Helen Simonson - Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

“Let’s go now,” he said. “I shall take you there, and if you want we’ll stay forever.”

“What about the wedding?” she asked. “I must see them safely married.”

“Or we’ll drive to the wedding!” he shouted happily, abandoning all sense of decorum in his excitement. “Only come away now and I promise, whatever happens, I will not abandon you.”

“I will go with you,” she said quietly. She got up and put on her coat. She picked up the bag of groceries. “We must leave now, before they try to stop me.”

“Shouldn’t you pack a bag?” he asked, flustered for a moment by the transformation of a momentary passion into cool reality. “I could wait for you in the car.”

“If we stop for reality, I will never leave here,” she said. “It is too sensible to stay. Aren’t you expected in Scotland? Am I not to help with dinner and then read the Qur’an aloud? Is it not raining in England?” It was in fact now raining, and the fat drops splattered on the window like tears.

“It is raining,” he said. He looked out the window. “And I am expected in Scotland.” He had forgotten all about the shoot and now, glancing at his watch, he saw that assuming they kept the usual absurdly early hours, he would likely not make it in time for dinner. He turned to see her teetering on her feet. At any moment she would sink onto the bench and the madness of running away would be gone. Her face was already losing its animation. He recognized the tiny moment before his failure would be understood and accepted. He hung in the space of the room, on the cusp of the silence between them and the wailing from the back room. Feet pounded in the hall. Then the Major leaned forward, reached out a hand, and fastened it around her wrist, hard. “Let’s go now,” he said.

“I need to find a telephone,” he said. They were out of the city, heading west, and already, through the slightly open window, the gloom of the afternoon seemed colder and cleaner. “I’ll have to find a pub or something.”

“I have a phone.” She rummaged in her shopping bag to produce a small cell phone. “I think they got me one to keep track of me, but I make sure never to turn it on.” As she fiddled with it, the phone gave a series of jangled beeps.

“Horrible things,” he said.

“Ten phone messages,” she said. “I suppose they’re looking for me.”

At an exit that said “Tourist Information,” he pulled into a small car park with toilets and an old railway car turned into an information booth. It was closed for the winter and the car park was empty. While Mrs. Ali went to use the facilities, he poked at the tiny number buttons and managed, on his second attempt, to reach the right number.

“Helena?” he said. “Ernest Pettigrew. Sorry to call so out of the blue.”

By the time Mrs. Ali came back, her hairline damp from where she had splashed her face with water, he had detailed directions to Colonel Preston’s fishing lodge and knew that the key was under the hedgehog by the shed and that the paraffin lamps were kept in the washtub for safety. Helena had been graciously uncurious about his sudden need to use it, though she had refused the excuse of his offer to fetch the Colonel’s fly rod.

“You know perfectly well if he ever got hold of it, he would have to face the fact that he’s never going to use it,” she said. “I’d like him to keep his dream a little longer.” As he said goodbye, she added, “I won’t tell anyone why you called,” and he was left looking at the phone and wondering whether the Colonel’s whispered stories about Helena might be correct after all.

“We’re all set,” he said. “It’s another hour or two’s driving, I’m afraid. It’s just-”

“Please don’t tell me where it is,” she said. “That way I can disappear even from myself for a while.”

“No heating, of course. Probably a bag of coal in the shed. Not much fishing in the winter.”

“And I brought food,” she said, looking at the shopping bag as if it had suddenly appeared. “I didn’t know what I was doing, but apparently I’m making us a chicken balti.”

He put the bag in the boot, the better to keep the milk and chicken cold. He saw a glimpse of tomatoes and onions and he smelled fresh cilantro. There seemed to be some spices and dried leaves in small plastic bags and he felt the squashy contours of a bakery bag containing something that smelled of almonds.

“Perhaps we should stop and get you some-some things,” said the Major, stumbling over images of ladies’ underwear in his mind and wondering where to find the shops.

“Let’s not spoil the madness of escape with a trip to Marks and Sparks,” she said. “Let’s just drive right off the map.”

The lodge was more a tumbledown sheep shed, its thick stone walls topped with a crooked slate roof and its original openings crudely filled with an assortment of odd windows and doors, salvaged from other properties. The front door was heavy oak and carved with acorns and a medallion of leaves, but the neighboring window was a ramshackle blue casement, fitted with several extra pieces of wood on one side and missing glass in one of the panes.

The light had all but gone from behind the mountains looming in the west, and a gibbous moon was making its humpbacked way into the sky. Below the lodge, a rough lawn led down to a narrow cove on a lake that seemed to open out like a sea in the darkness. The Major peered at the soft darker rounds of the trees and bushes crowding the property for a sharper silhouette that might signify a shed. He was about to announce a grid-by-grid search for the promised stone hedgehog when it occurred to him that the broken window might allow entry.

It was cold now and Mrs. Ali stood shivering in her thin wool coat, the tail of her scarf flapping in a sharp wind off the lake. She had her eyes closed and breathed deeply.

“Cold enough for a frost tonight,” he said. He moved toward her, worrying that she was horrified at the state of the place. “Perhaps we ought to go back to the village we passed and see if there’s a bed and breakfast?” She opened her eyes and gave him an anxious smile.

“Oh, no, it’s just so beautiful here,” she said. “And to tell the truth, even at my advanced age and in the middle of such a ridiculous adventure, I don’t think I can quite face checking into a hotel with you.”

“If you put it like that.” His cheeks flushed warm in the darkness. “Though I don’t know if you’ll feel that way if we find squirrels in there,” he said, worried about the broken casement. He tightened his grip on the pencil-thin torch he had extracted from its place in the glove compartment and wondered whether the batteries were fresh or whether they were chalky with dribbled acid. “I suppose we’d better mount an expedition to the interior.”

He could indeed twist the lock from inside the window; he pushed open the door and stepped into the deeper cold of the lodge. The torch gave only a thin bluish beam and he felt his way forward with hands outstretched to ward away the unexpected bang on the knee or knock of head on low beam. The light danced over glimpses of table and chairs, a broken-backed wicker sofa, an iron sink with cotton-curtained cabinets. A large fireplace loomed sooty and dark in one corner, smelling of damp coal. It had been disfigured on one shoulder by the addition of a galvanized container cemented directly into a hole in the chimney so that the heat of the fire could warm water. A couple of pipes with stopcocks led to the unseen bathroom facilities and the welcome possibility of at least a quick sponge bath. An arched opening showed the briefest glimpse of a bedroom. Through another strange arrangement-one patio slider and one French door jumbled together-the lake shone silver and a broad triangle of moonlight fell across the floor and showed large baskets stuffed with fishing gear, dropped as casually as if the owner were going out on the lake again directly. The Major found matches in the obvious place, a tin on the mantelpiece, and, in the low-ceilinged laundry room past the sink area, the promised zinc washtub filled with three paraffin lamps.