Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [64]
A third ring at the bell, more prolonged, somehow plaintive. It is spiritless of her to cower behind two locked doors like this, Vinnie thinks. London is not, like New York, an anonymously indifferent city. She is acquainted with her neighbors in the house; if she were to scream they would come hastening to see what was the matter, the way everyone (including Vinnie) did when the baby-sitter upstairs scalded herself last month. Holding her bathrobe closely around her, she opens the door of the flat.
“Yes?” she calls shrilly. “Who is it?”
“Professor Miner?” An American male voice, muffled by the heavy slab of oak that is the outer door.
“Yes?” Her tone is less fearful now, more impatient.
“It’s Chuck. Chuck Mumpson, from the plane. I hafta tell you something.”
“Just a moment.” Vinnie stands considering. It must be well past eleven, an impossible hour for a social visit, and she hardly knows Chuck Mumpson. She hasn’t seen him since they had tea at Fortnum and Mason’s, though he phoned once to report on his genealogical search. (Following Vinnie’s advice, he had located a village in Wiltshire called South Leigh—“They spell it different, like you said they might”—and was planning to visit it.) If she tells him to go away, she can return to bed and get enough sleep to be in decent shape for her nine A.M. appointment at a primary school in South London. On the other hand, if he goes away he may never come back, and she will never know what he has found out about his ancestor the local folk figure.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” she calls.
“Okay,” Chuck shouts back.
Vinnie returns to the bedroom and gets back into the dress she wore to the opera. She pulls a brush through her hair and gives a critical, discouraged glance at her face; but neither it nor her guest seem worth the effort of makeup.
Her first impression of Chuck as he steps into the light is unsettling: he looks ill, sagging, disheveled. His leathery tan has faded to a grayed pallor; his piebald hair, what there is of it, is uncombed; his awful plastic raincoat is creased and mildewed. As she shuts the door of the flat he sways and staggers sideways, then recovers and stands gazing into the hall mirror in a fixed, dull way.
“Are you all right?” she asks.
“No, I guess not.”
Instinctively, Vinnie steps back.
“Don’t worry. I’m not drunk or anything. I’d like to sit down, okay?”
“Yes, of course. In here.” She switches on a lamp in the sitting room.
“Been walking a long ways.” Chuck lowers himself heavily onto the sofa, which creaks under his weight; he is still breathing hard. “I saw your light, figured you were still up.”
“Mm.” Vinnie doesn’t explain that she always keeps the desk lamp on in the study, which faces the street, in order to confound burglars. “Would you like a cup of coffee? Or a drink?”
“Doesn’t matter. A drink, if you’ve got one.”
“I think there’s some whisky.” In the kitchen Vinnie pours a rather weak Scotch and water and puts the kettle on so that she can have tea, wondering what disaster it is that has overtaken Chuck Mumpson.
When she returns, he is still sitting there staring out into the room; he looks wrong and too large for her flat and for her sofa. “Wouldn’t you like to take off your raincoat?”
“What?” Chuck blinks toward her. “Oh yeh.” He grins weakly. “Forgot.” He heaves himself up, peels off the stained plastic, and drops down again, looking no better. The jacket of his Western suit has been snapped together wrong, so that the left side is higher than the right, and one point of his collar sticks out at an angle. Vinnie makes no comment on this; Chuck Mumpson’s appearance is none of her concern.
“Here you are.”
Chuck takes the glass and sits holding it as if stupefied.
“What’s happened?” Vinnie asks, both apprehensive and impatient. “Is it—your family?”
“Nah. They’re all right. I guess. Haven’t heard lately.” Chuck looks at the glass of whisky, lifts it, swallows, lowers it, all in slow