The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days

by Juliet Conlin

  Sabine is struggling with a small rucksack beside you.

  Hey mom. Your mother turns. You give her a smile.

  1948 - 1949

  After her release from hospital a week later, Isobel was still stiff and sore from the operation. She found it difficult and painful to take the stairs, so Alfred made up a bed for her on the sofa. Three weeks later, when she was moving about more freely again, she began to complain that Alfred tossed too much in his sleep, causing her scar to hurt. So he moved to the sofa instead. When he came home and greeted her with a kiss, she would turn away, claiming a headache or the onset of a cold. When he sat beside her in church and his arm touched her shoulder, she would shrink back as though stung.

  Her words, increasingly cold, always reprimanding (‘Must you always leave your dirty clothes on the floor?’, ‘Wash your hands, they’re filthy!’, ‘Don’t chew your food so loudly!’), showed a side to her he wouldn’t have imagined existed, and they cut him deeply. Although Alfred and Isobel never spoke of their daughter – and wouldn’t, for many years to come – her death had caused a fissure to appear between them, and the more Alfred tried to prevent it from tearing further, the stronger Isobel pulled away, making the fissure grow into a crack, a fracture, an insuperable chasm. She blames me, he thought, and although he knew, rationally, that Brynja’s death had been a tragic misfortune, he was stricken with, not guilt exactly, but a feeling of desperate regret. He took her to see Dr Cummings, who – after a brief examination – told Alfred that his wife’s behaviour was perfectly normal under the circumstances, and prescribed her some tranquillisers to help her sleep.

  In the face of his wife’s coolness, Alfred became energetic. Perhaps it was the unspent energies arising from his desire for her (for he still, despite her frigidity towards him, desired her greatly), or perhaps by keeping his hands and body busy, he hoped to distract himself from the ruminations on the death of his daughter, or – almost equally painful – Isobel’s words to him: ‘It’s just nae enough.’ He was no longer a child; he could no longer seek out some hiding place in which to wait for things to wash over him and settle, so instead, he immersed himself in his work. He began to work sixteen-hour days, although the council couldn’t afford to pay him for the extra hours, but unless he had drained his body of every ounce of energy by the time he crept onto the sofa at night, he would sleep only fitfully, leaving him exhausted and red-eyed the next morning. His misery was compounded by the absence of the voice-women, whom he’d last heard at Isobel’s hospital bedside. He couldn’t help but feel as though he were being punished, by his wife, by his voices, and as the months went by, he had little choice but to accept that they might have vanished forever.

  His state of unhappiness wasn’t lost on Harding, who confided to Alfred, in a quiet, almost embarrassed manner, that his own wife had suffered a miscarriage before the two healthy children had been born.

  ‘But as soon as she was, ye know . . . well again, we just put it behind us and tried for another. There’s no good in holding on to the bad.’

  It was something that had, of course, occurred to Alfred, but Isobel wouldn’t let him so much as touch her arm, never mind her body. As close as his friendship with Harding had become, this wasn’t something he wanted to share.

  After some weeks, Drummond also approached him after church one Sunday. ‘You are both so young,’ he said as they stood on the church steps. ‘You and Isobel must put this behind you. Have some faith, Alfred.’ He put his hand on Alfred’s shoulder.

  Alfred didn’t respond. Despite his regular attendance at church, any notion of faith, of God, still eluded him; since Brynja’s death, the world seemed more godless than ever.

  ‘And please,’ Drummond continued after a moment’s pause, ‘please take care of Isobel. She refuses to talk to me about . . . about how she feels. I’m concerned it might be eating her up, on the inside. It’s at times like this that a woman needs her husband, Alfred. And vice versa. I certainly miss Margaret . . . ’ His voice was low and weary, and Alfred could only guess how much Drummond missed his wife. Then Drummond patted him on the shoulder, as if to cheer himself up. ‘But she has you, and that’s my consolation,’ he said.

