Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [130]
Perhaps at the moment Chuck does think he loves her, because she was nice to him when he was in a state of despair; because she took him in and scolded him and cheered him up—just as she had done with her former husband years ago. But once his confidence has been fully restored, he—like her husband—will look at Vinnie again and see her for what she is, a small, selfish, unattractive, aging woman. He will turn away to someone younger and prettier and nicer, and nothing will remain of his love for Vinnie except a kind of tired guilty gratitude.
Vinnie knows all this—and yet she also knows that she cannot prevent herself from going to Wiltshire. All she can do, and that not for very long, is put it off. She can accept invitations in London. She can remind herself of Chuck’s faults; she can cast a cold eye on her own passion, telling herself that he isn’t even her type physically: he’s too large-boned, beefy, and freckled; his hair is too thin, his features too blunt. True, all true—but no use: she wants him still.
After the symposium, and the reception that follows it, which is well supplied with wine and with literary conversation, Vinnie returns to her flat in a superficially improved but essentially down mood, brooding about Unpopular Opinions and her helplessness in the face of L. D. Zimmern’s persecution. She has a strong impulse to telephone Chuck in the country; but it’s almost eleven, and he will surely be asleep, for the archaeologists keep early hours. As she looks indecisively at the telephone, it rings. It isn’t Chuck on the line, however, but a young strong female American voice, with a tremor of urgency.
“This is Ruth March,” it announces, as if Vinnie ought to recognize the name, which she doesn’t. “I’m calling from New York. I’m trying to get in touch with Fred Turner; I have his number in London, but it’s been disconnected. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I have to reach him, it’s really important.”
“Really,” Vinnie repeats flatly, annoyed at the voice for not being Chuck’s. “Are you one of his students?”
“No, uh,” Ruth March stutters, then declares, “I’m his wife. I met you at an English Department party in Corinth.”
“Oh yes.” A vague image appears in Vinnie’s mind, the image of a tall, dark, annoyingly handsome young woman in a black jersey. Not for the first time, she thinks that the feminist practice of keeping one’s unmarried name, though politically admirable, has social disadvantages. “Well, I wish I could help you, but I think he’s about to leave for New York anyhow—tomorrow, I believe.”
“I know he’s coming back tomorrow. But the thing is, I won’t be in Corinth then, I have to fly to New Mexico about a job there. I was away before, on a photo assignment, so I didn’t get the telegram he sent me, so I couldn’t call him, otherwise I would have.” Fred’s estranged wife is beginning to sound almost out of breath. “I want to get hold of him now, so we can meet in New York, because I’ll be there tomorrow night.”
“Yes,” Vinnie says neutrally.
“I thought maybe you might know where he is.”
“Well.” As a matter of fact Vinnie does know where Fred is now. When she saw him the day before yesterday at the British Museum he told her that he was going to have dinner with Joe and Debby Vogeler on his last night in London, and then go with them to watch the Druids perform their midsummer solstice rites on Parliament Hill. “Yes; I think he’s with some friends, people named Vogeler.”
“Oh yeh. I know who you mean. Do you have their number?”
“I think I have it somewhere. Hang on just a moment.” Vinnie runs into the sitting room, thinking again how stupid it was of her landlord