Daisy. “Where is that caterer? Where is the band?”
“I am here and ready to get my team back to work,” said Mrs. Rasool, appearing at Daisy’s side. “We will finish the job in the same professional manner we began.” She turned to the waiters. “Do you hear me, boys? Get straightened up and start resetting those tables. No more nonsense now, please. Ladies—please let your young men go backstage and have a good drink and we’ll start the dessert procession.”
The band gathered and began a particularly objectionable polka; to the Major’s surprise, the waiters began to move. There were some muttered words among them, but they obeyed Mrs. Rasool, some picking up tables and the rest disappearing out into the kitchen. The lunch girls, more truculent and louder in their comments, were disinclined to leave their injured friends, but half of them complied while the others led away their aggrieved warriors to be comforted in the backstage room. The guests began to filter toward the bars, and a few club members helped to pick up tables. A groundskeeper two-stepped his way across the dance floor with a huge wet mop and disappeared through a French door into the night.
“Mrs. Rasool, you should have been a general,” said the Major, deeply impressed as the room began to assume normality and a parade of lunch ladies entered bearing tiered stands of petits fours.
“Major Pettigrew, my apologies for the disturbance,” said Mrs. Rasool, drawing him aside. “My father-in-law has been very frail lately and the sight of all the dead bodies came as a shock to him.”
“Why do you apologize?” said Abdul Wahid, startling the Major, who had not seen him approach. “Your father-in-law spoke nothing but the truth. They should be apologizing to him for making a mockery of our land’s deepest tragedy.”
“You have no right to call it a mockery,” said Amina, her voice wobbling from exhaustion and anger. “I worked like crazy to make a real story out of this piece.”
“Abdul Wahid, I think you should take Amina home now,” said Mrs. Ali. Abdul Wahid looked as if he had plenty more to say, and Amina hesitated. “Both of you will leave now. We will not discuss this further,” added Mrs. Ali, and some steel in her tone, which the Major had never heard before, caused them to do as she said.
“Look here, normally I’d say the show must go on,” said Lord Dagenham. “But maybe we just drop it and avoid any further controversy? Give the Major his tray on the quiet.”
“That would be fine with me,” said the Major.
“Nonsense!” said Daisy. “You can’t let some old man’s aspersions drive you from the stage, Major.”
“If you do, people may think there is some kind of truth to his view,” said Ferguson.
“Well, I don’t see how anyone could be insulted,” said Roger. “My grandfather was a hero.”
“I’m sure you can understand that many people still grieve for those who were murdered during this time,” said Mrs. Ali in a conciliatory tone. “Thousands died, including most on your grandfather’s train, it seems.”
“Well, you can’t expect one man to have defended a whole train, can you?” said Roger.
“Certainly not,” said Dagenham, clapping the Major on the back. “Personally I think he would have been quite justified in jumping out a window and saving his own skin.”
“Pity he didn’t have more warning,” said Ferguson. “He could have organized the passengers to tear up the seats and use them to barricade the windows. Maybe made some crude weapons or something.”
“You must be American,” said Mrs. Ali. She looked angry now. “I think you’ll find that works a lot better in the movies than in a real war.”
“Look, the truth belongs to the guy who’s best at sticking to his story,” said Ferguson. “We see a picture of all of us in the paper with that silver tray, Double D, then this dance was a big success and this little contretemps never happened.”
“So let’s get the tray and the guns and round up the dancers,” agreed Dagenham. “Then we make sure we include the doctor and his wife here, and Mrs. Ali who looks so lovely, and we’ll have a fine story.”
As they walked away, taking Roger with them to fetch the guns from backstage, Mrs. Khan touched up her hair with her hands and sidled toward Daisy.
“Oh, we don’t want to be in the limelight,” she simpered. “Perhaps just in the back row?”
“Where your presence will no doubt still radiate,” said Mrs. Ali.
“I am surprised you didn’t know the old man was unstable,” said Sadie Khan in an icy voice. “You are so intimate with the Rasools.” She leaned closer to Daisy to add: “It’s so hard to be sure about one’s suppliers these days.”
“The photographer’s almost ready,” said Roger, coming up to them, bearing the box of guns in his arms. “We’re getting set up for the presentation and pictures.”
“I will not appear in the picture,” said Mrs. Ali.
“Is that for religious reasons?” asked Roger. “Understandable, of course.”
“No, I am disinclined to be paraded for authenticity,” said Mrs. Ali. “You will have to rely on Saadia for that.”
“Oh, how very tiresome,” said Daisy Green. “It really isn’t polite to come to our party and then complain about everything.”
“Daisy, there’s no need to be rude,” said Grace. “Mrs. Ali is my good friend.”
“Well, Grace, that should tell you that you need to get out more,” said Daisy. “Next you’ll be having the gardener in for tea.” There was an instant of stunned silence and the Major felt compelled to interject a rebuke.
“I think Grace is entitled to have anyone she likes to tea,” he said. “And it’s no business of yours to tell her otherwise.”
“Of course you do,” said Daisy with an unpleasant smile. “We are all aware of your proclivities.”
The Major felt despair strike him like a blow to the ear. He had defended the wrong woman. Moreover, he had encouraged Daisy to further insult.
“Major, I wish to go home,” said Mrs. Ali in an unsteady voice. She looked at him with the smallest of painful smiles. “My nephew can drive me, of course. You must stay for your award.”
“Oh no, I insist,” he said. He knew it was imperative to persuade her, but he could not avoid a quick glance toward Roger. He was not about to abandon his gun box to Roger while both Marjorie and Ferguson were still in the building.
“You must stay with your friends and I must run and catch up with Abdul Wahid,” she said. “I need to be with my family.”
“You really can’t leave now, Dad,” said Roger, in a urgent whisper. “It would be the height of rudeness to Dagenham.”
“At least let me walk you out,” said the Major as Mrs. Ali walked away.
As he hurried after her, he heard Sadie Khan speaking. Daisy’s response, in a crystal voice, carried over the music and voices: “Yes, of course, you would be so much more suitable, my dear, only we are quite oversubscribed in the medical professions and the club works so hard to promote diversity in the membership.”
Out in the cold night, the stars were abundant in a way that increased the pain of the moment. Mrs. Ali paused on the top step and the Major stood at her shoulder, mute with humiliation at his own foolishness.
“We are always talking outside like this,” she said at last. Her breath steamed in the cold and her eyes shone, perhaps with tears.
“I made a mess of everything, didn’t I?” he said. Below them, Amina and Abdul were arguing as they walked down the driveway. Mrs. Ali sighed.
“I was in danger of doing the same,” she said. “Now I see what I must do. I must put an end to the family squabbling and see those two settled.”
“They are so different,” he said. “Do you think they can live together?”
“It is funny, isn’t it?” she said in a quiet voice. “A couple may have nothing in common but the color of their skin and the country of their ancestors, but the whole world would see them as compatible.”
“It’s not fair,” he said. “But it doesn’t have to be that way, does it?”
“Maybe, while they disagree about some big issues, they share the small pieces of their culture without thinking. Perhaps I do not give that enough weight.”
“May I come and see you tomorrow?” he asked.
“I think not,” she said. “I think I shall be busy, preparing to go to my husband’s family.”
“You can’t be serious. Just like that? What about our Sunday readings?”
