Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Author:Helen Simonson
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Interracial friendship, Widows, England, Widowers, Pakistanis - England, Country life - England, American First Novelists, Fiction, Romance, Country life, Pakistanis, Fiction - General, American Contemporary Fiction - Individual Authors +, General, Retirees, Love stories
ISBN: 9781400068937
Publisher: RANDOM HOUSE
Published: 2010-03-02T05:00:00+00:00

After lunch, Roger wanted to smoke a cigar in the garden. The Major made a pot of tea and tried to dissuade Sandy from washing dishes.

“Please don’t clear up,” he said. He still found all offers of help in the kitchen to be an embarrassment and a sign of pity.

“Oh, I love doing dishes,” said Sandy. “I know you probably consider me a dreadful Yank but I’m so in love with the fact that people here are able to live in tiny houses and do chores without complicated appliances.”

“I should point out that Rose Lodge is considered rather spacious,” said the Major. “And I’ll have you know I own a rather top-of-the-line steam iron.”

“You don’t send out your ironing?”

“I used to have a woman come in,” said the Major, “when my wife was ill. But she ironed my trouser seams until they were shiny. I looked like a damn band captain.” Sandy laughed and the Major did not wince quite so much. Either he was getting used to her, or the claret had not yet worn off.

“Maybe I won’t bother getting a dishwasher for the cottage,” said Sandy. “Maybe we’ll keep things authentic.”

“The way my son uses saucepans, I think you need one,” said the Major chipping at the burnt frying pan with a fork and speaking loudly so that Roger, coming in from the garden, would register the remark.

“I went down to the club last week,” said Roger taking the dry tea towel the Major offered him but then sitting down at the table instead of helping.

“I heard,” said the Major. “Why on earth didn’t you call me so I could take you down and introduce you properly?”

“Sorry. I was just passing, really, and I thought since I’d spent all those years as a junior member that I might as well just pop in and check out what’s what,” said Roger.

“And what exactly was what?” asked the Major.

“That old secretary is a damn idiot,” said Roger, “But I ran into Gertrude Dagenham-Smythe and she fixed everything. I told Sandy it was quite funny to see the club secretary fawning all over her. He couldn’t have whipped me out a membership application any faster.”

“I’ll need to fill out a sponsorship document, of course,” said the Major. “You shouldn’t have upset the secretary.”

“Actually, Gertrude said she’d have her uncle sponsor me,” said Roger indulging in a wide yawn.

“Lord Dagenham?”

“When she offered, I thought I might as well get sponsored by someone as high up the food chain as possible.”

“But you don’t even know her,” said the Major, who still thought of Gertrude as the lady in the bucket hat.

“We’ve met Gertrude a few times in town,” said Sandy. “She remembered Roger right away—joked about how she had a crush on him one summer when she visited.”

The Major had a sudden vision of a tall, thin girl with a blunt chin and green glasses who had haunted the lane one summer. He remembered Nancy inviting her in a couple of times.

“I remember Roger being very rude to her,” said the Major.

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