Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Chapter 13

Saturday morning was sunny and the Major was in the back garden, forking a pile of leaves into a wheelbarrow, when his son’s raised voice from the house snapped him to attention and caused him to drop the entire load with a half-formed oath. Having no idea that Roger would follow through on his threat to visit, the Major had not told him that there would be a guest in the house. From the continued shouts inside, accompanied by what sounded like a chair being overturned, the Major surmised that he might need to run if he were to save both Roger and his houseguest from a skirmish.

As he hurried toward the door, he cursed Roger for never bothering to phone but always turning up unannounced whenever he felt like it. The Major would have liked to institute some rational system of pre-visit notification, but he never seemed to find the right words to tell Roger that his childhood home was no longer available to him at all hours. He was unaware of any established etiquette as to when a child should be stripped of family privilege, but he knew the time had long since passed in this case.

Now he would be stuck with Roger pouting as if he owned the place and the Major and his guest were the interlopers. As he reached the back door, Roger came panting through, his face red and furious and his fingers poised over his cell phone. “There’s a man in the house claims he’s staying here,” said Roger. “Sandy’s keeping him talking but I’ve got the police on speed dial.”

“Oh, good heavens, don’t call the police,” said the Major. “That’s just Abdul Wahid.”

“Abdul what?” said Roger. “Who the hell is he? I almost hit him with a dining chair.”

“Are you quite mad?” asked the Major. “Why would you assume my guest is some kind of intruder?”

“Is that any more absurd than assuming my father has suddenly become friendly with half the population of Pakistan?”

“And you left Sandy alone with my ‘intruder’?” asked the Major.

“Yes, she’s keeping him occupied, talking to him about handmade clothing,” said Roger. “Spotted that his scarf was some vintage tribal piece and quite calmed him down. I ducked out just to check he was on the up and up.”

“So much for chivalry,” said the Major.

“Well, you said yourself, he isn’t dangerous,” said Roger. “Who the hell is he and what’s he doing here?”

“I don’t see that it is any of your concern,” said the Major. “I am simply helping out a friend by putting up her nephew for a couple of days, a couple of weeks at most. She wanted to invite the fiancée to move in and—It’s a bit complicated.”

He felt himself on shaky ground. It was hard to defend his invitation when he himself did not fully understand what Mrs. Ali was trying to accomplish in immediately moving Amina and George into the flat above the shop. She had stared hungrily at little George, and the Major had not recognized the look until later. It was the same look Nancy had sometimes given Roger, when she thought no one was looking. She had looked that way on the day of his birth and she had looked at him just the same as she lay wasting away in the hospital. In that bleach-scented room with its flickering fluorescent light and its ridiculous new wallpaper border bursting with purple hollyhocks, Roger had chattered on about his own concerns as usual, as if a cheery recitation of his promotion prospects would wipe out the reality of her dying, and she had gazed at him as if to burn his face into her fading mind.

“It sounds quite ridiculous,” said Roger, speaking in such an imperious tone that the Major wondered how he would react to a swift butt on the shins with a rake handle. “Anyway, Sandy and I are here now, so you can use us as an excuse to get rid of him.”

“It would be entirely rude to ‘get rid’ of him,” said the Major. “He has accepted my invitation—an invitation I might not have made had I known you were coming down this weekend.”

“I did say we’d be down to visit soon,” said Roger. “I told you at the cottage.”

“Alas, if I planned my weekends around the hope that you would carry through on a promise to visit, I would be a lonely old man sitting amid a growing tower of clean bed linen and uneaten cake,” said the Major. “At least Abdul Wahid showed up when invited.”

“Look, I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice chap, but you can’t be too careful at your age,” said Roger. He stopped and looked around as if to detect eavesdroppers. “There have been many cases of elderly people taken in by scam artists.”

“What do you mean, ‘elderly people’?”

“You have to be especially careful about foreigners.”

“Would that apply equally to Americans?” asked the Major. “Because I spot one of them now.” Sandy was standing in the doorway. She appeared to be examining the long curtains and the Major wished that the pattern of poppies had not faded to rust all along the edges.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Roger. “Americans are just like us.”

