by Alison Lurie
Vinnie’s fantasy affairs tended to be of brief duration, though under the influence of a brilliant new book or lecture she sometimes returned to an earlier passion. When, by coincidence, one or two of these distinguished people came to teach for a term at her own university and established cordial relations with Vinnie, she at once broke off her private affair with him. It wasn’t difficult; after all, seen at close range, this man was nothing extraordinary, not a patch on Daniel Aaron, M. H. Abrams, or whoever was center stage at the moment.
After the disastrous experience of her marriage, Vinnie always ended her real affairs whenever she found her current lover getting into her bedtime home movies, or when one of them began to use the word “love” casually, or to announce that he could really imagine getting seriously involved with her. No thanks, chum; I was caught that way once before, she would think to herself. Not that there was always a current lover. For long periods Vinnie’s only companions were the shades of Richard Wilbur, Robert Penn Warren, etc., who faithfully every evening appeared to admire and embrace her, commending her wit, charm, intelligence, scholarly achievement, and sexual inventiveness.
In all the years she has been coming to England, Vinnie has never found a lover there. Nor is there any sign of one appearing now. And perhaps that’s for the best, she thinks. Because really, isn’t it time? In the popular imagination, and (more importantly) in English literature, to which in early childhood Vinnie had given her deepest trust—and which for half a century has suggested to her what she might do, think, feel, desire, and become—women of her age seldom have any sexual or romantic life. If they do, it is either embarrassingly pathetic or vulgarly comic or both.
In the last year or so Vinnie had begun to think more and more often that what she does with her pals is inappropriate—unbecoming to her station on the railway line of life. The fact that at fifty-four she still had erotic impulses and indulged them with such abandon seemed to her almost shameful. It has been something of a relief for her to be away from home, and chaste; to be as it were on sabbatical from sex—one which might well develop into a long leave of absence or even an early retirement. She is therefore embarrassed and irritated at herself for having, even briefly, imagined Chuck Mumpson standing naked by her bed in Regent’s Park Road. She tells herself to act and feel her age, for heaven’s sake. She certainly doesn’t want someone like Chuck, she tells herself; she doesn’t even want her brilliant, handsome, charming imaginary lovers very much.
As the bus carries her north through the darkening city, away from the sensual attractions of Fortnum and Mason’s and the erotic throbbing noises and flashing colored lights of Piccadilly Circus, into the quiet dim elegant streets around Regent’s Park, Vinnie tells herself again that it is time, and past time, to leave what her mother used to refer to as All That behind. It is time to steer past the Scylla and Charybdis of elderly sexual farce and sexual tragedy into the wide, calm sunset sea of abstinence, where the tepid waters are never troubled by the burning heat and chill, the foamy backwash and weed-choked turbulence of passion.
4
* * *
Despair is all folly;
Hence, melancholy,
Fortune attends you while youth is in flower.
John Gay, Polly
IN the hard-lit, almost empty lobby of a small theater in Hammersmith Fred Turner is waiting for Rosemary Radley, who is late as usual. Each time the doors fling open and let in some meaningless person and a gust of damp March evening, he sighs, like a gardener who sees his flowers blowing away in a storm; for each minute that passes is one less alone with her.
Maybe Rosemary won’t come at all—that has happened more than once before, though not lately, and still wouldn’t surprise Fred. What still surprises him is that he should be here in this theater waiting for her, and in this mood of high-charged expectation. A month ago all of London for him was like the empty county fairgrounds outside his home town on some cold evening—a sour, dim expanse of cropped stubble and stones. Now, because of Rosemary Radley, it has been transformed into a kind of circus of light; and Fred, as if he were a small child again, stands wide-eyed just within the entrance of the main tent, wondering how he came there and what to do with the sparkling pink spindle of cotton candy he holds in his hand.
Rationally, of course, his being there can be explained as a result of the interest in eighteenth-century drama that brought him to London in the first place, and later gave him something to talk to Rosemary about. (As it turns out, she is remarkably knowledgeable about theatrical history and stage tradition, and has herself appeared in The Beggar’s Opera in repertory.) More fancifully his presence can be explained as the reward of virtue—specifically of the eighteenth-century virtues of civility and boldness.
It was civility, for instance, that made Fred stay on at Professor Virginia Miner’s party last month after he had eaten and drunk as much as seemed polite, though nobody he had met interested him or seemed interested in him. As a result he was still there when Rosemary Radley arrived, fashionably and characteristically late.
He saw her first standing near the entrance beside a pot of pink hyacinths: like them in full bloom, and delicately pretty with what he recognized as a typical English prettiness. She had the sort of looks celebrated in eighteenth-century painting: the round face, roguish eye, small pouting mouth, dimpled chin, creamy-white skin flushed with pink, and tumbling flaxen curls. As soon as he could, Fred crossed the room to observe this phenomenon at closer range, and by persistently standing alongside it eventually managed to be introduced to “Lady Rosemary Radley” (though not by Professor Miner, who knows as Fred now does too that it is not done to use the title socially—just as one wouldn’t properly introduce someone as Mr. or Miss).
