Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [9]
Vinnie not only disagrees, she secretly pities those of her friends and colleagues who claim to have rejected England, since it is clear to her that in truth England has rejected them. The chill they complain of is a matter of style. Englishmen and Englishwomen do not open their arms and hearts to every casual passerby, just as English lawns do not flow into the lawns next door. Rather they conceal themselves behind high brick walls and dense prickly hedges, turning their coolest and most formal side to strangers. Only those who have been inside know how warm and cozy it can be there.
Her colleagues’ complaints about the weather and the scenery Vinnie puts down to mere blind pique, issuing as they do from people whose native landscape is devastated by billboards, used-car lots, ice storms, and tornadoes. As for the claim that nothing much ever happens here, this is one of England’s greatest charms for Vinnie, who has just escaped from a nation plagued by sensational and horrible news events, and from a university periodically disrupted by political demonstrations and drunken student brawls. She sinks into her English life as into a large warm bath agitated only by the gentle ripples she herself makes and by the popping of bubbles of foam as some small scandal swells up and breaks, spraying the air with the delightful soapy spume of gossip. In Vinnie’s private England a great deal happens; quite enough for her, at least.
England is also a country in which folklore is an old and honorable study. The three collections of fairytales for children that Vinnie has edited, and her book on children’s literature, have been much better received there than in America, and she is in greater demand as a reviewer. Besides, it now occurs to her, the Atlantic is not widely distributed in Britain; and even if by some remote chance her friends there should see Zimmern’s essay, they won’t be much impressed. English intellectuals, she has noticed, have little respect for American critical opinion.
As Vinnie smiles to herself, recalling remarks made by her London friends about the American press, the cabin crew begins to serve lunch—or perhaps, since it is now seven o’clock in London, it should be considered dinner. Vinnie purchases a miniature bottle of sherry, and accepts a cup of tea. As usual, she refuses the plastic tray upon which have been arranged mounds of some tasteless neutral substance (wet sawdust? farina?) that has been colored and shaped to resemble beef stew, Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, and lemon pudding. It does not deceive her any longer, though once she assumed that the altitude, or a mild anxiety condition when airborne, was responsible for the taste of airplane food. But the homemade lunches that she now brings with her are just as nice as they would be at sea level.
“Hey, that looks good,” her seatmate exclaims, regarding Vinnie’s chicken sandwich with a longing she has seen before in the eyes of other travelers. “This stuff tastes like silage.”
“Yes, I know.” She gives him a perfunctory smile.
“They must do something funny to it. Radiate it or something.”
“Mm.” Vinnie finishes her sandwich, folds the wax paper up tidily, unwraps a large shiny Mcintosh apple and an extra-bitter-sweet Tobler chocolate bar, and reopens her novel. Her companion returns to his silage, chewing in a slow, discouraged manner. Finally he shoves the tray aside and picks up Little Lord Fauntleroy.
“Guess you’re glad to be getting back to England,” he says presently, as Vinnie accepts a second cup of tea