Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (21 page)

“He brought clubs with him?” asked the Major, unable to hide the dismay in his voice.

“Oh, I’m sure he wasn’t expecting to be able to play,” said Alec diplomatically. “Probably thought of running his kit by the pro, only since it was Sunday the pro shop was closed.”

“I’m sure that’s so,” said the Major, miserably wondering if there was a limit to Roger’s self-absorption. “I’ll have a chat with him.” He savaged his ball with a clout that sent it arcing high and into the rough on the right of the fairway.

“Oh, rotten luck,” said Alec and the Major wondered if he meant unlucky in golf or unlucky with offspring. Both, the Major felt, were accurate today.

∗

Amina and George were not in the Grill when the Major finished his round. He made a halfhearted effort to look around the tables and thought he might be able to avoid all obligation with a quick dash through the lobby.

Her voice reached him through the lobby doors and caused several members to raise their heads from their chocolate sponge puddings.

“No chinless flunky in a bow tie tells my son to wait by the servants’ entrance.”

“It’s not ‘servants’, it’s ‘service’ entrance,” corrected the diminutive club secretary, a piggy-eyed man who wore his green club blazer like holy vestments and was now hopping from foot to foot in unseemly anger. “The main entrance is for members and their guest only, not workers.”

“No one tells my son he’s a servant, or a ‘worker’ neither!” Amina was holding George behind her and now dropped her heavy gym bag on the floor right at the secretary’s feet. He leaped back in shock. “We were asked to help out and no one is going to treat us like dirt.”

“Young woman, you are an employee,” stuttered the secretary. “You will not speak to me with such insolence, or you will be terminated with cause.”

“Bloody terminate me, then, you old git,” said Amina. “Better do it fast. From the colour of your face, you’re going to drop dead any second.” The secretary’s face had indeed flushed an unusual purple, which extended up to the scalp under his thin sandy hair. It clashed with his tie. The Major was frozen to the spot with horror at the argument. Roger’s gaffe was enough earn him a stern lecture from the secretary, and now the Major’s name was linked with this young woman’s rudeness. He had not suffered such a confrontation in thirty years.

“I demand that you leave the premises immediately,” said the secretary to Amina. Puffed up to his maximum chest capacity, the Major thought he looked like a plump squirrel.

“Suits me fine,” said Amina. She picked up her bag and swung it onto her shoulder. “Come on, George, we’re out of here.” She held George’s hand and stalked out of the front door.

“But that door’s for members…” came the secretary’s feeble cry.

The Major, who had been frozen to the spot, now became aware that to the diners behind him, he might seem to be cowering behind the Grill door. He feigned peering at his watch and then patted his pockets as if he might be looking for some forgotten item and turned on his heel to go back through the Grill and out onto the terrace. His only hope was to bundle the girl and her son into his car and leave without anyone seeing.

Amina was waiting for him in the car park, leaning on a concrete post with her arms wrapped across her chest. He noticed that she was not wearing a warm enough coat and her hair had begun to wilt in the chill drizzle. George was squatting at her feet, trying to protect his book from the rain. There was no avoiding her, so the Major waved as if nothing had happened. Amina hoisted the huge gym bag onto her thin shoulder and joined him at his car.

“I thought you had gone,” he said as he unlocked the car. “I looked all over for you.”

“Got kicked out,” she said, tossing her heavy, clinking bag in the boot on top of his clubs. “Some flunky in a bow tie suggested we wait by the servants’ entrance.”

“Oh dear, I’m sure he wasn’t trying to be offensive,” said the Major, who was sure of no such thing. “I’m so sorry you felt…” He searched for the right word; ‘excluded’ and ‘unwelcome’ were too accurate to provide the comfortable vagueness he sought. “…bad.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t have space in my head to put up with harmless old gits trying to make me feel bad,” said Amina, folding her arms. “I’ve learned to tell the difference between the people who can really hurt you and those who just want to look down their noses.”

“If they’re harmless, why confront them?” asked the Major, thinking again of the seething tea lady on the seafront.

“Because they’re bullies, and I’m teaching George not to put up with bullies – right, George?” she said.