As his son greeted Sandy with a kiss on the lips and an arm around the waist, the Major was left to gape at such a peremptory dismissal of any distinction of national character between Great Britain and the giant striving nation across the Atlantic. The Major found much to admire in America but also felt that the nation was still in its infancy, its birth predating Queen Victoria’s reign by a mere sixty years or so. Generous to a fault—he still remembered the tins of chocolate powder and waxy crayons handed out in his school even several years after the war—America wielded her huge power in the world with a brash confidence that reminded him of a toddler who has got hold of a hammer.

He was prepared to admit that he might be prejudiced, but what was one supposed to think of a country where history was either preserved in theme parks by employees wearing mob caps and long skirts over their sneakers, or was torn down—taken apart for the wide-plank lumber?

“Are you all right, darling?” asked Roger. “Turns out Abdul is here at my father’s invitation.”

“Of course he is,” said Sandy. She turned to the Major. “Ernest, you have a lovely home.” She held out her long hand and the Major took it, noting that her nails were now pink with broad white tips. It took him a moment to realize that they had been painted to look like fingernails, and he sighed over the extraordinary range of female vanities. His wife, Nancy, had had lovely oval nails, like filbert nuts, and had never done anything more than buff them with a small manicure tool. She had kept them short, the better to thrust them into the garden soil or to play the piano.

“Thank you,” said the Major.

“You can almost smell the centuries,” said Sandy, who was perfectly dressed for a literary version of the countryside, or perhaps an afternoon in Tunbridge Wells. She wore high-heeled brown shoes, pale, well-pressed slacks, a shirt with autumn leaves printed on it, and a cashmere sweater tied around her shoulders. She did not look ready to climb over a stile and walk through soggy sheep fields to the pub for lunch. A happy maliciousness prompted the Major to suggest just that immediately.

“Let’s celebrate the lovely surprise of your visit, shall we?” he said. “I thought we’d walk down for lunch at the Royal Oak.”

“Actually we brought lunch with us,” said Roger. “Picked up supplies at this great new place in Putney. Everything is flown in from France by overnight mail.”

“I hope you like truffle dust.” Sandy laughed. “Roger had them powder everything but the madeleines.”

“Perhaps you’d like to invite that Abdul chap to join us, by way of apology,” added Roger, as if it were the Major who had created an offense.

“It’s not polite to call him Abdul. It means servant,” said the Major. “Formally, you should use the entire Abdul Wahid. It means Servant of God.”

“Touchy about it, is he?” said Roger. “And his aunt would be Mrs. What’s-Her-Name from the village shop? The one you brought to the cottage to freak out Mrs. Augerspier?”

“Your Mrs. Augerspier is an objectionable woman—”

“That goes without saying, Dad.”

“Just because it goes without saying doesn’t mean one shouldn’t speak up, you know. Or at least refuse to do business with such a person.”

“There’s no point in being confrontational and losing out on something lucrative, is there?” asked Roger. “I mean, it is much more satisfying to beat them by getting the better end of the bargain.”

“On what philosophical basis does that idea rest?” asked the Major. Roger gave a vague wave of the hand and the Major saw him roll his eyes for Sandy’s benefit.

“Oh, it’s simple pragmatism, Dad. It’s called the real world. If we refused to do business with the morally questionable, the deal volume would drop in half and the good guys like us would end up poor. Then where would we all be?”

“On a nice dry spit of land known as the moral high ground?” suggested the Major.

Roger and Sandy went to fetch their hamper and as the Major tried not to think of truffles, which he had always avoided because they stank like sweaty groins, Abdul Wahid came out of the house. As usual he was carrying a couple of dusty religious texts tucked tightly under his armpit partly and was wearing the dour frown which the Major now understood was the result of excessive thinking rather than mere unpleasantness. The Major wished young men wouldn’t think so much. It always seemed to result in absurd revolutionary movements or, as in the case of several of his former pupils, the production of very bad poetry.

“Your son has come to stay,” said Abdul Wahid. “I should leave your home.”

“Oh, no, no,” said the Major, who was growing used to Abdul Wahid’s abrupt style of speaking and no longer found it offensive. “There is no need for you to rush off. I told you, the room is yours as long as you want.”

“He has brought his fiancée with him,” said Abdul Wahid. “I must congratulate you. She is very beautiful.”

“Yes, but on the other hand, she’s an American. There’s surely no reason for you to leave.” He thought it quite ridiculous that this young man should careen away from every unmarried woman he met.

