Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

No, it won’t be easy to change Rosemary’s ways. She hates talking about “boring practical things” and isn’t capable of concentrating on any subject for long. She is-and for Fred it’s part of her charm-a creature of sudden, random impulse. He sees her as a rare beautiful lacy butterfly like those which decorate her nightgown, fluttering and hovering, dancing near and then away, difficult to catch hold of for more than a moment.

Her present withdrawal, however, is not idiosyncratic. Going to bed when it isn’t bedtime-or at least saying that you are going to bed-is, Fred has discovered, a habitual and respectable social strategem among the British. To declare fatigue without obvious cause isn’t, as in America, to confess physical and/or emotional weakness. Instead, “having a bit of a rest” or “lying down for a while” provides a polite excuse for social withdrawal-one that is more effective here than it would be at home, since even here married people usually have separate bedrooms. And the English, at least those Fred has met lately, seem to need and want more solitude than Americans do. Now, for instance, at six in the evening, all Lady Billings’ other guests are-as far as he knows-shut up alone in their rooms. After he left Rosemary, Fred tried to stay in his, but restlessness and claustrophobia brought him downstairs again. If it weren’t drizzling and nearly dark, he would have gone out into the gardens.

There are three weekend guests at Posy’s besides Fred and Rosemary. One is Edwin Francis, the editor and critic, who is almost effusively affectionate to Rosemary and Posy, but speaks to Fred as if he were interviewing him on television, with a pretense of respectful attention that often seems designed to provoke humor at his expense. (“So it was generally known that Mr. Reagan had appeared in a film in which his co-star was a chimpanzee? Yet you say that many members of your college voted for him. How do you explain this?” “Your current project then, I assume it is much influenced by the French school of demolition, excuse me, deconstruction.”)

Edwin has brought with him a very young man called Nico, who according to Rosemary is his current “particular friend.” Rosemary and Posy approve of Nico; they regard him as a great improvement on Edwin’s previous particular friends, most of whom Posy says she has “simply refused to have in the house.” Compared with these persons Nico is well educated, fluent in English, and “really quite presentable.” He is a Greek Cypriot: slight, smooth-skinned, with abundant dark glossy curls and pronounced artistic and political opinions. His ambition is to work in British-or even better, American-television or cinema, eventually as a director. At lunch today he expressed an interest in Fred’s views that was evidently more sincere than Edwin’s, though less disinterested. (“You have very original ideas on the cinema, Fred, I think very exciting. I suppose that you know many people in the American film industry, or in the American theater, perhaps, that you have discussed these theories with?… No, none at all? That is a pity. I would like so much sometime the chance to talk with American film makers.”) Though Nico is still polite to Fred, it is clear that he now regards him as professionally useless.

The final houseguest is William Just, who is a sort of cousin of Posy’s and is referred to by her and Rosemary as Just William. In appearance he is middle-aged and nondescript, with rumpled-looking tweedy clothes and an air of vague detachment. Just William does something at the BBC and is unusually well informed on current events; he also seems to be acquainted with everyone Posy, Rosemary, Edwin, and even Nico know in London. His manner is mild and self-effacing; Fred assumes he has been invited partly out of family obligation (he is no longer married, and probably lonely) and partly because he might be able to get Nico a job at the BBC.

Fred finds Edwin and Nico interesting as types, and William for his behind-the-scenes political knowledge. He is sorry, though, that he won’t get to meet Posy’s husband, Jimbo Billings. According to the newspapers, Billings is a shrewd and aggressive character who deals in high-risk investments, and knows many world leaders; a large, imposing-looking man (his photograph is prominent on the sitting-room mantelpiece). At the moment, however, he is in the Near East on business.

Nico is even more disappointed that he will not meet Jimbo Billings. “Yes, I wish the chance to tell him many things, what I think of his government, and of his policies,” he said belligerently to Fred when they were all out for a walk after lunch. “There is much that he could do for my country, for my friends there, if he would.” But Posy’s husband has no connection with the British government, Fred protested, he is only a businessman. “Only, that is a lie,” Nico said, slashing at Posy’s newly leafed box hedges with a willow switch he had broken off beside the ornamental lake. “He has much influence, more than many politicians here, believe me, but in my country he uses it for evil.”

As the landscape outside darkens, Fred turns away from the window and takes up one of the four daily newspapers that since lunchtime have been refolded by some unseen hand and neatly ranged on the polished mahogany table. Presently he is joined by Edwin and Nico, and then by Posy, Just William, and Rosemary. Drinks are served, followed by a five-course dinner (sorrel soup, spring lamb, watercress salad, lemon fool, fruit and cheese) and coffee in the long drawing-room. Among the topics discussed are the Common Market, growing exotic bulbs indoors, the films and love life of Werner Fassbinder, the novels and love life of Edna O’Brien, various ways of cooking veal, a current mass murder case, the financial and staffing difficulties of the TLS , and hotels in Tortola and Crete. Fred tries to keep up his end of the conversation, but without much success; he has never grown bulbs, cooked veal, seen a film by Fassbinder, etc. He feels provincial and out of it, though Posy and William try to help by asking him about American customs of gardening and cooking and filmgoing. He is glad when Posy proposes that they all stop gossiping and play charades.

As it turns out, the British game of charades differs from the one Fred knows-though each, it occurs to him, is characteristic of its culture. In the American version every player has to act for his team-mates some popular proverb, or the title of a book, play, film, or song, provided by the opposite team; victory goes to the side whose members collectively do this the fastest. America, that is, rewards speed and individual achievement, and encourages frantic attempts to communicate with compatriots who literally or metaphorically don’t speak your language.

In the British version of charades-or at least in Posy’s version-there is no premium on speed and there are no winners. Each team chooses a single word and acts out its syllables in turn, with spoken dialogue that must include the relevant syllable. Though some trouble is taken to confuse the issue and make guessing harder, the game mainly seems to be an excuse for dressing up and behaving in ways that would otherwise be considered silly or shocking. It thus combines verbal ingenuity, in-group loyalty and cooperation, love of elaborate public performance, and private childishness-all traits that Fred has begun to associate with the British, or at least with Rosemary and her friends.

Before the charades can begin, nearly an hour is spent choosing the words and rummaging about in closets and trunks to outfit the players. Rosemary, Edwin, and Just William go first. They seem to have chosen their word (which turns out to be HORTICULTURE) partly for the opportunities it gives Edwin to wear Posy’s clothes-which, since she is a large woman and he a small man, fit pretty well. In the first scene (WHORE) he and Rosemary appear as streetwalkers, and William, with a cane and bowler, as their drunken client. Edwin is comically horrifying in a red fright wig, an orange-and-yellow flowered sundress stuffed with facial tissues, and high-heeled gold sandals. Fred is nearly as startled by Rosemary. She is not only vulgarly made up and loaded with costume jewelry, but wearing the lace butterfly nightgown in which, just a few hours ago… He wants to protest, but makes himself laugh along with the rest; after all, it’s only a game.