“Sai Fong, I asked you to marry me, to be with me and stay with me forever, as I fully intend and pledged to do for you. I will always be the one thing in your life you can count on, over and above everything else. I want you to be my wife, have my children, get old and crabby with me, and have a perfect life together with me!”
She smiled at that, reassured, and reached out to cup my chin as she kissed me softly on the lips. “Done!” she smiled.
We lay in each other’s arms for a while longer, enjoying the sight and feel of each other, gently stroking and kissing, not trying to arouse, renewing connection, until at last hunger drove us to find something to eat. Dinner was a revelation, with Sai cooking the perfect ‘Surf & Turf’, medium steaks on a bed of sauteed shrimp, with green salad and French fries, honey mustard dressing, and tangy, pungent aioli. I was in raptures, I was marrying a gourmet chef as well as a sex-bomb, my life just kept getting better!
After we’d cleared away, we settled back to watch some TV, make out and celebrate our decision. We were in the middle of some fairly heavy-duty groping when the phone rang. Sai answered it, her smile dying away and her responses trailing off as her eyes widened as she listened, then silently handed the handset to me. It was dad.
“Harry, Son, I need you to come home.” He sounded strained, unnaturally calm. “It’s mum, Harry, she passed away this evening, please come back, bring Sai Fong home, Grandpa and I, we need you both here right now….”
I didn’t know what to say. True, for the last few years I’d been so very angry with her, for her unrelenting hostility toward Sai, but when all was said and done, she was also the only mother I’d ever known. I tried to keep my voice steady when I answered him, choking back that huge lump rising in my throat, deep loss already trying to overwhelm me.
“OK dad, we’re on our way, see you tonight” I managed to choke out, and then the tears started. Sai stared at me wide eyed, taking the handset and said a few words to dad before hanging up, and hugging me close as I cried for my Gran, my mum.
Sai Fong rocked me as she held me close, waiting for me to calm down as she soothed me, her presence easing my grief a little. When I could speak coherently, she began taking charge of our preparations to leave, lugging down a flight bag and throwing some clothes in it for me, and bagging-up my black suit and tie. She decided I was in no fit state to drive all the way back to Shropshire, so demanded my keys, locked up and led me down to the car. I came out of it enough to ask her where her clothes were, and she reminded me that most of her clothes were still at home, including a more decent and suitable black dress for what was about to come.
At first she kept up a flow of light chatter as she negotiated the A40M, keeping me from brooding, helping me keep my sorrow in abeyance, and then, perhaps sensing that I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind for conversation, tailed off, concentrating on driving fast but safely, sending my faithful old Cherokee loping down the motorway for home.
We went to the old house in Bilbrook, dad and Grandpa waiting for us, looking lost, stunned, uncomprehending, with a couple of the neighbourhood ladies making tea and bringing cakes and biscuits. I saw dad’s expression, and immediately burst into tears, hugging dad as Sai hugged her grandfather, awkwardly, formally. There had never been any love lost between Gran and Sai, but Grandpa at least had never been openly hostile, although he’d never actually made any overtures to Sai either.
Dad let go of me, and took Sai from Grandpa, and I hugged him, tears streaming down my face as I remembered him and Gran being the centre of my world when I was growing up. I suddenly looked at him in consternation. What was he going to do now? He and Gran had been together damn near 60 years, who’d look after him now; he was nearly 85, too old to be left on his own so abruptly.
My worries about Grandpa drove my grief down, and I nodded to dad, indicating I wanted to speak privately with him in the dining room.
“Dad, what happens to Grandpa now? He can’t live here alone, not now.”
Dad nodded. “I know son, most likely he’ll come and stay with me, let this old place go. I want him to, we’ll be company for each other, two old geezers together!” he smiled distractedly. “The house is too big, too lonely with both of you gone, so it will be good to have some company around, we’ll be OK together. Besides, you have your own problems; don’t forget, you’ve got Sai Fong now, you have to take care of her.”
I shot a quick glance at him. Did he know, or was he just talking in general?