“You will need the guest room,” said Abdul Wahid. “Your son was very clear that they will be staying with you for several weekends, until their cottage is made habitable.”

“Ah, will they?” said the Major. He could think of no immediate response. He doubted that the spare room would be required in this case, but he realized that this information would only hasten Abdul Wahid’s departure while placing himself in the awkward position of having to make direct reference to his son’s sleeping arrangements.

“I should return to the shop, and Amina and George should go back to her auntie in town,” said Abdul Wahid in a firm voice. “This whole idea that we can be together again is just foolish.”

“Many a fool has later been labeled a genius,” said the Major. “There is no hurry to make decisions, is there? Your aunt seems to think the family will come around. And she dotes on little George.”

“My aunt has discussed the matter with you?” asked Abdul Wahid.

“I knew your uncle,” said the Major, but he felt the lie in this and could not look at Abdul Wahid.

“My aunt has always defied the normal and necessary limits of real life. She sees it as a duty, almost,” he said. “But I see only indulgence and if I do not put an end to this confusion, I fear my aunt will break her heart this time.”

“Look, why don’t you stay to lunch and we could walk down together?” asked the Major. He was worried that Abdul Wahid might be right. If Mrs. Ali persisted in investing in George all her dreams of children and grandchildren, she might well get her heart broken. However, he was reluctant to let the young man precipitate some crisis. Moreover he found himself eager to inflict his guest upon Roger—or perhaps to inflict them on each other, in the hope of jolting both out of their moral complacency. “I would really like you to meet my son properly.”

Abdul Wahid gave a strange bleating sound and the Major realized he was actually laughing.

“Major, your son and his fiancée have brought you an entire feast of pâtés, hams, and other pig-related products. I barely escaped the kitchen with my faith.”

“I’m sure we can make you a cheese sandwich or something,” said the Major. Abdul Wahid shuffled his feet and the Major pressed his invitation home. “I do wish you’d sit around the table with us.”

“I will of course defer to your wishes,” he said. “I will drink a glass of tea if you will allow.”

In the kitchen an unfamiliar cloth of blue-striped burlap had been laid across the table. His best wineglasses, the ones the Major brought out at Christmas, were laid out next to plastic plates in a lurid lime green. A wine bucket he had never used held a bottle of fizzy water chilling in what looked like every last ice cube from the plastic trays. Strange mustards had been decanted into his china finger bowls while an unfamiliar vase like a tree root held a bunch of yellow calla lilies, which had sunk to the tabletop in a low bow. Sandy was tucking more wilting lilies among the bric-a-brac on the mantelpiece. They had kindled an unnecessary but attractive fire in the grate and the Major wondered whether they had purchased firewood in Putney as well. Roger was frying something on the stove.

“Is your jacket smoldering, Roger,” asked the Major, “or are you just cooking something made of tweed?”

“Just a few truffle slices sautéed with foie gras and sorrel,” said Roger. “We had it in a restaurant last week and it was so fabulous I thought I’d try it myself.” He poked at the pan, which was beginning to blacken. “It doesn’t smell quite like the chef made it, though. Perhaps I should have used goose fat instead of lard.”

“How many of us are there for lunch?” asked the Major. “Is there a coach tour about to turn up?”

“Well, Dad, I planned for leftovers,” said Roger. “That way you’ll have some food for the week.” He tipped the contents of the frying pan into a shallow bowl and dumped the black, hissing pan into the sink, where it continued to smoke.

“Ernest, do you have a corkscrew?” asked Sandy and the Major’s indignation at the suggestion that he needed to be provided food was displaced by the need to head off a cultural misunderstanding.

“Abdul Wahid has consented to sit at the table with us, so perhaps I’ll put on the kettle for tea and get us all a nice jug of lemon water,” said the Major. Sandy paused, cradling a bottle of wine against one hip.

“Oh, I say, do we have to—” began Roger.

“Please do not mind my presence,” said Abdul Wahid. “You must drink as you wish.”

“Good show, old man,” said Roger. “If everyone would just show such good manners, we could solve the Middle East crisis tomorrow.” He bent his lips into a vacant smile and displayed teeth too white to be natural.

“Do come and sit down by me, Abdul Wahid,” said Sandy. “I want to ask you more about traditional weaving in Pakistan.”

