Chapter 23

The same day - Sarah's Mother - Ruth Franklin - Thursday, 10-June [Ruth]

I left the phone and turned to the table to look at the man who had suddenly appeared in our lives, taking our daughter away from us. He'd written to us a week or so ago - a letter that had left more puzzles than it explained. Then there's been a long letter from Sally telling us that she was in love with this man and that she wanted to marry him. And now he was here in a panic stricken search for Sally. Fortunately he'd found her before fear overtook my bewilderment. Whatever the problem they'd had, Sally had sounded happy enough over the 'phone.

He and Harry were talking but I barely listened. This is exactly what I'd feared when she'd gone to that University. It was all so different from anything we knew. We'd been there to see her a dozen times since she'd gone there. I'd been overwhelmed and excluded by the sense of privilege and wealth. The antiquity of the place depressed me too. I'd wanted her to go to the local Polytechnic where she would have been with people of our class and she'd have been at home too. But no! Harry had encouraged her and her schoolteachers had been keen. She'd won a scholarship and we'd found the money. I'd hoped that when she'd finished her degree she'd be back teaching or something close at hand. But now she looked set to marry this man who was socially far outside our class. Life would be awkward and I imagined my grandchildren looking down on us. It would be easy to hate him. I'd always hated men with beards.

He closed his eyes and said, "I'm weak with relief," he said. "You don't realise how worried you are until its over, then it bounces back. I imagined she was dead!"

He looked at Harry, then at me. "I want to marry her, as soon as it's possible. But I'm afraid we're going have to wait a little while. Can you cope with a son-in-law, who's..." he looked at Harry "... as old as you?"

Then his eye moved to me. "You don't look old enough to have a grown up daughter."

Harry was looking friendly. I'd expected him to bristle and fight. Chalk and cheese. Harry was normally very protective of Sally.

"Have we got anything to celebrate with, love? There's some cans in the cupboard. Do you want a beer?" Harry's accent seemed broader than ever. Was he baiting this man?

Dr Whitehead - I would have to get used to calling him Robert I supposed - shook his head.

"No celebration yet. I haven't even asked Sarah yet... and I've got to drive back. I haven't eaten much since Friday, one way and another and beer would knock me out. I wouldn't mind a snap though."

Snap? Snap? My mum used to talk about dad's snap. Dr. Whitehead sat down again. He seemed to be stiff and weary. His face looked haggard and his skin was tinged with grey.

"You mean you'd like something to eat?" I said.

I was edgy, uncomfortable and Harry was behaving oddly. Considering what this man had done to his only daughter, his little pet, he was remarkably friendly.

"Of course he does. That's what a man meant when he asked for a bit of snap when I was a lad. I bet you and I were born not ten miles apart?"

Dr Whitehead grinned and they traded place names back in the dirty industrial city that we'd left years ago.

He said, "I lived there till I left school. Then I was all over the place. My mother didn't really want me about the house because she had five others, so I was in digs. I was a bricklayer for ten years - did my apprenticeship. Then got pissed off with that and thought I wanted something better."

His accent was suddenly very like Harry's. It was slowly dawning on me that this man wasn't socially far above us. Harry was comfortable with him because they were so similar. I suddenly began to hope that this man might not take Sally away from me. He might even bring her back. And he was good-looking...

He went on, "I should never have left off brickie-ing. I did some junk jobs. Casual stuff, steel works, worked in a motorbike shop for a bit. But I had no training for anything. I was in and out of college trying to get some qualifications but I never seemed to be able to finish a course, Then I got married... poor Tracey... well she married me... I was good looking then and available. But that was a mess and we split up. Then..." he paused, choosing his words

"Then Elizabeth found me. She made me what I am now." He was staring at nothing. "I loved her for eighteen happy years, and now she's dead and there's Sarah."

I was listening, still trying to adjust. This man, who had a posh job didn't seem at all afraid of revealing his roots. Definitely lower than Harry's and my mother had practically disowned me for slumming when I'd got pregnant and had to marry him.

Oh Mum, little Sally dragged you back though.

Harry seemed to have despaired of me and was putting a sliced loaf in it's paper, butter and a slab of cheese on the table. Dr Whitehead seemed happy to butter his bread without a plate and leave cheese crumbs on the table. He had no inhibitions about talking with his mouth full either.

His story had me gripped and shut Harry up too. I pulled myself together enough to make tea and then sat listening. Sally had enthused about this man. I think I had reacted against her transparent enthusiasm, but he told his tale well. He told us a little about his marriage to Elizabeth and explained about her curious - no, unforgivable - manipulation of Sally.

Harry seemed to be approving. He was following closely. "You mean she left Sally a million pounds! She'll never take it!"

"She will you know. It was Elizabeth's money and she planned it for Sarah - look, she'll have to stay Sarah for me, I'm sorry - and Elizabeth expected her to take it. They were very close during those last months. All those hours, walking, talking. It was as though Elizabeth was grooming your daughter to replace her. I never knew anything about it. It would be unforgivable except that I do love her. I can't manage without her. And she loves me."

He shivered, weeping again. "You'll have to ask... Sally... Sarah... about it. It all seemed like blackmail to me and I thought Elizabeth had made the most appalling mistake. I was horrified and frightened. Once Elizabeth had started this thing there was no way of going back."

He looked at me and said. "It isn't simple."

I was just thinking that it was. All a storm in a teacup. After all they only had to wait for a year or so and then they could marry quite respectably.

"It would be nice and tidy if I mourned my wife and Sarah finished her degree and then we got married respectably and settled down. But I don't Sarah think can wait and I doubt if I can either. I find her very attractive."

He looked at me, smiling fondly.

What did he know?

"Perhaps you can understand how hard waiting can be." He looked away, so as not to embarrass me when I blushed, remembering that there was a time when I couldn't wait. And Sally had been born when I was the same age as she was now.

Memory changed embarrassment to a startling flash of desire. Harry seemed to sense it and put out his hand out to grip mine. Bedtime might be exciting tonight, I thought, squeezing my knees hard together.

"It is simple, then, Robert, isn't it?" Harry was still squeezing my hand, looking puzzled.

He went on, "If you stay near one another there'll be a bit of a scandal, not a lot these days, not like when I was young. And if you're not together then our Sally will pine away. Is it really that way?"

Harry had shifted his chair and was close beside me now, his arm round me, his fingers gently kneading my backbone, knowing it would turn me on.

I thought about Sally and this man, feeling like this - no - not like I felt now. I thought back to when I had been Sally's age. What would I have felt if Harry had gone away? But there must be something else they could do. After all, his wife was barely cold in her grave.

Dr Whitehead shivered. "Sarah seems to think so. I really haven't dared to face up to how I'd feel if I lost her."

Harry asked, "Will there be a serious scandal, if you and Sally - start going together? Will it hurt your career, or hers?"