“Your father is just wonderful,” said Sandy as they sat over tea in the living room. “It’s so nice to meet someone real for a change.”
“We met one of the biggest art collectors in Europe this week,” said Roger. “Russian guy—he has an entire house on the edge of Regents Park.”
“I don’t think your father would have liked it much,” said Sandy.
“He has six Picassos and amethyst handles on all the taps in the toilets,” said Roger. “Ten minutes of chatting with him, and Sandy had an order for an entire new wardrobe of clothes for his girlfriend.”
“I do admire a man who doesn’t do things by halves,” said Sandy.
“You should call her, darling, and see if we can wangle a lunch invitation,” said Roger.
“Oh, God, Roger, not lunch,” said Sandy. “Lunch requires conversation. I don’t think I can sustain a whole hour of listening to her catalog her handbags.”
“It’d be worth it if we get on the list of people invited to their private tent at the art fair,” said Roger. “If we work ’em right, we could be yachting in the Black Sea next summer, or at least invited down to Poole for the weekend.”
“In my day I don’t think we ever felt the need to ‘work’ our social contacts in such a manner,” said the Major. “It seems a bit gauche.”
“Oh come on, it’s always been the way of the world,” said Roger. “You’re either in the game, making the connections, or you’re left in the social backwoods, reduced to making friends with—well, with shopkeepers.”
“You’re very rude,” said the Major. He felt his face flushing.
“I think your father has the right idea,” said Sandy. “To be interesting, you have to make contacts in all sorts of worlds. That way you keep people off guard.”
“Sandy is a real master at making friends with people,” said Roger. “She has everyone convinced she really likes them.”
“I do like them all,” said Sandy, blushing. “Okay, maybe I don’t like the Russian. We may have to rent a canoe if you want a boating holiday.”
“She has my boss’s wife eating out of her hand. One minute I can’t get a cup of coffee with my boss, and the next, he’s asking me to go shooting with him and a client,” said Roger. “Never underestimate the power of the female Mafia,”
“I seem to remember a small boy blubbering over a dead woodpecker and vowing never to pick up a gun again,” said the Major. “Are you really going shooting?” He leaned toward Sandy and poured her more tea. “Could never get him to come out with me after that,” he added.
“Yeah—like ‘bring Woody’ is a great invitation,” said Roger. “It was my first shoot and I potted an endangered bird. They never let me forget it.”
“Oh, you have to learn to shrug these things off, my boy,” said the Major. “Nicknames only stick to people who let them.”
“My father.” Roger rolled his eyes. “A great believer in the cold-baths-and-blistering-rebuke school of compassion.”
“Roger is going shooting now,” said Sandy. “We had to spend three hours in a store on Jermyn Street, getting him the proper outfit.”
“An outfit?” asked the Major. “I could have lent you a pair of breeches and a jacket.”
“I got everything I needed, thanks,” said Roger. “Except a gun, of course. I was hoping I could borrow yours and Uncle Bertie’s.” The request was smoothly made. The Major set down his cup and saucer and considered his son’s placid face with equal parts curiosity and rage.
Roger betrayed no hint that he understood the effrontery of the request. It was of no more significance to him than asking to borrow some spare wellies during a rainstorm. The Major pondered how to produce a response that would be blunt enough to make an impression on Roger.
“No.”
“I’m sorry?” said Roger.
“No, you may not borrow the guns,” said the Major.
“Why ever not?” asked Roger with round eyes. The Major was about to answer when he recognized that his son was tempting him into explanations. Explaining would then simply open negotiations.
“Let’s not discuss it in front of our guest,” said the Major. “It is out of the question.” Roger stood up so quickly that he slopped tea into his saucer.
“How come you always have to undermine me?” he asked. “How come you can never just put yourself out to support me? This is my career we’re talking about.” He banged down his teacup and turned away to look into the fireplace, clenching his hands together behind his back.
“I’m sure your host has arranged some perfectly adequate extra guns,” said the Major. “Besides, as a novice, you would look ridiculous banging away with such a valuable pair. You would look absurd.”
“Thank you, Father,” said Roger. “Nice of you to be as frank as usual about my limitations.”
“I’m sure your father didn’t mean it that way,” said Sandy, looking as if she had suddenly remembered why business acquaintances were, after all, preferable to family.
“I’m just trying to keep you from looking foolish,” said the Major. “What kind of shoot is this, anyway? If it’s clay shooting, they often have just the right equipment.”
“No, actually it’s a local country thing,” said Roger. He paused as if reluctant to say more, and a horrible premonition came over the Major. He debated stuffing his fingers in his ears so he would not have to hear Roger’s next words.
“I told Roger you’d be happy for him,” said Sandy. “But he’s been concerned all week that you might feel offended that after all these years he gets an invitation instead of you.”
“I’m shooting with Lord Dagenham next week,” said Roger. “Sorry, Dad, but it just came about and I couldn’t exactly say no.”
“Of course not,” said the Major. He was stalling for time as he counted up his options. He wondered briefly whether Roger and he could get through the day without having to acknowledge each other. He then considered the advantages of saying nothing now and then acting surprised to meet Roger on the day, but dismissed the idea since Roger could not be relied upon to supply a dignified response to such a fiction.
