Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

“Yeh. All right.” Chuck looks at his watch, then stands up slowly; his manner is injured, stuffy, formal. “Okay, Professor, I’m going. Thanks for the drink.”

“You’re welcome.” Vinnie cannot bring herself to apologize further to Chuck Mumpson. She shows him out, washes his glass and her teacup and sets them to dry, gets back into her flannel nightgown, and climbs into bed, noting with disapproval that it is ten minutes past twelve.

But instead of slowing into sleep, her mind continues to revolve with a clogged, grating whir. She is furious at herself for losing her temper and telling Chuck what she thinks of him, as if that could do any good. It is years since she flamed out like that at anyone; her usual expression of anger is a tight-lipped, icy withdrawal.

She is also furious at Chuck: for waking her up and depriving her of necessary sleep, for failing to discover interesting folkloric material in Wiltshire, and for being so large and so unhappy and such a hopeless nincompoop. He and his story remind her of everything she dislikes most about America, and also of things she dislikes in England: its tourist hotels, its tourist shops, its cheapened and exaggerated self-exploitation for the tourist trade, the corruption of many of its citizens by American commercial culture into an almost American illiterate coarseness (“I wish I wuz a seagull, I wish I wuz a duck…”).

Why is she being persecuted by transatlantic vulgarity in this awful manner? It really isn’t fair, Vinnie thinks, turning over restlessly. Then, hearing the silent whine in this question, she glances mentally round for Fido. But her imagination, usually so vivid, fails to manifest him. Instead she sees a dirty-white long-haired dog trailing Chuck Mumpson down Regent’s Park Road in the fog from streetlamp to streetlamp, panting at his side in the fuzzy yellow glare as Chuck unsuccessfully tries to hail a taxi.

Fido’s infidelity astonishes Vinnie. For the nearly twenty years of his life in her imagination he has never shown the slightest interest in or even awareness of anyone except her. What does it mean that she should now so vividly picture him following Chuck Mumpson across London, or making sloppy canine love to him? Does it mean, for instance, that she is really sorry for Chuck, perhaps even sorrier than she is for herself? Or are he and she somehow alike? Is there some awful parallel between Chuck’s fantasy of being an English lord and hers of being-in a more subtle and metaphysical sense, of course-an English lady? Might there be someone somewhere as impatiently scornful of her pretensions as she is of his?

Almost as uncomfortable to contemplate is the idea that she is partly responsible for Chuck’s illusion-and, as a logical consequence, for his disillusion. As if she’d ever promised that he would turn out to be a scion of some noble family! She begins to lose her cool again.

Well, after all, as he said, it might have turned out that way: there are plenty of nincompoops in the British aristocracy. Vinnie’s memory provides her at once with examples, including that of Posy Billings, who is not at all what Vinnie means by “a real English lady.” On the other hand, Rosemary Radley, annoying as she sometimes is, has to be granted the epithet. Rosemary would never have flown into a rage as Vinnie did this evening; she wouldn’t have made Chuck Mumpson feel even worse and more stupid than he felt when he arrived. If she had been there to witness the scene, she would have turned her face away as from any unkindness, any unpleasantness.

And what about Chuck himself? Though he probably has only the most conventional idea of what a lady is, he will hardly think of Vinnie as one now. He will think instead that she is uncontrolled and unfeeling-in other words, both messy and cold.

Of course in a way it doesn’t matter, Vinnie tells herself, turning over in bed, since she will obviously never see Chuck Mumpson again. She has thoroughly depressed and offended him, and presently he will go and do himself in-or, far more likely, lumber on back to Oklahoma-with disagreeable if fading memories both of England and of Professor Miner.

It is 12:39 by the poison-green light of the digital alarm clock. Vinnie sighs and turns over in bed again, causing her nightgown to twist itself round her into a tight, wrinkled husk that resembles her thoughts. With an effort she revolves in the opposite direction, unwinding herself physically; then she begins to breathe slowly and rhythmically in an attempt to unwind herself mentally. One-out. Two-out. Three-out. Four-

The telephone rings. Vinnie startles, lifts her head, crawls across the bed, and gropes in the dark toward the extension, which rests on the carpet because her landlord has never provided a bedside table. Where the hell is it?

“Hello,” she croaks finally, upside down and half out of the covers.

“Vinnie? This is Chuck. I guess I woke you up.”

“Well yes, you did,” she lies; then, abashed at the sound of this, adds, “Are you all right?”

“Yeh, sure.”

“I hope you’re not still upset about what I said. I don’t know why I blew up like that; it was rude of me.”

“No it wasn’t,” Chuck says. “I mean, that’s why I called. I figure maybe you were right: maybe I oughta give London another chance before I lie down in front of a bus… Wal, so, if you’re free sometime this week, I’ll take you anywhere you say. You can pick a restaurant. I’ll even try the opera, if I can get us some decent seats.”

“Well…” With considerable difficulty Vinnie rights herself and crawls backward into bed, dragging the telephone and the comforter with her. “I don’t know.” If she refuses, she thinks, Chuck will go back to Oklahoma with his low opinion of London and of Vinnie Miner intact; and she will never see him again. Also she will miss a night at Covent Garden, where “decent seats” cost thirty pounds.

“Yes, why not,” she hears herself say. “That’d be very nice.”

For heaven’s sake, what’d I do that for? Vinnie thinks after she has hung up. I don’t even know what’s on this week at Covent Garden. I must be half asleep, or out of my mind. But in spite of herself she is smiling.

MAY in Kensington Gardens. The broad lawns are as velvet-smooth as the artificial turf of a football field, and ranked tulips sway on their stems like squads of colored birds. Above them brisk sudden breezes pass kites about a sky suffused with light. As Fred Turner crosses the park, one landscaped vista after another fans out before him, each complete with appropriate figures: strolling couples, children suspended from red and blue balloons, well-bred dogs on leash, and joggers in shorts and jerseys.

Fred is on his way across town to a drinks party (he has learnt not to say “cocktails”) at Rosemary Radley’s. Near the Round Pond he checks his watch, then sits down on a bench to wait a few minutes so that he won’t arrive too soon. He has offered to come early and help, but Rosemary wouldn’t hear of it. “No, Freddy darling. I want you just to enjoy yourself. You mustn’t get here a minute before six. The caterers will do everything-and Mrs. Harris, of course.”

For Fred has won their argument, and Rosemary has hired a cleaning lady. He hasn’t met her yet, but she sounds great. According to Rosemary she is a hard worker and very thorough: she gets right down on her hands and knees to wax the floors. What’s more, she doesn’t talk Rosemary’s ear off about her husband or her children or her pets: she has no children or pets, and she is long divorced from her drunken husband.