Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (2 page)

Bolstered by the thought, he felt that he was up to the task of phoning his son, Roger, in London. He wiped his fingertips on a soft yellow rag and peered with concentration at the innumerable chrome buttons and LED displays of the cordless phone, a present from Roger. Its speed dial and voice activation capabilities were, Roger said, useful for the elderly. Major Pettigrew disagreed on both its ease of use and the designation of himself as old. It was frustratingly common that children were no sooner gone from the nest and established in their own homes, in Roger’s case a gleaming black-and-brass-decorated penthouse in a high-rise that blighted the Thames near Putney, than they began to infantilise their own parents and wish them dead, or at least in assisted living. It was all very Greek, the Major thought. With an oily finger, he managed to depress the button marked ‘1 – Roger Pettigrew, VP, Chelsea Equity Partners’, which Roger had filled in with large, childlike print. Roger’s private equity firm occupied two floors in a tall glass office tower in London’s Docklands; as the phone rang with a metallic ticking sound, the Major imagined Roger in his unpleasantly sterile cubicle with the battery of computer monitors and the heap of files for which some very expensive architect had not bothered to provide drawers.

Roger had already heard.

“Jemima has taken on the call-making. The girl’s hysterical, but there she is, calling everyone and his dog.”

“It helps to keep busy,” suggested the Major.

“More like wallowing in the whole bereaved-daughter role, if you ask me,” said Roger. “It’s a bit off, but then they’ve always been that way, haven’t they?” His voice was muffled and the Major assumed this meant he was once again eating at his desk.

“That’s unnecessary, Roger,” he said firmly. Really, his son was becoming as unedited as Marjorie’s family. The city was full of blunt, arrogant young men these days and Roger, approaching thirty, showed few signs of evolving past their influence.

“Sorry, Dad. I’m very sorry about Uncle Bertie.” There was a pause. “I’ll always remember when I had chicken pox and he came over with that model plane kit. He stayed all day helping me glue all those tiny bits of balsa together.”

“As I recall you broke it against the window the next day, after you’d been warned against flying it indoors.”

“Yeah, and you used it as kindling for the kitchen stove.”

“It was broken to pieces. No sense in wasting it.” The memory was quite familiar to them both. The same story came up over and over at family parties. Sometimes it was told as a joke and they all laughed. Sometimes it was a cautionary lecture to Jemima’s willful son. Today the hint of reproach was showing along the seams.

“Will you come down the night before?” asked the Major.

“No, I’ll take the train. But listen, Dad, don’t wait for me. It’s possible I might get stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“I’m swamped. There’s a big flap on. Two billion dollars, tricky buyout of the corporate bonds – and the client’s nervous. I mean, let me know when it’s finalised, and it’ll go in my calendar as a ‘must’, but you never know.” The Major wondered how he was usually featured in his son’s calendar. He imagined himself flagged with a small yellow sticky note – important but not time sensitive, perhaps.

∗

The funeral was set for Tuesday.

“It seemed good for most people,” Marjorie said on her second call. “Jemima has her evening class on Mondays and Wednesdays and I have a bridge tournament on Thursday night.”

“Bertie would want you to carry on,” the Major replied, feeling a slight acid tone creep into his voice. He was sure the funeral had also been scheduled around available beauty appointments. She would want to make sure her stiff wave of yellow hair was freshly sculpted and her skin toned or waxed – or whatever she did to achieve a face like stretched leather. “I suppose Friday is out?” he added.

He had just made a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday. The receptionist at the surgery had been very understanding given the circumstances and had immediately insisted on moving a perennially asthmatic child to Friday in order to squeeze in his ECG. He didn’t like the idea of cancelling.

“The Vicar has Youth-in-Crisis.”

“I assume the youth are in crisis every week,” said the Major sharply. “It’s a funeral, for God’s sake. Let them put the needs of others ahead of their own for once. It might teach them something.”

“The funeral director felt that Fridays were inappropriately festive for a funeral.”

“Oh…” He was rendered speechless and defeated by the absurdity. “Well, I’ll see you Tuesday, then, about four o’clock?”