Sai was waiting in the lounge, the police forensic and ambulance teams had long gone, and now we had to wait for the post-mortem before we could bury Gran. My eyes started stinging again as I tried to get past the fact of her death, and suddenly Sai was there, hugging me around the waist, rubbing the small of my back, and I unconsciously held her close, burying my face in her hair, kissing it, caressing her neck and back.
When I looked up, Grandpa was looking at me oddly, then he smiled slightly, knowingly, and turned away. Realisation suddenly struck. He knew, he knew! After all my lectures to Sai about appropriate behaviour, I’d given us away! Oh God, what if he says something to dad, he’d got enough on his late without this as well. Sai felt me stiffen.
“Harry, what is it, what’s wrong?”
“Sai, Grandpa knows, I just gave us away, he saw me hugging you, kissing you just now, right there in front of everybody!” I was too wrung out to try and make it right with him, but Sai took it out of my hands. She followed Grandpa out to the patio, where he was sitting in the same worn, comfortable garden chair he used to sit on with me on his lap, reading ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ and other Pooh stories to me when I was small. I stood in the doorway, out of sight, but within earshot.
“Grandpa, can I talk to you?” said Sai, kneeling down next to him and looking up at him.
“Of course you can,” said Grandpa, “what’s on your mind?
“Grandpa, what you saw, in there, Harry and I, we… I…” Grandpa stopped her short with a gentle finger on her lips.
“Sshhh, it’s all right, Sai Fong, you don’t have to explain anything to me. Does he love you?”
Sai nodded mutely. “And do you love him?” he continued, Sai nodding again. “Then there’s nothing more to be said. Your grandmother had far too much to say, and she drove you away, and Harry too, but I still loved her so very, very much. If you two can have half as much as we had, then you’ll be lucky indeed. Take what love you can, while you can, there’s not too much of it in the world these days, so get while the getting’s good!”
He grinned wistfully as he popped his trademark phrase at her, and held her while she cried softly against him, understanding that she’d finally got through to her grandfather, while Grandpa held her close, properly, for the very first time. He seemed at a loss what to do at first, finally stroking her hair and murmuring to her, resting his head against hers and making little soothing noises as though she was a little child.
I walked up and hunkered down in front of Grandpa, just as I used to when I was small and had an especially splendid frog to show him, and he reached out and ruffled my hair, just as he used to way back then.
“Take good care of her, Harry-boy,” he said, “she’s more special than you know, so treat her right — or I’ll come and get you!” he grinned, his favourite threat when he played catch with me in the meadow all those summers ago. I took his hand and squeezed it, all my love for this man who had brought me up coming to the fore, silently thanking him for finally accepting his granddaughter, for his understanding, then standing up and taking Sai’s hand. Grandpa glanced at her engagement ring as she took my hand.
“Just a tip, both of you; don’t let your father see that just yet. Lead him up to what you have to tell him, and be gentle with him, give him some time to deal with all of this first. I twigged as soon as I saw that ring, don’t let him catch on the same way, trust your dad, but be honest with him. And Harry, trust your instincts, you have some good ones.” Sai nodded, slipping off her ring and swapping it to her other hand, where it wouldn’t be construed as an engagement ring.
I cleared my throat. “Grandpa, are you… sure you’re OK with this? Sai and I have been in love for a long time now, and it’s only now that I’ve been able to admit it, even to myself. I won’t let her go now; she’s the most important thing in my life.”
Grandpa stirred, looked at me with the old ‘don’t try it on me, sonny’ look.
“Are you asking for my blessing? It’s not mine you need. For what it’s worth, I think both of you could do a whole lot worse. Harry-boy, I’ve known about how you feel about Sai Fong as long as you’ve known her, the moment you chose Sai over your grandmother, I knew, I do have eyes and a brain, you know! I won’t judge you, I can’t, 85 has a way of forgetting what 20 feels like, so you both go and enjoy yourselves, have the best life you can, just don’t forget to love each other along the way! I forgot how to do that, I let someone else tell me who to love, and I hurt that sweet little girl all these years, and I’m sorry for that. Perhaps she’ll have time to forgive me once all this is over and done with.”