“I won’t be much help,” said Abdul Wahid. “I was raised in England. I was considered a tourist and an Englishman in Pakistan. I bought my scarf in Lahore, in a department store.”

“Nothing beats a plain glass of cold clear water,” said the Major, who was still rummaging for a corkscrew in the small drawer by the stove. Sandy handed him her wine bottle as she sat down by Abdul Wahid.

“Now, Father, you surely aren’t going to pass up a nice ’75 Margaux,” said Roger. “I picked it out especially for you.”

Two large glasses of decent claret in the middle of the day were not part of the Major’s usual schedule. He had to admit that they imparted a rosy air to a luncheon that would otherwise have been stilted. Sandy’s impeccably made-up face seemed soft in the haze of firelight and wine. Roger’s brash commands—he had compelled them to swirl their wine around the glass and stick their noses in as if they had never tasted a decent vintage before—seemed almost endearing. The Major wondered whether his son acted in this eager way in front of his friends in London and whether they were indulgent of his enthusiasms or just laughed at him behind his back for his feeble attempts to order everyone around. Abdul Wahid gave no sign of derision. He seemed less dour than usual—perhaps dazzled, thought the Major, by the sight of the blond and highly groomed Sandy. He alternated sips of his lemon water and his tea and answered Sandy’s few questions with the politest of replies.

Roger was pointed in ignoring their guest and chattered on about the new cottage. In one week he and Sandy had apparently managed to engage the services of a carpenter and a team of painters.

“Not just any old painters, either,” said Roger. “They’re so in demand, doing galleries and restaurants. Sandy knows them through a friend at work.” He paused and took Sandy’s hand with a loving smile. “She’s the queen of the right connections.”

“Lots of connections, very few close friends,” said Sandy. The Major caught a hint of regret that sounded genuine. “It’s so refreshing just to sit around with family and friends, like we’re doing now.”

“Where is your family?” asked Abdul Wahid. His abrupt question startled the Major from his growing sleepiness.

“We’re scattered all over,” she said. “My father lives in Florida, my mother moved to Rhode Island. I have a brother in Texas, and my sister moved with her husband to Chicago last year.”

“And what, may I ask, is your religion?”

“Good heavens, Sandy’s family is staunch Anglican,” said Roger in a clipped voice. “Tell my father about the time your mother got her picture taken with the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

“Yes, my mother did once stake out a men’s room to get a photo with the Archbishop,” said Sandy. She rolled her eyes. “I believe she thought it might make up for the rest of the family. I think we’re now one Buddhist, two agnostics, and the rest are plain old atheist.”

“Nonpracticing Anglicans,” said Roger.

“The word ‘atheist’ does rather give that impression, Roger,” replied the Major.

“Roger doesn’t like to talk about religion, do you?” said Sandy. She started to tick subjects off on her fingers: “No religion, no politics, sex only through innuendo—it’s no wonder you British obsess about the weather, darling.” The Major winced again at the endearment. He supposed he would have to become accustomed to it.

“I feel it is important to discuss our different religions,” said Abdul Wahid. “But in Britain, we keep it all behind closed doors and swept under the wall-to-wall carpet. I have not found anyone to sit down and discuss this topic.”

“Oh, my God—an ecumenical Muslim,” said Roger. “Are you sure you’re talking about the right religion?”

“Roger!” said Sandy.

“It is all right,” said Abdul Wahid. “I prefer such directness. I cannot defend my religion against evasion and the politeness which hides disdain.”

The Major felt an urgent need to change the subject. “Have you two set a wedding date, or were you going to make that a surprise as well?” he asked. Roger looked down and crumbled bread on the side of his plate. Sandy took a long swallow of wine, which the Major observed with pleasure as a possible crack in her façade of perfection. There was a moment’s pause.

“Oh, goodness no,” said Roger finally. “We have no plans to get married anytime soon, or I would have told you.”

“No plans?” asked the Major. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“I mean, once you’re married people start thinking ‘family man,’ and before you know it your whole career smells of impending nappies,” said Roger, twirling the wine cork in his fingers. He used it to mash the pile of bread crumbs into a tiny patty. “I’ve seen it nail people to their current job title.”

Sandy paid close attention to her wineglass and said nothing.

“Marriage is a wonderful part of life,” said the Major.

