“It’s the Churchill, Dad,” said Roger at last. “I’m afraid in the commotion of saving you, it got kicked aside or something and it slid over the edge and Abdul Wahid says he saw it smashing on the rocks on the way down.” He paused and lowered his head. “They haven’t found it.”
The Major closed his eyes and saw it happen. He smelled again the cold chalk, felt the futile scrabble of his legs trying to gain some purchase and the agonizing slow slipping of his body as if the sea were a magnet pulling at him and, at the edge of his vision, he could see the gun slipping faster, smooth against the wet grass as it inscribed one slow circle on the edge and then went ahead of them over the cliff.
“Are you all right, Ernest?” said Jasmina. He blinked away the scene, not sure whether it was a real memory or just a vision. The smell of chalk faded from his nostrils and he waited for the pangs of sorrow to overwhelm him. He was surprised to find that he could summon no more than the kind of faint disappointment one might feel upon finding a favorite sweater accidentally boiled along with the white laundry and shrunk to a felt mess sized for a small terrier.
“Am I medicated with something?” he asked from behind his closed lids and Roger said he would check the chart. “I can’t seem to feel anything.”
“Oh, my God, he’s paralyzed,” said Roger.
“No, I mean about the gun,” said the Major. “I don’t feel as upset as I should.”
“You’ve longed for that pair since I can remember,” Roger said. “You used to tell me over and over how Grandfather split them up but the day would come when they would be reunited.”
“I longed for the day when I could look important to a lot of people who I felt were more important than I,” said the Major. “I was arrogant. It must be genetic.”
“That’s a nice thing to say to someone who’s kept vigil at your pillow all night long,” said Roger. “Hey, look, I got a text from Sandy.”
“Didn’t you just propose to another woman?” asked Jasmina.
“Yeah, but I had a lot of time to think last night and I figured a long text from the bedside of my dying father might do the trick.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” said the Major. “You could have impressed her with your eulogy.”
“I’m sorry you lost the gun your father gave you, Ernest,” said Jasmina. “But you lost it saving a life, and you are a hero to me and to others.”
“Actually, I lost Bertie’s gun,” said the Major. He yawned and felt himself growing sleepy. “Happened to be the closest one to grab. That’s not my gun at the bottom of the English Channel.”
“Are you serious?” said Roger.
“And I’m glad,” said the Major. “Now I won’t have to be reminded that sometimes it might have been more important to me than my brother.”
“Oh, shit!” said Roger looking up from his keyboard. “Now we have to pay Marjorie fifty thousand pounds and have nothing to show for it.”
“I expect the insurance company will take care of that,” said the Major. He struggled to stay awake so he might keep looking at Jasmina’s face smiling at him.
“What insurance?” asked Roger, incredulous. “You had them insured all this time?”
“Insurance was never the issue,” said the Major, closing his eyes. “When my father died, my mother kept paying the premiums, and when she died so did I.” He opened his eyes briefly to say something important to Jasmina. “I take great pride in never leaving a bill unpaid—it makes the filing messy.”
“You are tired, Ernest,” she said. “You should rest after all this excitement.” She laid her hand along his cheek and he felt as a small child feels when the night’s fever is cooled by the touch of a mother’s hand.
“Must ask you to marry me,” he said as he drifted away. “Not in this dreadful room, of course.”
When he woke again, the lights were dim in the wards and the nurse’s desk could be seen as a glow at the end of the corridor. A lamp burned low on the bedside table and he could feel the hospital’s central heating breathing as quietly as the patients in the calm of the night shift. A figure sat in a chair at the end of his bed; he called softly, “Jasmina?” The figure came closer until he could see it was Amina, in a hospital gown and robe.
“Hi,” she said. “How you feeling?”
“Fine,” he whispered. “Should you be out of bed?”
“No, I snuck out.” She sat carefully on the edge of the bed. “I had to come and see you before I left. To thank you for saving Abdul Wahid and for everything else you’ve tried to do.”
“Where are you going?” he asked. “You’re getting married tomorrow.”
“I’ve decided I’m not going to get married after all,” she said. “My aunt Noreen is picking me up first thing and then George and I’ll be off to her flat before anyone can make a fuss.”
“But why on earth would you do that?” he asked. “There are no impediments left to your marriage. Even Abdul Wahid’s parents are on your side now.”
“I know,” she said. “They keep apologizing and coming in and out with gifts and promises. I think they’ve already agreed to put George through medical school.”
“They didn’t know about the old lady, I’m sure,” said the Major. “Such things are unimaginable.”
“It happens more than you think,” she said. “But I’ve accepted they didn’t intend it. They’re deporting the old bag today.”
“Isn’t she going to jail?” asked the Major.
“They couldn’t find a weapon and I told them it was an accident.” Amina gave him a look that suggested she knew exactly where the knitting needle was. “I didn’t want more shame for Abdul Wahid, and I like his family feeling obligated to me.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, and she nodded. “So why leave now?” She sighed and picked pills of fabric from the thin hospital blanket.
“Almost dying makes you see things differently, doesn’t it?” She looked at him and he saw tears in her eyes. “It feels like I’ve loved Abdul Wahid forever, and I thought I’d give up anything to be with him.” She pulled harder at the blanket and a small hole appeared as the threads parted. The Major was tempted to still her ravaging hand but did not want to interrupt. “But can you really see me spending my life in a shop?” she asked. “Stocking shelves, chatting to all the old lady customers, going over account books?”
“Abdul Wahid loves you,” he said. “He came back from the very edge of existence for you.”
“I know. No pressure on me, then?” She tried to smile but failed. “But it’s not enough to be in love. It’s about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends, and most of all it’s what work you do. I’m a dancer. I need to dance. If I give it up to spend my life wrapping pork pies and weighing apples, I will come to resent him. And even though he says I can dance as well, he expects me to be his partner in the shop. He would come to resent me, too. Better to break both our hearts now than watch them wither away over time.”
“What about George?”
“I wanted a proper family for George, with Mummy and Daddy and a puppy and maybe a little brother or sister. But that’s just a framed picture on some mantelpiece. It’s not real, is it?”
“A boy needs a father,” said the Major.
“If I didn’t know that better than anyone, I’d have been off to London tomorrow,” she said. She hugged her arms tentatively around her chest and she spoke in a way that made him believe she had given the matter a great deal of consideration. “Most of the people who’ve flung that at me over the last few years haven’t the faintest bloody idea what they mean by it. They have no idea what it’s like to grow up without one, and half of them can’t stand their own fathers.” There was silence; the Major thought of his father’s remoteness.
“I think that even if you dislike them, knowing one’s parents helps a child understand where he or she came from,” said the Major. “We measure ourselves against our parents, and each generation we try to do a little better.” As he said this he wondered again whether he had failed Roger.
“George will have both parents; they just won’t be under one roof. He’ll have me and his auntie Noreen in town and he’ll have his father over in Edgecombe along with Jasmina. I hope you’ll look in on him, too. He should learn to play chess.”
“Jasmina has fought so hard for the two of you,” said the Major quietly. “She will be devastated.”
“Sometimes you can’t fix everything,” said Amina. “Life isn’t always like books.”
“No, it’s not.” He considered the ugly popcorn Styrofoam of the ceiling tiles but could find no inspiration there to change her mind.
