The Major wondered whether it was possible he had been too strict with Roger as a child and thereby inspired his son to such excesses. Nancy, of course, had tried to spoil him rotten. He had been a late gift to them, born just as they had given up all hope of having children, and Nancy could never resist making that little face smile from ear to ear. It was he who had been forced to put a stop to many an extravagance.

“Roger really has an eye for design,” said Sandy. “He could be a decorator.” Roger blushed.

“Really?” said the Major. “That’s quite an accusation.”

They left soon after, Sandy handing her car keys to Roger to drive. She took the passenger side without comment, leaving the Major to sit in the back.

“Are you all right back there, Dad?” asked Roger.

“Fine, fine,” said the Major. There was a thin line, he reflected, between comfort and smothering. The car’s back seat seemed to mold itself around his thighs. The ceiling also curved close and pale. The sensation was of being a large baby riding in a rather luxurious pram. The quiet engine contributed its own hummed lullaby, and the Major struggled against an encroaching drowsiness.

“I’m so sorry Roger was late today,” said Sandy, turning around to smile at him through the gap in the seats. Her bosom strained at the seatbelt. “We were looking at a cottage and the realtor—I mean the estate agent—was late.”

“Looking at a cottage?” he said. “What about work?”

“No, that all got resolved,” said Roger, keeping his attention fixed on the road. “I told the client I had a funeral and he could push things back a day or get someone else.”

“So you looked at cottages?”

“It was my fault entirely, Ernest,” said Sandy. “I thought I’d scheduled plenty of time to fit it in before I dropped Roger off at the church. The estate agent messed things up royally.”

“Yes, I’m going to call that agent tomorrow and let her know just how offended I am that she made me so late,” said Roger.

“No need to cause a ruckus, darling. Your aunt Marjorie was extremely gracious about it.” Sandy put a hand on Roger’s arm and smiled back at the Major. “You all were.” The Major tried but failed to summon his rage. In his sleepy state, he could only come up with the thought that this young woman must be very good at her public relations job.

“Touring cottages,” he murmured.

“We shouldn’t have gone, I know, but these cottages get snapped right up,” said Sandy. “Remember that cute place near Cromer?”

“We’ve only looked at a few places,” said Roger, his eyes giving an anxious glance in the rearview mirror. “But this area is our priority.”

“I admit it’s more convenient than the Norfolk Broads or the Cotswolds,” said Sandy. “And of course for Roger you’re the big attraction.”

“An attraction?” said the Major. “If I’m to outrank Norfolk, perhaps I’d better start offering cream teas in the garden.”

“Dad!”

“Oh, your father is so funny,” said Sandy. “I just love that dry humor.”

“Oh, he’s a joke a minute, aren’t you, Dad?” said Roger.

The Major said nothing. He relaxed his head against the leather seat and gave himself up to the soothing vibrations of the road. He felt like a child again as he dozed and listened to Roger and Sandy talking together in low voices. They might have been his parents, their soft voices fading in and out, as they drove the long miles home from his boarding school for the holidays.

They had always made a point of coming to pick him up, while most of the other boys took the train. They thought it made them good parents, and besides, the headmaster always held a lovely reception for the parents who came, mostly ones who lived nearby. His parents enjoyed the mingling and were always jubilant if they managed to secure an invitation to Sunday luncheon at some grand house. Leaving late in the afternoon, sleepy with roast beef and trifle, they had to drive long into the night to get home. He would fall asleep in the back. No matter how angry he was at them for sticking him with lunch at the home of some boy who was equally eager to be free of such obligations, he always found the trip soothing; the dark, the glow of the headlamps tunneling a road, his parents’ voices held low so as not to disturb him. It always felt like love.

“Here we are,” said Roger. His voice was brisk. The Major blinked his eyes and struggled to pretend he had been awake the whole time. He had forgotten to leave a light on and the brick and tile façade of Rose Lodge was barely visible in the sliver of moonlight.

“What a charming house,” said Sandy. “It’s bigger than I expected.”

“Yes, there were what the Georgians called ‘improvements’ to the original seventeenth-century house which make it look more imposing than it is,” said the Major. “You’ll come in and have some tea, of course,” he added, opening his door.

“Actually, we won’t come in, if you don’t mind,” said Roger. “We’ve got to get back to London to meet some friends for dinner.”

“But it’ll be ten o’clock before you get there,” said the Major, feeling a ghost of indigestion just at the thought of eating so late.

Roger laughed. “Not the way Sandy drives. But we won’t make it unless we leave now. I’ll see you to the door, though.” He hopped out of the car. Sandy slid over the gear shift into the driver’s seat, legs flashing like scimitars. She pressed something and the window whirred down.

“Good night, Ernest,” she said, holding out her hand. “It was a pleasure.”

“Thank you,” said the Major. He dropped her hand and turned on his heel. Roger scurried behind him down the path.

“See you again soon,” called Sandy. The window whirred shut on any further communication.

“I can hardly wait,” mumbled the Major.

“Mind your step on the path, Dad,” said Roger behind him. “You ought to get a security light, you know. One of those motion-activated ones.”

“What a splendid idea,” he replied. “With all the rabbits around here, not to mention our neighborhood badger, it’ll be like one of those discos you used to frequent.” He reached his door and, key ready, tried to locate the lock in one smooth move. The key grated across the plate and spun out of his fingers. There was the clunk of brass on brick and then an ominous quiet thud as the key landed somewhere in soft dirt.

“Damn and blast it,” he said.

“See what I mean?” said Roger.

Roger found the key under the broad leaf of a hosta, snapping several quilted leaves in the process, and opened the door with no effort. The Major passed into the dark hallway and, a prayer on his lips, found the light switch at first snap.

“Will you be okay, Dad?” He watched Roger hesitate, one hand on the doorjamb, his face showing the nervous uncertainty of a child who knows he has behaved badly.

“I’ll be perfectly fine, thank you,” he said. Roger averted his eyes but continued to linger, almost as if waiting to be called to account for his actions today or to have some demands made of him. The Major said nothing. Let Roger spend a couple of long nights tossing with a prickling conscience along with those infernal and shiny American legs. It was a satisfaction to know that Roger had not yet lost all sense of right and wrong. The Major was in no mind to grant any speedy absolutions.

“Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“I want to,” insisted Roger. He stepped forward and the Major found himself teetering in an awkward angular hug. He clung to the heavy door with one hand, both to keep it open and to prevent himself falling. With the other he gave a couple of tentative pats to the part of Roger’s back he could reach. Then he rested his hand for a moment and felt, in his son’s knobby shoulder blade, the small child he had always loved.

“You’d better hurry now,” he said, blinking hard. “It’s a long drive back to town.”

“I do worry about you, Dad.” Roger stepped away and became again the strange adult who existed mostly at the end of the telephone. “I’ll call you. Sandy and I will work out our schedules so we can come down and see you in a couple of weeks.”

“Sandy? Oh, right. That would be delightful.” His son grinned and waved as he left, which reassured the Major that his dryness of tone had remained undetected. He waved back and watched his son leaving happy, convinced that his aging father would be buoyed up by the prospect of the visit to come.