Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Chapter 21

Would Don Quixote or Sir Galahad have been able to maintain his chivalrous ardor for the romantic quest, wondered the Major, if he had been forced to crawl bumper-to-bumper through an endless landscape of traffic cones, belching lorries, and sterile motorway service areas? He looked to their shining examples as he endured the ugly concrete girdle of London’s M25, reminding himself that at least it kept the heaving flabby suburbs from spilling out and suffocating what was left of the countryside. He tried not to lose courage as the south fell away and the motorways became one speeding blur of giant lorries, all racing north as if they had a thousand miles to cover and donated organs in the back instead of cargoes of cold tea, frozen chickens, and appliances. In the fluorescent lighting and faint bleach smell of an anonymous service area somewhere in the Midlands, where he was just another gray-haired old man with a plastic tray, his doubts threatened to overwhelm him.

He hadn’t let anyone know he was coming. What if Mrs. Ali wasn’t even home? The siren call of Scotland with the promised castle banquet and shooting in the heather almost turned his head, but as he put his thumb too vigorously through the cover of a little plastic tub and sprayed his jacket with milk, it came to him that it was precisely Mrs. Ali who made the world a little less anonymous. She made him a little less anonymous. He gulped his tea—not difficult, as it was little better than tepid—and hurried out to get back on the road.

He felt self-conscious cruising the streets looking for the right road and house number from the letter Grace had given him. Mrs. Ali’s neat handwriting was crumpled under his fingers on the steering wheel as he checked the thin page again and again against the streets outside. The people on the pavements were now mostly dark-skinned women with children and babies in pushchairs. Some wore the headscarf arrangement of observant Muslims. Some sported the short puffy jackets and gold earrings fashionable among the universal young. He thought he saw a few heads turn to watch him as he passed a knot of young men huddled around the raised bonnet of a car. He overshot the house but was too embarrassed to drive around the block again. Instead, he slipped into an open parking space.

The long street was anchored at one end by a couple of large Victorian mansions, now crumbling and forlorn. At the other end a brick wall indicated the perimeter of a redbrick housing estate filled with six-story blocks of flats and narrow terraced houses. Metal window frames and blank front doors in one of three colors suggested the limits, artistic and budgetary, of the local housing authority’s imagination. Between these representatives of the high and low points of the industrial age was the long row of semi-detached houses built for a prewar middle class of rising aspirations: three bedrooms, two parlors, and indoor plumbing, all serviced by a “daily” maid.

Some of the semis had been heavily improved since their heyday and were all but unrecognizable beneath their vinyl double-glazed windows, boxy side extensions, and glassed-in front doors. The few that retained their original wooden window frames also had peeling paint and a variety of haphazard window coverings that suggested bedsits. Worst of all, to the Major’s eyes, many of the houses, affluent or not, had cut down flowering front yards and paved them over to park multiple cars up against the windows.

The Ali family’s house was one of the more prosperous. It retained half a garden with a gravel area on which stood a small two-seater sports car. The elegant effect of the car and the new white-painted windows was overshadowed by the neighboring house, which bore leaping dolphins on its gateposts and purple shutters around dark wood window frames. The Major was just allowing himself a small sniff of disapproval at such obviously foreign excess when a white woman with streaky hair and a pink fur jacket over green jeans tripped out of the front door in her black patent boots and drove away in a small green car with an “Ibiza Lover” bumper sticker.

Mentally apologizing to the rest of the neighborhood, the Major marched up to the heavy oak door of the Ali house and stood on the doorstep, staring at the ordinary brass circle of the door knocker. He remembered standing with Mrs. Ali outside the golf club, both of them tense with anticipation. He was sure, now, that life could never live up to its anticipatory moments and he became quite certain that today would be a disaster. He looked behind him, thinking perhaps he should make a run for his car. A young man passed slowly on a bicycle, chewing gum and staring at him. The Major nodded and, feeling too embarrassed to shuffle away, turned back to knock at the door.

A young pregnant woman answered. She wore fashionably tousled hair tucked loosely into a scarf and a soft black maternity dress over black-and-white-patterned leggings. Her brown face was attractive but blunt and bore more than a passing resemblance to Abdul Wahid’s.

“Yes?” she said.

“Good afternoon, I’m Major Ernest Pettigrew. I’m here to see Mrs. Ali,” said the Major in his most authoritative tone.

“Are you from the council?” said the woman.