“I wanted to ask Gertrude about adding another person, but I believe only a certain number of guns can be accommodated,” said Roger. “I thought it wasn’t polite to press them.” He blushed and the Major saw with some wonder that embarrassment about one’s relations went both up and down the generations. He was mortified at the thought of Roger waving a shotgun around, and for just an instant he saw himself explaining a dead peacock on the lawn. However, the Major accepted the futility of trying to hide his connection with Roger. He would just have to keep an eye on him.
“Oh, no need to worry about me,” said the Major finally. “My old friend Dagenham asked me some time ago to come and help him beef up the line.” He paused for greatest effect. “Said we needed some old hands to show you London chaps how it’s done.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Sandy. “I’m so glad it all worked out.” She stood up, adding, “Excuse me,” and gave the vague wave which seemed to the Major to be the universal female signal that a moment will be taken to freshen up.
“I’m looking forward to giving the old Churchills a good day’s work,” said the Major, also standing as Sandy left the room. “You should stick with me, Roger, and that way I can toss a few extra birds in your bag if you need them.” Roger, as he closed the door behind Sandy, looked sick to his stomach, and the Major felt he might have gone too far. His son had never been able to stand up to much of a ribbing.
“Actually, there’s an American chap who’s interested in buying them and I’m going to show them off as best I can,” he said.
“Are you really going to sell them?” asked Roger, looking instantly more cheerful. “That’s excellent news. Jemima was starting to get worried that you’d run off with them.”
“You’ve been talking to Jemima behind my back?”
“Oh, it’s not like that,” said Roger. “It’s more—S
ince the funeral, you know, we thought it might be useful to keep in touch since we both have parents to take care of. She has her mother to worry about, and I—well, you seem all right now, but then so did Uncle Bertie. You never know when I might have to jump in and take care of things.”
“I am rendered speechless with gratitude by your concern,” said the Major.
“You’re being sarcastic,” said Roger.
“You’re being mercenary,” said the Major.
“Dad, that’s not fair,” said Roger. “I’m not like Jemima.”
“Oh, really?” said the Major.
“Look, all I’m asking for is that when you sell the guns, you consider giving me a bit of a windfall you don’t even need,” continued Roger. “You have no idea how expensive it is to be a success in the city. The clothes, the restaurants, the weekend house parties—you have to invest to get ahead these days, and quite frankly it’s embarrassing just to try and keep up with Sandy.” He sat down and his shoulders slumped. For a moment he looked like a rumpled teenager.
“Perhaps you need to moderate your expectations a little,” said the Major, genuinely concerned. “Life isn’t all about flashy parties and meeting rich people.”
“That’s what they tell the people they don’t invite,” said Roger, sunk in gloom.
“I would never attend a function to which I had found it necessary to inveigle an invitation,” said the Major. As he said this, he reassured himself that he had done nothing to precipitate his own invitation. It had been, he remembered, an entirely spontaneous gesture from Lord Dagenham.
Sandy came back down the stairs and they ceased speaking. A hint of fresh cologne and lipstick brightened the air in the room and the Major made a note to open the windows more often. He worked hard at keeping the place clean and polished but perhaps, he thought, a certain stale quality was inevitable when one lived alone.
“We should be going if we want to speak to the painters before they leave,” said Sandy.
“You’re right,” said Roger.
“You told Abdul Wahid you would probably be staying here?” said the Major. Roger and Sandy traded a guarded look. The Major felt like a small boy whose parents are trying to shield him from grownup conversation.
“I did explain to him that we would need a place to stay while the cottage is under renovation,” said Roger. “He quite understood that it wouldn’t be convenient having us all here, what with the shared bathrooms and so on.”
“You are completely right,” said the Major. “As I told Abdul Wahid, you and Sandy will be much happier staying down at the pub.”
“Hang on a minute,” said Roger.
“You must ask the landlord for the blue room, my dear,” said the Major to Sandy. “It has a four-poster and, I believe, one of those whirlpool tubs of which you Americans are so fond.”
“I’m not staying at the damn pub,” said Roger, his face a picture of outrage. It was not noble, of course, to take pleasure in the discomfort of one’s own flesh and blood, but Roger had been altogether too forward and needed a firm check.
“It is true that the whirlpool tub does reverberate through the public end of the bar,” said the Major, as if pondering the subject deeply. He noticed that Sandy was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Laughter tweaked at her lips, and her eyes had taken his measure.
“You can’t expect my fiancée to share this house with some strange shopkeeper’s assistant from Pakistan,” Roger spluttered.
“I quite understand,” the Major said. “Unfortunately, I had already invited him to stay and I’m afraid it’s not possible to throw him out because my son does not approve,”
“For all we know, he could be a terrorist,” said Roger.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Roger, go and see your painters before they have to rush off to touch up the Vatican or whatever,” said the Major, in a harsher tone than he had intended.
He took the tea tray back to the kitchen. There was a muffled argument in the living room and then Roger stuck his head around the kitchen door to say that he and Sandy were off but would indeed be back to stay the night. The Major only nodded in reply.
