Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Chapter 25

The Major was keen to push away the nagging idea of pain, which started to seep into his head along with the light. It was comfortable in the warm darkness of sleep and he struggled to stay down. A murmur of voices, a clattering of metal carts, and the brief percussion of curtain rings swept aside made him think he might be surfacing into an airport lounge. He felt his eyelids flutter and he tried to squeeze them shut. It was his attempt to roll over that shocked him awake with a tearing pain in his left knee and an ache on his right side that made him gasp. He scrabbled with his hand and felt thin sheet over slippery mattress and knocked it against a metal post.

“He’s waking up.” A hand held his shoulder down and the same voice added, “Don’t try to move, Mr. Pettigrew.”

“Isss Major …” he whispered. “Major Pettigrew.” His voice was a hoarse whisper in a mouth that seemed to be made of brown paper. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue felt like a dead toad.

“Here’s something to drink,” said the voice as a straw snagged on his lip and he sucked at lukewarm water. “You’re in the hospital, Mr. Pettigrew, but you’re going to be fine.”

He slipped away again into sleep, hoping that when he awoke again it would be into his own room at Rose Lodge. He was quite annoyed to discover later the same cacophony of institutional sounds and the pressure of fluorescent lights against his eyelids. This time he opened his eyes.

“How are you feeling, Dad?” said Roger, who, the Major could see, had spread the Financial Times over the bed and was using the Major’s legs to prop up the pages.

“Don’t let me keep you from the stock tables,” whispered the Major. “How long have I been here?”

“About a day,” said Roger. “Do you remember what happened?”

“I was shot in the leg, not the head. Is it still there?”

“The leg? Of course it is,” said Roger. “Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes, of course I can,” said the Major. “But I didn’t want any nasty surprises.” He found it quite exhausting to speak but he asked for some more water. Roger helped him sip from a plastic cup, though most of it dribbled uncomfortably across his cheek and into his ear.

“They dug a whole lot of shot out of your leg,” said Roger. “Lucky for you it missed any arteries, and the doctor said it only clipped the edge of the right testicle, not that he expected it mattered much to a man your age.”

“Thanks very much,” said the Major.

“You also tore up the ligaments in your left knee pretty badly, but that surgery is considered elective so they said either it’ll heal on its own or you can join a waiting list and get it in about a year.” Roger leaned over and, to the Major’s surprise squeezed his hand and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re going to be fine, Dad.”

“If you kiss me like that again, I’ll have to assume you’re lying and that I’m actually in the hospice,” he said.

“You gave me a fright, what can I say.” He folded up the newspaper as if embarrassed by his moment of affection. “You’ve always been an unmovable rock in my life and suddenly you’re an old man wearing tubes. Quite nasty.”

“Nastier still for me,” said the Major. He struggled a moment to ask the questions to which he was not sure he could bear the answers. He was tempted to feign sleep again and put off the bad news. It must be bad, he thought, since there was no sign of other visitors. He tried to sit up and Roger reached over to a button on the wall and the bed raised him into a slanted position.

“I want to know,” he began, but he seemed to choke on his own voice. “I must know. Did Abdul Wahid jump?”

“Considering he shot my father, I wouldn’t have cared if he had,” said Roger. “But apparently he threw himself down as you went over and grabbed you just in time. It was touch-and-go, they said, what with the wind and the slippery rain, but some guy named Brian threw himself on Abdul and then some other guy came with a rope and stuff and they dragged you back and got you on a stretcher.”

“So he’s alive?” asked the Major.

“He is, but I’m afraid there’s some very bad news I have to tell you,” said Roger. “I was going to wait until later, but—”

“Amina’s dead?” asked the Major. “His fiancée?”

“Oh, the girl who got knitted?” said Roger. “No, she’s going to be fine. They’re all with her one flight up in women’s surgical.”

“All who?” said the Major.

“Mrs. Ali, Abdul Wahid, and that George who keeps dunning me out of pound coins for the vending machine,” said Roger. “Then there’s the auntie—Noreen, I think—and Abdul’s parents. It’s like half of Pakistan is up there.”

“Jasmina is there?” the Major asked.

“When she can bear to be away from you,” said Roger. “When I got here last night, they were still trying to pull her off your body, and I can’t seem to get rid of her.”

“I intend to ask her to marry me,” said the Major, his voice curt. “No matter what you think.”

“Don’t start getting all excited. That testicle is still in traction,” Roger said.

“What’s in traction?” asked a voice and the Major felt himself blush as Jasmina came around the curtain wearing a big smile and a shalwar kameez in a yellow as soft as butter. Her hair was damp and she smelled of carbolic soap and lemons.

