by Alison Lurie
And even if he had gone there some time later, it mightn’t have been so hot that day; or she might have been with him and made him ascend more slowly (she could have saved his dignity by pretending that it was she who needed to stop awhile on each floor to catch her breath). Then he would be alive now.
If only he had told her that he was ill . . . If only she had gone to stay with him, made sure he didn’t drink too much, encouraged him not to smoke, to see a doctor regularly . . . He might have lived many years; and she might have lived with him, here in England. She might have resigned her job and given all her time to research and writing (“Money is no problem”). She would have kept the flat, so that they’d have a place in town as well as the old house in the country Chuck had talked about buying, with a flower garden, raspberry and currant bushes, an asparagus bed . . .
Why does she keep having this stupid fantasy? It’s not what she wants at all, not what would ever have worked, even if Chuck were alive. It’s not her nature, not her fate to be loved, to live with anyone, her fate is to be always single, unloved, alone—
Well, not completely alone. From the corner of the taxi comes a snuffle and whine inaudible to anyone in the world but Vinnie Miner. She recognizes it at once: Fido has returned from Wiltshire. Slowly he becomes visible to her inner eye: considerably smaller than ever before, only about the size of a Welsh terrier now; dusty, travel-worn, and not quite sure of his welcome.
“Go away,” Vinnie says silently. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not a bit sorry for myself. I’m a well-known scholar; I have lots of friends on both sides of the Atlantic; I’ve just spent five very interesting months in London and finished an important book on playground rhymes.” But even to her the list seems painfully incomplete.
The taxi pulls up in front of Vinnie’s house; she gets out, followed at some distance by a small invisible dog, and pays the driver. As she turns to enter her gate, she sees Fido standing by the wall, pale and shadowy in the summer sunlight, looking up at her with anxious devotion and wagging his feathery white tail.
“Well, all right,” she says to him. “Come along, then.”