“Bullies have no brains,” repeated George from the backseat. The scribble of pencil against paper indicated that he was still drawing.

“They expect you to slink away or tip your cap or something,” said Amina. “When you spit back at them, they get all flustered. Bet you’ve never tried it, have you?”

“No, I suppose I was raised to believe in politeness above all,” said the Major.

“You ought to try it sometime,” she said. “It can be really funny.” There was a weary tone to her voice that made the Major doubt she found it as amusing as she claimed. They drove in silence for a while and then she shifted in her seat to look at him. “You’re not going to ask me about George, are you?” she asked in a low voice.

“None of my business, young lady.” He tried to keep any judgement out of his tone.

“Women always ask,” she said. “My aunt Noreen is having migraine attacks from all the scandalised ladies dropping by to ask her about me.”

“Nasty things, migraines,” said the Major.

“Men never ask, but you can see they’ve made up a whole story about me and George in their heads.” She turned away and placed her fingers where the rain ran sideways along the glass of her window. The Major’s first impulse was to claim he had never given it a thought, but she was very observant. He wondered what truthful comment he could make.

“I’m not going to answer for men, or women, in general,” he said after a moment. “But in my own case, I believe there is a great deal too much mutual confession going on today, as if sharing one’s problems somehow makes them go away. All it really does, of course, is increase the number of people who have to worry about a particular issue.” He paused while he negotiated a particularly tricky, right-hand turn across the busy road and into the shortcut of a narrow back lane. “Personally, I have never sought to burden other people with my life history and I have no intention of meddling in theirs,” he added.

“But you’re making judgements about people all the time – and if you don’t know the whole story…”

“My dear young woman, we are complete strangers, are we not?” he said. “Of course we will make shallow and quite possibly erroneous judgements about each other. I’m sure, for example, that you already have me pegged as an old git too, do you not?” She said nothing and he thought he detected a guilty smirk.

“But we have no right to demand more of each other, do we?” he continued. “I mean, I’m sure your life is very complicated, but I’m equally sure that I have no incentive to give it any thought and you have no right to demand it of me.”

“I think everyone has the right to be shown respect,” she said.

“Ah well, there you go.” He shook his head. “Young people are always demanding respect instead of trying to earn it. In my day, respect was something to strive for. Something to be given, not taken.”

“You know, you should be an old git,” she said with a faint smile, “but for some reason I like you.”

“Thank you,” he said, surprised. He was equally surprised to find that he felt pleased. There was something about this prickly young person that he also liked. He was not about to tell her so, however, in case she took it as an invitation to tell him more about her life. It was with a feeling of relief that he pulled up the car in front of Mrs. Ali’s shop and let his passengers out.

“Do they have comics?” asked George.

“I’ve got no money, so just be a good boy and maybe when we get home I’ll make you a cake,” said Amina.

“Good luck,” the Major called though the window as Amina paused in front of the shop, holding George by the hand. The face she turned to him was quite grey and frightened. He felt a dawning of suspicion that she was not going to the shop for a mere job interview. Whatever she was up to, she seemed more frightened of Mrs. Ali than she had been of the club secretary.

∗

He had returned home and had put the tea in the pot but not yet poured a cup, when his uneasiness about dropping the strange young woman and her son on Mrs. Ali’s doorstep was compounded by the horrible sensation that it was the third Thursday of the month. He went to the calendar to check and his fears were realised. On the third Thursday in every month, the bus company shifted all the afternoon buses to some mysterious other duties. Even the Parish Council had been unable to get a clear answer as to where they went. The company would only say it was a “rationalisation” of service to allow “increased presence in underserved markets.” Since buses came to Edgecombe only every two hours on a normal day, the Major and others had voiced the opinion that the village was itself underserved, but the matter had not been resolved. While his neighbour Alice had suggested protests on the steps of the county hall, he and most of the other village leaders had been content to retreat to the comfort of their cars. Alec had even gone out and bought a four-wheel drive, claiming that he would regard it as a vital community resource now that buses could not be counted upon in an emergency.

The Major was sure that Amina had told George the truth when she said she had no money. He was certain she could not afford a taxi. With great reluctance, tinged with curiosity, he put the cozy on the pot and fetched his coat. He would have to at least offer to drive the pair back to town.

