“Quite,” said the Major, accepting the compliment automatically but not feeling at all sure that she was right.
She dropped him on the corner a few yards from the church, and he scribbled down his sister-in-law’s address on a piece of paper.
“I’m sure I could get a bus back or something,” he said, but they both knew this was not the case so he didn’t press his demurral. “I expect we’ll be done by six o’clock, if that’s convenient?” he added.
“Certainly.” She took his hand a moment in hers. “I wish you a strong heart and the love of family this afternoon.” The Major felt a warmth of emotion that he hoped he could keep alight as he faced the awful starkness of Bertie in a walnut box.
The service was largely the same mix of comedy and misery he remembered from Nancy’s funeral. The church was large and dismal. It was mid-century Presbyterian, its concrete starkness unrelieved by the incense, candles, and stained glass of Nancy’s beloved St. Mary’s C of E. No ancient bell tower or mossy cemetery here, with compensating beauty and the peace of seeing the same names carved on stone down through the ages. The only comfort was the small satisfaction of seeing the service well attended, to the point where two rows of folding chairs were occupied in the back. Bertie’s coffin lay above a shallow depression in the floor, rather like a drainage trough, and at some point in the service the Major was startled by a mechanical hum and Bertie’s sudden descent. He didn’t sink more than four inches, but the Major stifled a sudden cry and involuntarily reached out a hand. He hadn’t been prepared.
Jemima and Marjorie both spoke. He expected to be derisive of their speeches, especially when Jemima, in a wide-brimmed hat of black straw more suitable for a chic wedding, announced a poem composed in her father’s honor. But though the poem was indeed atrocious (he remembered only a surfeit of teddy bears and angels quite at odds with the severity of Presbyterian teachings), her genuine grief transformed it into something moving. She wept mascara all over her thin face and had to be half carried from the lectern by her husband.
The Major had not been asked in advance to speak. He considered this a grave oversight and had prepared extensive remarks over and over during the lonely insomnia of the intervening nights. But when Marjorie, returning to her seat after her own short and tearful goodbye to her husband, leaned in and asked him if he wanted to say anything, he declined. To his own surprise, he was feeling weak again and his voice and vision were both blurry with emotion. He simply grasped both her hands for a long moment and tried not to allow any tears to escape.
After the service, shaking hands with people in the smoked-glass lobby, he had been touched by the appearance of several of his and Bertie’s old friends, some who he had not seen in many years. Martin James, who had grown up with them both in Edgecombe, had driven over from Kent. Bertie’s old neighbor Alan Peters, who had a great golf handicap but had taken up bird-watching instead, had driven over from the other side of the county. Most surprisingly, Jones the Welshman, an old army friend of the Major’s dating all the way back to officer training, who had met Bertie a handful of times one summer and had continued to send them both cards every Christmas, had come down from Halifax. The Major gripped his hand and shook his head in wordless thanks. The moment was spoiled only by Jonesy’s second wife, a woman neither he nor Bertie had had a chance to meet, who kept weeping brokenheartedly into her large handkerchief.
“Give it over, Lizzy,” said Jones. “Sorry, she can’t help it.”
“I’m so sorry,” wailed Lizzy, blowing her nose. “I get this way at weddings, too.” The Major didn’t mind. At least she had come. Roger had not appeared.
Chapter 2
Bertie’s house—he supposed he should have to start thinking of it as Marjorie’s house now—was a boxy split-level that she had managed to torque into some semblance of a Spanish villa. The lumpy brick pergola and wrought-iron railings of a rooftop patio crowned the attached double garage. An attic extension with a brick-arched picture window presented a sort of flamenco wink at the seaside town that sprawled below. The front garden was given over mostly to a gravel driveway as big as a car park and the cars were lined up two abreast around a spindly copper fountain in the shape of a very thin, naked young girl. The late afternoon was growing chilly, the clouds swelling in from the sea, but upstairs on the second floor, Marjorie still had the doors from the tiled living room open to the rooftop patio. The Major stayed as deep into the room as possible, trying to suck some warmth from lukewarm tea in a small polystyrene cup. Marjorie’s idea of “nothing elaborate” was a huge banquet of spoon- dripping food—egg salad, lasagna, a wine-soaked chicken stew—served entirely on paper plates. All around the room people cradled sagging plates in their palms, plastic glasses and cups of tea set down haphazardly on window ledges and the top of a large television.
Across the room he caught an undulation in the crowd and followed the stir to see Marjorie embracing Roger. Major Pettigrew’s heart jumped to see his tall brown-haired son. So he had come after all.
Roger made copious apologies for his lateness and a solemn promise to help Marjorie and Jemima select a headstone for Uncle Bertie. He was charming and smooth in an expensive, dark suit, unsuitable gaudy tie, and narrow, highly polished shoes too dapper to be anything but Italian. London had polished him to an almost continental urbanity. The Major tried not to disapprove.
“Listen, Dad, Jemima had a word with me about Uncle Bertie’s shotgun,” said Roger when they had a moment to sit down on a hard leather sofa to talk. He twitched at his lapel and adjusted the knees of his trousers.
“Yes, I was meaning to talk to Marjorie about it. But it’s not really the time, is it?” He had not forgotten about the question of the gun, but it didn’t seem important today.
“They understand perfectly about the value of it. Jemima is quite up on the subject.”
“It’s not a question of the money, of course,” said the Major sternly. “Our father was quite clear in his intentions that the pair be reunited. Family heirlooms, family patrimony.”
“Yes, Jemima feels that the pair should be reunited,” said Roger. “A little restoration may be needed, of course.”
“Mine is in perfect condition,” said the Major. “I don’t believe Bertie quite took the time with his that I did. Not much of a shooting man.”
“Well, anyway,” said Roger, “Jemima says the market is red hot right now. There aren’t Churchills of this quality to be had for love or money. The Americans are signing up for waiting lists.” The Major felt a slow tightening in the muscles of his cheeks. His small smile became quite rigid as he inferred the blow that was to come. “So, Jemima and I think the most sensible course of action would be to sell them as a pair right now. Of course, it would be your money, Dad, but since you are planning to pass it on to me eventually, I assume, I could really use it now.”
The Major said nothing. He concentrated on breathing. He had never really noticed how much mechanical effort was involved in maintaining the slow in-and-out of the lungs, the smooth passage of oxygen through the nose. Roger had the decency to squirm in his chair. He knew, thought the Major, exactly what he was asking.
“Excuse me, Ernest, there’s a strange woman outside who says she’s waiting for you?” said Marjorie, appearing suddenly and putting her hand on his shoulder. He looked up, coughing to hide his wet eyes. “Are you expecting a dark woman in a small Honda?”
“Oh, yes,” he said, “that’s Mrs. Ali come to pick me up.”
“A woman taxi driver?” said Roger. “You hate women drivers.”
“She’s not a taxi service,” snapped the Major. “She’s a friend of mine. She owns the village shop.”
“In that case, you’d better have her come in and have some tea,” said Marjorie, her lips tight with disapproval. She looked vaguely at the buffet. “I’m sure she’d like a piece of Madeira cake—everyone likes Madeira cake, don’t they?”
“I’ll do that, thank you,” said the Major, rising to his feet.
“Actually, Dad, I was hoping I could drive you home,” said Roger. The Major was confused.
“But you came by train,” he said.
