“Either shoot me or choose to live yourself,” said the Major. “I can’t face your aunt any other way. How strange to think that we come as a pair now.”
Abdul Wahid gave a bellow of anguish and threw the gun away from him onto the ground. The butt end hit first and the gun gave a roaring boom and discharged what the Major registered as a single barrel.
He felt a white-hot sear of steel shot through his right leg. The force of the close range spun him around and he fell heavily, slipping in the grass. As he rolled, he felt the ground disappear under him. His legs slipped over the edge of the chalk into empty air. There was no time to feel any pain as he scrabbled above his head with his hands and felt his left elbow bump a metal stanchion that had once held a wire fence. He grabbed the stanchion. It held briefly against the tug of his body as he rolled over and then it began to move, the metal squeaking like a dull knife. In an instant, a body landed on his left lower arm and fingers dug at his back to find any grip. His legs jackknifed and his left knee struck the cliff with a pain that flashed like a light in his head. The Major heard the clatter of stones preceding him over the edge. It was so fast there was no time for thought. There was only a brief feeling of surprise and the smell of cold white chalk and wet grass.
Chapter 25
The Major was keen to push away the nagging idea of pain, which started to seep into his head along with the light. It was comfortable in the warm darkness of sleep and he struggled to stay down. A murmur of voices, a clattering of metal carts, and the brief percussion of curtain rings swept aside made him think he might be surfacing into an airport lounge. He felt his eyelids flutter and he tried to squeeze them shut. It was his attempt to roll over that shocked him awake with a tearing pain in his left knee and an ache on his right side that made him gasp. He scrabbled with his hand and felt thin sheet over slippery mattress and knocked it against a metal post.
“He’s waking up.” A hand held his shoulder down and the same voice added, “Don’t try to move, Mr. Pettigrew.”
“Isss Major…” he whispered. “Major Pettigrew.” His voice was a hoarse whisper in a mouth that seemed to be made of brown paper. He tried to lick his lips, but his tongue felt like a dead toad.
“Here’s something to drink,” said the voice as a straw snagged on his lip and he sucked at lukewarm water. “You’re in the hospital, Mr. Pettigrew, but you’re going to be fine.”
He slipped away again into sleep, hoping that when he awoke again it would be into his own room at Rose Lodge. He was quite annoyed to discover later the same cacophony of institutional sounds and the pressure of fluorescent lights against his eyelids. This time he opened his eyes.
“How are you feeling, Dad?” said Roger, who, the Major could see, had spread the
“Don’t let me keep you from the stock tables,” whispered the Major. “How long have I been here?”
“About a day,” said Roger. “Do you remember what happened?”
“I was shot in the leg, not the head. Is it still there?”
“The leg? Of course it is,” said Roger. “Can’t you feel it?”
“Yes, of course I can,” said the Major. “But I didn’t want any nasty surprises.” He found it quite exhausting to speak but he asked for some more water. Roger helped him sip from a plastic cup, though most of it dribbled uncomfortably across his cheek and into his ear.
“They dug a whole lot of shot out of your leg,” said Roger. “Lucky for you it missed any arteries, and the doctor said it only clipped the edge of the right testicle, not that he expected it mattered much to a man your age.”
“Thanks very much,” said the Major.
“You also tore up the ligaments in your left knee pretty badly, but that surgery is considered elective so they said either it’ll heal on its own or you can join a waiting list and get it in about a year.” Roger leaned over and, to the Major’s surprise squeezed his hand and kissed him on the forehead. “You’re going to be fine, Dad.”
“If you kiss me like that again, I’ll have to assume you’re lying and that I’m actually in the hospice,” he said.
“You gave me a fright, what can I say.” He folded up the newspaper as if embarrassed by his moment of affection. “You’ve always been an unmovable rock in my life and suddenly you’re an old man wearing tubes. Quite nasty.”
“Nastier still for me,” said the Major. He struggled a moment to ask the questions to which he was not sure he could bear the answers. He was tempted to feign sleep again and put off the bad news. It must be bad, he thought, since there was no sign of other visitors. He tried to sit up and Roger reached over to a button on the wall and the bed raised him into a slanted position.
“I want to know,” he began, but he seemed to choke on his own voice. “I must know. Did Abdul Wahid jump?”
“Considering he shot my father, I wouldn’t have cared if he had,” said Roger. “But apparently he threw himself down as you went over and grabbed you just in time. It was touch-and-go, they said, what with the wind and the slippery rain, but some guy named Brian threw himself on Abdul and then some other guy came with a rope and stuff and they dragged you back and got you on a stretcher.”
“So he’s alive?” asked the Major.
“He is, but I’m afraid there’s some very bad news I have to tell you,” said Roger. “I was going to wait until later, but—”
“Amina’s dead?” asked the Major. “His fiancee?”
“Oh, the girl who got knitted?” said Roger. “No, she’s going to be fine. They’re all with her one flight up in women’s surgical.”
“All who?” said the Major.
“Mrs. Ali, Abdul Wahid, and that George who keeps dunning me out of pound coins for the vending machine,” said Roger. “Then there’s the auntie—Noreen, I think—and Abdul’s parents. It’s like half of Pakistan is up there.”
“Jasmina is there?” the Major asked.
“When she can bear to be away from you,” said Roger. “When I got here last night, they were still trying to pull her off your body, and I can’t seem to get rid of her.”
“I intend to ask her to marry me,” said the Major, his voice curt. “No matter what you think.”
“Don’t start getting all excited. That testicle is still in traction,” Roger said.
“What’s in traction?” asked a voice and the Major felt himself blush as Jasmina came around the curtain wearing a big smile and a shalwar kameez in a yellow as soft as butter. Her hair was damp and she smelled of carbolic soap and lemons.
“You finally went home and took a shower, then?” asked Roger.
“The matron said I was frightening all the visitors with my bloodstained clothes. She let me use the doctors’ shower.” She came to the side of the Major’s bed and he felt as weak as the day she had held him up, faint from hearing about Bertie’s death.
“He didn’t jump” was all he managed to say as he clutched her warm hand.
“No, he didn’t,” she said. She gripped his hand and kissed him on the cheek and then on the lips. “And now he owes you his life and we can never repay you.”
“If he wants to repay me, tell him to hurry up and get married,” said the Major. “What that boy needs is a woman to order him around.”
“Amina is still quite weak, but we hope they will be married right here in the hospital,” Jasmina said. “My brother and sister-in-law have vowed to stay on as long as it takes to see them settled.”
“It all sounds wonderful,” said the Major. He turned to Roger, who was fiddling with his mobile phone. “But you told me there was bad news?”
“He is right, Ernest,” said Jasmina. “You must prepare yourself.” She looked at Roger, and he nodded as if the two of them had spent some time discussing how to tell a sick man something awful. The Major held his breath and waited for the blow.