∗

Through the distortion of the plate glass window he could see Mrs. Ali leaning against the counter as if she were slightly faint. Her nephew stood rigid, which was hardly unusual, but he was staring past the Major’s shoulder at some distant point outside the window. Amina looked down at her bright crimson boots, her shoulders sunk into an old woman’s hunch that telegraphed defeat. This was no job interview. The Major was just thinking about sneaking away again when he was accosted by a loud voice.

“Major, yoo-hoo!” He turned around and was greeted with the sight of Daisy, Alma, Grace, and Lord Dagenham’s niece, Gertrude, crammed into Daisy’s Mercedes with so many overstuffed and billowing bags and packages that they looked like four china figurines packed in a gift box. “So happy to have spotted you, you’re just the man we wanted to see,” added Daisy, as the four ladies did their best to emerge from the car without spilling their purchases into the street. It was not the most dignified scene. The Major held the car door for Alma and tried not to look at her plump knees as he bent to rescue a large yellow satin turban that had almost tumbled into a puddle.

“I see Alec is all taken care of,” he said.

“I’m so glad we spotted you,” repeated Daisy. “We couldn’t wait to tell you all about the exciting new plan we came up with,”

“It involves you!” said Alma, as if the Major should feel pleased.

“Major, we have been debating whether our folk dancing was enough to set the theme of our evening,” said Daisy. “Then this morning, while we were breakfasting at Lord Dagenham’s, we came up with a delightful proposition.”

“It was a lovely breakfast, Gertrude,” said Alma to the niece. “Such a delightful start to the day.”

“Thank you,” said Gertrude. “I’m more used to grabbing a bacon sandwich in the stables than entertaining other ladies. I’m so sorry about the kippers.”

“Nonsense,” said Alma. “Quite my own fault for gobbling them up so fast.”

“I was standing by to attempt the Heimlich, but I’m more experienced with horse choke.”

“Ladies, ladies,” said Daisy. “If we could stay on point?” She paused for effect. “We’ve settled on a series of scenes – very tasteful – and we were discussing how to make them relevant.”

“Oh, you tell him, Grace – it was partly your idea,” added Alma.

“Oh, no, no,” said Grace. She stood a little apart, shifting slightly from foot to foot. The Major found this nervous fretting irritating in an otherwise sensible woman. “We were just talking about local connections to India and I happened to mention your father. I didn’t mean to suggest anything.”

“My father?” asked the Major.

“If I might explain,” said Daisy, quelling Grace with a lifted eyebrow. “We were reminded of the story of your father and his brave service to the Maharajah. We’ve decided to do it in three or four scenes. It’ll be the perfect core of our entertainment.”

“No, no, no,” the Major said. He felt quite faint at the idea. “My father was in India in the thirties and early forties.”

“Yes?” said Daisy.

“The Mughal Empire died out around 1750,” said the Major, his exasperation overcoming his politeness. “So you see it doesn’t go at all.”

“Well, it’s all the same thing,” said Daisy. “It’s all India, isn’t it?”

“But it’s not the same at all,” said the Major. “The Mughals – that’s Shah Jehan and the Taj Mahal. My father served at Partition. That’s the end of the English in India.”

“So much the better,” said Daisy. “We’ll just change ‘Mughal’ to ‘Maharajah’ and celebrate how we gave India and Pakistan their independence. Dawn of a new era and all that. I think it’s the only sensitive option.”

“That would solve the costume problem for a lot of people,” said Alma. “I was trying to tell Hugh Whetstone that pith helmets weren’t fully developed until the nineteenth century, but he didn’t want to hear it. If we add an element of ‘Last Days’, they can wear their ‘Charles Dickens’ summer dresses if they prefer.”

“Though ‘Last Days’ is what got us in trouble last year,” ventured Grace.

“We needn’t be so specific,” snapped Alma.

“Partition was 1947,” said the Major. “People wore uniforms and short frocks.”

“We’re not trying to be rigidly historical, Major,” said Daisy. “Now I understand you do have possession of your father’s guns? And what about some kind of dress uniform? I understand he was at least a colonel, wasn’t he?”