Foreign Affairs

by Alison Lurie

  Vinnie not only disagrees, she secretly pities those of her friends and colleagues who claim to have rejected England, since it is clear to her that in truth England has rejected them. The chill they complain of is a matter of style. Englishmen and Englishwomen do not open their arms and hearts to every casual passerby, just as English lawns do not flow into the lawns next door. Rather they conceal themselves behind high brick walls and dense prickly hedges, turning their coolest and most formal side to strangers. Only those who have been inside know how warm and cozy it can be there.

  Her colleagues’ complaints about the weather and the scenery Vinnie puts down to mere blind pique, issuing as they do from people whose native landscape is devastated by billboards, used-car lots, ice storms, and tornadoes. As for the claim that nothing much ever happens here, this is one of England’s greatest charms for Vinnie, who has just escaped from a nation plagued by sensational and horrible news events, and from a university periodically disrupted by political demonstrations and drunken student brawls. She sinks into her English life as into a large warm bath agitated only by the gentle ripples she herself makes and by the popping of bubbles of foam as some small scandal swells up and breaks, spraying the air with the delightful soapy spume of gossip. In Vinnie’s private England a great deal happens; quite enough for her, at least.

  England is also a country in which folklore is an old and honorable study. The three collections of fairytales for children that Vinnie has edited, and her book on children’s literature, have been much better received there than in America, and she is in greater demand as a reviewer. Besides, it now occurs to her, the Atlantic is not widely distributed in Britain; and even if by some remote chance her friends there should see Zimmern’s essay, they won’t be much impressed. English intellectuals, she has noticed, have little respect for American critical opinion.

  As Vinnie smiles to herself, recalling remarks made by her London friends about the American press, the cabin crew begins to serve lunch—or perhaps, since it is now seven o’clock in London, it should be considered dinner. Vinnie purchases a miniature bottle of sherry, and accepts a cup of tea. As usual, she refuses the plastic tray upon which have been arranged mounds of some tasteless neutral substance (wet sawdust? farina?) that has been colored and shaped to resemble beef stew, Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, and lemon pudding. It does not deceive her any longer, though once she assumed that the altitude, or a mild anxiety condition when airborne, was responsible for the taste of airplane food. But the homemade lunches that she now brings with her are just as nice as they would be at sea level.

  “Hey, that looks good,” her seatmate exclaims, regarding Vinnie’s chicken sandwich with a longing she has seen before in the eyes of other travelers. “This stuff tastes like silage.”

  “Yes, I know.” She gives him a perfunctory smile.

  “They must do something funny to it. Radiate it or something.”

  “Mm.” Vinnie finishes her sandwich, folds the wax paper up tidily, unwraps a large shiny Mcintosh apple and an extra-bitter-sweet Tobler chocolate bar, and reopens her novel. Her companion returns to his silage, chewing in a slow, discouraged manner. Finally he shoves the tray aside and picks up Little Lord Fauntleroy.

  “Guess you’re glad to be getting back to England,” he says presently, as Vinnie accepts a second cup of tea from the steward.

  “Mm, yes,” she agrees, without looking up. She finishes the sentence she is reading, stops, and frowns. Has she been talking to herself out loud, as she sometimes does? No; rather, misled by her New England accent and her academic intonation—plus, no doubt, her preference for tea—this western American believes that she is British.

  Vinnie smiles. Ignorant as the man is, in a sense he is onto something, like those of her British friends who sometimes remark that she isn’t really much like an American. Vinnie knows that their idea of “an American” is a media convention. Nevertheless, she has often thought that, having been born and raised in what they call “the States,” she is an anomaly; that both psychologically and intellectually she is essentially English. That her seatmate should assume the same thing is pleasing; it will make a nice story for her friends.

