Grandpa and Me

"Crank up your computer and wait for an email from my Lawyer." There was a steely purpose in his voice. "When the Locksmith shows up, I want you to produce the document that you'll be getting that tells them that your father is not in a position to order any work on the property, because it belongs to you." This was a shock. "Don't worry, it is all legal and above board, you see I had the papers drawn up months ago, and there's not a damned thing he can do about it."

"You do realise that this will send him scurrying off to see his Lawyer to begin competence procedures."

"It had to happen sooner or later, it looks like it will be sooner." He paused for a few minutes, his silence an indication that he was deep in thought. His next words an indication that he there was nothing wrong with his thinking. "As soon as you have seen off the Locksmith, you and Felicity get your bodies back here for a council of war. She is there with you, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"Then you have enough time to consummate your relationship before the Locksmith arrives, unless of course, you haven't already." As I had the call on speaker, his statement really put me on the spot. I had been hoping to take a little more time to get to really know her, and she me, before being confronted by the 'C' word, that's the commitment 'C' word, the consummation decision has already happened, and us announcing our decision. I now had no choice, she had launched herself at me and had just enough time to yell 'Thanks Grandpa.' Before stifling any attempt at further conversation.

What can I say, this, the second time, was better than the first, and it was almost as if, having been given the grandparents' seal of approval, any inhibiting factors had disappeared.

We had showered and made ourselves presentable in time for the arrival of the Locksmith. I answered his knock. "Yes, can I help you?"

"I have here an order to affect entry into the shed in your backyard. I'm told that you will show me where it is?"

I thought this strange, after all you could see the roof of it from the street. That was when I realised that my devious father had arranged this so that if there was any repercussion, it could be argued that, by showing him where it was, I had given approval for the work to be carried out.

"I'm afraid that you have been misled." Felicity handed me the email that Grandpa had sent, it was a copy of the ownership document. I passed it to him. "I, as the registered owner of this property, have not requested that this work be carried out. I suggest that you contact the person that ordered this work, and inform him of this development." He was on his mobile phone even before he reached his van. "The fertilizer is about to hit the rotary ventilator big time." I told Felicity.

She had a puzzled look on her face for a second or two. "Oh, I get it, fertilizer, is shit, and rotary ventilator is fan. I must use that in future."

We could hear raised voices as we approached Grandpa's unit. Felicity ran to the office and requested security intervention. When she returned, we continued to the unit. I knocked and the voices stopped.

Grandpa opened the door and we stepped inside. "Your partner in crime arrives." My father said. He looked at Felicity. "And who the fuck is this?"

"Would you please show some degree of decorum in the presence of ladies?' I had just waved the red rag in the face of this bull.

"How dare you speak to me like that! I want to know what the hell is going on around here. I come here to reason with this old goat, only to find this, this woman with him and he announces that he and she are going to get married. I have never heard anything so ridiculous in my life, especially not from someone of his age."

"I'm not dead yet." Grandpa told him.

"Physically not yet, but your brain has obviously ceased to function. I'll put an end to this stupidity." He paused for breath before launching his attack on me. "And now I suppose that you are about to tell me that you are in love with this tart and intend to marry her."

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm about to do. Father, I would like you to meet Felicity, my fiancé."

"Congratulations my boy!" Grandpa gave me a hug and Dorothy gave me a kiss before they both turned their attention to Felicity.

"Congratulations my dear." Dorothy said as she hugged her and gave her a kiss.

"Thank you Grandma."

"This has gotten even more bizarre. You're telling me that you are going to marry the granddaughter of my father's slut?"

"No. I am going to marry the granddaughter of this woman who has brought happiness into the life of the man that you forced into this existence. He is more alive than he has been for years, and we owe it all to her. I can understand this because Felicity is so very much like her, and I have found that I love her with every fibre of my being. We would, all of us, like your blessing for our future happiness."

"Fat fucking chance of that ever happening." He was saved from making further threats by the arrival of a couple of security guards.

"Is everything under control here?" The leader asked.

"I think so, this gentleman is about to leave." Felicity said.

"If you say so nurse." While she was not in uniform, she was well enough known around the place.

"Now doesn't this beat all? She," he pointed to Felicity, "Has used her position in this place to insert herself, and her grandmother, into the lives of a stupid old man and my conniving son"

"Nothing of the sort." Grandpa was in danger of losing it. "It was I who, having met Dorothy, your future step-mother, for the first time, decided that she was a bit of all right and pursued her. She had no hope of avoiding me once I got started."

"I didn't want to avoid you." Dorothy told him, smiling into his face and kissing him. "He is the most wonderful man that I have ever met. I just wished that I had met him sixty years ago, life would have been so much better for me."

"As it would have for me. You wouldn't have been born for a start." Grandpa told him. "Don't get me wrong, while I loved your mother, I don't think that she would have stood a chance if Dorothy had been around back then."

"This is getting too much. You will be hearing from my Lawyer about all of this."

"I strongly suggest that you calm down and think this out before you do something that you'll regret. Grandpa told him.

"Huh! Since when have you had any idea about finances?"

"I have enough to live comfortably on. I might not know about money, but I do know people."

"That's fine coming from the man that was more interested in his stupid projects than parenthood."

"You are obviously not aware that it was my projects, as you call them, which put you through university. I certainly couldn't have done it on my salary."

"And whose fault was that, you could always have found a better, higher paying job."

"I loved my job and my bosses, and the people that I worked with, that sort of thing is better than money."

"I can see that there's no getting through to you." On that note he left.

"We should be getting home." I said. The grands noted that I said 'we' to indicate that Felicity and I would be going home together. They smiled and said nothing.

"I'd better get my car from the car park." Felicity said.

"No need, I'll drive you to work tomorrow and you can bring it home with you."

"But if I drive it home now I'll be able to drive myself to work and save you the bother."

"What and miss the chance of me driving you to work and enjoying the looks that we'll get when your workmates see us rolling up in the fabulous sports car."

"You've sold me. Let's go."

"Before you go," Grandpa turned to me. "In my study you'll find a book on yachting. I want you to study it and then practice raising and lowering the mast, setting the rigging, raising and lowering the sails, tacking and coming about, and setting the sails using the winch. Do you think that you can get that down pat for the weekend?"

"I take it that we're going sailing?"

"You got it in one."

"This is going to be fun." Felicity said as we walked to the car park.

I detected that she didn't mean what she said. "Have you ever been sailing?"

"No, never. Chances are that I'll spend the entire time heaving my guts over the side."

"If you don't want to come, you don't have to."

"What? And miss spending quality time with the love of my life."

When we got home I sought out the yachting book and flicked through it. There were notes in Grandpa's handwriting tacked in the back of it. That he was a forward thinking man became obvious. 'Michael, read the rest of the book first, and then these notes. You'll understand why soon enough.' It took all of my effort to put the book down while we ate dinner and discussed the happenings of the day.

"What do you think that your father is going to do next?" Felicity asked as we sat on the sofa half watching the TV news broadcast.

"He'll lawyer up and look for ways of gaining control of Grandpa's life."

"How can he do that?"

"The first thing that he will try will be a competence hearing to have grandpa declared incompetent to manage his own life, and to seek an enduring power of attorney over his affairs."

"There's nothing wrong with Grandpa's sanity, at least not now that two people have entered into his life. Well one person has entered into it while the other has returned to it. While he was sociable enough when he first came, there was something missing, it was almost as if he was living on auto-pilot. He didn't want to be there, but couldn't work out how to get out of the place. Then Grandma arrived and they hit it off straight away, he found a new purpose, we could all see that and were pleased with the change, but there was still something missing. That was until you arrived on the scene. He tested you for a while, until he made the decision that you could be trusted, and then he really came into his own. I don't know what he was like before he came to the village, but I can imagine that it was pretty much how he is now. He has a new lease on life, a new purpose, and part of that is to put your father firmly back in his place."

"I'm still worried that father will play dirty."

We sat in silence for a while before Felicity snuggled against me. "Mmmm, this is nice." I didn't know whether it was my proximity or the cock that she was stroking through my pants that caused her to say this. "I think we should go to bed."

"My thoughts exactly." My previous experiences with women usually meant at when we reached this point in the relationship, we would become involved in frenetic sex and fall asleep immediately afterward. But tonight it was a comfortable touching and kissing precursor to slow, sensual love making followed by some more comfortable touching leading gently to sleep.

It was worth it to see the expressions on the faces of the day shift as we drove into the staff car park. Walking ceased, conversation ceased, until the passenger door opened and Felicity slid from the car. She leaned in and kissed me. "I'll go home after work and collect some clothes to see me through until the weekend and we can pick the rest up then. 'Bye my darling." Her kiss was long and sensual, leaving nothing to the imagination, and me with two stick shifts to play with.

As she strode towards the entrance she was surrounded by her fellow staff members wanting to know all. I drove home to learn how to sail a yacht.

It was mid-afternoon before I reached Grandpa's hand written notes. 'You will have noticed that there are several blocks (pulleys) and clutches on the cabin roof.' It began. "These are designed to allow this yacht to be sailed single-handed. The jib is a roller reefer and the reefing lines can be locked off with the sail fully extended for normal sailing, or reefed in several positions for storm conditions. There are two lines that are fed through a block on either side. These, like all of the lines, are colour coded with these in blue. When coming about you simply release the leeward line and pull the windward line as you come about, the jib slides easily around the mast. Loop it around the winch two or three times so that you can tighten the sheet (line) before locking it off. This system goes for all sails except the main sail of course.' The instructions went on to explain how to set the sails for running with the wind, reaching, into the wind, and setting the sails for storm conditions. This required the sails to be shortened as much as possible and pointing the yacht into the wind. If the storm was severe, then all sails were fully reefed and the auxiliary outboard motor started with the yacht pointed into the wind to ride the storm out before heading back to the boat ramp.' There was even a section on how to launch and retrieve the yacht single handed, using a system of ropes and pulleys.

I had read the book from cover to cover and, while I wouldn't say that I had absorbed all of the information, at least I had my head around the basics, and tomorrow it would be time to put what I'd learnt into practice. I had made a start on dinner when I heard Felicity's car pull in to the driveway. The front door opened and her lovely voice reached me. "Hi Honey I'm home. I've always wanted to be able to say that." I met her halfway across the living room and hugged her. "What's that I smell?"

"Nothing fabulous, just some pasta."

"Mmmm, yummy. How did you know that it was my favourite?"

"I get the feeling that it wouldn't matter what I was cooking, you would have said it would have been your favourite."

"You got me there. I'll wash my hands and come and give you a hand."

"No rush, the pasta is almost done and the sauce is something that I have prepared earlier. I do have to warn you that you'll never get the same thing more than once. Cooking to me is an inexact science, learn the basics and adjust according to what you have laying around and to taste."

"Sounds good to me. I've often thought that these fancy chefs might just have differing tastes to the rest of us plebeians."

Dinner over, and there not being anything worth watching on TV, at least nothing worth losing bed time over, we found ourselves in bed earlier than normal. Life couldn't possibly get any better than this.

My father certainly has some clout when he needs it. I had just hooked my car up to the boat trailer to drag the yacht out of the shed when I got a panic call from Felicity. "Michael we are being splattered by shit as I speak. Get over here as quickly as you can."

I didn't break any speed records getting to the retirement village, and she was waiting for me at the main entrance. "Your father has fired off the big guns. Grandma is panicking, but Grandpa is calmer that I would have thought possible."

"I'll bet that he has something up his sleeve. He has proven the ability to second guess my father."

When I arrived at Grandpa's, even I was surprised at just how calm he was. "Read this." He handed me a document that proved to be an order for him to appear at a competence hearing early next week, and that he should be prepared to face an examination by a Psychiatrist of my father's choosing.

"He can't expect that you will go along with this, can he?" I asked.

"He can expect all that he wants. What he'll get is another thing." He handed me a document from a Psychiatrist dated only a month ago, that ruled him to be fully competent and capable of running his own life, including finances. "This will do for a start, I have yet to meet a shrink that will contradict the opinion of another. And I have another ace up my sleeve, just in case he plays dirty."

"What is that?" I asked.

"All in good time my boy, all in good time." I wished that he would tell us what he had up his sleeve and put us out of our misery. "I want to see the look on the greedy bastard's face when he realises that he has been shafted."

We couldn't get any more out of him so I changed the subject. "When do you plan to go sailing?"

"I had a look at the weather forecasts and maps for the weekend, and Saturday looks good." He turned to Felicity, "Have you got the day off my dear?"

"Yes, I'm on an RDO (rostered day off) so there's no problem."

"Good, pick us up at 8:30."

I got the impression that Felicity and I had been dismissed, especially when Dorothy took his hand and they headed for the bedroom.

Saturday arrived and Felicity and I had the yacht hooked up to my clunker, a picnic lunch packed and copious quantities of sunscreen, I had thought of launching into a sea shanty but decided that the world wasn't ready for my singing just yet, so refrained.

Grandpa and Dorothy were waiting for us, even though we weren't late, both resplendent in what would have been fashionable yachting attire way back when, and he carrying what I could only assume was liquid refreshments. We headed for the boat ramp to try out his method of launching the yacht and then her maiden voyage.

I raised the mast and made sure that the shrouds were tensioned evenly, the mainsail was ready to hoist and the jib to unfurl, before releasing the straps that held her on the trailer. While she was still on the trailer, I took a line from the lash point at the bow, passed it along the centre keel to a pulley at the rear of the trailer, then to another pulley at the rear corner of the trailer. I handed the end of the line to Felicity. "Could you take this and as soon as the back of the trailer is in the water, wind this around the third bollard along the jetty. What will happen is that as the trailer enters the water, the line will drag the yacht backwards. When the yacht is fully off the trailer I will drive back up the ramp. I want you to release the line from the bollard and bring it to me. I will drag it out of the pulleys and you can then tie it off while I park the trailer."

We loaded our refreshments on board and all climbed on. She settled as the ballast tank filled and I turned off the valve as the water appeared in the plastic tube. I fired up the outboard and backed it away from the jetty. Once clear I handed it over to Felicity. "Keep her steady and the throttle just ticking over while I set the sails, when we are ready to get under way you can shut the motor down and raise it up on its bracket."

"Aye aye Sir." She saluted me with a broad grin on her face.

As soon as the sails filled she heeled over and took off across the lake. "Wow, this is fast." I said as I took the tiller.

Felicity was really getting into the swing of things, as we came about she was handling the lines quickly and competently and the yacht lost little speed carrying out these manoeuvres. After an hour or so, we found a quiet cove where we could anchor for light refreshments.

"Well, what do you think?" Grandpa asked around a mouthful of sandwich.

"She's great!" I enthused. "I hope that you didn't intend to sell her."

"No. This yacht and the car are two things that I never intended to sell."

"Does that mean that you have sold things in the past?"

"In a way, I suppose that you could say so. Any more than that you'll just have to wait for this stupid competence hearing."

"Now you have got me intrigued."

"There's nothing wrong with being intrigued. It gives you something to look forward to."

We stooged around the lake for another hour before lunch and I headed her back to the boat ramp.

Loading her onto the trailer was easy, assisted by a different set up with lines and pulleys. The trailer was reversed down the ramp, a line hooked to the lash point on the bow, passed through a pulley mounted just beneath the boat winch, through the pulley at the rear of the trailer and tied to a bollard. As the trailer was reversed into the water the yacht was pulled up onto the trailer to be locked in place in the vee block.