  Alfred looked over to where Isobel was standing, several yards away beneath a large elm tree that towered leafless, almost menacingly, above her. She stood, in her Sunday clothes and hat, her hair hanging limply onto her shoulders; it had been many weeks since she had last curled it and pinned it up. She worked her gloved fingers, restlessly, staring with an unfocussed gaze across the neighbouring cemetery. Quite close to her, a group of children was playing noisily, expending the energies they’d had to suppress while cooped up in church, but Isobel didn’t seem to be aware of them. Alfred was suddenly struck by how lonely she must be, motherless, childless, with a husband too afraid to knock down the wall she’d built up around herself for fear of causing greater damage. His impotence shamed him.

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ Drummond said, as they began to walk down the stone steps that led down from the church. ‘I haven’t mentioned this to Isobel, because I’m not sure how she’d take it.’

  ‘What is it?’ Alfred asked, afraid of yet another blow to an already desperate situation.

  ‘It isn’t as though this will come as much of a surprise,’ he said, ‘considering my age.’

  A sickening thought struck Alfred. ‘You . . . you’re not ill, are you?’

  Drummond looked confused, and then let out a short fat laugh. ‘No! Or at least, I hope not. No, I have received confirmation of my request to retire this autumn,’ he said. ‘And I shall be moving up to Aberdeenshire, to live with Fay. Isobel’s aunt,’ he added, as though that needed explanation. ‘There’ll be a nice young lad to replace me, I should think.’ He laughed again, but it was a little forced. They reached the gravelly path at the bottom of the steps, and Drummond became serious again. He expelled a tired sigh and said, ‘It weighs heavily on me, the loss you’ve both suffered. And I dinnae want to intrude, but have you thought of . . . well, trying again? It would be nice to have some good news before I leave.’

  Alfred shuffled his feet on the gravel. The same advice he’d been given by Harding. As if a child were that easy to replace. His father-in-law meant well, he knew that, but he didn’t understand what it felt like to lose something so precious, something that deserved to live, not to die.

  ‘I’ll best be taking Isobel home,’ he said as politely as he could, and left Drummond standing on the path.

  Many months passed by, during which Alfred’s body became muscular and sinewy from his work; the soil became embedded in the creases of skin in his palm, refusing to yield even with the most vigorous of scrubbing. His heart, however, felt fragile and bruised, and if it hadn’t been for the reappearance of the voices one night, he might have imagined the vital organ just wasting away. It happened in early May 1949. The winter had finally broken and although the weather hadn’t turned warm, it was certainly milder, making Alfred and Harding’s work almost pleasant. Over the winter, the council had expanded Alfred’s work duties to include planting small gardens for a new housing estate in Mauchline. The houses – hardly grand in size, but cosy enough and with indoor bathrooms – were planned to house the workers of some newly erected factories on the outskirts of the village. The houses were in great demand, and became occupied as soon as they had passed inspection, occasionally at a rate so speedy there was local rumour of bribes and corruption among the council. To increase his chances of acquiring one of the new houses, Alfred – with a surprisingly light heart, he noticed – applied for and was granted British citizenship.

  When spring arrived, Alfred was back with Harding, tending a large vegetable garden they had begun planting in early spring in a bid by the council to supplement the villagers’ rations. The long hard frost and deep snow the country had seen that winter had destroyed huge stocks of stored potatoes, leading the government to introduce yet another spate of rationing.

&nb
sp; At the end of a long day, Harding announced that he was going to the pub and, as usual, invited Alfred to join him. But as usual, Alfred declined. He didn’t intend to go home straight away. The thought of spending yet another evening in Isobel’s miserable and frigid company was depressing, but he wasn’t prepared just yet to become one of those hardened middle-aged men who substituted an unhappy marriage for public houses and beer. So instead, he stayed outdoors until the sun set, earthing up rows and rows of seed potatoes that had broken through, making sure the runner beans were firmly attached to their stakes, weeding between the cabbages and lettuces. He worked until his arms and legs and muscular back were aching and sore, until he felt sufficiently consumed, physically and mentally, to ward off the despair that would otherwise beset him when he lay down at night on his makeshift bed, and then set off on his short journey home.

