Very British. Very proper. How very, very satisfying, like a cuppa hot tea on a cold, blowy day. We first meet the 68-year-old Major Ernest (no other first name would really suffice) Pettigrew of Helen Simonson's first novel as he opens his front door to greet a morning caller. The Major is teary eyed and wearing his late wife Nancy's dressing gown. "A quick rush of embarrassment flooded to the Major's cheeks and he smoothed helplessly at the lap of his crimson, clematis-covered housecoat with hands that felt like spades.
'Ah,' he said."
Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the owner of the village shop 'n' go in Edgecombe St. Mary's in Sussex, is calling to collect on behalf of the paperboy who happens to be ill. Opening the door, Major Pettigrew is bereft and off balanced enough to be traipsing around wearing his late wife's best housecleaning dress.
He has recently received the unexpected news that his brother Bertie has died. It is up to Mrs. Ali, Pakistani or Indian by descent and herself a widow, to steady and comfort the Major. The Major and Mrs. Ali don't quite understand it yet, but as readers we witness in the first three pages the first blush of love between these two casual acquaintances.
Among the story elements that draw the Major and Mrs. Ali together is a valuable matched set of hunting rifles, a treasured gift given long ago to the Major's father from an appreciative maharajah. At their father's death, the Major and Bertie each received one of the Churchill shotguns with the understanding that the matched set would be reunited when either of the brothers died. To the Major's consternation, Bertie's widow is advised that there money is to be made and placing fealty to her departed husband aside, resists giving up the heirloom; so the conniving begins.
The cast of this comedy of manners is vividly portrayed. Among them is the Major's insufferable son Roger and his American girlfriend Sandy. Among Roger's foibles is his preference for speakerphone although the Major says it sounds as if he's calling from a submarine: "My chiropractor doesn't want me holding the phone under my chin anymore but my barber says a headset encourages oily buildup and miniaturization of my follicles," Roger whines.
We have Mrs. Ali's nephew Abdul Wahid and his parents to entertain us as well as the women of Edgecombe - Daisy, Alma, Grace and Gertrude - and Lord Dagenham, who is a member of the landed gentry scraping to hold onto his ancestral fief. It is the ladies of the town who busy themselves organizing a disastrous club dinner dance that includes an "entertainment" based on the 1947 Partition of India.
The book has the feel of a classic B&W movie, the kind that begs to be viewed on a cold winter night with a fire on the grate and a plate of cookies and a glass of milk nearby. Enchanting without being saccharine, the characters populate the English village of our imagination. Most everyone in Edgecombe earns our esteem with their fortitude. They are well intentioned and all rendered just-so. They're a hoot to get to know and follow around.
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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand: A Novel.
