Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (3 page)

“Certainly.” She took his hand a moment in hers. “I wish you a strong heart and the love of family this afternoon.” The Major felt a warmth of emotion that he hoped he could keep alight as he faced the awful starkness of Bertie in a walnut box.

∗

The service was largely the same mix of comedy and misery he remembered from Nancy’s funeral. The church was large and dismal. It was mid-century Presbyterian, its concrete starkness unrelieved by the incense, candles, and stained glass of Nancy’s beloved St. Mary’s C of E. No ancient bell tower or mossy cemetery here, with compensating beauty and the peace of seeing the same names carved on stone down through the ages. The only comfort was the small satisfaction of seeing the service well attended, to the point where two rows of folding chairs were occupied in the back. Bertie’s coffin lay above a shallow depression in the floor, rather like a drainage trough, and at some point in the service the Major was startled by a mechanical hum and Bertie’s sudden descent. He didn’t sink more than four inches, but the Major stifled a sudden cry and involuntarily reached out a hand. He hadn’t been prepared.

Jemima and Marjorie both spoke. He expected to be derisive of their speeches, especially when Jemima, in a wide-brimmed hat of black straw more suitable for a chic wedding, announced a poem composed in her father’s honour. But though the poem was indeed atrocious (he remembered only a surfeit of teddy bears and angels quite at odds with the severity of Presbyterian teachings), her genuine grief transformed it into something moving. She wept mascara all over her thin face and had to be half carried from the lectern by her husband.

The Major had not been asked in advance to speak. He considered this a grave oversight and had prepared extensive remarks over and over during the lonely insomnia of the intervening nights. But when Marjorie, returning to her seat after her own short and tearful goodbye to her husband, leaned in and asked him if he wanted to say anything, he declined. To his own surprise, he was feeling weak again and his voice and vision were both blurry with emotion. He simply grasped both her hands for a long moment and tried not to allow any tears to escape.

After the service, shaking hands with people in the smoked-glass lobby, he had been touched by the appearance of several of his and Bertie’s old friends, some who he had not seen in many years. Martin James, who had grown up with them both in Edgecombe, had driven over from Kent. Bertie’s old neighbour Alan Peters, who had a great golf handicap but had taken up bird-watching instead, had driven over from the other side of the county. Most surprisingly, Jones the Welshman, an old army friend of the Major’s dating all the way back to officer training, who had met Bertie a handful of times one summer and had continued to send them both cards every Christmas, had come down from Halifax. The Major gripped his hand and shook his head in wordless thanks. The moment was spoiled only by Jonesy’s second wife, a woman neither he nor Bertie had had a chance to meet, who kept weeping brokenheartedly into her large handkerchief.

“Give it over, Lizzy,” said Jones. “Sorry, she can’t help it.”

“I’m so sorry,” wailed Lizzy, blowing her nose. “I get this way at weddings, too.” The Major didn’t mind. At least she had come.

Roger had not appeared.

B
ertie’s house – he supposed he should have to start thinking of it as Marjorie’s house now – was a boxy split-level that she had managed to torque into some semblance of a Spanish villa. The lumpy brick pergola and wrought-iron railings of a rooftop patio crowned the attached double garage. An attic extension with a brick-arched picture window presented a sort of flamenco wink at the seaside town that sprawled below. The front garden was given over mostly to a gravel driveway as big as a car park and the cars were lined up two abreast around a spindly copper fountain in the shape of a very thin, naked young girl. The late afternoon was growing chilly, the clouds swelling in from the sea, but upstairs on the second floor, Marjorie still had the doors from the tiled living room open to the rooftop patio. The Major stayed as deep into the room as possible, trying to suck some warmth from lukewarm tea in a small polystyrene cup. Marjorie’s idea of ‘nothing elaborate’ was a huge banquet of spoon-dripping food – egg salad, lasagna, a wine-soaked chicken stew – served entirely on paper plates. All around the room people cradled sagging plates in their palms, plastic glasses and cups of tea set down haphazardly on window ledges and the top of a large television. Across the room he caught an undulation in the crowd and followed the stir to see Marjorie embracing Roger. Major Pettigrew’s heart jumped to see his tall brown-haired son. So he had come after all.