  Indeed, he was drained when he got to the house. Isobel had already retreated upstairs – to listen to the small portable wireless or to read a magazine, or perhaps to sleep, he could only guess – so he ate his cold supper of meat and potatoes on his own, drank a small glass of beer to wash it down and undressed for bed. He fell asleep almost immediately, waking several minutes later as his aching muscles twitched suddenly, like a dog dreaming of chasing a rabbit, but then drifted back into a soft, exhausted slumber.

  He woke to a noise, a voice, and was immediately rushed back to the dark bedroom of his childhood, when he had been roused by the voices to go and save Marie.

  Alfred, wake up.

  Quickly, Alfred, there’s no time to lose.

  Momentarily disoriented, and still sleep-drunk, it took him a minute to remember where he was. There was enough moonlight shining through a gap in the living-room curtains to make out the patchy armchair, the hearth, the small sideboard that contained the plates and cups that had no space in the cramped kitchen, and, of course, the worn sofa he was lying on.

  Quickly, Alfred, he heard again, and then: Duck! Oh my goodness, get behind the sofa! NOW!

  Without another thought, Alfred hoisted himself over the back of the sofa and landed with a thump on the floor. Seconds later, he heard a huge crash as a brick came through the window. He was about to poke his head over the back of the sofa to see what had made that awful noise, but a voice urged him:

  Not now! Stay where you are!

  And just then, Alfred caught a glimpse of a quick flash of light as the brick was followed by a bottle; it smashed upon impact with the floor and suddenly, a circle of flames engulfed the small rug in the centre of the room. Alfred jumped up as another bottle, containing petrol, he assumed from the smell, and a rag for a fuse stuck in its neck, flew through the smashed window and landed near the sideboard. And then another. He yelled in fright as the burning fuel spread across the floor, blue liquid flames lapping at the curtains, the wallpaper, the carpets. Before he could react, it seemed as though he were surrounded by fire, the flames hungrily catching at anything they touched. The voice-women were howling in his head. He heard the sound of glass breaking, then the smash of another bottle, but this time not on the ground floor where he was, but above him.

  Isobel.

  Alfred rushed across the room, coughing wildly now, for the room had become engulfed by a thick, viscous smoke, but hardly feeling the heat that singed the hair on his arms. As he mounted the stairs, he heard a shout from beyond the broken window, ‘Nazi whore!’, then laughter and more shouting, but he couldn’t make out the words, because he was coughing more than ever, the smoke rising up through the small house. He ran into the bedroom and saw Isobel lying on the bed, stirring but not fully awake. He saw at once that there was no fire here, no broken glass, the window behind the curtain quite undamaged. But he didn’t stop to dwell on it.

  ‘Isobel!’ he called. ‘Wake up! There’s a fire!’

  ‘What?’ Her left side of her face was creased with sleep. She was still befuddled by the tranquillisers, and it took her a moment to wake fully. She sat up and sniffed. ‘Alfie, there’s smoke!’

  ‘Come now, quickly,’ he said, and when she hesitated, he pulled the blankets right off her.

  Isobel started but then got out of bed and looked around, confused. ‘Where are my slippers?’ she said, ‘I left them just here . . . ’

  ‘No time for that. Come now!’ He put his arm around her shoulders and guided her, almost pushed her, to the staircase. The hot, terrifying orange glow of the fire downstairs was visible from the landing. Isobel shrank back.

  ‘No, we cannae go down there,’ she said, clawing Alfred’s arm like a frightened animal.

  ‘There’s no other way out,’ Alfred said. ‘But you’re right, just . . . just wait here.’ And he ran back into the bedroom to grab the blankets and sheets off the bed, took them to the wash-stand in the corner and wetted them as thoroughly as he could. He took the dripping bundle back onto the landing. ‘Here.’ He wrapped the sodden blanket around Isobel’s shoulders and the sheet around his own. ‘Come on, we have to hurry.’

  The stairs seemed to groan as he led Isobel down; he could feel the heat of the wood beneath the soles of his feet and his only thought now was to get out before the staircase gave way beneath them. Isobel was whimpering hysterically behind him, clutching his hand with hers like a person drowning. The space between the bottom of the landing and the front door was now a wall of fire.

  ‘Oh God!’ Isobel screamed. ‘There’s no way out!’

