Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

“Promise now. Because she’s very delicately balanced, you know. She can get a bit frantic-into rather a difficult state-sometimes.”

Repressing his annoyance, Fred nods. He has never seen Rosemary “frantic” or in a state; also, he doesn’t agree with Edwin that Mrs. Harris is imposing her opinions on her employer. On the contrary, he’s begun lately to suspect that Rosemary is imposing her opinions on-or rather, attributing them to-Mrs. Harris. It’s not just that the lines are too good; they also have a way of echoing Rosemary’s less harmonious opinions. For instance, she is rather bored by the ballet; Mrs. Harris, according to her, describes it as “all them faggots jumping and ‘opping.” Rosemary despises the current government; Mrs. Harris thinks they are a lot of bloody crooks.

Also, more and more often, Mrs. Harris gives Rosemary reasons for doing what she wants to do anyhow-or not doing what she doesn’t want to do. Recently a late-night variety show was organized in aid of a famous old East London theater. Rosemary declined to participate, not because it would be inconvenient, unprofitable, and exhausting, but because, she claimed, Mrs. Harris had told her that “them people in ‘ackney got no use for fancy stage acting, they’d rather watch the telly.” What they really wanted was a kiddies’ playground-her niece who lived out that way knew all about it. Anyhow, Mrs. Harris-as reported by Rosemary-said, the whole thing was a sell. “Most of the cash those types take in’ll stay in their own pockets, always does with them charity things.” At a lunch party last week Rosemary’s friend Erin protested these statements, and tried, with considerable patience and charm, to make her reconsider. She refused to listen. “Please, darling, don’t tell me any more nonsense,” she cried, giving her silvery laugh and spearing a profiterole with the silver tines of her fork (she adores what she calls “wicked desserts”). “You don’t know the least thing about Hackney, and neither do I. But I know Mrs. Harris is right about it; she’s always right.”

Feeling annoyed at Edwin, Fred leaves him and returns to the party. He sees at once that the Vogelers are not mixing, but standing by themselves in a corner trying to soothe Jakie, who has begun to make a whimpering squeaking noise, like a stuck drawer.

“Let me take him now, it’s my turn,” Joe says, checking his watch. With Fred’s help, the surprisingly heavy baby and his canvas sling are transferred to his father’s back, where the whimpering and squeaking resume. “Maybe if he had a cracker or something.”

“Sure.” Fred finds a plate of canapés and scrapes the caviar off one.

“Great. There you are now, ducky.” Jakie reaches for the cracker and stuffs it clumsily into his mouth, shedding crumbs over Joe’s jacket.

Asleep and slumped against Debby’s chest, Jakie was relatively inconspicuous. Now, because of his father’s greater height and his own wakefulness, he is a visible presence in the room-and a rather grotesque one, Fred thinks; from the front Joe seems to have two heads and four arms. Something has got to be done about the Vogelers. He remembers his mother’s rule that you musn’t allow anyone at a party to stand alone talking to the people they came with; you must try to separate them.

Taking the easiest first, he leads Debby away and presents her to a woman novelist as “an American feminist.” (It doesn’t much matter what you say when you make introductions, his mother has also advised him, but you’ve got to say something, to provide a conversational opening.) Then, to avoid parading his two-headed, four-armed, crumb-littered friend across the drawing room, Fred introduces Joe to a drama critic, TV personality, and notorious bore who is leaning against the mantelpiece nearby, under the pretense that Joe is a visiting American anxious to know what shows to see in London. All right, that should do it, he thinks, and goes off in search of Rosemary and a drink.

But the Vogelers remain on Fred’s conscience, and he keeps checking to see how they are doing. Twenty minutes later Debby seems to be circulating, but Joe is still trapped in the same spot talking-or rather listening-to the same man. He is clearly not engrossed; in a gesture Fred remembers well from graduate school, he has pushed his spectacles up onto his head. Aloft or his untidy mouse-brown hair, they suggest another pair of eyes fixed upon higher and more philosophical objects of contemplation.

Altogether, in his shabby clothes, with Jakie wiggling on his back, Joe is an incongruous figure at Rosemary’s party. He looks especially out of place in front of the white marble fireplace, with its curved mantel crowded with framed photographs, engraved invitations, objets d’art, and tall vases of hothouse flowers doubled into a profusion of bloom by the big gilt-framed rococo mirror. The baby is awake and restless, waving his small fat arms about, grabbing at the air or at his father’s hair.

As Fred prepares to go to Joe’s rescue there is a movement in the crowd. Joe steps back to let one of the caterer’s men pass, and Jakie’s clutching baby hand finds a silver vase full of tall white iris and candy-hued freesia. Fred waves, shouts a warning, but this serves only to startle Joe and alert the other guests, many of whom glance up in time to see the vase totter, tip, and fall, sending a torrent of water and foliage over the famous drama critic. As in a thunderstorm, the associated sound effects follow a second or two later: loud curses, shocked exclamations, and infantile howling.

“I’m really sorry about the Vogelers’ baby,” Fred says to Rosemary as she closes the door behind her last guests.

“Sorry? Darling, it was wonderful. It made my party.” Rosemary’s elaborately piled hairdo has slipped from its moorings, her lipstick has been kissed away by departing friends, and there is a smudge of mascara below her left eye. Fred finds it sentimentally piquant, like the symbolic tear drawn on the cheek of a mime.

“Oh, the expression on Oswald’s face!” A ripple of laughter. “The way his nasty shiny red hair came unstuck from the crown of his head and hung down in strings; of course one always suspected he must be combing it forward into those silly bangs to disguise a bald patch. And there’s no damage done at all, really.” Rosemary surveys the drawing-room. The caterers have removed all the glasses and china, and rearranged the furniture; nothing remains of the party but an irregular damp patch on the pale-beige carpet and a few scattered flower petals. “Perfect.” She sinks onto a low cream-colored sofa heaped with silk tapestry cushions.

“I thought you were furious.” Fred laughs too, recalling Rosemary’s startled outcry, her repeated loud apologies and expressions of shock and concern, her demand that he fetch more and more towels to wipe Oswald off-But of course, she’s an actress.

“Darling, never for a moment.” She rests her tumbled pale-gold floss of hair against the back of the sofa and holds out her arms. “Ahh. That’s lovely.”

“Lovely,” Fred repeats. A wave of euphoria lifts him. He has never, he thinks, been happier than he is at this moment.

“Really, darling.” Rosemary disengages herself from a second long kiss. “It was one of the nicest moments of my life. When I think of what Oswald said when I was in As You Like It -that was years ago, of course, but I still positively shudder whenever I remember it. And the awful things he’s written about poor old Lou over the years. And even Daphne, if you can imagine. He was so beastly clever about her being too old for romantic parts once that she almost left the stage. It was wonderful for all of us to see him looking so ridiculous.” She begins to laugh again. “And what a silly vulgar fuss he made, far worse than the baby.” Another freshet of giggles. “And the best thing was, almost everyone saw it.”