“You finally went home and took a shower, then?” asked Roger.

“The matron said I was frightening all the visitors with my bloodstained clothes. She let me use the doctors’ shower.” She came to the side of the Major’s bed and he felt as weak as the day she had held him up, faint from hearing about Bertie’s death.

“He didn’t jump” was all he managed to say as he clutched her warm hand.

“No, he didn’t,” she said. She gripped his hand and kissed him on the cheek and then on the lips. “And now he owes you his life and we can never repay you.”

“If he wants to repay me, tell him to hurry up and get married,” said the Major. “What that boy needs is a woman to order him around.”

“Amina is still quite weak, but we hope they will be married right here in the hospital,” Jasmina said. “My brother and sister-in-law have vowed to stay on as long as it takes to see them settled.”

“It all sounds wonderful,” said the Major. He turned to Roger, who was fiddling with his mobile phone. “But you told me there was bad news?”

“He is right, Ernest,” said Jasmina. “You must prepare yourself.” She looked at Roger, and he nodded as if the two of them had spent some time discussing how to tell a sick man something awful. The Major held his breath and waited for the blow.

“It’s the Churchill, Dad,” said Roger at last. “I’m afraid in the commotion of saving you, it got kicked aside or something and it slid over the edge and Abdul Wahid says he saw it smashing on the rocks on the way down.” He paused and lowered his head. “They haven’t found it.”

The Major closed his eyes and saw it happen. He smelled again the cold chalk, felt the futile scrabble of his legs trying to gain some purchase and the agonizing slow slipping of his body as if the sea were a magnet pulling at him and, at the edge of his vision, he could see the gun slipping faster, smooth against the wet grass as it inscribed one slow circle on the edge and then went ahead of them over the cliff.

“Are you all right, Ernest?” said Jasmina. He blinked away the scene, not sure whether it was a real memory or just a vision. The smell of chalk faded from his nostrils and he waited for the pangs of sorrow to overwhelm him. He was surprised to find that he could summon no more than the kind of faint disappointment one might feel upon finding a favorite sweater accidentally boiled along with the white laundry and shrunk to a felt mess sized for a small terrier.

“Am I medicated with something?” he asked from behind his closed lids and Roger said he would check the chart. “I can’t seem to feel anything.”

“Oh, my God, he’s paralyzed,” said Roger.

“No, I mean about the gun,” said the Major. “I don’t feel as upset as I should.”

“You’ve longed for that pair since I can remember,” Roger said. “You used to tell me over and over how Grandfather split them up but the day would come when they would be reunited.”

“I longed for the day when I could look important to a lot of people who I felt were more important than I,” said the Major. “I was arrogant. It must be genetic.”

“That’s a nice thing to say to someone who’s kept vigil at your pillow all night long,” said Roger. “Hey, look, I got a text from Sandy.”

“Didn’t you just propose to another woman?” asked Jasmina.

“Yeah, but I had a lot of time to think last night and I figured a long text from the bedside of my dying father might do the trick.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said the Major. “You could have impressed her with your eulogy.”

“I’m sorry you lost the gun your father gave you, Ernest,” said Jasmina. “But you lost it saving a life, and you are a hero to me and to others.”

“Actually, I lost Bertie’s gun,” said the Major. He yawned and felt himself growing sleepy. “Happened to be the closest one to grab. That’s not my gun at the bottom of the English Channel.”

“Are you serious?” said Roger.

“And I’m glad,” said the Major. “Now I won’t have to be reminded that sometimes it might have been more important to me than my brother.”

“Oh, shit!” said Roger looking up from his keyboard. “Now we have to pay Marjorie fifty thousand pounds and have nothing to show for it.”

“I expect the insurance company will take care of that,” said the Major. He struggled to stay awake so he might keep looking at Jasmina’s face smiling at him.

“What insurance?” asked Roger, incredulous. “You had them insured all this time?”

“Insurance was never the issue,” said the Major, closing his eyes. “When my father died, my mother kept paying the premiums, and when she died so did I.” He opened his eyes briefly to say something important to Jasmina. “I take great pride in never leaving a bill unpaid—it makes the filing messy.”

“You are tired, Ernest,” she said. “You should rest after all this excitement.” She laid her hand along his cheek and he felt as a small child feels when the night’s fever is cooled by the touch of a mother’s hand.

“Must ask you to marry me,” he said as he drifted away. “Not in this dreadful room, of course.”