  But Vinnie also feels uneasy about the misunderstanding. As a teacher and a scholar she finds errors of fact displeasing; her instinct is to correct them as soon as possible. Besides, if she doesn’t correct this particular error, the heavy red-faced man in the aisle seat will realize his mistake when he sees her in the queue labeled “NON-COMMONWEALTH PASSPORTS.” Or possibly he will think Vinnie is making a mistake, and will loudly try to help her out. No; she must explain to him before they land that she isn’t British.

  A bare announcement, however, seems graceless; and having discouraged her seatmate’s attempt to interrupt her reading so often, Vinnie hesitates to interrupt his—particularly since he is now deep into Little Lord Fauntleroy, one of whose minor characters, the outspoken democratic grocer Mr. Hobbs, he somewhat resembles. She sighs and looks out the window, where the air is now darkening above a scarlet horizon line, planning a casual reference to her American citizenship. When I first read that book, when I was a little girl in Connecticut . . . Then she looks at Mr. Hobbs, willing him to turn and speak; but he does not do so. He reads steadily on, increasing Vinnie’s respect both for him and for Frances Hodgson Burnett, the book’s author

  It is not until they are over Ireland, some hours later, that Mr. Hobbs finishes Little Lord Fauntleroy and returns it with thanks, and Vinnie is able to clear up the misunderstanding.

  “You mean you’re an American?” He blinks slowly. “You sure fooled me. Where you from?”

  Since they have almost reached their destination, and her eyes are tired from reading, Vinnie relaxes her unsociability and replies graciously. In the next twenty minutes she learns that her seatmate is called Charles (Chuck) Mumpson; that he is an engineer from Tulsa specializing in waste-disposal systems; educated at the University of Oklahoma; married with two grown children, one of each sex, and three grandchildren (the names, ages, and occupations of all these relatives are supplied); and on a two-week Sun Tour of England. His wife, who is “in real estate,” hasn’t been able to accompany him (“There’s a big property explosion on now in Tulsa; she’s up to her ass in deals”). His older sister and her husband, however, are on the tour, which consists mainly of employees of the electric company for which his brother-in-law works, and their relatives. At this point Hobbs/Mumpson heaves himself up in his seat and insists on introducing Vinnie to Sis and her husband, of whom it is only necessary to report that they are a very nice sixtyish couple from Forth Worth, Texas, now visiting Europe for the first time.

  As Vinnie listens to these facts, and under friendly interrogation supplies a few of her own, she wonders why citizens of the United States who have nothing in common and will never see one another again feel it necessary to exchange such information. It can only clog up their brain cells with useless data, and is moreover often invidious, tending to estrange casual acquaintances. (Mumpson’s brother-in-law, like many before him, has just remarked to her, “You’re an English teacher? Gosh, I better watch my language, I was always a dumbhead in English.”) In the British Isles, on the other hand, the anonymity of travelers is preserved. If strangers who find themselves sharing a railway compartment converse, it will be on topics of general interest, and usually without revealing their origin, destination, occupation, or name.

  By the time the plane is over Heathrow, Vinnie is already tired of Chuck Mumpson and his relatives. Unfairly, it is then announced over the loudspeaker that due to air-traffic congestion they will be placed in a holding pattern. As the plane drones in a tilting circle through wet blackness, no doubt narrowly missing other planes, Vinnie learns more about the climate and population growth of Tulsa and Fort Worth, public utilities and their energy sources, crocheting (Sis is making a baby afghan for an expected fifth grandchild), and the proposed itinerary of Sun Tours than she has ever wished to kno
w. When at last the tail of the plane thumps onto the runway at Heathrow she not only congratulates herself, as usual, on having survived the journey, but on being able to part with her new acquaintances.

  Because of her percipient choice of seat Vinnie is among the first to leave the plane and go through immigration and passport control. Celerity is important now, since the flight is over half an hour late and the buses to London will soon stop running.

  In the baggage-claim area, however, her expertise is of only limited use. She knows where to find a handcart, and the best place to stand by the conveyor in order to see and snare her suitcases as soon as they appear. The first one arrives almost immediately; but her other and larger bag fails to materialize.

