Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand (45 page)

As he gazed, the French door was pushed open and she came out of the house, squinting at the brightness. She had dressed and wore his blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She was carrying two mugs of tea, which steamed in the air. Smiling under her tangle of hair, she picked her way carefully down the stony path, while he held his breath as if the slightest move might cause her to shy away.

“You should have woken me,” she said. “I hope you weren’t fleeing the scene?”

“I needed to do a little capering about,” he said. “Some beating of the chest and a spot of cheering – manly stuff.”

“Oh, do show me,” she said, laughing while he executed a few half-remembered dance steps, jumped on and off a tussock of grass and kicked at a large stone with a wild hooting. The stone bounced down the shore and plopped into the lake while the Major winced and shook out his injured foot. “Ouch,” he said. “That’s about as much primeval man as I can manage.”

“Do I get a turn?” she asked. She handed him a mug for each hand and then spun herself in wild pirouettes to the shore where she stomped her feet in the freezing waters and let out a long, musical yowling sound that seemed to come from the earth itself. A flight of hidden ducks launched themselves into the air and she laughed and waved as they flew low across the water. Then she came running back and kissed him while he spread his arms wide and tried to keep his balance.

“Careful, careful,” he said, feeling a splash of scalding tea on his wrist. “Passion is all very well, but it wouldn’t do to spill the tea.” As they found two large rocks to sit on and slowly savoured their tea and munched on the last two, slightly stale almond cakes, they continued to laugh and to break out, every now and then, into smaller whoops and yells. He offered her a sustained yodel and she sang back to him a phrase or two of a haunting song from her childhood and while the lake lapped at their feet and the mountains absorbed their calls and the sky flung its blue parachute over their heads, he thought how wonderful it was that life was, after all, more simple than he had ever imagined.

F
or the first time ever, the drive back to Edgecombe did not seem like the drive home. Instead it seemed that the closer they got, the more his hopes sank and his stomach tightened, squeezing bile he could taste. He had promised to get Jasmina home for the wedding and they had risen early, before the dawn, rather than go back the night before. Now he kept the car pointed south, roaring past the Midlands and ignoring the seductive siren call of Stratford-upon-Avon though it turned both their heads as they sped past the beckoning exit. He coasted grim-faced through the snarls of London’s twin airports and for the first time he could remember, he was not cheered when the first signs for the south coast began to appear.

“We are making good time,” she said, smiling. “I do hope Najwa has remembered to get me the clothes.” She had called on her mobile phone and arranged to have Mrs. Rasool let the family know she was coming to the wedding and to have a complete set of suitable clothes waiting for her. He had heard a smothered laugh while she talked and she told him Mrs. Rasool was making extra rasmalai for the wedding dinner, which would secretly be in his honour. “She is very upset with my sister-in-law, who keeps changing the dinner menu and wants the expenses broken down toothpick by toothpick,” she added. “So she is very happy to know that we will add a pinch of subversion to the feast.”

“Are you sure I should come with you?” he asked. “I’d hate to be their excuse to back out.”

“Najwa has arranged it so we can wait until we see the Imam arrive before we go in,” she said. “Then they will not be able to make a fuss. It will drive them crazy, which will be of great satisfaction to me, but they will get their final papers signed and the shop will belong to Abdul Wahid, so what can they do?” Then she was quiet, staring out of the window.

“And you’re sure about signing away the shop?” he said.

“I think my husband would be proud to see his legacy passed on. He gave the shop to me, freely, and I will, in the same spirit, give it to Abdul Wahid so that he and Amina and George can live lives of their own as I have been allowed to do.”

“Unselfish acts are rare these days. I admire you.”

“You are not a selfish man, Ernest. You gave up your trip to Scotland to rescue me.”

“If acts of selflessness brought such rewards,” he said, “we would be a nation of saints.”

∗

They took a small back lane into the village. Rose Lodge looked welcoming in a brief interlude of pale sunshine and they hurried inside to avoid being seen by the neighbours.

There was a still-warm teapot on the kitchen table, together with the remains of a ham sandwich and the day’s newspaper, which wore a distinctly crumpled look. In the sink huddled more dirty plates and a greasy carton fringed with dried fried rice.