“Good heavens, no,” said the Major. “Why, do I look like a man from the council?” The woman gave him a look that said he did. “I’m a friend of Mrs. Ali’s,” he added.

“My mother’s stepped out to the shop,” said the woman. “Do you want to wait?” She did not open the door farther or step aside as she said this, and the Major realized she was looking at him with great suspicion.

“Oh, I don’t want your mother,” said the Major, understanding his mistake. “I’m here to see Mrs. Jasmina Ali, from Edgecombe St. Mary.”

“Oh, her,” said the woman. She paused and then said: “You better come in and I’ll phone my dad.”

“Is she here?” asked the Major as he was shown into the kind of spare, formal front room that is kept exclusively for guests. Two sofas faced each other across the small gas fireplace, each dressed in crimson flocked silk in a pattern of roses and covered in see-through vinyl. Two patterned wall hangings and a large abstract painting that suggested a blue and gray landscape decked the cream-colored walls. There were no books and the various small side tables were decorated with lumps of rock and crystal and bowls of dried seed pods and aromatic twigs. Good-quality fabric blinds under a matching blue fabric pelmet hung at the bay window; opposite the window, frosted French doors surrounded by floor-length blue drapes led to another room. The room’s finest decorative feature was an oriental rug, a glorious riot of pattern hand-woven from a thousand different blue silks. It was a room, thought the Major, which his sister-in-law Marjorie might admire, and while she would never be seen to use vinyl covers on her furniture she would secretly yearn for such spill-proof elegance.

“I’ll get you some tea,” said the woman. “Please wait here.” She left, shutting the door behind her. The Major selected one of two small, straight chairs that stood at one end of the sofas. They were spindly to an alarming degree but he did not trust himself to sit on a sofa without making alarming trouser-on-vinyl noises. The silence in the room settled around him. The street noises were muffled through the double glazing and no clock ticked on the mantel. There was not even a television, though he seemed to hear the jingling of a game show. He listened hard and thought there must be a TV playing deeper in the house, beyond the frosted doors.

He stood up when the door to the hall opened. It was the young woman, coming back with a brass tea tray that held a teapot and two glasses set in silver cup holders. Two small giggling children slipped in behind her and gazed at the Major as if at a zoo exhibit.

“My father will be home right away,” said the young woman, indicating that the Major should sit. “He looks forward to meeting you Mr.—What is your name?”

“Major Pettigrew. Is Mrs. Ali not home?” he asked.

“My father will be here momentarily,” she said again, and poured him a cup of tea. Then, instead of pouring one for herself, she merely shooed the small children out of the room and left, shutting the door again behind her.

A few more silent minutes passed. The Major felt the weight of the room on his head and the pressure of time running through his fingers. He refused to glance at his watch but he could see the other guests arriving in Scotland. No doubt a cold lunch buffet was still set out on a sideboard and guests were seeing to the hanging up of clothes or enjoying a brisk walk around the lake. He had never seen Ferguson’s castle home, but it must of course have both lake and cold buffet. These things could be depended upon. In this room, the Major could depend on nothing. It was all unfamiliar and therefore very taxing. All at once, there was a key in the front door and movement in the hallway. Urgent voices seemed to meet as the front door was opened and fierce whispers accompanied the usual hallway noise of coats and shoes being deposited.

The door opened again to admit a broad-shouldered man with black cropped hair and a neat mustache. He wore a shirt and tie and his breast pocket still bore the plastic name tag that identified him, unexpectedly, as Dave. He was not tall, but his air of authority and slight double chin suggested a man in command of some slice of the world.

“Major Pettigrew? I’m Dave Ali and it’s an honor to have you in my humble home,” he said in a tone that, the Major had observed over the years, was used by those who believe their home superior to most. “I have heard all about you from my son, who considers himself greatly in your debt.”

“Oh, not at all,” said the Major, finding himself waved back to his chair and offered more tea. The Major had never liked diminutives and found the name Dave an unlikely moniker for this Mr. Ali. “Your son is a very intense young man.”

“He is impetuous. He is stubborn. He makes his mother and me crazy,” said Dave, shaking his head in mock despair. “I tell her I was the same at his age and not to worry, but she tells me I had her to whip me into shape, while Abdul Wahid—well, insha’Allah, he, too, will find his way once he is married.”

“We were all looking forward to seeing Jasmina—Mrs. Ali—when she came for the wedding,” said the Major.

“Yes, I’m sure,” said Dave in a noncommittal voice.

