Foreign Affairs (15 page)

Of course Rosemary probably doesn’t know how to do housework, Fred thinks, and he wouldn’t want her to have to learn. But she could certainly hire somebody. Her friends agree with him. What she needs, Posy Billings explained earlier this afternoon when she was showing Fred around her own perfectly kept grounds, is a “daily”—some strong reliable woman who will come in every morning to clean and shop and do the laundry and make lunch, so that Rosemary won’t have to go out to a restaurant. If only Fred could persuade her to hire someone like that—Posy knows of a very reliable agency in London—he would be doing a tremendous good deed.

“Okay,” Fred said as they stood in front of a long perennial border covered by a mulch of clean shredded bark, from which neat clumps of crocus and grape hyacinths emerged. “Okay, I’ll try.”

It won’t be easy, though, he thinks now, imagining Rosemary as he had left her a quarter of an hour ago, lying upstairs in what Posy calls the Pink Room. Its oversize bed has a carved and gilded headboard padded in flowered satin, and a matching quilted spread is drawn up in loose folds to Rosemary’s breasts. She is wearing a nightgown of delicate ivory silk with semitransparent lace insets in the shape of butterflies scattered over it; her white-gold hair falls in fine tendrils across pale-pink scalloped sheets. The pink-silk-shaded bedside lamp casts a blush over her creamy skin, and over the rococo furniture painted in pink and silver, the French fashion plates on the walls, and the silver vase of narcissus on the dressing-table. It also illuminates a confusion of spilt powders and creams on this dressing-table and a shipwreck of discarded clothes on the Aubusson carpet.

No, it won’t be easy to change Rosemary’s ways. She hates talking about “boring practical things” and isn’t capable of concentrating on any subject for long. She is—and for Fred it’s part of her charm—a creature of sudden, random impulse. He sees her as a rare beautiful lacy butterfly like those which decorate her nightgown, fluttering and hovering, dancing near and then away, difficult to catch hold of for more than a moment.

Her present withdrawal, however, is not idiosyncratic. Going to bed when it isn’t bedtime—or at least saying that you are going to bed—is, Fred has discovered, a habitual and respectable social strategem among the British. To declare fatigue without obvious cause isn’t, as in America, to confess physical and/or emotional weakness. Instead, “having a bit of a rest” or “lying down for a while” provides a polite excuse for social withdrawal—one that is more effective here than it would be at home, since even here married people usually have separate bedrooms. And the English, at least those Fred has met lately, seem to need and want more solitude than Americans do. Now, for instance, at six in the evening, all Lady Billings’ other guests are—as far as he knows—shut up alone in their rooms. After he left Rosemary, Fred tried to stay in his, but restlessness and claustrophobia brought him downstairs again. If it weren’t drizzling and nearly dark, he would have gone out into the gardens.

There are three weekend guests at Posy’s besides Fred and Rosemary. One is Edwin Francis, the editor and critic, who is almost effusively affectionate to Rosemary and Posy, but speaks to Fred as if he were interviewing him on television, with a pretense of respectful attention that often seems designed to provoke humor at his expense. (“So it was generally known that Mr. Reagan had appeared in a film in which his co-star was a chimpanzee? Yet you say that many members of your college voted for him. How do you explain this?” “Your current project then, I assume it is much influenced by the French school of demolition, excuse me, deconstruction.”)

Edwin has brought with him a very young man called Nico, who according to Rosemary is his current “particular friend.” Rosemary and Posy approve of Nico; they regard him as a great improvement on Edwin’s previous particular friends, most of whom Posy says she has “simply refused to have in the house.” Compared with these persons Nico is well educated, fluent in English, and “really quite presentable.” He is a Greek Cypriot: slight, smooth-skinned, with abundant dark glossy curls and pronounced artistic and political opinions. His ambition is to work in British—or even better, American—television or cinema, eventually as a director. At lunch today he expressed an interest in Fred’s views that was evidently more sincere than Edwin’s, though less disinterested. (“You have very original ideas on the cinema, Fred, I think very exciting. I suppose that you know many people in the American film industry, or in the American theater, perhaps, that you have discussed these theories with? . . . No, none at all? That is a pity. I would like so much sometime the chance to talk with American film makers.”) Though Nico is still polite to Fred, it is clear that he now regards him as professionally useless.