  The long low-ceilinged chilly hall fills with disoriented travelers; the minute hand of Vinnie’s watch jerks on; unfamiliar suitcases, garment bags, backpacks, and cardboard cartons trundle past her. She begins to review the contents of her (lost? stolen?) suitcase, which include not only most of her warm clothes but also and more fatefully the notes for her research project, vital reference books and reprints, and all the rhymes she has collected in America and intends to compare with British rhymes—nearly a hundred pages of essential material. While pieces of unclaimed luggage dumbly circle past her, she imagines what she will have to go through to replace all that was in that suitcase: the trips to department stores, drugstores, and bookshops; the Xeroxing at 15 p. a page (at Corinth it is free); the letter to the visiting professor who is now using her office, begging someone she has never met to open the sealed cartons in which the contents of her filing cabinet are stored and search for a folder marked—what the hell is it marked? And is it actually in one of those cartons, or is it at home in the locked spare room to which her tenants do not have the key? Should she mail a copy of this key to her tenants, thus giving two graduate students in architecture access to all her private letters and journals, her original editions of books illustrated by Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, and her store of wines and spirits? Alien luggage continues to revolve in front of her, along with an invisible dirty-white dog, who whines pathetically at Vinnie each time he comes round. Poor Vinnie, what did you expect? he whines; just your luck.

  Twenty minutes later, when the baggage claim area is nearly empty, Vinnie’s suitcase stumbles into view, with one corner bashed in and the lock on that side sprung. She is now too exhausted and low in spirits to be much relieved or to face making a claim for damages. Dully she hauls the bag off the conveyor and wrestles it onto her cart. The customs inspector, yawning, waves her past him into the lobby. There, in spite of the lateness of the hour, people of many nationalities are still waiting. Some hold infants, others cardboard signs bearing the names of those they hope to meet. As Vinnie appears, all of them glance at her for a moment, then past her. They stare, wave, exclaim, lunge, embrace, shoving her aside to reach their friends and relations.

  Vinnie, unwanted and unmet, checks her watch and with an indrawn breath of anxiety begins pushing the cart toward the far end of the building as swiftly as possible, with Fido trotting at her heels. Soon she is panting, her heart pounding; she has to slow down. No doubt about it, she is getting older, weaker in body and in spirit. Her luggage feels heavier; one year, sooner than she imagines, she will be too old and weak and sickly to travel alone, the only way she ever travels—Fido rubs against her leg with a mournful snuffling. Stop it! Her luggage is heavier because she’s staying longer and there’s more of it, that’s all. And surely, since all the flights are delayed tonight, the bus will wait. There’s no need to rush, to pant, to panic.

  As it turns out, this is a mistake. When Vinnie, at a carefully moderate pace, shoves her cart out into the rainy, lamp-streaked night, she sees a red double-decker pulling away from the curb in the middle distance. Her cries of “Wait! Stop!” are not heard, or perhaps not heeded. Still worse, there are no cabs at the taxi rank, only a queue of exhausted-looking people. As she stands, chilled and weary, in the queue, jet-lag depression rises within her like cold brackish water. What is she doing at midnight in this wet, bare, ugly place? Why has she come so far, at such great expense? Nobody invited her; nobody wants her here or anywhere. Nobody needs her silly study of children’s rhymes. Fido, who is now sitting atop the broken suitcase, lets out a foghorn howl.

  And if she doesn’t do something sensible instantly, Vinnie realizes with dismay, she is going to start howling too. She can feel the rising sob in her throat, the sting and ache of tears behind her eyes.

  Something. What? Well, she could go back into the terminal and try to telephone for a minicab, though they are notorious for not turning up when promised. And for overcharging. And if they do overcharge, does she have enough English money?

