business around Charing Cross Road. “But I must confess that these days I spend most of my time rereading old favorites—Kipling, Johnson; there’s nothing to compare with the greats.”
“I can’t believe you admire Samuel Johnson, Major,” she said, laughing. “He seems to have been sorely lacking in the personal grooming department and he was always so rude to that poor Boswell.”
“Unfortunately, there is often an inverse correlation between genius and personal hygiene,” said the Major. “We would be sorely lacking if we threw out the greats with the bathwater of social niceties.”
“If only they would take a bath once in a while,” she said. “You are right, of course, but I tell myself that it does not matter what one reads—favorite authors, particular themes—as long as we read something. It is not even important to own the books.” She stroked the library book’s yellowing plastic sleeve with a look that seemed sad.
“But your father’s library?” he asked.
“Gone. When he died, my uncles came from Pakistan to settle the estate. One day I came home from school and my mother and an aunt were washing all the empty shelves. My uncles had sold them by the foot. There was an odor of smoke in the air and when I ran to the window…” She paused and took a slow breath.
Memories were like tomb paintings, thought the Major, the colors still vivid no matter how many layers of mud and sand time deposited. Scrape at them and they come up all red and blazing. She looked at him, her chin raised. “I can’t tell you the paralyzing feeling, the shame of watching my uncles burning paperbacks in the garden incinerator. I cried out to my mother to stop them, but she just bent her head and went on pouring soapy water onto the wood.” Mrs. Ali stopped and turned to look out over the sea. The waves flopped dirty foam onto the expanse of quilted brown sand that signaled low tide. The Major breathed in the sharp tang of stranded seaweed and wondered whether he should pat her on the back.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Oh, I can’t believe I told you this,” she said, turning back, her hand rubbing a corner of her eye. “I apologize. I’m getting to be such a silly old woman these days.”
“My dear Mrs. Ali, I would hardly refer to you as old,” he said. “You are in what I would call the very prime flowering of mature womanhood.” It was a little grandiose but he hoped to surprise a blush. Instead she laughed out loud at him.
“I have never heard anyone try to trowel such a thick layer of flattery on the wrinkles and fat deposits of advanced middle age, Major,” she said. “I am fifty-eight years old and I think I have slipped beyond flowering. I can only hope now to dry out into one of those everlasting bouquets.”
“Well, I have ten years on you,” he said. “I suppose that makes me a real fossil.”
She laughed again, and the Major felt that there was no more important and fulfilling work than to make Mrs. Ali laugh. His own troubles seemed to recede as their steps took them beyond the ice cream stalls and ticket booths of the pier. Here they navigated a newly installed series of curves in the promenade. The Major withheld his usual diatribe against the stupidity of young architects who feel oppressed by the straight line. Today he felt like waltzing.
They entered the public gardens, which began as a single bed crawling with yellow chrysanthemums, and then spread along two ever widening paths to create a long thin triangular space containing several different areas and levels. A sunken rectangle contained a bandstand, set in the middle of a lawn. Empty deck chairs flapped their canvas in the breeze. The council had just planted into concrete boxes the third or fourth set of doomed palm trees. There was an unshakable belief among the council’s executive committee that the introduction of palm trees would transform the town into a Mediterranean-style paradise and attract an altogether better class of visitor. The trees died fast. The day-trippers continued to bus in, wearing their cheap T-shirts and testing their raucous voices against the gulls. At the far end of the gardens, on a small circular lawn that lay open to the sea on one side, a thin, dark- skinned boy of four or five was nudging a small red ball with his feet. He played as if doing so were a hardship. When he gave the ball a sharp tap it bounced against a low bronze sign that said “No Ball Playing” in raised, polished letters and then rolled toward the Major. Feeling jovial, the Major attempted to chip the ball back, but it bounced sideways off his foot, struck an ornamental boulder, and rolled swiftly under a hedge of massed hydrangeas.
“Oi, there’s no football allowed ‘ere,” shouted a voice from a small green kiosk with a curly copper roof and shutters, which offered tea and an assortment of cakes.
“Sorry, sorry,” said the Major, waving his hands to encompass both the gray-faced, plump lady behind the kiosk counter and the small boy, who stood looking at the bushes as if they were as impenetrable as a black hole. The Major hurried over to the hedge and peered under, looking for some flash of red.
“What kind of park is it if a six-year-old can’t kick a football?” said a sharp voice. The Major glanced up to see a young woman who, though obviously of Indian origin, wore the universal uniform of the young and disenchanted. She was dressed in a rumpled parka the color of an oil spill, and long striped leggings tucked into motorcycle boots. Her short hair stuck out in a halo of stiff tufts as if she had just crawled out of bed, and her face, which might have been pretty, was twisted by a belligerent look as she faced the kiosk worker.
“There won’t be no flowers left if all the kids trample about with balls all day,” said the kiosk lady. “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from, but we try to keep things nice and genteel around here.”
“What d’you mean by that?” The young woman scowled. The Major recognized the abrasive northern tone he associated with Marjorie. “What are you saying?”
“I’m not saying nothing,” replied the lady. “Don’t get all shirty with me—I don’t make the rules.” The Major scooped up the somewhat muddy ball and handed it to the boy.
“Thank you,” said the boy. “I’m George, and I don’t really like football.”
“I don’t really like it, either,” said the Major. “Cricket is the only sport I really follow.”
“Tiddlywinks is a sport, too,” said George with a serious expression. “But Mum thought I might lose the bits if I brought them to the park.”
“Now that you bring it up,” said the Major, “I’ve never seen a sign saying ‘No Tiddlywinking’ in any park, so it might not be such a bad idea.” As he straightened up, the young woman hurried over.
“George, George, I’ve told you a thousand times about talking to strange men,” she said in a tone that identified her as the child’s mother rather than an older sister, as the Major had first thought.
“I do apologize,” he said. “It was entirely my fault, of course. Bit of a long time since I played any football.”
“Silly old cow ought to mind her own business,” said the young woman. “Thinks she’s in a uniform instead of an apron.” This was said loud enough to carry back to the kiosk.
“Very unfortunate,” said the Major in as noncommittal a voice as possible. He wondered whether he and Mrs. Ali would have to find an alternative source for tea. The kiosk lady was glaring at them.
“The world is full of small ignorances,” said a quiet voice. Mrs. Ali appeared at his elbow and gave the young woman a stern look. “We must all do our best to ignore them and thereby keep them small, don’t you think?” The Major braced himself for an abusive reply but to his surprise, the young woman gave a small smile instead.
“My mum always said things like that,” she said in a low voice.
“But of course we do not like to listen to our mothers,” said Mrs. Ali, smiling. “At least, not until long after we are mothers ourselves.”
“We have to go now, George. We’ll be late for tea,” said the young woman. “Say goodbye to the nice people.”
“I’m George, goodbye,” said the boy to Mrs. Ali.
“I’m Mrs. Ali, how do you do?” she replied. The young woman gave a start and peered at Mrs. Ali more closely. For a moment she seemed to hesitate, as if she wanted to speak, but then she appeared to decide against volunteering any further introductions. Instead, she took George by the hand and set off at a fast pace toward the town.
“What an abrupt young woman,” said the Major.
Mrs. Ali sighed. “I rather admire such refusal to bow before authority, but I fear it makes for a very uncomfortable daily existence.”
At the kiosk, the lady was still glaring and muttering something under her breath about people who thought they owned the place now. The Major tightened his upright stance and spoke in his most imposing voice, the one he had once reserved for quieting a room full of small boys.
“Do my eyes deceive me or are those real mugs you’re using for tea?” he said, pointing the head of his cane
