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So what happened to Friday's lunch date w/Mary Norton?

posted 12 years ago by Monica_M_C
2 replies | jump to latest

Laura phones Mary to back her up in a lie. Mary asks her to lunch that Thursday, and Laura says, "I can't on Thursday; that's my Milford day." So they arrange to meet that Friday.

Lo and behold, Laura and Alec bump into Mary and her cousin outside the Royal on Laura's Milford day. Her lunch with Mary would have been the very next day.

I always find it interesting that people go off about how the scene with Alec's friend could not possibly be part of Laura's recollection, but they never wonder what happened to that Friday lunch at Mary's. Presumably Laura would have sent her regrets, and neither the doctors' conversations and that Friday don't matter, but I just find it amusing.

[–] gonnabeabumpyride 11 years ago

My thought was that when Mary saw Laura and the doctor at lunch that Thursday when they were drinking champagne and acting intimate, she knew exactly what was up and realized Laura was using her when she called and asked that she "back her up." Mary didn't seem ditzy like the other lady that showed up when Laura and the doctor were parting ways at the end. She also seemed quite worldly in her manner compared to some of the other characters. I thought her comment to Laura as she was leaving---"I do so envy you your champagne"---carried a pretty obvious double meaning. Once Mary realized what was going on, I figured she really didn't care whether Laura followed up and had lunch with her on Friday. She knew the whole setup was a fraud. Of course, there's no way to be sure.

[–] michael_wallace_ellwood 11 years ago

For what it's worth, I also wondered what had happened to that lunch date.

I don't think it would have been just dropped without a mention.
Either Laura would have to have phoned and cancelled (and of course Mary would have interrogated her over the phone about the champagne lunch and that wildly attractive doctor she was with, or Mary would have cried off, pleading that her cook was ill or something.

Or the lunch would have gone ahead as planned. And then of course, Laura would have been on Mary's territory, and would have had to give in to questioning, and it would probably have all come out.

I suspect that would have meant the end of Laura and Alec's "affair", because she couldn't have possibly carried on with it, knowing that Mary Norton knew all about it, even if Mary offered to be a sort of ally and partner in crime.

However, we are not allowed to know what happened, and just as well, because the story would have gone in quite a different direction, and that's obviously not how Coward wanted the story to go.