Chapter 12: Sally Aware

“This line is so clear, sweetheart, it’s like you were just acrost town,” Ann Barlow spoke into the telephone mouthpiece in reply to the “Hello?” greeting from her ex-daughter-in-law.

“Mum ... is that you?” Sally’s crystal clear voice came back over the wire, “Is everything all right? Are you OK?”

Sally wondered why the call now, in the middle of the week. She usually called Brett’s grandmother at Christmas and birthdays, almost never the other way round. The last time was when Alan died. There was no other family left in the Old Country, Sally had helped her own parents, Mum first and then Dad after his second divorce, over to live in Melbourne ten years ago. She had offered to bring Alan and Ann over at the time she recalled; Ann was keen, but Alan loved his Notts County football team too much to leave England. Sally didn’t have enough time to go back to Nottingham for Alan’s funeral but had reiterated her offer to pay the cost of bring Ann over at the time, even for a holiday, but Ann wanted to stay put.

“Yes, yes, Sally, my leg’s been playing me up a bit, that’s all, it’s this damp weather at the beginning of winter what gets into my bones. What’s it like down there in Melbourne?”

“It’s a bright spring morning, clear skies. It looks like it’s going to be a hot one.” Sally was sure Ann would do so much better over here in this climate.

“That’s nice, dear, is Brett doing much sailing?”

“As much as he can, Mum,” Sally laughed, an image of Brett doing what he loved most easily popping into her head, “But this is his busiest work time of the year, getting boats ready for the summer.”

“Sally, I had to ring, dear,” Ann breathed deeply before continuing, “Are you sitting down, sweetheart?”

“No, I’m in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Why, Mum? You’ve really got me worried, now.”

“Go and sit down, please, I’ve got some news for you, well, for both you and Brett.”

Sally staggered into the lounge and sat down, already her knees were trembling and she needed to take the weight off her legs. There could only be one reason for news from the Old Country which concerned both herself and her son if, as Ann had said, she was fine; and that was someone must have finally found Tommy’s body. Finally, after all these years of waiting. Did she really want to know? She had given up all hope so many years ago. Yes, she decided, it would be a relief, a finishing off, closure at last.

A lump formed in Sally’s throat as she croaked, “I am sitting down in the lounge now, Mum.”

“They’ve found Tommy!” Ann said cheerfully, almost mater-of-factly.

“What!?” Sally exclaimed, completely confused by the combination of the content, which was half-expected, and the tone of Brett’s grandmother’s voice, which was not. “What do you mean they have found him?”

“Tommy,” Ann continued, joyously, “He’s alive and well, I saw him yesterday. He’s in hospital but he’s absolutely fine ... Sally, are you there?”

Sally had fainted dead away, dropping the phone to bump on the carpet in front of her settee. Her husband John Rahn found her still completely out of it when he emerged from the bathroom a couple of minutes later.

Sharon parked at the hospital and bought a parking token for two hours, unsure of what her welcome would be in the ward this afternoon. She knew that Tommy’s wife, or should that be Bob’s wife ... it was so confusing, this memory loss ... would be at the hospital again later today.

It was about an hour before normal visiting times so Sharon hoped the nurses would still let her in a little earlier, as she and her daughter had been permitted before and had become such regular visitors. She had seen Tommy’s wife yesterday evening, just from the doorway. Sharon hadn’t wanted to interfere, nor did she particularly want to speak to her. It was silly, Sharon knew. Petty, even. There was no reason why Tommy would want to see her anyway, he had his wife Jennifer back now, a younger and more attractive woman than both Sharon and Helen had naturally assumed.

Sharon knew she simply couldn’t compete with his wife for Tommy’s affections. Sharon had lost her husband to a much younger woman before and that was a good couple of years ago, so what chance did she think she had against Tommy’s wife? She had to get used to the idea that she just couldn’t compete in the marketplace for a handsome husband or partner anymore.

“Sharon, good mornin’,” came a familiar voice from behind her as she walked down the main hospital corridor on the ground floor.

She turned, seeing the nurse Ben approach, “Hi, Ben, do you never have any time off from this place?”

“Overtime, Sharon, someone has to pay the rent, my younger brother is between jobs, again.”