Roger made copious apologies for his lateness and a solemn promise to help Marjorie and Jemima select a headstone for Uncle Bertie. He was charming and smooth in an expensive, dark suit, unsuitable gaudy tie, and narrow, highly polished shoes too dapper to be anything but Italian. London had polished him to an almost continental urbanity. The Major tried not to disapprove.

“Listen, Dad, Jemima had a word with me about Uncle Bertie’s shotgun,” said Roger when they had a moment to sit down on a hard leather sofa to talk. He twitched at his lapel and adjusted the knees of his trousers.

“Yes, I was meaning to talk to Marjorie about it. But it’s not really the time, is it?” He had not forgotten about the question of the gun, but it didn’t seem important today.

“They understand perfectly about the value of it. Jemima is quite up on the subject.”

“It’s not a question of the money, of course,” said the Major sternly. “Our father was quite clear in his intentions that the pair be reunited. Family heirlooms, family patrimony.”

“Yes, Jemima feels that the pair should be reunited,” said Roger. “A little restoration may be needed, of course.”

“Mine is in perfect condition,” said the Major. “I don’t believe Bertie quite took the time with his that I did. Not much of a shooting man.”

“Well, anyway,” said Roger, “Jemima says the market is red hot right now. There aren’t Churchills of this quality to be had for love or money. The Americans are signing up for waiting lists.” The Major felt a slow tightening in the muscles of his cheeks. His small smile became quite rigid as he inferred the blow that was to come. “So, Jemima and I think the most sensible course of action would be to sell them as a pair right now. Of course, it would be your money, Dad, but since you are planning to pass it on to me eventually, I assume, I could really use it now.”

The Major said nothing. He concentrated on breathing. He had never really noticed how much mechanical effort was involved in maintaining the slow in-and-out of the lungs, the smooth passage of oxygen through the nose. Roger had the decency to squirm in his chair. He knew, thought the Major, exactly what he was asking.

“Excuse me, Ernest, there’s a strange woman outside who says she’s waiting for you?” said Marjorie, appearing suddenly and putting her hand on his shoulder. He looked up, coughing to hide his wet eyes. “Are you expecting a dark woman in a small Honda?”

“Oh, yes,” he said, “that’s Mrs. Ali come to pick me up.”

“A woman taxi driver?” said Roger. “You hate women drivers.”

“She’s not a taxi service,” snapped the Major. “She’s a friend of mine. She owns the village shop.”

“In that case, you’d better have her come in and have some tea,” said Marjorie, her lips tight with disapproval. She looked vaguely at the buffet. “I’m sure she’d like a piece of Madeira cake – everyone likes Madeira cake, don’t they?”

“I’ll do that, thank you,” said the Major, rising to his feet.

“Actually, Dad, I was hoping I could drive you home,” said Roger. The Major was confused.

“But you came by train,” he said.

“Yes, that was the plan,” said Roger, “but things changed. Sandy and I decided to drive down together. She’s out looking at weekend cottages right now.”

“Weekend cottages?” It was too much to take in.

“Yes, Sandy thought since I had to come down anyway…I’ve been on at her about getting a place down here. We could be nearer to you.”

“A weekend cottage,” repeated the Major, still struggling with the implications of this person named Sandy.

“I’m dying for you to meet her. She should be here any minute.” Roger scanned the room in case she had suddenly come in. “She’s American, from New York. She has a rather important job in the fashion business.”

“Mrs. Ali is waiting for me,” said the Major. “It would be rude – ”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll understand,” interrupted Roger.

Outside the air was chill. The view of the town and the sea beyond was smudged around the edges with darkness. Mrs. Ali had parked her Honda just inside the curly iron gates with their depictions of flying dolphins. She waved and stepped from the car to greet him. She was holding a paperback and half a cheeseburger wrapped in its garish, oily paper. The Major was venomously opposed to the awful fast-food places that were gradually taking over the ugly stretch of road between the hospital and the seafront, but he was prepared to find her indulgence charmingly out of character.

“Mrs. Ali, won’t you come in and have some tea?” he said.

“No, thank you, Major, I don’t want to intrude,” she said. “But please don’t rush on my account. I’m quite fine here.” She indicated the book in her hand.