“She has many friends in the village,” said the Major, pressing him.

“I’m afraid she will not be coming,” said Dave Ali. “My wife and I are going in the Triumph and can barely fit our luggage. And then someone must take care of my mother, who is very frail, and Sheena is due any day now.”

“I appreciate that there are difficulties,” the Major began. “But surely, something as important as a wedding …?”

“My wife, who is the soul of kindness, Major, said ‘Oh, Jasmina should go and I will stay with Mummi and Sheena,’ but I ask you, Major, should a mother, who works seven days a week, miss her only son’s wedding?” He ran out of breath and mopped his face with a large handkerchief and considered his wife’s many sacrifices.

“I suppose not,” agreed the Major.

“Besides, it will be only the quietest of ceremonies.” Dave slurped at his tea. “I was willing to bankrupt myself to do it right, but my wife says they will prefer not to make a fuss in the circumstances. So it will be almost nothing—just a token exchange of gifts and not an ounce more than what is proper.” He paused and then looked at the Major with an eyebrow raised in significance. “Besides, we feel it is important for our Jasmina to make a clean break with the past if she is to be happy in her future.”

“A clean break?” asked the Major. Dave Ali sighed and shook his head in what appeared to be pity.

“She insisted on taking on a large burden when my brother died,” he said slowly. “A burden no woman should be asked to carry. And now we want only for her to lay down such responsibilities and be happy here in the heart of family where we can take care of her.”

“That is very generous of you,” said the Major.

“But old habits linger,” said Dave. “Myself, I look forward to the day when I can turn over our whole business to Abdul Wahid and retire, but no doubt I, too, will get under everyone’s feet and have a hard time handing over the decisions to others.”

“She is a very capable woman,” said the Major.

“In time we hope she will learn to be content here at home. She is already indispensable to my mother and she is reading the Qur’an to her every day. I have refused to put her in one of our shops. I have told her now is her time to sit back and let others take care of her. So much better to be happily at home, I tell her. No taxes or bills to pay, no books to balance, no one expecting you to know all the answers.”

“She is used to a certain independence,” the Major said.

Dave shrugged. “She is coming around. She has stopped suggesting to my poor wife new ways to run our inventory systems. Instead, she is obsessed with getting her own library card.”

“A library card?” asked the Major.

“Personally, who has time to read?” he said. “But if she wants one, I tell her she is welcome to it. We are very busy right now, what with the wedding and opening a SuperCenter next month, but my wife has promised to help her establish proof of her residency and then she will be able to sit home and read all day.”

They were interrupted by a commotion in the hallway. The Major couldn’t make out any of the words, but he heard a familiar voice cry out, “This is ridiculous. I will go in if I please,” and then the door opened and there she was, Mrs. Ali, still wearing a coat and scarf and carrying a small bag of groceries. Her cheeks were flushed, either from the argument or from having been outside, and she looked at him as if she were hungry to see all of him at once. Behind her, the young pregnant woman whispered something that made Mrs. Ali flinch.

“It’s fine, Sheena, let her come,” said Dave, getting up and waving as if to dismiss her. “It will do no harm to greet an old friend of your uncle Ahmed’s.”

“It is you,” she said. “I saw a hat in the hallway and I knew at once it was yours.”

“We did not know you were back from your errands,” said Dave. “The Major is passing by on his way to Scotland.”

“I had to come and see you,” said the Major. He wanted desperately to take her hand but he restrained the impulse.

“I was just telling the Major how much you enjoy your reading,” said Dave. “My brother used to tell me, Major, how Jasmina was always buried in reading. ‘So what if I have to do a little more so she can read. She is an intellectual,’ he would say.” His voice twisted with an unmistakable sarcasm at the word “intellectual” and the Major was gripped with an intense dislike of the man. “I’m only sorry he worked himself so hard,” added Dave mopping with his handkerchief again. “Taken so early from us.”

“That is despicable even for you,” said Mrs. Ali in a low voice. There was a pause as they looked at each other with equally locked jaws. “Sheena told me you had a business meeting,” she added.

“Sheena is very cautious,” said Mr. Ali, addressing the Major. “She worries about protecting everyone. Sometimes she even makes people wait in the street for me.”

“Grace wanted me to come and see you,” said the Major to Mrs. Ali. “I think she was expecting you to write.”

“But I did write, several times,” she said. “I see I was right to worry when I received no reply.” She gave her brother-in-law a look of mild disdain. “Is this not strange, Dawid?”