“Yes. Is Roger going to drive you?”

“No, he’ll come straight from London by train and take a taxi. I’ll drive.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” asked Marjorie. She sounded quite genuinely concerned and the Major felt a rush of emotion for her. She too was alone now, of course. He was sorry he had felt so furious at her and assured her gently that he was quite able to drive himself.

“And you’ll come back to the house afterward, of course. We’ll have drinks and a few nibbles. Nothing elaborate.” He noticed she did not ask him to stay. He would have to drive home in the dark. His empathy shrivelled away again. “And perhaps there is something of Bertie’s you’d like to have. You must have a look.”

“That’s extremely thoughtful of you,” he said trying to dampen the eagerness that brightened his voice. “Actually I was meaning to talk to you about that at some appropriate time.”

“Well, of course,” she said. “You must have some
small
token, some memento. Bertie would have insisted. There are some quite new shirts he never wore…Anyway, I’ll have a think.”

When he hung up the phone it was with a feeling of despair. She truly was a horrible woman. He sighed for poor Bertie and wondered whether he had ever regretted his choice. Perhaps he had not given the matter much attention. No one really contemplates death when making these life decisions, thought the Major. If they did, what different choices might they make?

∗

It was only a twenty-minute drive from Edgecombe St. Mary to the nearby seaside town of Hazelbourne-on-Sea where Bertie and Marjorie lived. The town was a commercial hub for half the county and always busy with shoppers and tourists, so the Major had made careful calculations as to traffic on the bypass, possible parking difficulties in the narrow streets by the church, time required to accept condolences. He had determined to be on the road no later than one thirty. Yet here he was sitting in the car, in front of his house, unmoving. He could feel the blood flowing, slow as lava, through his body. It seemed as if his insides might be melting; his fingers were already boneless. He could exert no pressure on the steering wheel. He worked to quell his panic with a series of deep breaths and sharp exhales. It was not possible that he should miss his own brother’s funeral and yet it was equally impossible to turn the ignition key. He wondered briefly whether he was dying. Pity, really, that it hadn’t happened yesterday. They could have buried him with Bertie and saved everyone the trouble of coming out twice.

There was a knock on the car window and he turned his head as if in a dream to see Mrs. Ali looking anxious. He took a deep breath and managed to land his fingers on the power window button. He had been a reluctant convert to the mania for power everything. Now he was glad there was no handle to crank.

“Are you all right, Major?” she asked.

“I think so,” he said. “I was just catching my breath. Off to the funeral, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, “but you’re very pale. Are you all right to drive?”

“Hardly a choice, my dear lady,” he said. “Brother of the deceased.”

“Perhaps you’d better step out and get some fresh air for a minute,” she suggested. “I have some cold ginger ale here that might do you good.” She was carrying a small basket in which he could see the bright sheen of a green apple, a slightly oily paper bag that suggested cakes, and a tall green bottle.

“Yes, perhaps for a minute,” he agreed, and stepped from the car. The basket, it turned out, was a small care package she had meant to leave on his doorstep for his return.

“I didn’t know if you’d remember to eat,” she said as he drank the ginger ale. “I myself did not consume anything for four days after my husband’s funeral. I ended up in the hospital with dehydration.”

“It’s very kind of you,” he said. He felt better for the cold drink but his body still ran with small tremors. He was too worried to feel any humiliation. He had to make it to Bertie’s funeral somehow. The bus service ran only every two hours with reduced service on Tuesdays and last bus back at five P.M. “I think I’d better see if there’s a taxi available. I’m not sure I’m fit to drive.”

“That is not necessary,” she said, “I’ll drive you myself. I was on my way to Hazelbourne anyway.”

“Oh I couldn’t possibly…” he began. He didn’t like being driven by a woman. He hated their cautious creeping about at intersections, their heavy-handed indifference to the nuances of gear changing, and their complete ignorance of the rearview mirror. Many an afternoon he had crept along the winding lanes behind some slow female driver who blithely bobbed her head to a pop radio station, her stuffed animals nodding their own heads in time on the rear shelf. “I couldn’t possibly,” he repeated.

