Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

by Helen Simonson

  “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 ab
out 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 b
e 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.