Mrs. Whitaker puttered around the shop.
They still hadn’t sold the stuffed cobra, she noted. It had been there for six months now, gathering dust, glass eyes gazing balefully at the clothes racks and the cabinet filled with chipped porcelain and chewed toys.
Mrs. Whitaker patted its head as she went past.
She picked out a couple of Mills & Boon novels from a bookshelf—Her Thundering Soul and Her Turbulent Heart, a shilling each—and gave careful consideration to the empty bottle of Mateus Rosé with a decorative lampshade on it before deciding she really didn’t have anywhere to put it.
She moved a rather threadbare fur coat, which smelled badly of mothballs. Underneath it was a walking stick and a water-stained copy of Romance and Legend of Chivalry by A. R. Hope Moncrieff, priced at five pence. Next to the book, on its side, was the Holy Grail. It had a little round paper sticker on the base, and written on it, in felt pen, was the price: 30p.
Mrs. Whitaker picked up the dusty silver goblet and appraised it through her thick spectacles.
“This is nice,” she called to Marie. Marie shrugged.
“It’d look nice on the mantelpiece.” Marie shrugged again.
Mrs. Whitaker gave fifty pence to Marie, who gave her ten pence change and a brown paper bag to put the books and the Holy Grail in. Then she went next door to the butcher’s and bought herself a nice piece of liver. Then she went home.
The inside of the goblet was thickly coated with a brownish-red dust. Mrs. Whitaker washed it out with great care, then left it to soak for an hour in warm water with a dash of vinegar added. Then she polished it with metal polish until it gleamed, and she put it on the mantelpiece in her parlor, where it sat between a small soulful china basset hound and a photograph of her late husband, Henry, on the beach at Frinton in 1953.
She had been right: It did look nice.
For dinner that evening she had the liver fried in breadcrumbs with onions. It was very nice.
The next morning was Friday; on alternate Fridays Mrs. Whitaker and Mrs. Greenberg would visit each other. Today it was Mrs. Greenberg’s turn to visit Mrs. Whitaker. They sat in the parlor and ate macaroons and drank tea. Mrs. Whitaker took one sugar in her tea, but Mrs. Greenberg took sweetener, which she always carried in her handbag in a small plastic container.
“That’s nice,” said Mrs. Greenberg, pointing to the Grail. “What is it?”
“It’s the Holy Grail,” said Mrs. Whitaker. “It’s the cup that Jesus drunk out of at the Last Supper. Later, at the Crucifixion, it caught His precious blood when the centurion’s spear pierced His side.”
Mrs. Greenberg sniffed. She was small and Jewish and didn’t hold with unsanitary things. “I wouldn’t know about that,” she said, “but it’s very nice. Our Myron got one just like that when he won the swimming tournament, only it’s got his name on the side.”
“Is he still with that nice girl? The hairdresser?”
“Bernice? Oh yes. They’re thinking of getting engaged,” said Mrs. Greenberg.
“That’s nice,” said Mrs. Whitaker. She took another macaroon. Mrs. Greenberg baked her own macaroons and brought them over every alternate Friday: small sweet light brown biscuits with almonds on top.
They talked about Myron and Bernice, and Mrs. Whitaker’s nephew Ronald (she had had no children), and about their friend Mrs. Perkins who was in hospital with her hip, poor dear.
At midday Mrs. Greenberg went home, and Mrs. Whitaker made herself cheese on toast for lunch, and after lunch Mrs. Whitaker took her pills; the white and the red and two little orange ones.
The doorbell rang.
Mrs. Whitaker answered the door. It was a young man with shoulder-length hair so fair it was almost white, wearing gleaming silver armor, with a white surcoat.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said Mrs. Whitaker.
“I’m on a quest,” he said.
“That’s nice,” said Mrs. Whitaker, noncommittally.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Mrs. Whitaker shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t think so,” she said.
“I’m on a quest for the Holy Grail,” the young man said. “Is it here?”
“Have you got any identification?” Mrs. Whitaker asked. She knew that it was unwise to let unidentified strangers into your home when you were elderly and living on your own. Handbags get emptied, and worse than that.
The young man went back down the garden path. His horse, a huge gray charger, big as a shire-horse, its head high and its eyes intelligent, was tethered to Mrs. Whitaker’s garden gate. The knight fumbled in the saddlebag and returned with a scroll.
It was signed by Arthur, King of All Britons, and charged all persons of whatever rank or station to know that here was Galaad, Knight of the Table Round, and that he was on a Right High and Noble Quest. There was a drawing of the young man below that. It wasn’t a bad likeness.
Mrs. Whitaker nodded. She had been expecting a little card with a photograph on it, but this was far more impressive.
“I suppose you had better come in,” she said.
They went into her kitchen. She made Galaad a cup of tea, then she took him into the parlor.
Galaad saw the Grail on her mantelpiece, and dropped to one knee. He put down the teacup carefully on the russet carpet. A shaft of light came through the net curtains and painted his awed face with golden sunlight and turned his hair into a silver halo.
“It is truly the Sangrail,” he said, very quietly. He blinked his pale blue eyes three times, very fast, as if he were blinking back tears.
He lowered his head as if in silent prayer.
Galaad stood up again and turned to Mrs. Whitaker. “Gracious lady, keeper of the Holy of Holies, let me now depart this place with the
