Coronation by Paul Gallico Page A

blasted. Busybody, fusspot Granny, of course! Johnny had hardly seated himself and taken the menu in his hands when he heard over the rackety-rack and clickety-click of the wheels her querulous voice, ‘Ought the boy be there by himself, Will?’ He heard his mother say, ‘I don’t know, Granny,’ and then didn’t hear his father’s reply, only Granny’s continued plaintive note.
    The iridescent bubble of the wonderful projected dreams he meant to enjoy during the course of the meal he was about to consume now as Major John Clagg, M.C., D.S.O. of the Royal Wessex, threatened to burst. Clickety-clack went the wheels. The brown-clad hips of a waiter whizzed past his head at a speed almost faster than that of the train. ‘Oughtn’t I go and sit with him?’ came the insistent voice of Granny.
    Young Johnny screwed his eyes closed and took his lip between his teeth. He made hot, sweaty fists with nails digging into his palms, and with all the force of his being he tried to will it not to happen. Oh, please not to let Granny sit opposite him. Her mouth formed into that small, ever disapproving ‘o’, destroying Major Clagg for ever, making him into only Johnny Clagg, too young to be allowed to sit by himself.
    Then there was a darkening shadow and the button of a pepper-and-salt tweed jacket before his eyes and a deep voice rumbled, ‘Is this seat occupied, young man?’
    ‘Oh no, please, sir, do have it,’ replied Johnny with such entreating earnestness and invitation in his voice that the man looked down upon him in surprise.
    The owner of the voice was extraordinarily tall with an absolutely bald skull, the most astonishing shade of pink. His face seemed to have both the colour and texture of old, weathered parchment but containing most young-looking and piercingly light-coloured blue eyes surrounded by hundreds of fine, tiny wrinkles. His eyebrows were tufted snow-white and aggressive, and he had a moustache still faintly yellow.
    ‘Well now,’ said the gentleman, ‘that’s most kind and polite of you, my boy. Thank you.’ And thereupon, with an athletic ease and grace he took the chair opposite.
    Johnny for the moment experienced such a giddiness of relief that he thought almost that he was fainting. Although he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, he knew, he just knew that behind him and across the aisle Granny had half risen from her seat to come over and carry out her threat. Now it was too late. Major Clagg was safe.
    That was a meal that was never to be forgotten. The menu itself was an introduction to a whole new world, a world in which one had a choice. Potage (whatever that was), grapefruit or tomato juice, announced the soup-flecked, gravy-spotted menu card. Fried fillet of plaice, sauce something-or-other, a real foreign word. And then once again one could linger and dally and debate and make up one’s mind between steak and kidney pie or roast pork with apple sauce. However was one to decide upon one or the other of these? Cheese and biscuits or a sweet! Ice-cream or apple tart!
    And every time the used plate was whisked away and a clean plate set before. Clean knives and forks. Waiters who regarded and addressed him not as a child but as a man. What an adventure!
    Even though he could see the trays approaching from afar as the attendants worked their way down the tables, the moment of decision for the main course still caught him undecided and unprepared. And when the server with the steak and kidney pie with the dark, flaky crust came to the table Johnny craved it, and yet across the aisle slices of white pork with brown, crispy crackling were being served. The waiter stood there with his spoon and fork poised and Johnny found himself speechless and looking up helplessly into his face.
    The man had children of his own; he understood the problem. ‘Can’t make up your mind, eh?’ he said. Johnny could only nod. ‘Have a bit of both, then.’ Before Johnny could reply he spooned out a