“Oh, I see, are you on the way up to the ward?”

“No, they are fully staffed up there this morning. I’m doing a shift in one of the geriatric wards today, in another wing which branches off just up here on the left.” Ben grinned and pointed with his hand. They walked along a couple more steps before Ben commented, “You came to visit but didn’t go in yesterday evening, I saw you. Tommy always loves to see you, you know.”

“Well, he’s got others now. I can’t compete with first his Mum and then his wife.”

“I don’t think you should regard it as a competition, Sharon. Tommy has lost virtually everything that he once knew. The friends that he remembers from his youth, his first wife and even his dad passed on him. His son and grandchildren that he’s never met are a long way away. He doesn’t recognise his present wife at all, and he hasn’t even met his children yet. You and Helen are still his oldest mates he sees. He’ll be devastated to hear he could lose you as friends just because you think that you should’t get in the way.”

“I hadn’t thought of it like that. Thank you, Ben, you are a comfort.”

“We aim to please in the NHS,” he grinned.

They had stopped walking, at the entrance to Ben’s ward for the day, Sharon reached up to the big man and kissed him on the cheek, “Thank you, Ben, you are a sweetheart.”

“Go on with you, girl, you’re killin’ my reputation, I like to leave my women weepin’, not smilin’ as we part!”

“Get off with you, when are you due back to the other ward?”

“Tomorrow.”

“See you then, if Tommy’s still there.”

“He’ll be there until the doctors’ rounds, don’t you worry your pretty head about that.”

The ringing phone awoke Ann Barlow, who was dozing in her favourite chair. She awoke with a start, not quite sure what time of day it was, or even what day. There was a routine to the days in the sheltered accommodation and yesterday, she remembered, they had bingo in the early evening but she had been too tired to pay full attention and one of her friends had gleefully pointed out every time she had missed a number and therefore a winning line.

But she smiled as she recalled the reason for her tiredness. Tommy, her only boy, who she had written off all those years ago as “probably dead in a ditch”, had turned up alive and well after disappearing without trace over thirty years ago. Then guilt flooded over her in waves. You are supposed to hold out hope for deliverance of a missing child. Hold that hope forever, like Alan always had. Alan poured over the local and county papers every week down at the library. He learned how to use the computers, when they eventually had them, to continue his search for his only son. He wrote countless letters to engineering firms trying to find him, in case he popped up working a lathe somewhere locally. He never gave up hope, never. Alan took his hopes to the grave.

Ann never told Alan that she had given up hope long before, worn down by what had become a fruitless and wearing exercise. She was just as certain that Tommy was dead and buried as Alan was convinced that their only child was still alive and well. Alan’s hope became obsessive. It ate away at him, rather than inspired him. The effort aged him, bent his frame over with disappointment, whittled away at his strength and embittered him.

Alan had become hell to live with those last ten years. As Ann’s own hopes for Tommy leached away, so inevitably did her love for Alan. As her husband became more bitter by his lack of progress, Ann felt increasingly trapped with him and began to resent him, even hate him towards the end.

Now, she was the one who was able to benefit from Tommy’s discovery. She, the mother who had given up her son for dead. She was the one parent who was reaping the harvest of joy in his prodigal return; and it was Alan who was dead and buried, gone for good. He would have so loved the reunion with Tommy yesterday. Alan would have been full of it, revelling in the righteousness of his unshakeable hope over impossible expectation. He might even have become her old Alan again, the tall, handsome man she fell in love with, nearly sixty years ago. Guilt, Ann decided, was hard to live with! but she had to learn to live with it.

And that phone kept ringing.

“Hello?” she answered hesitatingly. Ann hated the telephone. They never had one at home until Alan insisted on installing one immediately after Tommy disappeared. When she was relocated to the sheltered flat, after Alan died, the council transferred her phone too. The only people she ever spoke to on the telephone were Sally and Brett in Melbourne.

“Hi Gran,” came the cheery Australian-accented voice, so far away yet sounding so immediately near.

“Brett!” exclaimed Ann, “You always ring on the first Sunday in the month, dear, so I wasn’t expecting to hear from you today. Is your mother alright?”