The final houseguest is William Just, who is a sort of cousin of Posy’s and is referred to by her and Rosemary as Just William. In appearance he is middle-aged and nondescript, with rumpled-looking tweedy clothes and an air of vague detachment. Just William does something at the BBC and is unusually well informed on current events; he also seems to be acquainted with everyone Posy, Rosemary, Edwin, and even Nico know in London. His manner is mild and self-effacing; Fred assumes he has been invited partly out of family obligation (he is no longer married, and probably lonely) and partly because he might be able to get Nico a job at the BBC.

Fred finds Edwin and Nico interesting as types, and William for his behind-the-scenes political knowledge. He is sorry, though, that he won’t get to meet Posy’s husband, Jimbo Billings. According to the newspapers, Billings is a shrewd and aggressive character who deals in high-risk investments, and knows many world leaders; a large, imposing-looking man (his photograph is prominent on the sitting-room mantelpiece). At the moment, however, he is in the Near East on business.

Nico is even more disappointed that he will not meet Jimbo Billings. “Yes, I wish the chance to tell him many things, what I think of his government, and of his policies,” he said belligerently to Fred when they were all out for a walk after lunch. “There is much that he could do for my country, for my friends there, if he would.” But Posy’s husband has no connection with the British government, Fred protested, he is only a businessman. “Only, that is a lie,” Nico said, slashing at Posy’s newly leafed box hedges with a willow switch he had broken off beside the ornamental lake. “He has much influence, more than many politicians here, believe me, but in my country he uses it for evil.”

As the landscape outside darkens, Fred turns away from the window and takes up one of the four daily newspapers that since lunchtime have been refolded by some unseen hand and neatly ranged on the polished mahogany table. Presently he is joined by Edwin and Nico, and then by Posy, Just William, and Rosemary. Drinks are served, followed by a five-course dinner (sorrel soup, spring lamb, watercress salad, lemon fool, fruit and cheese) and coffee in the long drawing-room. Among the topics discussed are the Common Market, growing exotic bulbs indoors, the films and love life of Werner Fassbinder, the novels and love life of Edna O’Brien, various ways of cooking veal, a current mass murder case, the financial and staffing difficulties of the
TLS
, and hotels in Tortola and Crete. Fred tries to keep up his end of the conversation, but without much success; he has never grown bulbs, cooked veal, seen a film by Fassbinder, etc. He feels provincial and out of it, though Posy and William try to help by asking him about American customs of gardening and cooking and filmgoing. He is glad when Posy proposes that they all stop gossiping and play charades.

As it turns out, the British game of charades differs from the one Fred knows—though each, it occurs to him, is characteristic of its culture. In the American version every player has to act for his team-mates some popular proverb, or the title of a book, play, film, or song, provided by the opposite team; victory goes to the side whose members collectively do this the fastest. America, that is, rewards speed and individual achievement, and encourages frantic attempts to communicate with compatriots who literally or metaphorically don’t speak your language.

In the British version of charades—or at least in Posy’s version—there is no premium on speed and there are no winners. Each team chooses a single word and acts out its syllables in turn, with spoken dialogue that must include the relevant syllable. Though some trouble is taken to confuse the issue and make guessing harder, the game mainly seems to be an excuse for dressing up and behaving in ways that would otherwise be considered silly or shocking. It thus combines verbal ingenuity, in-group loyalty and cooperation, love of elaborate public performance, and private childishness—all traits that Fred has begun to associate with the British, or at least with Rosemary and her friends.

Before the charades can begin, nearly an hour is spent choosing the words and rummaging about in closets and trunks to outfit the players. Rosemary, Edwin, and Just William go first. They seem to have chosen their word (which turns out to be
HORTICULTURE
) partly for the opportunities it gives Edwin to wear Posy’s clothes—which, since she is a large woman and he a small man, fit pretty well. In the first scene (
WHORE
) he and Rosemary appear as streetwalkers, and William, with a cane and bowler, as their drunken client. Edwin is comically horrifying in a red fright wig, an orange-and-yellow flowered sundress stuffed with facial tissues, and high-heeled gold sandals. Fred is nearly as startled by Rosemary. She is not only vulgarly made up and loaded with costume jewelry, but wearing the lace butterfly nightgown in which, just a few hours ago . . . He wants to protest, but makes himself laugh along with the rest; after all, it’s only a game.

