Alison Lurie - Foreign Affairs

The brilliant birds, and their audience, remind Vinnie of Daphne Vane, and of the publisher’s party that is being given in less than an hour to launch her largely ghost-written memoirs. If Vinnie is to attend it in more appropriate dress and with clean hair, she must hurry. Luckily the party’s in Mayfair, and easily accessible by the 74 or Zoo bus, which stops outside her front door.

Daphne’s party, in an elegant converted Georgian house, is well under way when Vinnie arrives. For the first half-hour she experiences it as lively and thronged; then it begins to seem noisy and crowded. Stand-up events are always hard on her because of her height: most conversations take place a foot above her head, and when she wants to move she feels like a child trying to make its way to a familiar face through a mob of unseeing adults, all heavy rumps and sharp elbows. And today many of the faces that at first seem familiar turn out not to be acquaintances, but only actors she has seen at some time on stage or television-and, like most actors, uninterested in meeting anyone not in their own profession.

“Having a good time?” inquires an actual acquaintance, William Just, looking down at her.

“Oh yes. Well, perhaps not especially. The publisher’s party isn’t quite my favorite social occasion.”

“It isn’t a social occasion at all,” William says, reaching for a plate of hot hors d’oeuvres and offering some to Vinnie. “Almost everyone here was invited for some ulterior purpose, as usual. They’re connected with the firm, or with some paper, or they’re in the theater-though I hear Nigel’s very disappointed because so few of our leading dramatis personae have shown up. I’m meant to get Daphne’s book discussed on the BBC, and you’re supposed to tell everyone in America how thrilling it is.”

“Yes, I suppose you’re right.” Vinnie cannot think of anything clever to say. Her head has begun to ache and her stomach to complain of the strong punch and the spicy canapés. She says goodbye to William and starts to move toward the door, stopping to greet the few people she knows. One of these, as might be expected, is Rosemary Radley.

“Lovely, isn’t it all?” Though elegantly dressed and perfectly-if rather over-elaborately-made up, Rosemary seems somehow scatty and distracted, perhaps a bit tipsy.

“Oh yes.” Vinnie remembers that there’s something she’s supposed to tell Rosemary-what? Yes: she’s promised to explain that Fred Turner really loves her and is going back to America against his true desire. The commission is uncomfortable, and this crowded room hardly the place to carry it out. Besides, what’s the point? In Vinnie’s opinion, the breakup of their affair isn’t surprising; it was inappropriate from the start. Of course Rosemary is beautiful, and her life no doubt very glamorous, if you like that sort of thing. But she’s much too complicated for someone like Fred, and probably bad for him as well: frivolous, egotistic, temperamental, and full of expensive false values. To reconcile them-even if anyone could, which seems very unlikely-hardly seems desirable.

Buf fate, perversely, provides Vinnie with the opportunity to carry out her promise. As she collects her coat, Rosemary reappears and asks if she needs a lift; she is going to a dinner party in Gloucester Crescent, and can easily drop Vinnie off. Feeling ashamed of her recent thoughts, Vinnie hesitates; but her increasing headache and the knowledge that the 74 bus becomes rare, almost extinct, as soon as the Zoo closes, change her mind.

Though it is always hard to find a cab in Mayfair at that hour, Rosemary spies one. Sprinting a little unsteadily down Upper Grosvenor Street in her high-heeled silver sandals, with her long pink cape billowing behind, she beats out two men in bowler hats who have already hailed the taxi. They begin to expostulate, but Rosemary, dazzling them with her smile, pulls open the door and waves Vinnie on. Once inside, however, she and her cape collapse into the corner with a sigh like a pricked balloon.

“Stupid party,” she announces in her sweet, well-modulated voice. “Imbecile dons, think they know everything about the theater because they once read a play.”

Vinnie, who has recognized no dons beside herself at the party, and wonders if this comment is meant maliciously, makes no comment.

“Disgusting drink,” Rosemary continues. “Nothing to eat, either.”

“Oh, no,” Vinnie corrects her. “There was quite a lot of food.”

“Really? No one offered me any.” She laughs musically. “Pigging it all for themselves, most likely.”

Unsure whether this is an accusation, Vinnie again says nothing. Rosemary too is silent, sulking within her silk cocoon.

Traffic is heavy; the taxi jerks forward and halts along South Audley Street; jerks and halts. At this rate it will take hours to reach Regent’s Park Road; whereas if Vinnie were to get out now and walk to Bond Street Tube Station-But before she can solidify this intention Rosemary turns to her and begins to complain of what she calls “your friend Fred”-thus simultaneously denying that she is Fred’s friend and assigning responsibility for him to Vinnie.

“I’m not a complete simpleton,” she declares. “I know your friend Fred doesn’t really have to go back to that silly old college this summer.”

Annoyed, but bowing to fate, Vinnie assures Rosemary that he does; she begins to explain why. Rosemary listens with an ill grace, tapping her silver-sandaled toe on the floor of the cab and gazing away out the window.

“Oh, come on, Vinnie,” she interrupts. “I don’t need to hear all that drivel again. I know there’s more to it; he’s going back to that stupid wife of his, isn’t he?’”

Vinnie assures her that as far as she knows Fred isn’t going back to his wife, all that is long over. “It’s you he cares for,” she adds, noticing that her headache is worse and wishing she could get out of the taxi. “He thinks you’re a wonderful woman.”

“Oh he does, does he.” Rosemary’s voice has thickened and coarsened oddly; if they hadn’t been alone Vinnie would have looked round to see who else was speaking.

“Yes, he told me so. And I believe him,” she adds.

“I suppose you might,” Rosemary says, again in her characteristic upper-class drawl. “But you don’t know much about men, Vinnie. They’re liars, the lot of them.”

Vinnie glances nervously at the back of the taxi-driver’s head; then she sits forward and tugs the glass panel shut.

“Listen, sweetie, when they’re making up excuses to leave you, men always start telling everyone you’re a wonderful woman.” Rosemary’s accent continues to alternate disconcertingly between refined and vulgar, as if she were trying out for some inappropriate low-comedy role but was unable to sustain the illusion. “That’s what they always say, the bastards. It’s a kind of omen.”

“It’s not an excuse, really. You’ve got to understand…” With increasing weariness Vinnie begins to explain the tenure system in American universities.

“You’re wastin’ your breath, dearie,” Rosemary interrupts. “I don’t give a fart for all that. All I know is he’s sneakin’ out on me,” she says in her low-comedy voice-a voice Vinnie has heard before, but where?

“Fred isn’t sneaking-” she begins.

“1 need him, Vinnie,” Rosemary wails, pathetically ladylike again, with a half sob. “You tell him to forget his silly job. If he doesn’t come back and stay with me, I’ll be all alone again. You don’t know what that’s like for me.” She leans toward Vinnie as she speaks-breathes toward her; and Vinnie realizes what she should have realized sooner: that Rosemary isn’t merely tipsy, but quite drunk.