Alison Lurie - Truth and Consequences

“Yes, it’s just delightful.” Delia laughed lightly. She said no more, but it was clear to Alan that she had heard his lie and recognized it, and that she had deliberately decided not to mention the ruined chapel. He looked at this smiling, innocent-seeming woman with some astonishment. They had only met fifteen minutes ago, and already they were in a conspiracy.

Jane’s own smile faded. “It’s not a joke, you know,” she said, clearly trying to keep her voice pleasant. “It’s a historical reproduction. It took months to build, you have no idea how hard Alan and his students worked.”

“Oh, I can imagine.” Delia laughed again and rearranged her shimmering fishnet shawl.

“Alan’s published a book about ruins and follies, you know.”

“Yes, Ah’ve seen it.” Delia’s Southern accent seemed to deepen, and she smiled even more pleasantly than before.

Jane did not reply. Even in the increasing grip of his pain, it was clear to Alan that there was not and probably never would be any meeting of minds between Delia and his wife, who had already complained to him about the difficulty the former’s demands were causing at the Center. An awkward silence began, but it was luckily broken by the arrival of several other guests, all apparently eager to meet Delia, and one who seemed to know her well already.

“Hello there, darling,” this man said, putting a heavy arm around Delia’s creamy bare shoulders. (Did Alan imagine it, or did she flinch slightly?) “How’s it going?”

“Just wonderfully. . . . This is my husband, Henry Hull,” she told Alan. “Alan Mackenzie.”

Alan registered the presence of a muscular person in a checked shirt who was several inches shorter than him. “How do you do,” he said resentfully.

“Hi,” Henry Hull said, as if identifying some neutral object. He took Alan’s cool, long-fingered hand in his broad sweaty one and gave it a painful shake. “You have the office across the hall from Delia’s at the Center,” he remarked.

“That’s right.” Suddenly the implications of this fact became clear to Alan. He would see Delia again; he would have plenty of chances to see her again. For the first time in several minutes, he smiled. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m afraid I have to go back to the house now.”

FIVE

In a downtown coffee shop, Jane Mackenzie was having her regular beginning-of-term lunch with the chairman of the Humanities Council, a bachelor professor of music in his sixties called Bill Laird. There were several more convenient places on campus, but since the purpose of this lunch was to exchange confidential information, Bill had always ruled them out.

“So how are you?” he asked, leaning forward over the little glass-topped table. Today he was wearing a pink and white candy-striped shirt that brought out the natural pink and whiteness of his face and hair, and his bright blue eyes were alight with interest.

“Fine, thanks.” Jane gave the standard response with what sounded to her like forced enthusiasm.

“And how’s Alan?”

“He’s doing all right,” Jane lied. “About the same, really,” she amended. Though the move to the Unger Center had relieved her husband of the need to climb stairs and teach courses, it had not relieved his constant pain—even though he had begun doing some exercises again.

“Working, I hope?”

“Oh yes.” This was not so much a lie as a hopeful assumption. Jane had no idea whether Alan was working in his office at the Center—but, after all, what else could he be doing there all day long?

“And how’s everything else at the Center?”

“Not bad. There’s always a few problems at the start.” Jane smiled a bit tightly—she liked and trusted Bill Laird, but she didn’t want to begin with a complaint.

“Of course there are. For instance?” Bill stirred two packets of brown sugar into his iced tea and smiled with an equal sweetness.

“Well, there’s a big hole in the kitchen ceiling; I sent you an e-mail about that.”

“Oh yes. Luckily there was no asbestos involved. . . . Thank you, darling, that looks wonderful,” he told the waitress, contemplating a red pepper and mushroom omelet.

“No, that was a relief. But it means Buildings and Grounds won’t fix the ceiling until next month. And the copier’s not working right, as usual.” This machine was an ongoing problem: Vinnie Miner, a professor of children’s literature who had now retired and moved to England, had named it the Copy Monster. It would have been retired too, even sooner than Vinnie Miner, but it was sneaky. It never broke down completely, and for days or even weeks at a time it gave no trouble. It had been Vinnie’s theory that whenever replacing the copier was discussed at a council meeting the machine somehow knew about it and behaved better for a while.

“As usual,” Bill agreed.

“And then yesterday Delia Delaney kidnapped one of the Emerson Room sofas.”

“Really?” Bill laughed. “Why would she do that?”

“Because it turns out she has migraine headaches, and when they come on she needs to lie down. Her husband told me about it before Delia moved in, and I arranged for her to have the little horsehair sofa from the front hall. But then yesterday morning Delia apparently decided that wouldn’t do, and without waiting to ask me or anyone she somehow persuaded two of the other Fellows and a custodian to take it back downstairs and carry up one of the big red velvet sofas from the Emerson Room. It wouldn’t fit in the elevator, so they dragged it up the front stairs somehow, and it got stuck, and they cracked one of the banisters in half.”

“Really!” Bill repeated. It was clear that he was amused rather than distressed.

“Delia’s going to be difficult, I’m afraid. Or else she’ll get other people to be difficult for her. Just yesterday her husband came around again with two down pillows and a special reading lamp for her office. I mean, doesn’t he have anything better to do?”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Bill said. “Delia described him in one of her letters as a freelance editor, whatever that means, and I heard somewhere that he published a couple of books of poetry once.”

“Really,” Jane said. For some reason that she had not bothered to analyze, not only Henry Hull himself, but the idea of Henry, made her feel edgy. “I can’t decide what to do about the sofas,” she added, contemplating a tuna fish salad sandwich with indifference. “I mean, I could call B and G and get them moved back.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Bill said. “I think you should just ask for someone to mend the banisters.”

“But it wasn’t right what Delia did. It was so rude. She didn’t even leave me a note, I had to hear about it from Susie.” Under the table Jane clenched her small tanned hands into fists.

“Of course she should have asked you,” Bill said soothingly. “But we have to think of the reputation of the Center. If we cross Delia Delaney there could be trouble.”

“How could there be trouble? She’ll still have a sofa.”

“Not the one she wants.” Bill smiled. “You’ve got to realize, Janey, that woman is armed and dangerous.”

“Armed?” For a moment Jane saw Delia taking a pistol out of her big tapestry handbag and pointing it, and she felt a sharp imaginary pain in her chest. “You think she might have a gun?”

“I suppose it’s possible.” Bill laughed again—clearly he did not suppose this. “But she’s armed with her celebrity. And her computer. If she felt like it she could write an article for the New York Times —”

“Delia doesn’t use a computer,” Jane interrupted, embarrassed at her brief panic. “She writes by hand with an old-fashioned pen and ink.”