita thought—Leo looks like he’s seen a ghost—and wondered what anybody means by that because nobody does see ghosts—but still we look like we’ve seen them…

  Zel darted forward. The security man stepped between him and Leo. Leo shook his head. The security man took a step back.

  “Zel…? Xeno’s Zel?”

  “Yes,” said Zel.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “He’s with me,” said Perdita.

  “You know each other?”

  “She’s my girlfriend.”

  “Will you shut up?” said Perdita.

  “Miranda is your girlfriend?”

  “No…P—”

  “SHUT UP!” shouted Perdita. Leo looked surprised. He was the one who did the shouting.

  “Is Xeno here?”

  Shep had recovered well.

  There was no damage, physical or mental. Perdita had known that when she boarded the plane but still she didn’t want to tell Shep what she was doing. She saw him in the afternoon and went straight to the airport to meet Zel for the short flight to Dallas and then the night flight to London.

  Clo got her voicemail but he didn’t tell Shep either. What was he going to say? But the day after Shep wanted to know why Perdita hadn’t come to see him.

  Clo was silent.

  Shep sat up in bed, looking at his son. “You told her about the BabyHatch, didn’t you?”

  Clo was silent. Shep nodded and he didn’t speak for a while. Then he said, “Now it’s started we’d better finish it. You listen to me.”

  —

  That afternoon Clo drove round to Autolycus and got the address he needed.
“Am I missing something?” said Autolycus. “Because I don’t like to miss anything.”

  “Ask Dad,” said Clo.

  I might just damn well do that, thought Autolycus as Clo drove away.

  Clo was soon outside the deserted house. He buzzed the entry phone. No answer. So he backed his Chevy across the heavy gates, climbed on the roof and jumped down into the driveway. He hammered on the door and shouted and hammered some more. Then he wrapped his fist in his jacket and smashed the big, gracious window that Perdita had left unshuttered and unbarred. He was in.

  “Spooky fright-night,” said Clo, looking at the empty fireplace and musty armchairs. He went into the hall. He could hear music from upstairs. Rickie Lee Jones. Good choice. He ran up the stairs two at a time.

  Clo opened the attic door. Xeno was staring at some giant screen covered in feathers.

  “Beano—get it together. Shep wants to talk to you.”

  —

  Outside the Roundhouse, Leo was trying to hear Lorraine LaTrobe. She was standing in the offices of Sicilia, arms folded across her leather Chanel suit, talking into her speakerphone.

  “Three men. Two black. One gay.”

  “Get Pauline!”

  “She is on her way.”

  Leo pushed through the protesters to the road. He was jostled, heckled, spat at and hit with a placard. He didn’t notice. He put out his hand and hailed a cab. Inside, with Perdita and Zel, he said to Zel, “Can you tell me what is going on?”

  They had taken the night flight. Xeno bought the tickets. On the plane as the lights went down it wasn’t clear to Xeno whether he was flying through space or time. Time can’t unhappen but it can be unlost. Can it?

  —

  Leo ran up the wide stairs to his offices. He was panting. Miss LaTrobe was standing there as though she had been born standing there.

  “I did my best,” she said.

  Perdita came into Reception. She ran to her father. “Dad!”

  “This man is your father?” said Leo. “Xeno? Xeno?”

  The two men stood staring at each other and Leo realised he was holding his hands so tight in fists that his nails were cutting his palms. Not in anger. He could not speak now.

  “Leo,” said Xeno.

  They were like statues. Neither of them could move towards the other. The past was too strong.

  There was a slamming sound downstairs. Pauline appeared in the office looking wild and unprepared. She saw Xeno and went straight for him, her arms round him, and he held her. “I never thought I would see you again, Xeno. Never!”

  Leo moved out of his trance. “Can we go into my office?”

  In the office Clo and Shep stood upright. Shep was carrying a cheap holdall. He unzipped it and took out the attaché case. Leo had never seen it, so he had no idea what was going on. Perdita spoke. “Dad…”

  Shep held up his hand. “This is how the story started and this is where it starts again.”

  Shep opened the case and took out the piece of sheet music. Pauline sat down on the white sofa like someone had pushed her. She tried to get up but some force made that impossible. Shep took out the faded velvet bag and poured the diamonds onto his broad palm.

  “These are yours, Perdita. You know that.”

  “Did you say Perdita?” said Leo. “Her name’s Miranda.”

  “I’m Perdita,” said Perdita.

  —

  And the story fell out stone by stone, shining and held, the way time is held in a diamond, the way the light is held in each stone. And stones speak, and what was silent opens its mouth to tell a story and the story is set in stone to break the stone. What happened happened.

  But.

  The past is a grenade that explodes when thrown.

  —

  “Whose daughter is this?” said Leo. “This Perdita? This Miranda?”

  “Ours,” said Shep. “She started out as yours and she became mine.”

  Leo held out his hand for the necklace. Shep gave it to him.

  “I recognised it,” said Xeno. “Why did I not recognise it?”

  Leo ran his fingers across the length of the necklace. “I bought this for MiMi when we met.”

  Shep said, “The man you sent, Tony Gonzales, he put the baby in the BabyHatch of the Sainta Maria hospital for safekeeping. He was being followed for the money but I didn’t know that then. We—Clo and me—tried to save him. Then I found Perdita.”

