Gordon

Gordon is Fern Woolbright’s father and Rosemarie Woolbright’s husband. He is shown less through extended conversation than through the patterns of his reactions: when domestic tensions rise, he retreats; when the family faces an immediate danger or crisis, his composure gives way to anger, alarm, or disappointment. The limits of what he knows about Fern’s pregnancy give that portrait its sharpest edge.

Family Life and Conflict

When Fern returns home from college, Rosemarie is weepy and angry that the others are not sharing the work. Gordon’s response, as Fern sees it, is to retreat behind his newspaper or disappear to the pub, leaving Rosemarie to complain while she prepares homemade mince pies. The scene places him within a familiar household pattern: Rosemarie’s frustration becomes more vocal as Gordon withdraws, and Fern’s attempt to talk candidly with her mother about hormones and period pain only brings a rebuke for vulgarity.

Gordon’s withdrawal is not the only way he appears in family conflict. On the drive home, Rosemarie’s pointed remark about Mrs Thatcher’s fondness for Paul Landreth irritates him. Fern watches the colour rise in his neck, a visible sign that an argument is close. His temper, which Rosemarie describes as terrifying but temporary, is part of the household atmosphere even when he does not answer her directly.

A Sudden Interruption

The tension in the car ends when a young roe deer appears in the headlights. Gordon swerves to avoid it and swears; Rosemarie gasps that they could have been killed. The near collision redirects the family’s attention from their quarrel to the danger in front of them. In the aftermath, Fern reads Rosemarie’s alarm as a sign that the argument over her mauve jumper has been forgiven: a trivial grievance loses its force beside the possibility of dying in a ditch.

The incident shows Gordon acting decisively in a moment of immediate peril, in contrast to his tendency to leave domestic disputes to subside without engaging them. It also briefly draws the family into a shared recognition of vulnerability, setting aside the tensions that had filled the journey.

Fern’s Pregnancy

When Fern becomes pregnant, Rosemarie informs Gordon while Fern is out of the house. She warns her daughter that her father’s anger will be like a hurricane, frightening but short-lived. By the time Fern returns, Gordon is in his study with his head in his hands. He tells her he is disappointed, but thanks God that James Frobisher is the father.

That assumption is the crucial limit of Gordon’s knowledge. Fern cannot tell him that she does not know whether James or Charlie Treadaway fathered the child; she also cannot explain that Charlie is the boy whose possible connection to the drugs that killed Elise Landreth she fears. Gordon’s relief rests on the certainty he believes he has, while Fern remains silent with a painful uncertainty he cannot see.

Character and Narrative Role

Gordon’s retreat from arguments and his forceful response to crisis create a consistent contrast: he can dominate Fern’s expectations of a frightening outburst, yet in the immediate aftermath of her pregnancy announcement he is found with his head in his hands. The scene does not resolve the concealed question of paternity; instead, it makes the distance between his confidence and Fern’s knowledge part of the family’s tension.

His role is therefore defined as much by what he does not know as by what he says. Rosemarie manages the disclosure, Gordon reacts to it, and Fern carries the secret that unsettles his assumption. Through this uneven distribution of knowledge, the novel presents a family in which a father’s apparent certainty can coexist with a daughter’s private fear.