“Someone’s been here,” said the Major in some alarm and he looked around for the poker, intending to check the whole house for intruders.

“Hullo, hullo,” said a voice from the passageway and Roger appeared with a plate of toast and a tea mug. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. “You could have let me know you were coming. I’d have cleared up.”

“I should have let you know?” asked the Major. “This is my house. Why on earth aren’t you in Scotland?”

“I felt like coming home,” said Roger. “But I suppose I shan’t be welcome here any more.” He glared at Jasmina and the Major weighed the likelihood of his being able to lift Roger by the lapels of his jacket and propel him face first into the street. He thought he could do it but that the struggle might draw unwelcome attention from the neighbours.

“Your welcome here will depend entirely on your own ability to keep a civil tongue in your head,” said the Major. “I don’t have time for your petulance today. Mrs. Ali and I have a wedding to attend.”

“I don’t suppose it matters to you that my life is in ruins,” said Roger. He tried to adopt a stiff-jawed pose, but the effect was spoiled by the toast sliding off the plate and landing butter side down on his trousers, whence it slid its greasy way down to the floor. “Oh, bloody hell,” he said, putting down his plate and mug to wipe at his leg with the back of his hand.

“Why don’t you sit down?” said the Major, examining the contents of the teapot to see whether it was still fresh. “Then we’ll have some tea and you can tell Jasmina and me all about it.”

“It’s Jasmina now, is it?” said Roger as the Major poured tea and handed round the cups. “I can’t believe my own father has a lady friend – at his age.” He shook his head as if this were the final nail in the coffin of his shattered life.

“I refuse to be referred to by a term so oily with double entendre,” said Jasmina as she hung her coat on one of the pegs by the back door and came to sit at the table. She was very composed as she smiled at Roger, though the Major noted a slight compression of the jaw and chin. “I prefer lover’,” she said.

The Major choked on his tea and Roger actually laughed. “Well, that’ll make the village speechless,” he said.

“Which would be truly wonderful,” she said, and sipped her tea.

“Forget about us,” said the Major. “What happened in Scotland, and where are my guns?”

“That’s my father,” said Roger. “Goes straight to what’s important.”

“Did you sell them? Tell me quick.” The Major tensed, waiting for the pain of the news as one would wait to have a sticking plaster ripped from the skin.

“I did not sell them,” Roger said. “I told Ferguson where he could shove his all-cash offer and I brought them home directly.” He paused and added, “Or not so very directly. I came on the train and had a hell of a time with connections.”

“You came on the train? What about Gertrude?”

“Oh, she drove me to the station,” said Roger. “It was quite an affecting goodbye, considering she had just refused to marry me.”

“You asked her to marry you?”

“I did,” said Roger. “Unfortunately, I was the second bidder and my terms were not up to par.” He pushed his tea away and slumped his chin into his chest in defeat. “You see, she’s going to marry Ferguson.”

The Major listened in some disbelief as Roger told them how Gertrude had quite won the day in Scotland. It sounded as if she had taken over the place, charming Ferguson’s estate manager into agreeing to most of the useful modernisations that Ferguson had proposed and even getting the head ghillie to agree to a restocking plan for the grouse moor. She had found a new cook at short notice through the ghillie’s wife, and together they had produced a bountiful menu of feasts and lunches such as Loch Brae Castle had not seen for years.

“On our second day shooting, Gertrude made Ferguson show up in some of the rummiest old tweeds you’ve ever seen and one old ghillie started crying and had to be given a flask of Scotch and a good slap on the back,” said Roger. “Gertrude got them from the attics and apparently they were worn by the thirty-seventh baronet, who shot at Balmoral with the King. He told Ferguson he was the spitting image of the old master and you should have seen Ferguson’s face.”

“If that’s the end of the line of shooting clothes,” said the Major, “we will all owe Gertrude a debt of gratitude.”

“I suppose it was just her competence,” said Roger miserably, “but she seemed to get prettier as the week went on. It was positively weird.”

“And Mr. Ferguson?” asked Jasmina. “Did he think she was pretty?”