When he woke again, the lights were dim in the wards and the nurse’s desk could be seen as a glow at the end of the corridor. A lamp burned low on the bedside table and he could feel the hospital’s central heating breathing as quietly as the patients in the calm of the night shift. A figure sat in a chair at the end of his bed; he called softly, “Jasmina?” The figure came closer until he could see it was Amina, in a hospital gown and robe.

“Hi,” she said. “How you feeling?”

“Fine,” he whispered. “Should you be out of bed?”

“No, I snuck out.” She sat carefully on the edge of the bed. “I had to come and see you before I left. To thank you for saving Abdul Wahid and for everything else you’ve tried to do.”

“Where are you going?” he asked. “You’re getting married tomorrow.”

“I’ve decided I’m not going to get married after all,” she said. “My aunt Noreen is picking me up first thing and then George and I’ll be off to her flat before anyone can make a fuss.”

“But why on earth would you do that?” he asked. “There are no impediments left to your marriage. Even Abdul Wahid’s parents are on your side now.”

“I know,” she said. “They keep apologizing and coming in and out with gifts and promises. I think they’ve already agreed to put George through medical school.”

“They didn’t know about the old lady, I’m sure,” said the Major. “Such things are unimaginable.”

“It happens more than you think,” she said. “But I’ve accepted they didn’t intend it. They’re deporting the old bag today.”

“Isn’t she going to jail?” asked the Major.

“They couldn’t find a weapon and I told them it was an accident.” Amina gave him a look that suggested she knew exactly where the knitting needle was. “I didn’t want more shame for Abdul Wahid, and I like his family feeling obligated to me.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded. “So why leave now?” She sighed and picked pills of fabric from the thin hospital blanket.

“Almost dying makes you see things differently, doesn’t it?” She looked at him and he saw tears in her eyes. “It feels like I’ve loved Abdul Wahid forever, and I thought I’d give up anything to be with him.” She pulled harder at the blanket and a small hole appeared as the threads parted. The Major was tempted to still her ravaging hand but did not want to interrupt. “But can you really see me spending my life in a shop?” she asked. “Stocking shelves, chatting to all the old lady customers, going over account books?”

“Abdul Wahid loves you,” he said. “He came back from the very edge of existence for you.”

“I know. No pressure on me, then?” She tried to smile but failed. “But it’s not enough to be in love. It’s about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it’s what work you do. I’m a dancer. I need to dance. If I give it up to spend my life wrapping pork pies and weighing apples, I will come to resent him. And even though he says I can dance as well, he expects me to be his partner in the shop. He would come to resent me, too. Better to break both our hearts now than watch them wither away over time.”

“What about George?”

“I wanted a proper family for George, with Mummy and Daddy and a puppy and maybe a little brother or sister. But that’s just a framed picture on some mantelpiece. It’s not real, is it?”

“A boy needs a father,” said the Major.

“If I didn’t know that better than anyone, I’d have been off to London tomorrow,” she said. She hugged her arms tentatively around her chest and she spoke in a way that made him believe she had given the matter a great deal of consideration. “Most of the people who’ve flung that at me over the last few years haven’t the faintest bloody idea what they mean by it. They have no idea what it’s like to grow up without one, and half of them can’t stand their own fathers.” There was silence; the Major thought of his father’s remoteness.

“I think that even if you dislike them, knowing one’s parents helps a child understand where he or she came from,” said the Major. “We measure ourselves against our parents, and each generation we try to do a little better.” As he said this he wondered again whether he had failed Roger.

“George will have both parents; they just won’t be under one roof. He’ll have me and his auntie Noreen in town and he’ll have his father over in Edgecombe along with Jasmina. I hope you’ll look in on him, too. He should learn to play chess.”

“Jasmina has fought so hard for the two of you,” said the Major quietly. “She will be devastated.”

“Sometimes you can’t fix everything,” said Amina. “Life isn’t always like books.”

“No, it’s not.” He considered the ugly popcorn Styrofoam of the ceiling tiles but could find no inspiration there to change her mind.

“I appreciate how much Jasmina has tried to do for us,” she said. “I want George to have all the family he can get.”

“I hesitate to speak for anyone but myself,” he said. “I have not yet had the chance to officially ask Jasmina to marry me.”

“You old dog,” she said. “I knew you two were off doing it somewhere.”

“Setting aside your crude manners for the moment, young lady,” he said in as severe a voice as he could manage, “I would like to assure you that you and George will always be welcome in our home.”

“You are a very good man, for an old git.” She stood up and leaned down to give him a kiss on the forehead. The Major wondered again at how much love and grief could feel the same as he watched her walk away down the darkened corridor, her legs reflecting their long dancing shadows in the watery polish of the linoleum.