“Yes, so’s retirement,” said Roger. “But you might as well put them both off as long as possible.”

“Are you not afraid it will suggest dilettantism and lack of moral fiber?” said the Major, doing his best to contain his outrage. “All this lack of commitment these days—doesn’t it smack of weakness of character?”

“As one who has been weak,” said Abdul Wahid in a quiet voice, “I can attest to you that it is not a path to happiness.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you, Abdul Wahid,” said the Major, horrified that he had unintentionally offended his guest. “Not at all.”

“Look, Sandy’s her own boss, and she has no problem with it,” said Roger. “Tell them, Sandy.”

“It was my idea, actually,” said Sandy. “My firm kept the whole visa thing dangling over my head, so getting engaged to a Brit seemed the ideal answer. I don’t mean to offend you, Abdul Wahid.”

“I am not offended,” said Abdul Wahid. He blinked several times and took a deep breath. “Only sometimes when we pick and choose among the rules we discover later that we have set aside something precious in the process.”

“But everyone puts off marriage if they can,” said Roger. “I mean, just look at the royal family.”

“I won’t stand for you being disrespectful, Roger,” the Major responded. The current fashion for bandying about stories and jokes, as if the royal family were the cast of a TV soap opera, was deeply distasteful to him.

“I must get back to the shop now.” Abdul Wahid stood up from the table and inclined his head to the Major and to Sandy. The Major rose to see him out of the room.

“I hope we see you again,” said Sandy.

“What’s his problem?” said Roger when the Major returned.

“Abdul Wahid has just discovered he has a son,” said the Major. “It is a warning to all of us that unorthodox romantic arrangements are not without consequences.”

“I agree you’re right, at least when it comes to the working classes and foreigners,” said Roger. “Totally oblivious about birth control and things. But we’re not like them, Sandy and I.”

“The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,” said the Major. “A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.”

“Look, we’ll see how it goes with the cottage, Dad,” said Roger. “Who knows, maybe in six months we’ll be ready to commit.”

“To marriage?”

“Or at least to buying a place together,” said Roger. Sandy drained her wineglass and said nothing.

After lunch, Roger wanted to smoke a cigar in the garden. The Major made a pot of tea and tried to dissuade Sandy from washing dishes.

“Please don’t clear up,” he said. He still found all offers of help in the kitchen to be an embarrassment and a sign of pity.

“Oh, I love doing dishes,” said Sandy. “I know you probably consider me a dreadful Yank but I’m so in love with the fact that people here are able to live in tiny houses and do chores without complicated appliances.”

“I should point out that Rose Lodge is considered rather spacious,” said the Major. “And I’ll have you know I own a rather top-of-the-line steam iron.”

“You don’t send out your ironing?”

“I used to have a woman come in,” said the Major, “when my wife was ill. But she ironed my trouser seams until they were shiny. I looked like a damn band captain.” Sandy laughed and the Major did not wince quite so much. Either he was getting used to her, or the claret had not yet worn off.

“Maybe I won’t bother getting a dishwasher for the cottage,” said Sandy. “Maybe we’ll keep things authentic.”

“The way my son uses saucepans, I think you need one,” said the Major chipping at the burnt frying pan with a fork and speaking loudly so that Roger, coming in from the garden, would register the remark.

“I went down to the club last week,” said Roger taking the dry tea towel the Major offered him but then sitting down at the table instead of helping.

“I heard,” said the Major. “Why on earth didn’t you call me so I could take you down and introduce you properly?”

“Sorry. I was just passing, really, and I thought since I’d spent all those years as a junior member that I might as well just pop in and check out what’s what,” said Roger.

“And what exactly was what?” asked the Major.

“That old secretary is a damn idiot,” said Roger, “But I ran into Gertrude Dagenham-Smythe and she fixed everything. I told Sandy it was quite funny to see the club secretary fawning all over her. He couldn’t have whipped me out a membership application any faster.”

“I’ll need to fill out a sponsorship document, of course,” said the Major. “You shouldn’t have upset the secretary.”

“Actually, Gertrude said she’d have her uncle sponsor me,” said Roger indulging in a wide yawn.

“Lord Dagenham?”

“When she offered, I thought I might as well get sponsored by someone as high up the food chain as possible.”