“Shocking, shocking—the post office is very bad these days,” agreed her brother-in-law, pursing his lips as if he did not like being addressed by his real name in front of an outsider. “And I speak as someone who has three sub post offices. We can only put the mail in the bag, but after that we’re not responsible.”

“I would like to talk to the Major for a few minutes alone,” said Mrs. Ali. “Should we speak here, or should I take the Major on a walk to show him the neighborhood?”

“Here will be fine, just fine,” said Dawid Ali in a hurried tone. The Major saw, with a mixture of amusement and hurt, that he was appalled at the thought of them promenading in front of the neighbors. “I’m sure the Major has to leave very soon, anyway—the afternoon traffic is so bad these days.” He went to the frosted doors and slid them open. “So we will leave you to chat about old times for a few minutes.” In the back room, a television played low and an old lady sat in a wing chair, a walking frame positioned in front of her. She looked half dead, slumped in the chair, but the Major saw her black eyes swivel toward them. “If you don’t mind, I will not ask Mummi to turn out of her chair. She will not disturb you.”

“I don’t need a chaperone,” said Mrs. Ali in a fierce whisper.

“Of course not,” said Dawid. “But we must allow Mummi to think she is useful. Don’t worry,” he added to the Major, “she’s as deaf as a post.”

“I must thank you for your hospitality,” said the Major.

“I doubt we’ll see you again, clean break and all that,” said Dawid Ali, holding out his hand. “It was a pleasure to meet such an acquaintance of my brother and an honor that you should come so far out of your way.”

After Dawid Ali had whispered a few words to his mother and left the back room, the Major and Mrs. Ali moved as far away as possible from the open doors and sat on a hard bench in the bay window. She still held her shopping bag and now she placed it under the bench and shrugged off her coat. It fell carelessly behind her.

“I feel as if I’m just dreaming that you’re here,” she said.

“I don’t think they’d like it if I pinched you,” he replied. They sat in silence for a moment. It seemed to the Major that it was necessary to break out of the usual kinds of small talk and make some declaration, some demand, but for the life of him he could not find the words to begin.

“That stupid dance,” he said at last. “I never got the chance to apologize.”

“I do not blame you for the rudeness of others,” she said.

“But you left,” he said. “Without saying goodbye.” She looked out of the window and he took the opportunity to study again the curve of her cheek and the thick lashes of her brown eyes.

“I had allowed myself to daydream,” she said. “A fleeting sense of wonder.” She smiled at him. “I woke up to find myself a practical woman once more and I realized something else.” Her smile faded and she looked serious, like a swimmer who commits to dive in, or a soldier to whom the order to open fire has just been given. “I threw in my lot with the Ali family a great many years ago and it was time to pay that debt.”

“When you sent back the Kipling, I thought you despised me.” He was aware that he sounded like a wounded child.

“Sent it back?” she asked. “But I lost it in the move.”

“Abdul Wahid handed it to me,” he said, feeling confused.

“I thought it was in my small bag with all my other valuables, but after I got here I couldn’t find it.” She widened her eyes and her lips trembled. “She must have stolen it from me.”

“Who?”

“My mother-in-law, Dawid’s mother,” she said, nodding toward the back room. The Major tried to share her outrage, but he was too happy to discover that she had not meant to return his book.

“Your letters go missing, you are kept from your nephew’s wedding, you are asked to leave your home,” he said. “You cannot stay here, my dear lady. I cannot allow it.”

“What would you have me do?” she said. “I must give up the shop, for George’s sake.”

“If you’ll allow me, I will take you away from here right now, today,” he said. “Under any conditions you like.” He turned and took both her hands in his. “If this room were not so ugly and oppressive, I would ask you something more,” he said. “But my need to get you out of here is more important than any considerations of my own heart and I will not burden your escape with any strings. Simply tell me what I have to do to get you out of this room and take you somewhere where you can breathe. And do not insult me by pretending that you are not suffocating in this house.” His own breath came heavy now and his heart seeming to knock about in his chest like a trapped bird. She turned on him eyes wet with tears.

“Are we to run away to that little cottage we once talked about? Where no one knows us and we send only cryptic postcards to the world? I should like to go there now and be done with everyone for a while,” she said. He gripped her hands tightly and did not turn when he heard a wail from the other room, which was the old lady gabbling in Urdu and calling “Dawid! Come quick!”

“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.