Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [11]
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 know. 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.