“But you don’t even know her,” said the Major, who still thought of Gertrude as the lady in the bucket hat.

“We’ve met Gertrude a few times in town,” said Sandy. “She remembered Roger right away—joked about how she had a crush on him one summer when she visited.”

The Major had a sudden vision of a tall, thin girl with a blunt chin and green glasses who had haunted the lane one summer. He remembered Nancy inviting her in a couple of times.

“I remember Roger being very rude to her,” said the Major. “Anyway, it’s out of the question. It simply wouldn’t do not to be sponsored by your own family.”

“If you insist,” said Roger, and the Major could only fume as he realized he had been put in the position of begging not to be cut out of Roger’s social progress. “Do you remember how she was always popping out of the hedge and presenting me with gifts?” continued Roger. “She was as plain as the back of a bus and I had to drive her off with a pea-shooter.”

“Roger!” said the Major. The young lady’s status as Lord Dagenham’s niece was enough to grant her a certain distinction if not beauty.

“Oh, he’s very attentive to her now,” said Sandy. “She asked his help with this golf club dance and he agreed right away. Good thing I’m not the jealous type.”

“I’m not at all happy with the dance,” said the Major. “There are some ridiculous ideas floating about that you must help me quash.”

“I’m your man,” said Roger. “I don’t want anything silly detracting from the central theme—the glory of the Pettigrew name.”

“But that’s precisely the piece we need to quash,” said the Major. “I don’t like our name being bandied about as cheap entertainment.”

“But how else would we get our named bandied about so fast?” asked Roger. “They’ve asked me to play Grandfather Pettigrew. It’s unbelievably good luck.” He yawned again.

“It’s an outrage,” said the Major.

“It’s a boost to my social career and it won’t cost you a penny,” said Roger. “Would you deny me that chance?”

“We’ll look ridiculous,” said the Major.

“Everyone looks ridiculous in the country,” said Roger. “The point is to join in so they don’t suspect you.” The Major was tempted to reward his son’s self-absorption with a box on the ear with the freshly scrubbed frying pan.

“Your father is just wonderful,” said Sandy as they sat over tea in the living room. “It’s so nice to meet someone real for a change.”

“We met one of the biggest art collectors in Europe this week,” said Roger. “Russian guy—he has an entire house on the edge of Regents Park.”

“I don’t think your father would have liked it much,” said Sandy.

“He has six Picassos and amethyst handles on all the taps in the toilets,” said Roger. “Ten minutes of chatting with him, and Sandy had an order for an entire new wardrobe of clothes for his girlfriend.”

“I do admire a man who doesn’t do things by halves,” said Sandy.

“You should call her, darling, and see if we can wangle a lunch invitation,” said Roger.

“Oh, God, Roger, not lunch,” said Sandy. “Lunch requires conversation. I don’t think I can sustain a whole hour of listening to her catalog her handbags.”

“It’d be worth it if we get on the list of people invited to their private tent at the art fair,” said Roger. “If we work ’em right, we could be yachting in the Black Sea next summer, or at least invited down to Poole for the weekend.”

“In my day I don’t think we ever felt the need to ‘work’ our social contacts in such a manner,” said the Major. “It seems a bit gauche.”

“Oh come on, it’s always been the way of the world,” said Roger. “You’re either in the game, making the connections, or you’re left in the social backwoods, reduced to making friends with—well, with shopkeepers.”

“You’re very rude,” said the Major. He felt his face flushing.

“I think your father has the right idea,” said Sandy. “To be interesting, you have to make contacts in all sorts of worlds. That way you keep people off guard.”

“Sandy is a real master at making friends with people,” said Roger. “She has everyone convinced she really likes them.”

“I do like them all,” said Sandy, blushing. “Okay, maybe I don’t like the Russian. We may have to rent a canoe if you want a boating holiday.”

“She has my boss’s wife eating out of her hand. One minute I can’t get a cup of coffee with my boss, and the next, he’s asking me to go shooting with him and a client,” said Roger. “Never underestimate the power of the female Mafia,”

“I seem to remember a small boy blubbering over a dead woodpecker and vowing never to pick up a gun again,” said the Major. “Are you really going shooting?” He leaned toward Sandy and poured her more tea. “Could never get him to come out with me after that,” he added.