“He was dumbfounded, I think,” said Roger. “She’s not even tall or anything, but she strode around in her boots and her mackintosh like she’d been living there forever and she got more done in a week than he’d been able to get them to do in a year. It was quite funny to see him jump when some old retainer, who had refused to speak to him ever, suddenly came up and thanked him for ‘the red-haired lady’. After a few days, he took to following her around so she could introduce him all over again to his own people.”

“She found the right setting,” said the Major. “A place where she belongs.” He could see her quite clearly walking thigh-deep in heather, her paleness perfect for the misty grey light of the north, her hair curling in the persistent mist and the slight stockiness of her figure perfectly proportioned for the low rugged landscape.

“I really blew it,” said Roger. “I should have got in right away, but she was so besotted with me I thought I could take all the time I wanted.”

“And she fell in love with someone else,” said the Major. “I did warn you love was not to be negotiated.”

“Oh, I don’t think they’re in love. That’s what stings,” said Roger. “It’s a mutual understanding. She gets to stay in the country and run the estates, which is what she really wants, and he gets the acceptance he was looking for and I’m sure he’ll feel free to do as he likes in town as long as he’s discreet about it.” He sighed. “It’s quite brilliant, actually.”

“But if you loved her,” said Jasmina, “that would have been the better choice.”

“People like us can’t win against people like them,” Roger said bitterly. “They have all the money, they have the right name. Telling her I loved her, even if it’d been true, wouldn’t have helped.”

“What about the guns?” asked the Major.

“I told Ferguson he couldn’t have them,” Roger said. “He got the girl. He cancelled the Edgecombe deal like he was cancelling an order for curtains. He took everything. I’d be damned if I was going to give him the last little piece of me. If Jemima wants to sell her dad’s gun, she can do it herself.”

“He’s not building in Edgecombe?” asked Jasmina. “Wouldn’t marrying Gertrude just make the building easier?”

“Now he’s marrying Gertrude, he fancies a long line of his heirs being lords of the manor here.” Roger sniffed. “Suddenly it’s sacred ground and to be protected at all costs.”

“But he already has a title,” said Jasmina.

“A Scottish title isn’t really the same thing at all,” the Major said.

“Especially when you buy it over the Internet,” added Roger.

“I can’t believe it,” said the Major. “This is wonderful news. I must say, I wasn’t looking forward to having to choose sides as that awful project became public.”

“It was hardly a difficult choice,” said Jasmina. “I know you have such a love for this village.”

“Of course, one would have had to do the right thing,” said the Major, but he felt a relief that he would not be called upon to do so.

“Glad you’re happy,” said Roger. “But what about me? I was going to get a big fat bonus out of being in charge of this deal, but right now I doubt I’ll keep my job.”

“But you came home to Edgecombe St. Mary,” said Jasmina. “Why did you come?”

“I suppose I did,” said Roger, looking around the kitchen as if surprised. “I felt so low I just wanted to go home and I guess – I guess I always think of this as home.” He looked bewildered, like a lost child discovered under a bush at the bottom of the garden. The Major looked at Jasmina and she gripped his hand and nodded.

“My dear Roger,” said the Major. “This will always be your home.” There was a moment of silence in which Roger’s face seemed to work through a range of emotions. Then he smiled.

“You have no idea how much it means to me to hear you say that, Dad,” he said. He stood up and came around the table to envelop the Major in a fierce hug.

“It goes without saying,” said the Major, his voice gruff to hide his happiness as he patted his son’s back. Roger released him and appeared to wipe away a tear from the corner of his eye. He turned away to leave the room and then looked back to add, “So do you think maybe we could get Mortimer Teale to put something in writing?”

∗

It took the Major a fraction of a second to understand the scene as something other than a mere impediment to his own car’s forward passage. An ambulance with its lights flashing stood open and empty at the front door of the village shop. Parked next to it, across the road to block traffic, a police car also flashed its lights, its doors flung open and a young redheaded policeman speaking with urgency into his radio.

“Something has happened,” said Jasmina and she jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped and ran to the policeman. By the time the Major caught up she was pleading with him to let her in.