Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

“I never said any such thing,” Edwin lies, though both of them know that he had recently made this remark, which flattered Vinnie and also aroused in her a guilty patriotism.

“Anyhow, I don’t see why you’re complaining. I would have thought Fred was about the safest sort of person Rosemary could become involved with. Compared to Lord George, or to Ronnie, you have to admit-”

“Oh, I do. I have nothing against Fred per se … Thank you, that looks delicious.” Edwin gives his sole véronique a concupiscent glance, then delicately attacks it. “Mmm. Perfect… And I admit he’s beautiful.”

“Too theatrical for my taste.” Vinnie, less passionately, begins on her grilled chop.

“Well of course, for Rosemary that could hardly be an objection.”

“No.” Vinnie laughs. “But the point is, he seems to me almost ideal for a fling.”

“Very likely.” Edwin, against his doctor’s advice, plunges into the creamed potatoes. “But Rosemary isn’t looking for a fling. She’s looking for an undying passion, the way most of us are.” Edwin, like Rosemary Radley, is known for his disastrous romantic affairs, though his are somewhat less frequent and naturally less well publicized. They tend to involve unstable young men, usually recent émigrés from southern European or Near Eastern countries, with menial jobs (waiter, grocer’s clerk, dry cleaner’s assistant) and grandiose ambitions (theatrical, financial, artistic). From time to time one of them leaves Edwin’s flat unexpectedly, taking with him Edwin’s liquor, stereo, fur-collared overcoat, etc. Others have had mental breakdowns in the flat and refused to leave it at all.

Vinnie refrains from remarking that she at least is not looking for an undying passion; Edwin surely knows that by now.

“Maybe it’s Fred we should be worrying about,” Edwin continues. “Her friend Erin thinks she’s going to eat him alive.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Vinnie exclaims. After twenty years she feels a certain amount of loyalty to and identification with the Corinth English Department; and the idea that one of its members (no matter how junior) could be totally consumed by an English actress is displeasing. “He doesn’t look all that digestible to me.”

“Perhaps you’re right… Ahh. Have you tried the courgettes?”

“Yes, very nice.”

“Tarragon, obviously. And is there perhaps a little dill?” Edwin gives a gourmet’s frown.

“Hard to say.” Vinnie’s interest in food is comparatively moderate.

“No. Not dill. I must ask the waiter.” Edwin sighs. “So how do you see the future of the affair, then?”

“I don’t know.” Vinnie puts down her fork, considering. “But whatever happens, it can’t last very long. Fred’s going back to America in June.”

“Oh? Who says so?”

“Why, Fred does. He told me himself.”

“Yes; but when did he tell you?”

“What? I don’t know-in December, before he left, it must have been.”

“Exactly.” Edwin gives the wide smile that increases his resemblance, noted before by Vinnie, to the Cheshire Cat.

“But that won’t make any difference. Fred has to be back in Corinth by the middle of June: he’s teaching two courses in summer school.”

“Unless he decides not to.”

“Oh no; that’s impossible,” Vinnie explains. “That’d be most inconvenient for the Department. They wouldn’t like that at all.”

“Really.” Edwin raises his eyebrows, somehow expressing doubt not of the English Department’s annoyance but of its very existence, and even of the existence of Hopkins County, New York. (“Tell us again the wonderful name of that place where you live in the States,” he occasionally says. “What is it? Simpkins County?”)

“Besides, he couldn’t afford it,” Vinnie continues. “Between us, he’s quite hard up.”

“Rosemary has plenty of money,” Edwin says.

This time Vinnie represses her immediate reaction, though the idea that one of her colleagues might allow himself to be kept by an English actress is not only displeasing but disgusting. “I’m sure that Fred’s not serious about her anyhow,” she says. “For one thing, she must be at least ten years older than he, don’t you think?”

“Who knows?” Edwin, who probably does know, shrugs. Officially, and in press releases, Rosemary is thirty-seven; her actual age is a matter of constant speculation among her acquaintances. “Oh yes, now let’s see,” he adds, his eyes lighting as the dessert menu is presented. “A lemon ice, perhaps? Or a teeny little bit of the apricot tart, would that be too fattening? What do you think, Vinnie?”

“If you’re really on a diet, you should have the cantaloupe,” she suggests, refusing for once to be an accessory before the fact; she is annoyed at Edwin both for his discretion about Rosemary’s age and his insinuations about Fred’s motives.

“No; not the cantaloupe.” Edwin continues to study the menu; his expression is both firm and a little injured.

“Just coffee for me, thanks,” Vinnie tells the waiter, offering a good example.

“Two coffees. And I’ll have the apricot tart, please.”

Vinnie does not comment, but it occurs to her for the first time that for such an intelligent man Edwin is disgracefully plump and self-indulgent; that his pretense of dieting is ridiculous; and that his demand that his friends join in the charade is becoming tiresome.

“But we musn’t just enjoy ourselves,” he says a few minutes later, wiping a bit of whipped cream from the side of his muzzle. “We must consider the problem of Rosemary, before there’s another disaster like the Ronnie one. If she keeps breaking her professional commitments to go off with some fellow… Well, naturally the word gets round: better not cast Rosemary Radley, she’s not dependable.” Edwin moves his plump forefinger in a horizontal circle, indicating world-wide distribution of this warning. “Jonathan, for instance, I know he wouldn’t consider it after the Greenwich debacle… But she’s been working fearfully hard on that TV special, and in July she’s got to go on location for her series, she mustn’t be upset. I really think it’s your job to do something.”

“To do what? Warn Rosemary against Fred Turner?” Vinnie speaks rather impatiently; while watching Edwin’s loving consumption of his apricot tart it has struck her that in order to shame him into sticking to his diet-what a silly idea!-she has denied herself any dessert. And to no practical purpose, for she isn’t at all overweight; rather the reverse.

“Heavens, no,” Edwin replies soothingly, with the complacent tolerance of the well fed. “We all of us know how little use warnings are with Rosemary; they only incite her. When she rushed off to Tuscany with that painter, Daniel what’s-it, everyone warned her, but it simply made her more determined.”

“Well then. What could I possibly do?” She laughs.

“I think you just might speak to Fred.” Though Edwin continues to smile, it is clear from the way he pushes his coffee aside and leans over the blue-and-white checked tablecloth that he is not entirely jesting. “I’m sure he’d listen to you. Considering your position at his college. You could try to persuade him to-what would be his phrase?-cool it, before there’s too much damage done.”

The idea that she might use her academic seniority to persuade persuade- blackmail would be a more accurate word-Fred into breaking off his love affair is disagreeable. Vinnie enjoys wielding her hard-won professional authority, but only in professional matters. Unlike Edwin, she feels a strong dislike, almost a revulsion, from the idea of meddling in anyone’s private life.

“I could, I suppose,” she says, sitting back away from him. “But I certainly am not going to.”