In the second scene (
TIT
) Edwin is a milkmaid (sunbonnet, pink checked pinafore) while Rosemary and William—with the help of a brown woolly blanket, two bone drinking horns, and a pink rubber balloon filled with water—represent the front and back halves of an uncooperative cow. For
CULTURE
Edwin wears one of Posy’s tweed suits, a tweed porkpie hat, horn-rimmed spectacles, and a string of pearls. With his neat, rather handsome features and his well-padded small frame he looks, Fred thinks, better and even more natural as a fortyish matron. He obviously enjoys his part, in which he tries to force a series of highbrow books and records on Rosemary and William, who represent two sulky semi-punk schoolchildren.

After much laughter and applause and another round of drinks, Posy, Nico, and Fred retire to the library to get into costume for the first syllable of their word (
CATASTROPHE
). Nico and Fred, now in shirtsleeves, are fitted with colorful sashes and black rubber boots (Posy calls them “Wellies”) and breadknife daggers. They represent pirates and will soon pretend to lash her (as a cabin boy) with an improvised clothesline
CAT
o’nine tails.

“What’s that noise outside? It sounds like a car.” In the white sailor-boy blouse she has just pulled on over her long pleated red silk dress, Posy runs to the window and pushes aside the heavy velvet curtain. “Oh, my God. It’s Jimbo. Quick, upstairs, everybody—and don’t forget your proper clothes.” She flings open the library doors and dashes across the hall to the drawing room.

“William, it’s Jimbo, get upstairs as fast as you can, he’s just putting the car away. All of you, come on.” Ignoring their questions and exclamations, Posy herds her guests up the crimson-carpeted staircase and along a hall lined with heavy gilt-framed eighteenth-century portraits.

“Now,” she declares, checking to make sure that none of them are visible from below through the banisters. “William, dearest, you go straight out by the back stairs and down to the boathouse, the key’s in the stone urn under the ivy. Look out when you pass the stables, in case Jimbo’s still there. Rosemary, and Edwin, oh Christ—” She takes in Rosemary’s naughty schoolgirl outfit and Edwin’s dowager tweeds. “All right, both of you; get dressed as fast as you can and then come down to the drawing room. I’m counting on you to keep Jimbo occupied for at least five minutes while I change the sheets and tidy up. Fred, and Nico, you’ve got to help too, darlings, this is a crisis. I want you to pack everything in William’s room into his bag, all his clothes and books, every single thing you find. If you’re not sure it’s his, put it in anyhow. Right, everyone? Let’s go.”

Fred hears a door opening below and steps in the hall, then a weary, peremptory male voice. “Hallo? Is anybody still up?”

“Jimbo!” Posy cries. She drags the sailorboy blouse over her head, stuffs it into an antique oak chest, and runs down the stairs. “Darling, how lovely! I didn’t expect you till Monday.”

“I sent a cable this morning from Ankara.”

“It never came. Never mind, darling. Did you drive all the way from Gatwick? You must be simply exhausted. Come into the drawing room and I’ll fix you a lovely strong whisky. I’ve got a few people here for the weekend, but most of them have gone to bed. Rosemary’s still up, though, I think, and Edwin Francis. I’ll go tell them you’re here in a moment, but first I want to know all about—” Her words fade.

“Remarkable,” Edwin says sotto voce, shaking his head under the tweed matron’s hat. “Did you ever see such natural authority, such military decision, such a grasp of strategic essentials? Hereditary, of course,” he adds. “The Army blood . . . Poor Posy, really, all those Empire-building genes wasted on this sad century. She should have lived a hundred years ago—”

“Edwin, do go on, before Jimbo sees you like that,” Rosemary whispers, giggling.

“—and been a man, of course. Very well. But I must say, I hope Jimbo has the sense to take her into partnership as soon as the babies are safely in school.”

“Okay, let’s get started,” Fred says to Nico a few moments later, lifting William’s worn leather Gladstone bag onto the bed. “I’ll do the closet, and you can empty the drawers.” He opens the wardrobe door and begins sliding clothes off hangers. “Lucky there isn’t much.”