“We have quite a buffet inside,” offered the Major. “We even have homemade Madeira cake.”

“I’m quite happy, really,” she said, smiling at him. “You take your time with your family and I’ll be waiting when you’re ready.”

The Major was miserably confused. He was tempted to climb in the car and go right now. It would be early enough when they got back to invite Mrs. Ali in for tea. They could discuss her new book. Perhaps she might listen to some of the funnier aspects of the day.

“You’re going to think me impossibly rude,” he said. “But my son managed to come down after all, by car.”

“How lovely for you,” she said.

“Yes, and he would like – of course I told him I’d already arranged to go home with you…”

“No, no, you must go home with your son,” she said.

“I’m most awfully sorry,” he said. “He seems to have acquired a girlfriend. Apparently they’ve been looking at weekend houses.”

“Ah.” She understood right away. “A weekend house near you? How wonderful that will be.”

“I might see what I can do to help them with that,” he said, almost to himself. He looked up. “Are you sure you won’t come in and have some tea?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” she said. “You must enjoy your family and I must be getting back.”

“I really am in your debt,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough for your gracious assistance.”

“It’s nothing at all,” she said. “Please don’t mention it.” She gave him a slight bow, got in the car, and reversed it in a tight circle that flung gravel in a wide arc. The Major tried to wave but felt dishonest, causing the gesture to fail mid-arm. Mrs. Ali did not look back.

As her little blue car pulled away, he had to resist the urge to run after it. He had held the promise of the ride home as if it were a small coal in his hand, to warm him in the dark press of the crowd. The Honda braked at the gate and the tires squirted gravel again as it lurched to avoid the sweeping oval headlights of a large black car, which showed no shift or sudden braking. It only slid up the driveway and parked in the large open space the other guests had politely left clear in front of the door.

The Major, trudging back up the gravel incline, arrived slightly out of breath just as the driver reholstered a silver lipstick and opened her door. More from instinct than inclination, he held the door for her. She looked surprised and then smiled as she unfolded tanned and naked legs from the close confines of the champagne leather cockpit.

“I’m not going to do that thing where I assume you’re the butler and you turn out to be Lord So-and-So,” she said, smoothing down her plain black skirt. It was of expensive material but unexpected brevity. She wore it with a fitted black jacket worn over nothing – at least, no shirt was immediately visible in the cleavage, which, due to her height and vertiginous heels, was almost at the Major’s eye level.

“The name is Pettigrew,” he said. He was reluctant to admit anything more before he had to. He was still trying to process the assault of her American vowels and the flash of impossible white teeth.

“Well, that narrows it down to the right place,” she said. “I’m Sandy Dunn. I’m a friend of Roger Pettigrew?” The Major considered denying Roger’s presence.

“I believe he is talking with his aunt just now,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the open hallway as if by the merest glance he could map the invisible crowd upstairs. “Perhaps I should get him for you?”

“Oh, just point me in his general direction,” she said, and moved past him. “Is that lasagna I smell? I’m starving.”

“Do come in,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Pettigrew.”

“It’s Major, actually…” he said, but she was already gone, stiletto heels clicking on the garish green and white tiles. She left a trail of citrus perfume in the air. It was not unpleasant, he thought, but it hardly offset the appalling manners.

∗

The Major found himself loitering in the hall, unwilling to face what was inevitable upstairs. He would have to be formally introduced to the Amazon. He could not believe Roger had invited her. She would no doubt make his prior reticence out to be some sort of idiocy. Americans seemed to enjoy the sport of publicly humiliating one another. The occasional American sitcoms that came on TV were filled with childish fat men poking fun at others, all rolled eyeballs and metallic taped laughter.

He sighed. Of course, he would have to pretend to be pleased, for Roger’s sake. Best to brazen it out rather than to appear embarrassed in front of Marjorie.

∗

Upstairs, the mood was slowly shifting into cheerfulness. With their grief sopped up by a heavy lunch and their spirits fueled by several drinks, the guests were blossoming out into normal conversations. The minister was just inside the doorway discussing the diesel consumption of his new Volvo with one of Bertie’s old work colleagues. A young woman, with a squirming toddler clasped to her lap, was extolling the benefits of some workout regime to a dazed Jemima.