  No use worrying about that, not yet. Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, Vinnie shoves her luggage back toward the terminal, hoping for the miraculous apparition of a taxi. There is none, of course; only a mob of Sun Tourists and their luggage waiting to board a chartered bus. She is about to retreat when Mr. Hobbs/Mumpson hails her. He is now wearing a tan cowboy hat trimmed with feathers and a fleece-lined sheepskin coat, and is hung about with cameras, making him look even more than ever like the caricature of an American tourist, Western division.

  “Hi there! What’s the trouble?”

  “Nothing,” says Vinnie repressively, realizing that her state of mind must be engraved upon her countenance. “1 was just looking for a taxi.”

  Mr. Mumpson stares out across the empty, rain-sloshed, light-streaked pavement. “Don’t seem to be any here.”

  “No.” She manages a brief defensive smile. “Apparently they all turn into pumpkins at midnight.”

  “Huh? Oh, ha-ha. Listen, I know what. You can come on the bus with us. It’s going right into town: centrally located hotel, said so in the brochure. Bet you can get a cab there.”

  Over her weak, weary protests, he plunges into the crowd and returns a minute later to report that it is all fixed up. Luckily, since Vinnie and Mr. Mumpson are the last to board, they have to sit separately, and she is spared any more of his conversation.

  The journey to London passes in a silent blur of weariness. Though Vinnie has often been abroad, this is her first (and she hopes last) ride on a tour bus. She has of course often seen them from the street, and observed with a mixture of scorn and pity the tourists packed inside, gazing out with weak fishy stares through the thick green distorting glass of their rolling aquariums at the strange, soundless world outside.

  The bus stops at a large anonymous hotel near the Air Terminal, where several taxis are actually waiting. Mr. Mumpson helps her stow her luggage into one of them, and she parts from him with sincere thanks and insincere agreement with his hope that they will “run into each other” again.

  It is now nearly one in the morning. As her cab splashes north through the rain, Vinnie, exhausted, wonders what new disasters await her at the flat on Regent’s Park Road she has rented for the third time from an Oxford don. Probably there won’t be anyone at home downstairs to give her the keys, Fido whines; or the place will be filthy; or the lights won’t work. If anything can go wrong for her it will.

  But the young woman in the garden flat is in and still awake; the keys turn smoothly in their locks; the light switch is where Vinnie remembers it, just inside the door. There is the white telephone with its familiar number, and the stack of phone books in their elegant pastel colors: A–D cream, E–K geranium pink, L–R fern green, S–Z forget-me-not blue, holding between their closed petals the names of all her London friends. The sofa and chairs are in their proper places; the gold-framed engravings of Oxford colleges glow quietly on either side of the mantel. The clean grate is decorated as always with a white paper fan that echoes the white enameled pots of English ivy on their stand in the tall bay window. For the second time that evening tears ache behind Vinnie’s eyes; but these are tears of relief, even of joy.

  Since she is unobserved, she allows them to fall.
Weeping quietly, she hauls her bags into the flat, bolts the door behind them, and is safe at last, home in London.

  2

  * * *

  Every man hath a right to enjoy life.

  John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera

  IN the Underground station at Notting Hill Gate a tall dark handsome American is waiting for the eastbound train. Restlessly, he stamps from one foot to the other, staring across the dark dirty tracks at bright colored advertisements of products he will never purchase: Black Magic chocolates and Craven cigarettes. Trained in the close reading of texts (he is an assistant professor of English), he wonders how the British public can be persuaded to buy candy that suggests an evil spell and tobacco designated as cowardly. Maybe there is a darker meaning to the glossy social and sexual occasions illustrated in these posters. Is the scarlet-mouthed blonde offering the box of chocolates about to poison or bewitch her guests? Are the smiling, smoke-breathing young man and woman secretly terrified of each other? In Fred Turner’s present mood both scenes seem empty and false like the city above him, almost sinister.

  Though he has been in London for three weeks, this is the first time Fred has used the Underground. Usually he walks everywhere, regardless of the distance or the weather, in imitation of the eighteenth-century author John Gay, about whom he is supposed to be writing a book. In Gay’s long poem, Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, mechanical transport is scorned: