Saving Fran

"What do you mean that I can't get out of it?" Mega-oaf was not happy. The heated discussion could be heard as they left the courtroom.

"I have to thank you for stepping in when you did," Gumpton said. "I wasn't looking forward to the steady stream of football 'stars' giving evidence."

"Glad to help, I'll send you the bill." Dad told him.

"Doesn't bother me, I'll just tack it on to the costs that I'll claim from him."

"I thought as much. Come you two, we've wasted too much time already today."

Dad did promise that the celebration would be on him, but we had to wait until after work. He presided over a celebratory dinner with Mum at a posh restaurant at which the champagne flowed freely to the point where cabs were required to take us home.

Just when I was getting comfortable with my, our, world, Fran thought that it would be time for me to be introduced to her family. I don't know what I thought, but it wasn't what I was confronted with. Simon, her father, was a larger than life author whose success allowed him to live in a different world to the likes of me. To start with his command of the English language was different. While I dealt in engineering facts and reality, he had no such constraints and would wax lyrical on the subject under discussion, putting together detailed descriptive statements where I confined myself to brief facts.

Monique, her mother, also had an eye for the descriptive and, while she used paints to complete the picture, Simon achieved a similar result with words. They were different but the same. They used different methods to achieve the same results.

"Mother, Father, this is Bill, he and I are in love and are planning to get married."

This was news to me, not the plan as such, but the status of negotiations was what threw me. "I'm pleased to meet you." I don't know why I held out my hand but it was not accepted, both of them hugged me. I got the feeling that demonstrations of affection were part and parcel of the relationship in this family.

"This is sudden, is it not?" Simon asked. "How long have you known each other?"

"How long is a piece of string?" Fran did that thing of answering a question with a question. "We have known each other long enough to know that this is right for us."

"Very well, what do you do, Bill?"

"I am a Structural Engineer."

"And I am his Assistant."

"Indeed, we were under the impression that you were employed by this odious person in sport management."

"I was, but Bill rescued me and made me an offer that I simply could not refuse."

"For which you are eternally grateful and have committed yourself to him."

"No, I had committed myself before he got around to making me a job offer."

Eventually, we adjourned to a table set up in the corner of Monique's studio where, after what seemed to me to be too short a time for food to be cooked properly, she produced a delicious mixture of Thai food in keeping with their recent trip to Thailand.

"Your parents are so different to anyone that I have met before . . ."

"But then you've had a sheltered life."

"What I was about to say, I don't know why, but in a strange way I like them."

"And they like you."

"How do you know that, I didn't see you comparing notes?"

"I know because they didn't kick you out, instead, they fed you, that's a dead giveaway that they like you."

"Darling," Fran whispered. It was some little time later. We were in bed and had just paused for breath following a very satisfactory round of lovemaking.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I have never been as happy as I am right now."

"Me too," I didn't think I needed to say anything in response. "Why would you say that?"

"Because not all that long ago, there I was whiffling through life with a degree, that I didn't really feel was what I wanted, and you arrived on the scene, my knight in shining armour and rescued me, literally. I do not deserve this, I do not deserve you."

"We were destined to be together, I was destined to save you, any thoughts that you don't deserve me you can put right out of your mind. You and I are meant to be, end of story."

"I can't get past the feeling that we come from different worlds you and I, you, one of stability and a clear direction, while I come from a chaotic world of impulses that control everything in our lives."

"I guess that now I'm going to have to save you from these irrational thoughts. Look, for many years I have wished that my life was less ordered. Engineers live in a world of facts and reality, of basing our inspirations on the ability to convert what is possible into what is achievable. I find your world of flights of fantasy quite refreshing. I'll make a deal with you, I'll help you to restrict your impulses while you teach me to think outside the square."

"Done, this going to be fun." She kissed me and we somehow found ourselves making love again.

If we thought that our life was to be plain sailing from then on, we were sadly mistaken. We underestimated the hurt pride of 'Mega-oaf'. I don't know how he found out where we lived, but he showed up on our doorstep at around ten o'clock one night.

"What do you want?" I asked. I stood blocking the doorway in case he decided to do something weird.

"You and that bitch have ruined my career."

