Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

As the bus carries her north through the darkening city, away from the sensual attractions of Fortnum and Mason’s and the erotic throbbing noises and flashing colored lights of Piccadilly Circus, into the quiet dim elegant streets around Regent’s Park, Vinnie tells herself again that it is time, and past time, to leave what her mother used to refer to as All That behind. It is time to steer past the Scylla and Charybdis of elderly sexual farce and sexual tragedy into the wide, calm sunset sea of abstinence, where the tepid waters are never troubled by the burning heat and chill, the foamy backwash and weed-choked turbulence of passion.

IN the hard-lit, almost empty lobby of a small theater in Hammersmith Fred Turner is waiting for Rosemary Radley, who is late as usual. Each time the doors fling open and let in some meaningless person and a gust of damp March evening, he sighs, like a gardener who sees his flowers blowing away in a storm; for each minute that passes is one less alone with her.

Maybe Rosemary won’t come at all-that has happened more than once before, though not lately, and still wouldn’t surprise Fred. What still surprises him is that he should be here in this theater waiting for her, and in this mood of high-charged expectation. A month ago all of London for him was like the empty county fairgrounds outside his home town on some cold evening-a sour, dim expanse of cropped stubble and stones. Now, because of Rosemary Radley, it has been transformed into a kind of circus of light; and Fred, as if he were a small child again, stands wide-eyed just within the entrance of the main tent, wondering how he came there and what to do with the sparkling pink spindle of cotton candy he holds in his hand.

Rationally, of course, his being there can be explained as a result of the interest in eighteenth-century drama that brought him to London in the first place, and later gave him something to talk to Rosemary about. (As it turns out, she is remarkably knowledgeable about theatrical history and stage tradition, and has herself appeared in The Beggar’s Opera in repertory.) More fancifully his presence can be explained as the reward of virtue-specifically of the eighteenth-century virtues of civility and boldness.

It was civility, for instance, that made Fred stay on at Professor Virginia Miner’s party last month after he had eaten and drunk as much as seemed polite, though nobody he had met interested him or seemed interested in him. As a result he was still there when Rosemary Radley arrived, fashionably and characteristically late.

He saw her first standing near the entrance beside a pot of pink hyacinths: like them in full bloom, and delicately pretty with what he recognized as a typical English prettiness. She had the sort of looks celebrated in eighteenth-century painting: the round face, roguish eye, small pouting mouth, dimpled chin, creamy-white skin flushed with pink, and tumbling flaxen curls. As soon as he could, Fred crossed the room to observe this phenomenon at closer range, and by persistently standing alongside it eventually managed to be introduced to “Lady Rosemary Radley” (though not by Professor Miner, who knows as Fred now does too that it is not done to use the title socially-just as one wouldn’t properly introduce someone as Mr. or Miss).

“Oh, how do you do.” Fred, who had never met a member of the British aristocracy, gazed at Rosemary with what he now realizes must have appeared a rude intensity-though, as Rosemary said later, she’s used to being stared at; after all she’s an actress. He felt like some traveler who for years has read-of the existence of snow leopards or poltergeists, but never expected to be this near to one.

“An American! I do love Americans,” Rosemary exclaimed, with the light amused laugh that he was presently to know so well.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Fred replied, a little too late, for already she had turned to greet someone else. For the rest of the party he hovered near her, sometimes trying to claim her attention, more often just gazing and listening with the same kind of baffled fascination he felt last month at the RSC production of Two Gentlemen of Verona .

It was only after he was back in his cold empty flat that Fred realized he wanted very much to see Rosemary Radley again, whereas he did not at all want to see another performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona; and realized simultaneously that he had no means or encouragement to do so. True, Rosemary Radley had been briefly charming to him; but she had been charming to everyone. She had asked him where he was living; that was a good sign, he had thought, not having yet learnt that in England such inquiries don’t precede or hint at an invitation, but rather serve to determine social class; they are the equivalent of the American question “What do you do?”

But where was Rosemary Radley living? Her name wasn’t in the phone book, and phoning to ask Vinnie Miner point-blank would be awkward and probably unproductive; if someone has an unlisted number, their friends are probably expected not to give it out. Fred felt balked and depressed. Then he remembered that Rosemary had said she was going tomorrow to the preview of a new play; she had even suggested that he (and, it must be admitted, everyone else who was listening at the time) should see this play.

Because of his financial circumstances Fred had decided not to see any contemporary theater while he was in London. Now he broke this resolution, replacing his supper with a piece of stale bread and a can of chicken noodle soup in order to stay within his budget; his paychecks from Corinth had begun to clear, but when transformed into pounds they were pathetically small. At this point he did not think of himself as romantically interested in Rosemary Radley. The pursuit of her acquaintance appeared to him only as a distraction from his gloom, or at the best as a challenge, undertaken in the same spirit that makes other Americans expend energy and ingenuity to view some art collection or local ceremony that is out of bounds to most tourists.

Though Fred got to the theater early and waited by the entrance until the last possible moment before bounding up the stairs to his balcony seat, Rosemary Radley didn’t appear. He watched the play-a witty highbrow farce-distractedly, feeling stupid, desolate, and hungry. But as he descended the stairs during intermission, restless rather than hopeful, he saw Rosemary below him in the lobby. She was dressed more elaborately than she had been the day before: her pale-gold hair piled high, her creamy rounded breasts half exposed, nestled in pale-green silky ruffles like some exotic fruit in a Mayfair greengrocer’s. As Fred looked down at her she suddenly seemed not only aristocratic and authentically English, but radiantly sexual and desirable.

As might have been expected, Rosemary wasn’t alone, but surrounded by friends-among whom was the playwright himself, a tall elegant man in a rumpled trenchcoat. For the first but not the last time it occurred to Fred that Lady Rosemary Radley probably had many famous and/or titled admirers, and that his chances were therefore slim. Another man might have despaired and retreated to the balcony. But Fred’s romantic history had made him an optimist; loneliness and gloom made him bold. Hell, why not make the effort? What had he to lose?

As it turned out, the courtship of Rosemary Radley demanded not only boldness but stubborn persistence of a sort new to Fred. In the past, girls and women had more or less fallen into his lap, sometimes even literally-bouncing onto his knees with giggles and squeals at parties or in the back of cars. That had been pleasant and convenient, but not very exciting. Now he knew for the first time the joys of the chase; he breathed the heady animal scent of the hotly pursued quarry. Though always charming, Rosemary was completely undependable. Often she would arrive half an hour or more late, or would ring up to explain that she had to meet him at some other, usually inconvenient time; must bring along a friend; or simply couldn’t manage to come at all. Her eager, breathless apologies, her murmurs of regret and distress, always seemed genuine-but of course she was an actress. Money was another problem: Fred couldn’t afford to take Rosemary to expensive restaurants or to buy her the flowers that she loved. He did both these things, greatly to the detriment of his bank account; but he can’t keep doing them much longer if he wants to eat.