He had left a small china cup of mineral oil warming on its candle stand. He dipped his fingers in the hot oil and began to rub it slowly into the burled walnut root of the gun stock. The wood became silk under his fingertips. He relaxed into his task and felt his grief ease, making room for the tiniest flowering of a new curiosity.

Mrs. Ali was, he half suspected, an educated woman, a person of culture. Nancy had been such a rare person, too, fond of her books and of little chamber concerts in village churches. But she had left him alone to endure the blunt tweedy concerns of the other women of their acquaintance. Women who talked horses and raffles at the hunt ball and who delighted in clucking over which unreliable young mother from the council cottages had messed up arrangements for this week’s play group at the Village Hall. Mrs. Ali was more like Nancy. She was a butterfly to their scuffle of pigeons. He acknowledged a notion that he might wish to see Mrs. Ali again outside of the shop, and wondered whether this might be proof that he was not as ossified as his sixty-eight years, and the limited opportunities of village life, might suggest.

Bolstered by the thought, he felt that he was up to the task of phoning his son, Roger, in London. He wiped his fingertips on a soft yellow rag and peered with concentration at the innumerable chrome buttons and LED displays of the cordless phone, a present from Roger. Its speed dial and voice activation capabilities were, Roger said, useful for the elderly. Major Pettigrew disagreed on both its ease of use and the designation of himself as old. It was frustratingly common that children were no sooner gone from the nest and established in their own homes, in Roger’s case a gleaming black-and-brass-decorated penthouse in a high-rise that blighted the Thames near Putney, than they began to infantilize their own parents and wish them dead, or at least in assisted living. It was all very Greek, the Major thought. With an oily finger, he managed to depress the button marked “1—Roger Pettigrew, VP, Chelsea Equity Partners,” which Roger had filled in with large, childlike print. Roger’s private equity firm occupied two floors in a tall glass office tower in London’s Docklands; as the phone rang with a metallic ticking sound, the Major imagined Roger in his unpleasantly sterile cubicle with the battery of computer monitors and the heap of files for which some very expensive architect had not bothered to provide drawers.

Roger had already heard.

“Jemima has taken on the call-making. The girl’s hysterical, but there she is, calling everyone and his dog.”

“It helps to keep busy,” suggested the Major.

“More like wallowing in the whole bereaved-daughter role, if you ask me,” said Roger. “It’s a bit off, but then they’ve always been that way, haven’t they?” His voice was muffled and the Major assumed this meant he was once again eating at his desk.

“That’s unnecessary, Roger,” he said firmly. Really, his son was becoming as unedited as Marjorie’s family. The city was full of blunt, arrogant young men these days and Roger, approaching thirty, showed few signs of evolving past their influence.

“Sorry, Dad. I’m very sorry about Uncle Bertie.” There was a pause. “I’ll always remember when I had chicken pox and he came over with that model plane kit. He stayed all day helping me glue all those tiny bits of balsa together.”

“As I recall you broke it against the window the next day, after you’d been warned against flying it indoors.”

“Yeah, and you used it as kindling for the kitchen stove.”

“It was broken to pieces. No sense in wasting it.” The memory was quite familiar to them both. The same story came up over and over at family parties. Sometimes it was told as a joke and they all laughed. Sometimes it was a cautionary lecture to Jemima’s willful son. Today the hint of reproach was showing along the seams.

“Will you come down the night before?” asked the Major.

“No, I’ll take the train. But listen, Dad, don’t wait for me. It’s possible I might get stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“I’m swamped. There’s a big flap on. Two billion dollars, tricky buyout of the corporate bonds—and the client’s nervous. I mean, let me know when it’s finalized, and it’ll go in my calendar as a ‘must,’ but you never know.” The Major wondered how he was usually featured in his son’s calendar. He imagined himself flagged with a small yellow sticky note—important but not time sensitive, perhaps.

The funeral was set for Tuesday.

“It seemed good for most people,” Marjorie said on her second call. “Jemima has her evening class on Mondays and Wednesdays and I have a bridge tournament on Thursday night.”

“Bertie would want you to carry on,” the Major replied, feeling a slight acid tone creep into his voice. He was sure the funeral had also been scheduled around available beauty appointments. She would want to make sure her stiff wave of yellow hair was freshly sculpted and her skin toned or waxed—or whatever she did to achieve a face like stretched leather. “I suppose Friday is out?” he added.