“Oh, how do you do.” Fred, who had never met a member of the British aristocracy, gazed at Rosemary with what he now realizes must have appeared a rude intensity—though, as Rosemary said later, she’s used to being stared at; after all she’s an actress. He felt like some traveler who for years has read-of the existence of snow leopards or poltergeists, but never expected to be this near to one.
“An American! I do love Americans,” Rosemary exclaimed, with the light amused laugh that he was presently to know so well.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Fred replied, a little too late, for already she had turned to greet someone else. For the rest of the party he hovered near her, sometimes trying to claim her attention, more often just gazing and listening with the same kind of baffled fascination he felt last month at the RSC production of Two Gentlemen of Verona.
It was only after he was back in his cold empty flat that Fred realized he wanted very much to see Rosemary Radley again, whereas he did not at all want to see another performance of Two Gentlemen of Verona; and realized simultaneously that he had no means or encouragement to do so. True, Rosemary Radley had been briefly charming to him; but she had been charming to everyone. She had asked him where he was living; that was a good sign, he had thought, not having yet learnt that in England such inquiries don’t precede or hint at an invitation, but rather serve to determine social class; they are the equivalent of the American question “What do you do?”
But where was Rosemary Radley living? Her name wasn’t in the phone book, and phoning to ask Vinnie Miner point-blank would be awkward and probably unproductive; if someone has an unlisted number, their friends are probably expected not to give it out. Fred felt balked and depressed. Then he remembered that Rosemary had said she was going tomorrow to the preview of a new play; she had even suggested that he (and, it must be admitted, everyone else who was listening at the time) should see this play.
Because of his financial circumstances Fred had decided not to see any contemporary theater while he was in London. Now he broke this resolution, replacing his supper with a piece of stale bread and a can of chicken noodle soup in order to stay within his budget; his paychecks from Corinth had begun to clear, but when transformed into pounds they were pathet
ically small. At this point he did not think of himself as romantically interested in Rosemary Radley. The pursuit of her acquaintance appeared to him only as a distraction from his gloom, or at the best as a challenge, undertaken in the same spirit that makes other Americans expend energy and ingenuity to view some art collection or local ceremony that is out of bounds to most tourists.
Though Fred got to the theater early and waited by the entrance until the last possible moment before bounding up the stairs to his balcony seat, Rosemary Radley didn’t appear. He watched the play—a witty highbrow farce—distractedly, feeling stupid, desolate, and hungry. But as he descended the stairs during intermission, restless rather than hopeful, he saw Rosemary below him in the lobby. She was dressed more elaborately than she had been the day before: her pale-gold hair piled high, her creamy rounded breasts half exposed, nestled in pale-green silky ruffles like some exotic fruit in a Mayfair greengrocer’s. As Fred looked down at her she suddenly seemed not only aristocratic and authentically English, but radiantly sexual and desirable.
As might have been expected, Rosemary wasn’t alone, but surrounded by friends—among whom was the playwright himself, a tall elegant man in a rumpled trenchcoat. For the first but not the last time it occurred to Fred that Lady Rosemary Radley probably had many famous and/or titled admirers, and that his chances were therefore slim. Another man might have despaired and retreated to the balcony. But Fred’s romantic history had made him an optimist; loneliness and gloom made him bold. Hell, why not make the effort? What had he to lose?
As it turned out, the courtship of Rosemary Radley demanded not only boldness but stubborn persistence of a sort new to Fred. In the past, girls and women had more or less fallen into his lap, sometimes even literally—bouncing onto his knees with giggles and squeals at parties or in the back of cars. That had been pleasant and convenient, but not very exciting. Now he knew for the first time the joys of the chase; he breathed the heady animal scent of the hotly pursued quarry. Though always charming, Rosemary was completely undependable. Often she would arrive half an hour or more late, or would ring up to explain that she had to meet him at some other, usually inconvenient time; must bring along a friend; or simply couldn’t manage to come at all. Her eager, breathless apologies, her murmurs of regret and distress, always seemed genuine—but of course she was an actress. Money was another problem: Fred couldn’t afford to take Rosemary to expensive restaurants or to buy her the flowers that she loved. He did both these things, greatly to the detriment of his bank account; but he can’t keep doing them much longer if he wants to eat.
Weeks passed in this way without his making any significant progress. Rosemary had to be courted in the old-fashioned manner, and over a length of time that most of Fred’s friends back home would have found irrational. Roberto Frank, for instance, would have roared with disbelief if he knew that it had taken Fred nearly two weeks to get to first base with Rosemary and that after over a month he still hasn’t scored. Yeh, well, he isn’t in Convers playing sandlot baseball now, Fred says to the imaginary grinning figure of Roberto. This is England; this is the real thing.
Though he was often frustrated, Fred didn’t become discouraged; instead the principle of cognitive dissonance began to operate: the very difficulty of the undertaking ensured its value. Since he had gone through so much for Rosemary Radley, she must be worth the effort; his feelings must be serious. And indeed, the more he saw of her the more entrancing, the more attractive she seemed.
