“A working title only,” said Daisy. “ ‘Evening at the Court’ will send an appropriate message of decorum. We must thank the Major for his contribution to our efforts.” The ladies clapped and the Major, speechless with the futility of protest, was reduced to giving them a small bow.
“The Major’s an Indian. He’s the one to advise you,” said Alec, clapping him on the back. It was an old joke, worn out with having been used on the Major since he was a small boy with large ears, being bullied on an unfamiliar playground.
“Are you really?” asked Miss Bucket Hat.
“I’m afraid that’s Alec being amusing,” he said, through tight lips. “My father served in India, and so I was born in Lahore.”
“But you won’t find better English stock than the Pettigrews,” said Alec.
“I wonder if you might have some souvenirs of that time, Major?” said Daisy. “Rugs or baskets—props we can borrow?”
“Any lion skin rugs?” asked the bucket head.
“No, sorry, can’t say I do,” said the Major.
“I say we should talk to Mrs. Ali, the lady who runs the village shop in Edgecombe,” said Alma. “Perhaps she could cater some Indian specialties for us, or direct us to where we can buy or borrow some cheap props—like some of those statues with all the arms.”
“That would be Shiva,” said the Major. “The Hindu deity.”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“Like the Mughals, Mrs. Ali is, I believe, Muslim and might be offended at such a request,” he said, trying to bite back his irritation. It would not do to let the ladies infer any particular interest toward Mrs. Ali on his part.
“Oh, well, it won’t do to offend the only vaguely Indian woman we know,” said Daisy. “I was hoping she could find us some suitably ethnic bartenders.”
“How about snake charmers?” suggested Miss Bucket Hat.
“I know Mrs. Ali slightly,” said Grace. There was a general shifting of heads in her direction and she began to knot her handkerchief in her fingers under the unwelcome scrutiny. “I’m very interested in local history and she was kind enough to show me all the old ledgers from her shop. She has records as far back as 1820.”
“How exciting,” said Alma, rolling her eyes.
“How about if I go to talk to Mrs. Ali, and I could perhaps trouble the Major to help me be sure I only make suitable requests?” said Grace.
“Well… well, I’m sure I don’t know what’s suitable and what’s not,” said the Major. “Also, I don’t think we should bother Mrs. Ali.”
“Nonsense,” said Daisy, beaming. “It’s an excellent idea. We’ll come up with a complete list of ideas. And Grace, you and the Major can put your heads together and work out how to approach Mrs. Ali.”
“If you ladies are done with us,” said Alec, “we have people waiting for us in the bar.”
“Now let’s talk about the floral arrangements,” said Daisy, dismissing them with a wave of the hand. “I’m thinking palms and perhaps bougainvillea?”
“Good luck getting bougainvillea in November,” the lady with the bucket hat was saying as the Major and Alec slipped from the room.
“Bet you five pounds they squash her like a bug,” said the Major.
“Lord Dagenham’s niece,” said Alec. “Apparently she’s living up at the manor now and assuming all kinds of social duties. Daisy’s furious, so best look out. She’s taking it out on everyone.”
“I’m not in the least intimidated by Daisy Green,” the Major lied.
“Let’s get that drink,” said Alec. “I think a large G and T is in order.”
The Grill bar was a high-ceilinged Edwardian room, with French doors looking over the terrace and eighteenth hole toward the sea. A series of mirrored doors at the east end hid an annex with a stage, which was opened on the occasion of large tournaments as well as the annual dance. The wall of the long walnut bar to the west end was hung with arched wood paneling on which racks of bottles were ranged below portraits of past club presidents. A portrait of the Queen (an early portrait, badly reprinted and framed in cheap gilt) hung directly above some particularly vile colored after-dinner liqueurs that no one ever drank. The Major always found this vaguely treasonable.
The room contained a few clusters of scratched and dented club chairs in brown leather and a series of tables along the windows, which could be reserved only through Tom, the barman. This prevented any monopoly of the tables by ladies who might be organized enough to telephone ahead. Instead, members with early tee times popped in first to see Tom, who would put down his mop or emerge from the cellar to add their names in the book. It was the aspiration of many members to become one of the few, very august regulars whose names were penciled in by Tom himself. The Major was not one of these anymore. Since the creamed chicken incident, he preferred to persuade Alec to join him in a sandwich at the bar, or in one of the clusters of chairs. Not only did this protect them from a surfeit of clotted gravy and thin custards, but it freed them from the sullen charms of the waitresses who, culled from the pool of unmotivated young women being spat out by the local school, specialized in a mood of suppressed rage. Many seemed to suffer from some disease of holes in the face and it had taken the Major some time to work out that club rules required the young women to remove all jewelry and that the holes were piercings bereft of decoration.
“Good morning, gentlemen. The usual?” asked Tom, a tumbler already poised under the optic of the green gin bottle.
“Better make mine a double,” said Alec, making a great show of wiping his bare melon-shaped forehead with his pocket square. “My goodness, we barely escaped with our lives there.”
“Make mine a half of lager instead, would you, Tom?” said the Major.
They ordered two thick ham and cheese sandwiches. Alec also put in his order for a piece of jam roly-poly since it was only offered on Fridays and tended to sell out. He topped off the order with a small salad.
Alec had an unshakable belief that he was into fitness. He always ordered a salad at lunch, though he never ate anything but the decorative tomato. He insisted that he drank alcohol only when it was accompanied by food. Once or twice he had been caught short in an unfamiliar pub and the Major had seen him reduced to consuming a pickled egg or pork cracklings.
They had barely settled onto a couple of bar stools when a foursome came in, laughing over some incident on the final green. Father Christopher and Hugh Whetstone he recognized, and he was surprised to see Lord Dagenham, who was very rarely at the club and whose atrocious playing made for some very awkward questions of etiquette. The fourth man was a stranger, and something in his broad shoulders and unfortunate pink golf shirt suggested to the Major that he might be another American. Two Americans in as many weeks was, he reflected, approaching a nasty epidemic.
“Shaw, Major—how are you?” asked Dagenham, slapping Alec on the back and then clasping the Major firmly on the shoulder. “Sorry to hear about your loss, Major. Damn shame to lose a good man like your brother.”
“Thank you, your lordship,” said the Major, standing up and inclining his head. “You are very kind to say so.” It was just like Lord Dagenham to pop up from nowhere and yet to be in possession of all the latest news of the village. The Major wondered if some assistant at the Hall sent him regular faxes to London. He was very touched by his lordship’s words and by the always respectful use of the Major’s rank. His lordship could so easily have called him Pettigrew, and yet he never did. In return, the Major never referred to him in the familiar, even behind his back.
“Frank, allow me to present Major Ernest Pettigrew, formerly of the Royal Sussex, and Mr. Alec Shaw—used to help run the Bank of England in his spare time. Gentlemen, this is Mr. Frank Ferguson, who is visiting us from New Jersey.”
“How do you do,” said the Major.
“Frank is in real estate,” added Lord Dagenham. “One of the largest resort and retail developers on the East Coast.”
“Oh, you’re making too much of it, Double D,” said Ferguson. “It’s just a little family business I inherited from my dad.”
“You’re in the building trade?” asked the Major.
“You got me pegged, Pettigrew,” said Ferguson, slapping him on the back. “No use pretending to be
