“I will think of you whenever I read Mr. Kipling, Major,” she said, with a sad smile. “Thank you for trying to be my friend.” She offered her hand and he again put it to his lips. After a few moments, she tugged it gently away and stepped down to the driveway. He wanted so much to run down after her but he found himself fixed where he was, standing in the light of the doorway with the music spilling around him and the crowd waiting for him inside.
“I could come down early,” he called after her. “We could talk.”
“Go back to your party, Major,” she said. “You’ll catch cold standing in the dark.” She hurried down the driveway and as she disappeared, blue dress into deep night, he knew he was a fool. Yet at that moment, he could not find a way to be a different man.
Chapter 18
Mrs. Ali left the village. The Major did not see her go. He had meant to go down to the shop and visit her, but his anger and despair at having made such a mess of the evening seemed to help bring on the full-blown cold she had so carelessly predicted and he lay in bed for three days. As he dozed in rumpled pajamas and furred teeth, ignoring the shrill rings of the telephone and the torturing tick of his bedroom clock, Mrs. Ali went north to her husband’s family and, by the time he was well enough to walk down to the village, it was too late.
The Major put his head down and prepared to battle through the tinsel storm that passed for Christmas now in an England that he remembered had once been grateful for a few pairs of wool socks and a hot pudding with more raisins than carrots. He woke each day hoping to feel fully recovered from his illness but could not shake a dry cough and a persistent lassitude. He felt buffeted to the point of collapse by the tinny music in the stores and streets. The more the crowds in the town caroled and laughed and loaded themselves, and their credit cards, with bags of presents, cases of beer, and hampers containing jars of indigestibles from many nations, the more he felt the whole world become hollow.
Holiday preparations in Edgecombe St. Mary seemed to elbow aside all other concerns. Even the campaign against St. James Homes seemed to be muted. The “Save our Village” posters that had sprung up right after the shooting party were hardly noticeable in windows amid all the flashing fairy lights, the lurid lawn displays of inflatable Santas, and the electric-twig reindeer with endlessly grazing heads. Even Alice Pierce had taken down one of her three posters and replaced it with a painting on wood of a dove carrying a ribbon that read “Joy to the World.” It was illuminated at night by the pinkish glow of two bare compact fluorescent bulbs, mounted on a board below together with a timer that turned them on and off at excruciatingly slow intervals.
At the village shop, which the Major avoided as long as possible, Christmas decorations helped obliterate any trace of Mrs. Ali. A forest of foil dangly things and paper chains and large crepe-paper balls promoting a beer had transformed the shop into a festive horror. There were none of Mrs. Ali’s handmade samosas next to the packaged meat pies in the cold case. The large caddies of loose tea behind the counter had been replaced by a display of chocolate assortment boxes of a size guaranteed to cause acute happiness followed by acute gastric distress in small children. The modest, hand-wrapped gift baskets, which the Major had decided to stock up on for the holidays, had been replaced by large cheap commercial baskets painted in garish colors and crowned with yellow cellophane; each was skewered by a bamboo stick adorned with a plastic teddy bear made furry with what appeared to be wallpaper flocking. Who would possibly take pleasure in a bear-on-a-stick was a mystery the Major could not comprehend. He stood staring through his glasses at the poor things until a hard-featured old woman who was knitting behind the counter asked him if he wanted to buy one.
“Good heavens no, no, thank you,” he said. The old woman glared at him. She was evidently able to knit and glare at the same time, as there was no pause in the furious clicking of her needles. Abdul Wahid, appearing from the back, greeted him rather coldly and introduced the woman as one of his great-aunts.
“Pleased to meet you,” lied the Major. She inclined her head, but her smile retracted itself almost at once into a pursing of the lips that seemed her usual expression.
“She doesn’t speak much English,” said Abdul Wahid. “We have only just persuaded her to retire here from Pakistan.” He retrieved a plastic bag from under the counter. “I am glad you came in. I have been asked to return something to you.” The Major looked in the bag and saw the little volume of Kipling poetry that he had given Mrs. Ali.
“How is she?” asked the Major, hoping not to betray any urgency in his voice. The aunt released a torrent of language at Abdul Wahid, who nodded and then smiled apologetically.
“We are all very nicely settled, thank you,” he said and his voice continued to brick up a barrier of cold and indifference between them. The Major could find no crack of warmth on which to turn the conversation. “My auntie wants to know what we can get for you this morning.”
“Oh I don’t need anything, thank you,” said the Major. “I just popped in to—er—see the decorations.” He waved his hand toward an extra-large round paper ball topped with the flat outline of a winking girl with fat lips and an elf hat. Abdul Wahid blushed, and the Major added: “Of course, there can be no question of excess where there is commercial imperative.”
“I will not forget your hospitality this autumn, Major,” said Abdul Wahid. His voice at last offered some hint of recognition, but it was combined with an unanswerable finality, as if the Major were also planning on leaving the village forever. “You were very kind to extend your assistance to my family and we hope you will continue to be a valued customer.” The Major felt his sinuses contract and tears begin to well at the loss of connection even to this strange and intense young man. A lesser man might have grabbed for his sleeve or uttered a plea for—he supposed he had become used to Abdul Wahid’s presence, if not his friendship. He dove in his pocket for a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly, apologizing for his lingering cold. The auntie and Abdul Wahid both drew back from the invisible menace of his germs and he was able to escape the shop without embarrassing himself.
Christmas was still present, he hoped, in the church, where he went one morning to lend some carved wooden camels for the creche by the altar, as his father had begun doing many years ago. It was a ritual to unpack them from their tea chest in the attic, to unwind their linen wrappings, and to give the cedar a light rub with beeswax.
The church was blissfully bare of any manufactured decoration. The simple creche was supplemented by two brass urns of holly flanking the altar and an arrangement of white roses draping the font. Handmade cards from the church school hung from wooden pegs on a line strung across the aisle. Still tired from his cold, the Major dropped into the front pew for a few moments of quiet reflection.
The Vicar, emerging from the sacristy with a handful of leaflets, gave a small start—almost a hesitation—and then walked over to shake hands.
“Brought the dromedaries, I see,” he said and sat down. The Major said nothing but watched the sunlight pour across the ancient flagstone floor and light up the dust motes. “Glad to see you out and about,” the Vicar went on. “We heard you were laid up after the dance, and Daisy kept meaning to check on you.”
“Entirely unnecessary and so no apologies required, Vicar,” said the Major.
“Bit of a shambles, that dance,” said the Vicar at last. “Daisy was very upset.”
“Was she?” said the Major in a dry tone.
“Oh, she worries about everyone so much, you know,” said the Vicar. “She has such a big heart.” The Major looked at him, astonished. Such touching delusion must underlie many otherwise inexplicable marriages, he thought, and liked Christopher all the better for loving his wife. The Vicar took an obvious deep breath.
“We heard that Mrs. Ali has moved away to be with family?” His eyes were nervous and probing.
“That’s what I’m told.” The Major felt a choke of misery rise into his voice. “There was nothing to keep her here.”
“It’s good to be with family,” said the Vicar. “Among your own people. She’s very lucky.”
“We could have been her people,” said the Major in a low voice. There was a silence as the Vicar shifted his bottom on the hard pew. He opened his mouth a few times, to no effect. The Major watched him struggle like a fly with one leg in a cobweb.
“Look, I’m as ecumenical as the best of them.” The Vicar set his hands in his lap and looked at the Major