Part of Rosemary’s attraction, Fred realizes, is her being in every way the opposite of his wife. She is small, soft, and fair; Roo large, sturdy, and dark. She is sophisticated, witty; Roo—relatively—naive and serious, even a little humorless by London standards. In manner and speech Rosemary is graceful, melodious; Roo by comparison clumsy and loud—in fact, coarse. Just as, compared with England, America is large, naive, noisy, crude, etc.
As he persisted in the chase, and slowly began to gain on his quarry, other national—and possibly class—differences appeared. Fred’s courtship of Roo could hardly be called a pursuit, since she was galloping just as fast in his direction. They circled each other, snuffling; then rushed together just as the horses they had ridden that first memorable afternoon might have done. What had happened in the abandoned orchard on the hill wasn’t a seduction, it was a collision of two strong, sweaty, eager young bodies, rolling and panting in the long grass and weeds.
The images Rosemary suggests are not animal but floral. Recalling their first meeting, Fred imagines her as a pot of hyacinths, or some other more exotic flowering plant: fragile, fine-leaved, of some species that quivers and folds up tight at any clumsy touch or cold breeze, but if tended gently and patiently, opens at last into full glorious bloom. And in fact, only two days ago, after six weeks of trial and error, Fred’s efforts were almost wholly rewarded: the last soft, creamy, many-layered pink-and-white petals unfurled, revealing the delicate calyx. Tonight, if all goes well, he will have his desire.
As he paces impatiently in the theater lobby, thinking of Rosemary and of Roo, Fred understands for the first time the power of what at Yale is referred to as retrospective influence. Just as Wordsworth forever altered our reading of Milton, so Rosemary Radley has altered his reading of Ruth March. In his mind he sees Rosemary standing on a height that is probably the city of London. In one hand she holds a powerful arc lamp of the sort used in the theater, and from it a cone of white light streams back across time and space three years and more to Corinth, New York.
In this light, Fred’s memory of Roo under the apple trees, with the imprint of twigs on her sweaty brown back and butt and bits of dried grass in her thick untidy chestnut hair, seems crudely staged, garishly colored, hardly civilized. Roo’s rapid and enthusiastic sexual surrender—which he once believed a warranty of passion and sincerity—seems unfeminine, almost uncouth. Compared with Rosemary’s delicate lingering butterfly kisses, Roo’s embraces had a greedy animal urgency that should, Fred thinks now, have warned him of her lack of control, of the exhibition—to make a sour pun—that was to come.
Before Fred had known Roo a fortnight she had not only made love with him many times but had lost all sense of modesty—if in fact she ever had any. She told him everything she thought or felt—including details of previous love affairs he could have done without. She showed him everything: from the first she slept naked beside him, or when it was very cold in a sexless red-flannel nightshirt that tended to bunch up under her arms. She walked about her (later their) Collegetown apartment naked at all times of day, not always remembering to lower the blinds. In his presence she blew her nose, picked her teeth, cut her toenails, washed her cunt, and even, if she was in the midst of an interesting conversation (and to Roo most conversations were interesting) used the toilet. Because he was in love with her, Fred had repressed his embarrassment, even denigrated it. He had defined himself as an uptight preppie, and Roo’s behavior as natural and free.
For Rosemary, on the other hand, to yield sexually is not to give up her privacy. Instinctively she surrounds herself with the intimate mystery that preserves romance. She prefers dimmed lights: two tall white candles on the dressing table, or a silk-shaded lamp. She bathes and dresses alone; Fred has never yet seen her completely naked. Psychologically too she doesn’t overexpose herself: she is silent about her own history and doesn’t demand to learn Fred’s. It is only from a phrase dropped here and there that he guesses, for instance, that Rosemary’s childhood, though luxurious, was unhappy and disrupted as the result of her parents’ frequent changes of partners and residences.
Now and then, it’s true, Rosemary carries a good thing too far. Though he doesn’t want to invade her physical reserve or her reticence about the past, Fred wishes he could see further into her mind. She is whimsical, impulsive, contradictory: when he tries to speak to her about something serious, he often feels—or is made to feel—like some intrusive insect trying to burrow its way into a prize hothouse rose and f
inally giving up, dizzied by fragrance and baffled by the continual flurry of pale petals.
It is nearly seven o’clock now. The lobby has filled with people and is beginning to empty in the direction of the auditorium. Fred has been waiting for forty minutes, and Rosemary still isn’t here. He is also very hungry; but even if she does arrive there won’t be time for the sandwiches they had planned to have before the play.
He has almost given up when a taxi door bursts open and Rosemary comes running, almost flying, into the theater, her pink wool cape blowing out behind her like some Rococo angel’s wings.
“Darling!” Out of breath—or perhaps only affecting to be so?—she puts a soft white hand on his arm and looks up from under feathery lashes. “You’ve got to forgive me, the taxi simply wouldn’t come.”
“Okay, I forgive you.” Fred smiles down at her, though not as readily as usual.
“Are you absolutely starving?”
“Not quite.”
“Don’t be cross. I’ve arranged for us to eat after the play with Erin. He knows a very good place near here, and I’ll buy you a lovely dinner to make up . . . Oh, Nadia! I didn’t know you were back; how was loony Los Angeles?”