He was sad at his own outburst. He wanted to feel the kind of close bond with Roger that Nancy had enjoyed. The truth was that now, without his wife to negotiate the space that they occupied as a family, he and Roger seemed to have little common ground. If there had been no bond of blood, the Major felt now, he and Roger would have little reason to continue to know each other at all. He sat at the table and felt the weight of this admission hang about his shoulders like a heavy, wet coat. In the shrunken world, without Nancy, without Bertie, it seemed very sad to be indifferent to one’s own son.
Chapter 14
“What’s this plastic thing for?” asked George, handing the Major an intricately die-cut disc that had come with the kite purchased especially for the afternoon’s expedition.
“Probably just part of the packaging,” said the Major, who had improvised as well as he could, given that the assembly instructions were in Chinese. The cheap purple and green kite fluttered against his hand. He released the rudimentary catch on the spool and handed it to George. “Ready to take it up?”
George took the spool and began to walk backward, away from the Major, across the rabbit-cropped grass. The park, busy with families on this fine Sunday, occupied the whole top of the broad headland to the west of the town. It was good for kites but not so good for balls, many of which were at that very moment careening downhill where the land tilted sharply, on one side dipping to the weald and on the other to the edge of the high cliff. Signs warned people that the white chalk face was always being slivered away by the action of the sea and the weather. Small crosses and bunches of dead flowers made cryptic reference to the many people every year who chose this spot to plunge to their deaths on the jagged rocks below. Every mother in the park seemed to feel the need to call to her children to stay away from danger. It formed a background chorus louder than the sea.
“Eddie, come away from the edge!” shouted a woman from a neighboring bench. Her son was spinning his arms like a windmill as he ran about after a small dog. “Eddie, I’m warning you.” Yet she did not bother to get up from the bench, where she was engaged in eating a very large sandwich.
“If they are so afraid for their children, why did they insist on coming?” asked the Major, handing Mrs. Ali the kite to launch. “Are you ready, George?”
“Ready!” said George. Mrs. Ali tossed the kite into the air, where it hovered for a fluttering moment and then, to the Major’s immense satisfaction, soared into the sky.
“That’s the ticket,” called the Major as George ran backward, un-spooling more line. “More line, George, more line.”
“Don’t go too far, George,” called Mrs. Ali in a sudden anxiety. The she clapped a hand over her mouth and turned wide eyes of apology to the Major.
“Not you as well?” he said.
“I’m afraid it must be a trick of nature,” she said, laughing. “The universal bond between all women and the children in their care.”
“More like a universal hysteria,” said the Major. “It’s hundreds of yards to the edge.”
“Do you not find it even the slightest bit disorienting?” asked Mrs. Ali, surveying the smooth grass running away to the abrupt drop-off. “I can almost feel the earth spinning beneath my feet.”
“That’s the power of it,” said the Major. “Draws people here.” He looked out at the green cliff and the enormous bowl of sky and sea and reached for the appropriate quotation.
“Clean of officious fence or hedge,
Half-wild and wholly tame,
The wise turf cloaks the white cliff-edge
As when the Romans came.”
“I expect Roman women also cried out to their children to be careful,” said Mrs. Ali. “Is that Kipling?”
“It is,” said the Major, pulling a small red volume of poetry from his pocket. “It’s called ‘Sussex’ and I
was hoping to share it with you over our tea today.” She had called to cancel their planned reading, explaining that she had volunteered to take little George out for the afternoon. The Major, refusing to be disappointed for a second Sunday, found himself asking if he might come along.
“How amazing it is that we ever planned to read it indoors,” said Mrs. Ali. “It has so much more power out here where it was made.”
“Then perhaps we should walk about after Master George, and I might read you the rest of it?” said the Major.
When the poetry had been read, the kite had been tossed several dozen times into the air, and George had run until his small legs were exhausted, the Major suggested that they get some tea. They settled, with tea and a plate of cakes, at a sheltered table on the terrace of the pub that was absurdly built right on the headland. Mrs. Ali’s cheeks were warm from the walking, but she looked a little drawn. George swallowed a bun almost whole and drank a rather flat glass of lemonade before wandering off to view a puppy being walked nearby.
“My nephew suggested we come here,” said Mrs. Ali. “He says he walks up here all the time after mosque because here he can imagine that Mecca is just over the horizon.”
“I think France might be in the way,” said the Major, squinting at the horizon and trying to imagine the correct bearing for Saudi Arabia. “But on a spiritual level, there is something about the edge of the land that does make one feel closer to God. A sobering sense of one’s own smallness, I think.”
“I was very glad he wanted George to see it,” she said. “I think it is a good sign, don’t you?” The Major thought it might have been a better sign had the young man shown George the place himself, but he did not want to spoil Mrs. Ali’s afternoon.
“I must thank you again for putting up my nephew,” she said. “It has allowed George and Amina to be with us and has allowed Abdul Wahid to get to know his son.”
The Major tested the color of the tea and gave the pot a dissatisfied stir. “I am glad he doesn’t object to Amina being in the shop.”