Helen Simonson - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

“We’ll get more money because you shoot grouse in the mud all day long?”

“Ducks, my dear Jemima, ducks.” He tried a brief chuckle, to confirm an air of disinterest, and felt almost confident that he would win the day. There was such greed shining in both pairs of eyes. For a moment he understood the thrill of a master con artist. Perhaps he had the touch that would make old ladies believe they had won the Australian lottery, or lead them to send funds to release Nigerian bank accounts. The newspapers were full of such accounts and he had often wondered how people could be so gullible. Yet here and now, so close he could smell the gun oil, was the opportunity to load Bertie’s gun into his car and drive away.

“It remains entirely up to you, dear ladies,” he said, tugging at his jacket hem in preparation for departure. “I see no downside for you in my restoring the gun and then allowing one of the richest gun collectors in the United States to see the pair perform in the proper setting of a formal shooting party.” He saw the shoot: the other men congratulating him as he modestly denied that his was the largest bag of the day. “I believe the dog has mistaken this fine mallard drake of yours as being mine, Lord Dagenham,” he might say, and Dagenham would take it of course, knowing full well it had fallen to Pettigrew’s superior twin Churchills.

“Do you think he’d pay cash?” asked Jemima, recalling his full attention.

“I would think he might be so overwhelmed by the pageantry of the event to offer us any amount we name-in cash or gold bars. On the other hand, he may not. I make no promises.”

“Let’s try it, then,” said Marjorie. “I would like to get the most we can. I’d like to take a cruise this winter.”

“I advise you not to rush into anything, Marjorie,” he said. He was playing now; risking a prize already won just for the thrill of the game.

“No, no, you must take the gun with you and look it over, in case it does need to be sent somewhere,” said Marjorie. “We don’t want to waste any time.”

“It’s in the boot cupboard with the cricket bats,” said Jemima. “I’ll run and get it.”

The Major reassured himself that he was largely telling the truth. He would be showing the guns to Ferguson, even though he had no intention of letting them be bought. Furthermore, he could hardly be expected to take the moral high road with people who would keep a fine sporting gun thrown in the back of a shoe cupboard. He was, he decided, doing the same thing as rescuing a puppy from an abusive junkyard owner.

“Here we are,” said Jemima, pointing a quilt-covered bundle at him. He took it from her, feeling for the thick stock and pointing the barrel end toward the floor.

“Thank you,” he said, as if they were handing him a gift. “Thank you very much.”

It was just a cup of tea and a chat. As the Major mounted the step stool for a better view of the top shelf of the china cupboard, he chided himself for fussing over the arrangements like some old maid. He was determined to be completely casual about Mrs. Ali’s visit. Her voice on the telephone had asked in a most straightforward manner whether he might have any time on Sunday to offer her his insights on the Kipling book, which she had just finished. Sunday afternoons the shop was closed, and she implied that her nephew was used to her taking a couple of hours to herself. He had replied in a careful offhand that Sunday afternoon might suit him and that perhaps he would rustle up a cup of tea or something. She said she would come around four, if that was convenient.

Of course, the thick white earthenware teapot immediately developed an ugly chip in the spout and, despite several scourings, would not come clean inside. He realized that it must have been chipped for some time and that he had closed his eyes to its shortcomings in order to avoid the search for a new one. Twenty years ago, it had taken Nancy and him over a year to find a plain vessel that kept the heat in and did not dribble when poured. He considered running to town in the few days remaining, but he already knew it would be impossible to find anything among the florid ranks of pots that multiplied like mushrooms in stores dedicated to “home design.” He could see them now: pots with invisible handles; pots with bird whistles; pots featuring blurry transfers of ladies on swings and curly handles awkwardly balanced. He settled instead on serving tea in his mother’s silver.

The silver teapot, with a good plain belly on it and a small frill of acanthus leaves around the lid, immediately made his teacups look as thick and dull as peasants. He considered using the good china, but he did not feel he could pull off a casual image while bearing in a tray loaded with fine, gold-rimmed antiques. Then he had remembered Nancy’s cups. There were only two of them, bought at a flea market before she and he were married. Nancy had admired the unusually large blue and white cups, shaped like upside-down bells, and accompanied by saucers deep enough to use as bowls. They were very old, from when people still tipped their tea into the saucer to drink. Nancy had got them cheap because they did not quite match and there were no additional pieces.

She made him tea in them one afternoon, just tea, carried carefully to the small deal table set by the window in her room. The landlady, who had been persuaded by his uniform and quiet manners that he was a gentleman, allowed him to visit Nancy’s room as long as he was gone by nightfall. They were used to making love in the strong afternoon sunlight, smothering their giggles under the batik bedspread whenever the landlady deliberately creaked the floorboards outside the door. But that day the room was tidy, the usual debris of books and paints cleared away, and Nancy, hair smoothed back into a loose ponytail, had made them tea in the beautiful translucent cups, which held a scalding heat in their old porcelain and made the cheap loose tea glow like amber. She poured him milk from a shot glass, careful not to splash, her movements as slow as a ceremony. He lifted his cup and knew, with a sudden clarity that did not frighten him as much as he might have expected, that it was time to ask her to marry him.

The cups trembled in his hands. He bent down to put them carefully on the counter, where they looked suitably inert. Nancy had treated the cups lightly, sometimes serving blancmange in them because of their happy shape. She would have been the last to insist on treating them as relics. Yet as he reached for the saucers he wished he could ask her whether it was all right to use them.

He had never been one of those people who believed that the dead hung around, dispensing permissions and generally providing watchdog services. In church, when the organ swelled and the chorus of the hymn turned irritating neighbors into a brief community of raised hearts and simple voices, he accepted that she was gone. He envisaged her in the heaven he had learned about in childhood: a grassy place with blue sky and a light breeze. He could no longer picture the inhabitants with anything as ridiculous as wings. Instead he saw Nancy strolling in a simple sheath dress, her low shoes held in her hand and a shady tree beckoning her in the distance. The rest of the time, he could not hold on to this vision and she was only gone, like Bertie, and he was left to struggle on alone in the awful empty space of unbelief.

Silver teapot, old blue cups, no food. The Major surveyed his completed tea preparations with relief. The absence of food would set the right casual tone, he thought. He had the vague idea that it was not manly to fuss over the details as he had been doing and that making finger sandwiches would be dubious. He sighed. It was one of the things he had to watch out for, living alone. It was important to keep up standards, to not let things become fuzzy around the edges. And yet there was that fine line across which one might be betrayed into womanish fretting over details. He checked his watch. He had several hours before his guest arrived. He decided that perhaps he would undertake a brief, manly attempt at carpentry and fix the broken slat in the fence at the bottom of the garden and then spend some time taking his first good look at Bertie’s gun.