Helen Simonson - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

“Very good,” said the Major in a voice as neutral as he could manage without being actively dismissive. “So you’re all set, then?” He hoped Dagenham’s table was not in earshot.

“She seemed rather stiff at first,” said Grace. “She said she didn’t really do catering. I was quite disappointed, because I thought she and I were on quite good terms.”

“Can we buy you a drink, Grace?” Alec said, waving half a sandwich at her from the Major’s other side. A speck of dark pickle landed dangerously close to the Major’s arm.

“No, thank you,” she said. The Major frowned at Alec. It was not kind of him to make such an offer. Grace was one of those rare women who maintained a feminine distaste for being at the bar. There was also the impossibility of a lady climbing onto the high stool in any dignified manner and she would feel keenly the absence of another woman to chaperone.

“Anyway, then the strangest thing happened. I mentioned your name-that you and I were working on this together-and she suddenly changed her tune. She was most helpful.”

“Well, I’m glad you got what you needed,” said the Major, anxious to end the matter before Grace inferred anything from her own observation.

“I didn’t know you knew Mrs. Ali…?” She was hesitant, but there was a definite question in her voice, and the Major tried not to squirm.

“I don’t really,” he said. “I mean, I buy a lot of tea from her. We discuss tea quite often, I suppose. I really don’t know her well.” Grace nodded and the Major felt a just a hint of guilt at denying Mrs. Ali in this way. However, he comforted himself, since Grace did not seem to find it the least strange that her own friendship would count for so much less than a casual commercial exchange over tea, he had best leave well alone.

“Anyway, she said she would call up some people she knows in the town and give me some ideas and prices. I told her mostly finger food, nothing too spicy.”

“Won’t do to end up with curried goat’s head and roasted eyeballs,” said Alec.

Grace ignored him. “She said she would call me next week. And perhaps set up a tasting. I told her you and I would be delighted to attend.”

“Me?” said the Major.

“I was afraid if I said just me she might go back to being stiff,” Grace explained. The Major had no answer for this.

“Looks like you’re the food committee, Pettigrew,” said Alec. “Try to slip in a plate of roast beef, will you? Something edible amongst all the vindaloo.”

“Look, I can’t possibly assist you,” said the Major. “I mean, with just losing my brother… I have so many things to see to… family and so on.”

“I understand,” said Grace. She looked at him and he read in her eyes a disappointment that he should have stooped to the dead-relative excuse. Yet he was as entitled as the next man to use it. People did it all the time; it was understood that there was a defined window of availability beginning a decent few days after a funeral and continuing for no more than a couple of months. Of course, some people took dreadful advantage and a year later were still hauling around their dead relatives on their backs, showing them off to explain late tax payments and missed dentist appointments: something he would never do.

“I will just have to do the best I can,” said Grace and her face drooped, as if defeat were inevitable. “I was afraid I might let Daisy down again, but of course that is no excuse for me to trespass on your very great grief. Please forgive me.” She put out her hand and touched him lightly on the forearm. He was suddenly aware of a slow burn of shame.

“Oh, look here, sometime next week would probably be fine,” he said, his voice gruff. He patted her hand. “I’ll have most things straightened out with the family by then.”

“Oh, thank you, Daisy will be so pleased.”

“There’s surely no need for that,” he said. “Can’t we keep it between ourselves?” Alec dug him in the ribs with an elbow and he was aware from Grace’s delicate mauve blush that his words were open to interpretation. He would have liked to clarify, but she was already retreating from the room, bumping a bony hip on the corner of a table as she hurried away. The Major groaned and looked at his sandwich which seemed as appetizing now as two rubber mats filled with horsehair. He pushed the plate away and signaled Tom to bring another lager.

His car was already pulled up to Marjorie’s spindly fountain and a face at the double-glazed oriel window above the front door had registered his presence before the second thoughts overwhelmed him. He should have telephoned before arriving. The fiction that he was welcome to drop in at any time, because he was family, could only be maintained as long as he never took Marjorie at her word.

It had been obvious soon after Bertie’s marriage that Marjorie had no intention of playing the dutiful daughter-in-law and had sought to separate the two of them from the rest of the family. In the modern style, they had formed a nucleus of two and set about filling their tiny flat with ugly new furniture and friends from Bertie’s insurance office. They immediately began to defy the tradition of the family Sunday lunch at Rose Lodge and took to dropping by in the late afternoon instead, when they would decline a cup of tea in favor of a mixed cocktail. His mother would drink tea, stiff with Sunday disapproval, while Marjorie regaled them with news of her latest purchases. He would have a small sherry, a sticky and unpleasant attempt to bridge the gap. Nancy soon lost patience with them. She began to call Bertie and Marjorie the “Pettigrubbers” and, to the Major’s horror, to encourage Marjorie to elaborate on exactly how much her latest purchases had cost.

The front door remained shut. Perhaps he had only imagined a face at the window, or perhaps they didn’t want to see him and were even now crouching behind the sofa hoping he would ring the bell a couple of times and then leave. He rang again. Once again the chimes played their few bars of “Joyful, Joyful,” echoing away deep into the house. He rapped on the door knocker, a brass wreath of grapevine with a central wine bottle, and stared at the front door’s aggressive oak grain. Somewhere another door closed and at last heels clicked on tile and the door was unbolted. Jemima was dressed in gray sweatpants and a black sleeveless polo neck top, with her hair pulled back under a white sweatband. She appeared, thought the Major, to be dressed as some kind of athletic nun. She gave him a glare she might have given a door-to-door vacuum salesman or an evangelical proselytizer.

“Is Mother expecting you?” she asked. “Only I just got her to lie down for a few minutes.”

“I’m afraid I drove over on the off chance,” he said. “I can come back later.” He looked at her carefully. Her face was devoid of the usual makeup and her hair limp. She looked like the gangly, stooped girl of fifteen she had once been; sullen but with Bertie’s pale eyes and strong chin to redeem her.

“I was just doing my healing yoga,” she said. “But I suppose you’d better come in while I’m here. I don’t want people bothering Mother when I’m not around.” She turned and went in, leaving the door for him to close.

“I suppose you’d like a cup of tea?” Jemima asked as they arrived in the kitchen. She put on the electric kettle and stood behind the U-shaped kitchen counter, where someone had begun to sort out a drawer full of junk. “Mother will get up in a bit anyway. She can’t seem to lie still these days.” She hung her head and picked about for bits of used pencils, which she added to a small heap in between a pile of batteries and a small arrangement of variously colored string.