“Yeah—like ‘bring Woody’ is a great invitation,” said Roger. “It was my first shoot and I potted an endangered bird. They never let me forget it.”

“Oh, you have to learn to shrug these things off, my boy,” said the Major. “Nicknames only stick to people who let them.”

“My father.” Roger rolled his eyes. “A great believer in the cold-baths-and-blistering-rebuke school of compassion.”

“Roger is going shooting now,” said Sandy. “We had to spend three hours in a store on Jermyn Street, getting him the proper outfit.”

“An outfit?” asked the Major. “I could have lent you a pair of breeches and a jacket.”

“I got everything I needed, thanks,” said Roger. “Except a gun, of course. I was hoping I could borrow yours and Uncle Bertie’s.” The request was smoothly made. The Major set down his cup and saucer and considered his son’s placid face with equal parts curiosity and rage.

Roger betrayed no hint that he understood the effrontery of the request. It was of no more significance to him than asking to borrow some spare wellies during a rainstorm. The Major pondered how to produce a response that would be blunt enough to make an impression on Roger.

“No.”

“I’m sorry?” said Roger.

“No, you may not borrow the guns,” said the Major.

“Why ever not?” asked Roger with round eyes. The Major was about to answer when he recognized that his son was tempting him into explanations. Explaining would then simply open negotiations.

“Let’s not discuss it in front of our guest,” said the Major. “It is out of the question.” Roger stood up so quickly that he slopped tea into his saucer.

“How come you always have to undermine me?” he asked. “How come you can never just put yourself out to support me? This is my career we’re talking about.” He banged down his teacup and turned away to look into the fireplace, clenching his hands together behind his back.

“I’m sure your host has arranged some perfectly adequate extra guns,” said the Major. “Besides, as a novice, you would look ridiculous banging away with such a valuable pair. You would look absurd.”

“Thank you, Father,” said Roger. “Nice of you to be as frank as usual about my limitations.”

“I’m sure your father didn’t mean it that way,” said Sandy, looking as if she had suddenly remembered why business acquaintances were, after all, preferable to family.

“I’m just trying to keep you from looking foolish,” said the Major. “What kind of shoot is this, anyway? If it’s clay shooting, they often have just the right equipment.”

“No, actually it’s a local country thing,” said Roger. He paused as if reluctant to say more, and a horrible premonition came over the Major. He debated stuffing his fingers in his ears so he would not have to hear Roger’s next words.

“I told Roger you’d be happy for him,” said Sandy. “But he’s been concerned all week that you might feel offended that after all these years he gets an invitation instead of you.”

“I’m shooting with Lord Dagenham next week,” said Roger. “Sorry, Dad, but it just came about and I couldn’t exactly say no.”

“Of course not,” said the Major. He was stalling for time as he counted up his options. He wondered briefly whether Roger and he could get through the day without having to acknowledge each other. He then considered the advantages of saying nothing now and then acting surprised to meet Roger on the day, but dismissed the idea since Roger could not be relied upon to supply a dignified response to such a fiction.

“I wanted to ask Gertrude about adding another person, but I believe only a certain number of guns can be accommodated,” said Roger. “I thought it wasn’t polite to press them.” He blushed and the Major saw with some wonder that embarrassment about one’s relations went both up and down the generations. He was mortified at the thought of Roger waving a shotgun around, and for just an instant he saw himself explaining a dead peacock on the lawn. However, the Major accepted the futility of trying to hide his connection with Roger. He would just have to keep an eye on him.

“Oh, no need to worry about me,” said the Major finally. “My old friend Dagenham asked me some time ago to come and help him beef up the line.” He paused for greatest effect. “Said we needed some old hands to show you London chaps how it’s done.”

“That’s wonderful,” said Sandy. “I’m so glad it all worked out.” She stood up, adding, “Excuse me,” and gave the vague wave which seemed to the Major to be the universal female signal that a moment will be taken to freshen up.

“I’m looking forward to giving the old Churchills a good day’s work,” said the Major, also standing as Sandy left the room. “You should stick with me, Roger, and that way I can toss a few extra birds in your bag if you need them.” Roger, as he closed the door behind Sandy, looked sick to his stomach, and the Major felt he might have gone too far. His son had never been able to stand up to much of a ribbing.

“Actually, there’s an American chap who’s interested in buying them and I’m going to show them off as best I can,” he said.