“You must do me the honour of letting me be of service,” she said. “My car is parked in the lane.”

She drove like a man, aggressively changing gear into the turns, accelerating away, swinging the tiny Honda over the hills with relish. She had opened her window slightly and the rush of air blew ripples in her rose silk headscarf and tossed stray black locks of hair across her face. She brushed them away impatiently while gunning the car into a flying leap over a small humpbacked bridge.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, and the Major wasn’t sure how to answer. Her driving was making him slightly sick, but in the excited, pleasant manner that small boys on roller coasters felt sick.

“I’m not feeling as washed out as before,” he said. “You drive very well.”

“I like to drive,” she said, smiling at him. “Just me and the engine. No one to tell me what I should be doing. No accounts, no inventory – just the possibilities of the open road and many unseen destinations.”

“Quite,” he said. “Have you made many road trips?”

“Oh, no,” she replied. “Generally I drive into the town every other week to pick up supplies. They have quite a selection of Indian specialty shops on Myrtle Street. Other than that, we use the car mainly for deliveries.”

“You should drive to Scotland or somewhere,” he said. “Or there are always the autobahns of Germany. Very pleasant driving, I hear.”

“Have you driven much in Europe?” she asked.

“No, Nancy and I talked about it. Driving through France and perhaps up into Switzerland. We never got around to it.”

“You should go,” she said. “While you have the chance.”

“And you,” he asked. “Where would you like to go?”

“So many places,” she said. “But there is the shop.”

“Perhaps your nephew will soon be able to run the shop by himself?” he asked. She laughed a not altogether happy laugh.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “One day very soon he will be quite able to run the shop and I shall be superfluous.”

The nephew was a recent and not very pleasant addition to the village shop. He was a young man of twenty-five or so. He carried himself stiffly, a hint of insolence in his gaze, as if he were always prepared to meet some new insult. He had none of Mrs. Ali’s quiet, graceful acquiescence and none of the late Mr. Ali’s patience. While the Major recognised on some level that this was perhaps his right, it was awkward to ask the price of the frozen peas from a man waiting to be insulted in this very manner. There was also a hint of restrained severity in the nephew toward the aunt, and of this the Major did not approve.

“Will you retire?” he asked.

“It has been suggested,” she said. “My husband’s family lives up north and hopes I will consent to live in their home and take my rightful place in the family.”

“No doubt a loving family will compensate for having to live in the north of England,” said Major Pettigrew, doubting his own words. “I’m sure you will enjoy being the revered grandmother and matriarch?”

“I have produced no children of my own and my husband is dead,” she replied, an acid tone in her voice. “Thus I am more to be pitied than revered. I am expected to give up the shop to my nephew, who will then be able to afford to bring a very good wife from Pakistan. In exchange, I will be given houseroom and, no doubt, the honour of taking care of several small children of other family members.”

The Major was silent. He was at once appalled and also reluctant to hear any more. This was why people usually talked about the weather. “They surely can’t force you…” he began.

“Not legally,” she said. “My wonderful Ahmed broke with family tradition to make sure the shop came to me. However, there are certain debts to be paid. And then again, what is the rule of law against the weight of family opinion?” She made a left turn, squeezing into a small gap in the hurtling traffic of the coast road. “Is it worth the struggle, one must ask, if the result is the loss of family and the breaking of tradition?”

“It’s downright immoral,” said the outraged Major, his knuckles white on the armrest. That was the trouble with these immigrants, he mused. They pretended to be English. Some of them were even born here. But under the surface were all these barbaric notions and allegiances to foreign customs.

“You are lucky,” said Mrs. Ali. “You Anglo-Saxons have largely broken away from such dependence on family. Each generation feels perfectly free to act alone and you are not afraid.”

“Quite,” said the Major, accepting the compliment automatically but not feeling at all sure that she was right.

∗

She dropped him on the corner a few yards from the church, and he scribbled down his sister-in-law’s address on a piece of paper.

“I’m sure I could get a bus back or something,” he said, but they both knew this was not the case so he didn’t press his demurral. “I expect we’ll be done by six o’clock, if that’s convenient?” he added.