"How so?"I asked politely enough.

"That fucking manager has not signed me to a club and the trade window is closed. I do not have a team that is interested in me. He won't release me from that fucking contract that I signed."

"And whose fault was that. You hire some incompetent Lawyer who fed you some bullshit about what you could and could not do and you expect them to help you. Get real."

I was just about to step back inside when he grabbed me by my shirtfront. That was a mistake. I had long been going over in my mind what I would do if this moment arose. I spun to my left as if I was trying to break free from his grasp and then I pivoted back and my forearm hit him on his Adam's apple. He staggered back gasping for breath and fell to the ground, banging his head on the concrete path. He was out like a light.

Fran, who was standing behind me, ran to call an ambulance and the police.

He had almost recovered by the time help had arrived. "Can you tell me what happened here?" One of the policemen asked.

"He," I indicated 'Mega-oaf', "Arrived here and began some largely incoherent rambling, something about my fiancé and I ruining his career. Then he grabbed me. I struggled to get free from his grip and, as I did, I must have accidentally hit him on the throat. That's pretty much it."

"Isn't this Jason Gumble?" The other cop asked.

"Yes, it is." I replied.

"Wasn't he involved in some court case, something about his trying to break his contract?"

"The self-same. Tomorrow, my fiancé and I will be taking out a restraining order to prevent him from coming around here to bother us in future."

"We will inform him of the situation when he's able to fully understand what's going to happen if he breaches the order. His biggest problem is that he has been so obsessed with exacting revenge for losing the court case that he has been unable to play with the same skill set as before."

I thought that was an astute summary of the situation. "You seem to have a handle on the situation."

"Yeah, my brother played on the same team as they were both coming up through the ranks. Brother didn't quite cut it but Jason had a certain instinct for the game that very few had. He wasn't very bright in any areas other than football and, he has a habit of doing things that thinking people wouldn't and, this often got him into trouble."

"He probably needs someone with a lot of patience who can supervise his life to keep him out of trouble and give him a greater opportunity to make the most of the gifts that he has."

"Like a good manager?" He said.

"If such a person exists, then yes." I said.

"He also needs a woman with a similar intelligence ballpark, who will be satisfied with living with a man with little more than basic life skills."

I couldn't think of anything to add to that.

Everyone eventually left, leaving Fran and me alone.

Living with Fran, I came to the conclusion that my stepping in and saving her that night was the best thing that ever happened to me. She taught me that the ordered world of the engineer needed to be balanced by the impulsive world of the artist inside us all. For Fran, she realised that there was a time and place for order in our lives and that finding a balance between these factors made our lives as close to perfect as possible. That was until. . . .

"Darling."

"Yes." I replied hesitantly.

"I have something to tell you."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense, what is?"

"I think suspense is good, I'm going to let my news hang for a while."

"Bitch, tell me or I'll. . ."

"You'll what."

"Tickle you to death."

"No! Anything but that!" She squealed as I started to tickle her.

"Do you give in?"

"All right." I stopped tickling. "Darling, we are going to have a baby."

"Are you serious?" We had discussed it as something that we should consider in our future.

"Yes. I took the test this morning and it confirmed what I already knew, we are going to be parents."

I demonstrated my enthusiasm at this great news in the only way I now know how, by making love to her, after which I made breakfast for her, us.

"I've been thinking." I said around a mouthful of toast.

"Uh oh, you're being rational again."

"I've been thinking that it would be a good time for us to get married."

Fran lapsed into one of her funny voices. "Rational good, Fran happy." She kissed me with a passion and enthusiasm, that I have come to love. I don't need to tell you what happened next.

Looking back on all of this I would have to agree that the best thing that has happened to me resulted from me not listening to my wimpy persona and walking away from Fran when she accosted me, but instead, giving in to the inner hero that stepped in to save her. In doing this I have saved her from the purposeless life that she was living and, in the process, she has saved me from my future of a dull and boring life. I have learned that there is more to life than doing what is expected of you. I am now having fun doing spontaneous things with Fran and she has the benefit of the stability of, now that the kids are at school, a steady job working with the love of her life. We both agreed that this is definitely a win/win situation all round.