Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

Roo’s bad taste, of course, is of a different sort, crude rather than phony-some but not much better. Fred, like Mimi, had been carried away by looks and talent; that was what Rosemary would have said. Yeh, maybe. But however bad her taste, Roo is a person he used to care a lot for, and his wife. The least she deserves from him now is the truth. But how can he give her that? “Thanks for your letter, it was great to hear from you, but I’m in love with a beautiful English actress, have a good day.” Not wanting to write these sentences, or some mealy-mouthed equivalent of them, Fred has put off answering Roo’s letter for nearly two weeks. He doesn’t want to have to think about her now, nor does he want to think ahead to his return to Corinth. When they do meet he will apologize and explain; she will understand. Or maybe she won’t understand. It almost doesn’t matter; nothing matters now except his passion for Rosemary Radley.

Possession hasn’t decreased the intensity of Fred’s desire. If the excitement of the chase is over, it has been replaced by the knowledge that his triumph must be brief. Joe and Debby Vogeler, typically, take the pessimistic view. Wasn’t it really a mistake to get so involved emotionally, Debby wondered, when he knew he had to leave England next month? Since she hadn’t exactly framed this remark as a question, Fred didn’t have to answer it; but inwardly he swore a strong No. Not for the first time, he thought that the Vogelers’ world-view was as limited and narrow as the triangular house that had been allotted to them here, as if by the poetic justice of some supernatural real estate agent.

But then Joe and Debby don’t know Rosemary or Rosemary’s London. He had told them about Vinnie Miner’s party and others that had followed-how amazing Rosemary was, what interesting people she knew, how friendly most of them were. The Vogelers, however, remained sceptical.

“Sure, maybe they were cordial to you for a few minutes,” Debby said, as the three of them sat in the triangular house on a wet dark afternoon, among a clutter of Sunday papers and plastic toys. “They learn nice manners in their schools. But will you ever see any of them again? That’s what it’s really all about. When we were first here, Joe and I went to lunch with this elderly writer that his aunt knows, in Kensington, and everybody was very pleasant and said how they hoped to see us again, but nothing ever came of it.”

“It was Jakie.” Joe gestured at his son, who was sitting on the floor in a fuzzy white coverall stained with baby food, tearing up the Observer Magazine. “We shouldn’t have brought Jakie.”

“Jakie was perfectly good,” Debby protested. “He didn’t cry or anything. And he didn’t really hurt that old cat, he was just playing. I don’t know why they all got so excited.”

“They didn’t like him sitting on your lap at lunch, either,” Joe said.

“Well, too bad. What was I supposed to do with him? I bet they wouldn’t have liked it any better if Jakie had been crawling round the floor. Besides, he could have hurt himself on that lumpy antique furniture.”

They don’t understand, Fred thought then, resolving that he would arrange for Joe and Debby to meet Rosemary soon (and in the absence of Jakie). When they see her, or at least when they get to know her and her friends, he thinks now, sitting on the bench in Kensington Gardens, they’ll understand how great most of them are.

After all, even for him it had taken time. Now, though, the doubts he had had earlier-and in a weak moment hinted at to Joe and Debby-seem to him shameful, mean-spirited. It would have been cowardly to hold back from Rosemary because the more he cares for her now, the more he will miss her later. Nothing could be worse than having to say to himself for the rest of his life: “Rosemary Radley loved me, but I couldn’t really get into it because I didn’t like some of her friends-because she lived too expensively-because I knew I was leaving London in June and might not see her again for almost a year.”

If Joe and Debby couldn’t understand that yet, Rosemary and her world certainly would. Fred remembers an interview in the Times last week with a friend of Rosemary’s named Lou, in which he announced that he’d told his agent to turn down all television and film offers because he had a chance to play Lear for two weeks in Nottingham. “Where the theatre is doesn’t matter; the length of the run doesn’t matter,” he was quoted as declaring. “When you get a chance like that nothing else counts.”

“What an old dear Lou is,” Rosemary had added, after reading this passage aloud to Fred. “Of course, I rang up directly to congratulate him. Really, I told him, he should have had the part long ago, he’s a marvelous actor, a real genius. And there’s no need to go on a diet, I said, why on earth shouldn’t Lear be fat? He probably was fat, and his riotous knights too, from eating and drinking so much and using up all Goneril’s provisions. You don’t hear about them working or exercising, do you? I said to him, ‘Lou darling, you’re quite wrong, you musn’t try to take off a single ounce; you know your voice is always better after a good meal.’ I only wish I could say the same, but it’s just the reverse for me. As soon as I start working again I’ll have to starve myself, look at all this flesh.” Rosemary lifted the edge of a kimono embroidered with blue and gray chrysanthemums to reveal a pink, deliciously rounded thigh and hip. “No, Freddy darling, I didn’t mean… Oh, dearest… Ahhh…”

Thinking of this moment again, and the moments that followed it, Fred rises from the bench and, as if drawn by a magnetic force, strides toward Chelsea.

Even before most of the guests have arrived it’s clear that Rosemary’s party is a success. The weather is fine, the house looks great: the window boxes and the stone urns by the steps have been scoured clean and overflow with white geraniums and satiny ivy; through the open French doors the back garden is a haze of green. Inside, too, everything glows-at least everything that’s visible to guests: Fred, looking for a place to put some coats, opens the door to Rosemary’s bedroom, then slams it hastily on chaos. Evidently Mrs. Harris was so busy downstairs that she didn’t have time for anything else.

Descending the stairs again, Fred looks down into a scene that resembles a commercial for some luxury product: the perfectly elegant party. The double drawing room is a dazzle of flowers and light and stylishly dressed people. Many of Rosemary’s friends are good-looking, many are well known, and some are both. There are only a few who rather spoil the effect, who would never have been cast if this were in fact a commercial. For instance, little Vinnie Miner, who is wearing one of what Rosemary calls “her Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle costumes”-all starched white cotton and fuzzy pale-brown wool like the fur of some small animal. Fred recalls with amazement how formidable she had seemed to him only a few months ago. Already he has absorbed the view of Rosemary and her friends, that Vinnie, though clever and likeable, is a bit of a comic turn, with her passion for Morris dancing and children’s books and everything British that is quaint and out-of-date.

“Vinnie, hello. How are you?”

“Fine, thank you.” Vinnie tilts her head up to look at Fred. “What a big party, I didn’t realize. And how are you? How is your book on Gay coming along?”

“Oh, very well, thanks,” Fred lies.

“That’s good. How nice the house looks! It’s really amazing. I suppose it’s all due to Mrs. Harris?”

“Well, more or less.”

“Excuse me, please, ma’am. ‘Scuse me.” Behind him Fred hears for the first time in his life an American accent: loud, flat, nasal. Is that how he sounds to everyone here, every damn time he opens his mouth? “Here you are, Vinnie.” A large balding man in late middle age, got up like an American country-and-western singer in cowboy boots and a suede jacket with fringe, hands her a glass. “One dry sherry, honey, like you ordered.”