He had just made a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday. The receptionist at the surgery had been very understanding given the circumstances and had immediately insisted on moving a perennially asthmatic child to Friday in order to squeeze in his EKG. He didn’t like the idea of canceling.

“The Vicar has Youth-in-Crisis.”

“I assume the youth are in crisis every week,” said the Major sharply. “It’s a funeral, for God’s sake. Let them put the needs of others ahead of their own for once. It might teach them something.”

“The funeral director felt that Fridays were inappropriately festive for a funeral.”

“Oh …” He was rendered speechless and defeated by the absurdity. “Well, I’ll see you Tuesday, then, about four o’clock?”

“Yes. Is Roger going to drive you?”

“No, he’ll come straight from London by train and take a taxi. I’ll drive.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” asked Marjorie. She sounded quite genuinely concerned and the Major felt a rush of emotion for her. She too was alone now, of course. He was sorry he had felt so furious at her and assured her gently that he was quite able to drive himself.

“And you’ll come back to the house afterward, of course. We’ll have drinks and a few nibbles. Nothing elaborate.” He noticed she did not ask him to stay. He would have to drive home in the dark. His empathy shriveled away again. “And perhaps there is something of Bertie’s you’d like to have. You must have a look.”

“That’s extremely thoughtful of you,” he said trying to dampen the eagerness that brightened his voice. “Actually I was meaning to talk to you about that at some appropriate time.”

“Well, of course,” she said. “You must have some small token, some memento. Bertie would have insisted. There are some quite new shirts he never wore … Anyway, I’ll have a think.”

When he hung up the phone it was with a feeling of despair. She truly was a horrible woman. He sighed for poor Bertie and wondered whether he had ever regretted his choice. Perhaps he had not given the matter much attention. No one really contemplates death when making these life decisions, thought the Major. If they did, what different choices might they make?

It was only a twenty-minute drive from Edgecombe St. Mary to the nearby seaside town of Hazelbourne-on-Sea where Bertie and Marjorie lived. The town was a commercial hub for half the county and always busy with shoppers and tourists, so the Major had made careful calculations as to traffic on the bypass, possible parking difficulties in the narrow streets by the church, time required to accept condolences. He had determined to be on the road no later than one thirty. Yet here he was sitting in the car, in front of his house, unmoving. He could feel the blood flowing, slow as lava, through his body. It seemed as if his insides might be melting; his fingers were already boneless. He could exert no pressure on the steering wheel. He worked to quell his panic with a series of deep breaths and sharp exhales. It was not possible that he should miss his own brother’s funeral and yet it was equally impossible to turn the ignition key. He wondered briefly whether he was dying. Pity, really, that it hadn’t happened yesterday. They could have buried him with Bertie and saved everyone the trouble of coming out twice.

There was a knock on the car window and he turned his head as if in a dream to see Mrs. Ali looking anxious. He took a deep breath and managed to land his fingers on the power window button. He had been a reluctant convert to the mania for power everything. Now he was glad there was no handle to crank.

“Are you all right, Major?” she asked.

“I think so,” he said. “I was just catching my breath. Off to the funeral, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” she said, “but you’re very pale. Are you all right to drive?”

“Hardly a choice, my dear lady,” he said. “Brother of the deceased.”

“Perhaps you’d better step out and get some fresh air for a minute,” she suggested. “I have some cold ginger ale here that might do you good.” She was carrying a small basket in which he could see the bright sheen of a green apple, a slightly oily paper bag that suggested cakes, and a tall green bottle.

“Yes, perhaps for a minute,” he agreed, and stepped from the car. The basket, it turned out, was a small care package she had meant to leave on his doorstep for his return.

“I didn’t know if you’d remember to eat,” she said as he drank the ginger ale. “I myself did not consume anything for four days after my husband’s funeral. I ended up in the hospital with dehydration.”

“It’s very kind of you,” he said. He felt better for the cold drink but his body still ran with small tremors. He was too worried to feel any humiliation. He had to make it to Bertie’s funeral somehow. The bus service ran only every two hours with reduced service on Tuesdays and last bus back at five P.M. “I think I’d better see if there’s a taxi available. I’m not sure I’m fit to drive.”