“Are you really going to sell them?” asked Roger, looking instantly more cheerful. “That’s excellent news. Jemima was starting to get worried that you’d run off with them.”

“You’ve been talking to Jemima behind my back?”

“Oh, it’s not like that,” said Roger. “It’s more—Since the funeral, you know, we thought it might be useful to keep in touch since we both have parents to take care of. She has her mother to worry about, and I—well, you seem all right now, but then so did Uncle Bertie. You never know when I might have to jump in and take care of things.”

“I am rendered speechless with gratitude by your concern,” said the Major.

“You’re being sarcastic,” said Roger.

“You’re being mercenary,” said the Major.

“Dad, that’s not fair,” said Roger. “I’m not like Jemima.”

“Oh, really?” said the Major.

“Look, all I’m asking for is that when you sell the guns, you consider giving me a bit of a windfall you don’t even need,” continued Roger. “You have no idea how expensive it is to be a success in the city. The clothes, the restaurants, the weekend house parties—you have to invest to get ahead these days, and quite frankly it’s embarrassing just to try and keep up with Sandy.” He sat down and his shoulders slumped. For a moment he looked like a rumpled teenager.

“Perhaps you need to moderate your expectations a little,” said the Major, genuinely concerned. “Life isn’t all about flashy parties and meeting rich people.”

“That’s what they tell the people they don’t invite,” said Roger, sunk in gloom.

“I would never attend a function to which I had found it necessary to inveigle an invitation,” said the Major. As he said this, he reassured himself that he had done nothing to precipitate his own invitation. It had been, he remembered, an entirely spontaneous gesture from Lord Dagenham.

Sandy came back down the stairs and they ceased speaking. A hint of fresh cologne and lipstick brightened the air in the room and the Major made a note to open the windows more often. He worked hard at keeping the place clean and polished but perhaps, he thought, a certain stale quality was inevitable when one lived alone.

“We should be going if we want to speak to the painters before they leave,” said Sandy.

“You’re right,” said Roger.

“You told Abdul Wahid you would probably be staying here?” said the Major. Roger and Sandy traded a guarded look. The Major felt like a small boy whose parents are trying to shield him from grownup conversation.

“I did explain to him that we would need a place to stay while the cottage is under renovation,” said Roger. “He quite understood that it wouldn’t be convenient having us all here, what with the shared bathrooms and so on.”

“You are completely right,” said the Major. “As I told Abdul Wahid, you and Sandy will be much happier staying down at the pub.”

“Hang on a minute,” said Roger.

“You must ask the landlord for the blue room, my dear,” said the Major to Sandy. “It has a four-poster and, I believe, one of those whirlpool tubs of which you Americans are so fond.”

“I’m not staying at the damn pub,” said Roger, his face a picture of outrage. It was not noble, of course, to take pleasure in the discomfort of one’s own flesh and blood, but Roger had been altogether too forward and needed a firm check.

“It is true that the whirlpool tub does reverberate through the public end of the bar,” said the Major, as if pondering the subject deeply. He noticed that Sandy was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Laughter tweaked at her lips, and her eyes had taken his measure.

“You can’t expect my fiancée to share this house with some strange shopkeeper’s assistant from Pakistan,” Roger spluttered.

“I quite understand,” the Major said. “Unfortunately, I had already invited him to stay and I’m afraid it’s not possible to throw him out because my son does not approve,”

“For all we know, he could be a terrorist,” said Roger.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Roger, go and see your painters before they have to rush off to touch up the Vatican or whatever,” said the Major, in a harsher tone than he had intended.

He took the tea tray back to the kitchen. There was a muffled argument in the living room and then Roger stuck his head around the kitchen door to say that he and Sandy were off but would indeed be back to stay the night. The Major only nodded in reply.

He was sad at his own outburst. He wanted to feel the kind of close bond with Roger that Nancy had enjoyed. The truth was that now, without his wife to negotiate the space that they occupied as a family, he and Roger seemed to have little common ground. If there had been no bond of blood, the Major felt now, he and Roger would have little reason to continue to know each other at all. He sat at the table and felt the weight of this admission hang about his shoulders like a heavy, wet coat. In the shrunken world, without Nancy, without Bertie, it seemed very sad to be indifferent to one’s own son.