  “So why didn’t you take her to the police?”

  “To be put in a children’s home? To be adopted by strangers? I figured that anyone who could abandon his own child wasn’t fit to be a father.”

  “I didn’t believe Perdita was my child,” said Leo. “I thought she was Xeno’s.”

  “I knew she wasn’t mine,” said Shep, “but I loved her.”

  “That’s right!” said Clo.

  “What did you do with the money?” said Leo.

  “Leo!” Pauline had a particular tone and she had it now. Shep drew himself taller.

  “I’m happy to answer, ma’am. That is why I am here. Leo, you’re one of the guys who makes the world the way it is. I’m one of the guys who lives in the world the way it is. To you I’m a black man you see mostly doing Security or Delivery. And money and power being the most important things to you, you reckon they are the most important things to those who don’t have them. Maybe to some people they are—because the way guys like you have fixed the world only a lottery ticket can change it for guys like me. Hard work and hope won’t do it anymore. The American Dream is done.”

  “I love our life,” said Perdita. “What you made for us.”

  “Perdita,” said Shep. “The Fleece—I’m talking about our business back home, Leo—it’s a piano bar where you get good music and good food. Perdita, the deeds to the place are fifty-fifty you and Clo. Because half was his mother’s money—her life insurance when she died. And half is yours. None is mine.

  “I guess we’re different there, you and me, Leo, because owning doesn’t mean that much to me. Seems like it’s one of the miseries of the world.”

  Leo was silent for longer than Leo was silent. Then he said, “You steal my daughter and spend my cash and now you’re in my office lecturing me on how to live?”

  “Yes, I am,” said Shep.

  Long pause. Pin drop. Breath held. Fingers crossed. Eyes closed. Can’t look.

  Pauline knew Leo better than anyone but she couldn’t call what would happen next. Would he smash the moment into pieces or let it open into time?

  Perdita went and stood by Shep and took his hand. Leo looked at her. He looked at all the years he hadn’t had. At his refusal. And he saw his chance.

  Leo held out his hand, stepping towards Shep.

  “Thank you,” said Leo. “I wish we’d met a long time ago.”

  Shep took his hand.

  Pauline tried to stand and flopped back. “Who took my legs?”

  And the tension broke and Clo high-fived Xeno, who looked like he needed a drink.

  Suddenly Shep was exhausted. “May I sit down? May I sit beside you…?”

  “Pauline,” said Pauline.

  “I was just in hospital—a minor stroke. And we flew all night.”

  And Shep collapsed his big body beside Pauline’s small one and she took his hand.

  “Where’s your hotel?” said Leo.

  “We don’t even know what city we’re in,” said Clo.

  “I’ll book you in at Claridge’s, all of you—where’s my PA?” Leo started yelling, “VIRGINIA!”

  Pauline said, “Leo! They don’t want to stay at Claridge’s. This is our family. They can stay with me.”

  “Anybody would think you were Jewish,” said Leo.

  —

  Xeno, Leo and Pauline took one cab. Shep and Clo and Perdita and Zel followed in another. Perdita sat beside her father just holding his hand.

  Up ahead, Leo said to Pauline, “Do you know where MiMi is?”

  “You never ask
ed me that before.”

  “I was afraid you knew the answer.”

  Pauline said, “Time has been standing still for eighteen years and now you want everything to happen at once.”

  “I want MiMi to know about Perdita.”

  The taxis pulled up outside the big brick house set back from the road.

  “This is a fine house,” said Shep.

  “This area used to be a dump,” said Pauline. “Jews from the camps came here after the war. My grandparents had friends here—walk on the street, you could hear violins and accordions, mouth organs, mandolins. It was all music and all rooms for rent. This was a rooming house when I bought it—I had a tenant in the basement for ten years. She kept a donkey in the garden. Come in, come in.”

  They went into the wide, welcoming hall with flowers on the table.

  “Leo! Xeno! Go in the kitchen and make some tea! Zel! Clo! Can you bring the bags? I have six bedrooms and only one of them occupied as far as I know. I always thought I’d have a family, but you know that saying—build it and they will come? They didn’t come.”

  Shep went over to the grand piano in the bay window.

  “This is a beautiful instrument. You play?”

  “Since I was a girl,” said Pauline.

  Shep was turning over the sheet music. “You must be pretty good. Mozart. Beethoven. I’m self-taught. I can’t play like this.”

  “I can’t play by ear,” said Pauline.

  “Sure you can,” said Shep. “I’ll show you. May I?”

  Shep sat at the piano. He started playing “Summertime.” His big, confident hands were strong and beautiful. “This piano has a wonderful tone.”

  “What I paid for it,” said Pauline, “it should be in Carnegie Hall.”

  Perdita came and stood by him and began to sing. “ ‘Hush little baby, don’t you cry…One of these mornings…’ ”

  Pauline sat down. The voice was as pure as MiMi’s but had a deeper, more physical tone.

  Leo and Xeno came out of the kitchen. Clo came in from the hall. “That’s my sister,” he said, his open face so proud.

  Shep started to syncopate the melody on the piano, coming underneath, in and out of the top line, with his rich bass.

  WAKE UP SINGING.

  YOUR DADDY’S RICH.