Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [12]
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