  Alfred shook his hand free. Without stopping to think, he jumped through the flames, felt them brush across his skin, but not painfully, more like warm feathers, and reached out for the door handle. The pain of the red-hot metal on his palm was spectacular. He shrunk back and looked down at his hand; the burn was immediate, leaving behind a throbbing red mark. Behind him, beyond the flames, Isobel was coughing and wheezing. Alfred swiftly wrapped his other hand in the wet sheet and carefully turned the handle, then kicked the door open with his bare foot. The whole room was now dancing with fire – the curtains, the rugs, the sofa, where he’d lain just a short while earlier. From inside the sideboard, he could hear the sound of china cracking, and the wallpaper blistered and hissed as it began to peel away from the wall. Isobel had begun shrieking now, interrupted only by coughing fits that brought her to her knees, so he jumped back through the fire, feeling its heat now, the flames licking at his skin and hair like so many little tongues, and picked her up off the floor. Her face was ghostly white, eyes bloodshot from the smoke. Alfred paused to kiss her cheek before clearing the flames for a last time and through the open door to the cold night air.

  Standing on the pavement outside, they both struggled for breath, doubled over and wheezing. Presently, though, Alfred had enough clean air in his lungs to straighten up. What he saw set off a fresh panic. For the bottle he’d heard earlier smashing above him had missed its mark, and instead broken through the window of the house next door. Amy’s house.

  ‘Stay here,’ he commanded to Isobel, peeling the damp sooty blanket off her shoulders. She was shivering violently, and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and hold her, but looked up again to see the smoke spilling from the top window of Amy’s house, the curtains alive with fire.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Isobel asked, her voice cracking, as he wrapped her sheet around his shoulders and rushed towards Amy’s front door. ‘Alfie, no!’

  Alfred ignored her and tried the door. It was, of course, locked, and so he took a couple of steps back and threw himself against it. It jarred painfully on his shoulder, but he tried again, and again, until finally the wood around the lock splintered. Alfred stumbled and almost fell to the floor as the door flew open. It was cool and quiet inside – almost grotesquely so. He ran up the stairs clutching the blanket and sheet up against his chin and ran into a curtain of smoke. He took a step back, gasping and choking. The smoke and heat stung his eyes. He wiped them with his hand and opened the door leading to the front bedroom. The sudden backdraft caused a huge lick of flame to f
lare towards him, and he was momentarily stunned. From outside, he caught the sound of his name being called, ‘Alfie! Alfie!’ He pushed forward into the blaze and through the smoke saw Amy lying prostrate on the bed. Not daring to go further into the room than necessary, he crouched down and dragged the bedsheet off her, then grabbed her bare ankles and began to draw her off the bed towards him. He caught her just before she hit the floor. She was unconscious. Alfred pulled her out of the room onto the small landing and slapped her gently, then more roughly, across the cheek.

  ‘Amy! Amy, wake up! Where’s James?’ But he got no response, so he heaved her onto his shoulder and carried her down the stairs, treading carefully to prevent himself stumbling.

  ‘Isobel!’ he called when he reached the front door. ‘Isobel, I – ’

  He raised his head and saw that a small group of people had formed on the street. They had all been dragged away from their beds, in dressing gowns and slippers. Isobel was sitting on the kerb with a thick blanket wrapped around her and two of their women neighbours, one of them with her hair in curlers, sat either side of her. A man who lived across the road, Frank McKay, rushed forward and helped Alfred lower Amy to the ground.

  ‘James,’ Alfred said, coughing again. His lungs were almost painfully tight, as though a large hand were squeezing them, preventing the clean air from entering. ‘He must be – ’

  ‘Fire brigade’s on its way,’ McKay said. He looked up at the two adjoining houses. ‘Spread quick, didn’t it?’

  Alfred didn’t have time to explain the petrol bombs. ‘She’s breathing,’ he said, pointing at Amy, ‘but she’ll need a doctor. I have to get James.’

  He took a step back towards the open front door, but McKay grabbed his arm and spun him around. ‘Ye cannae go back in there, man!’ he said. ‘Ye need to wait for the firemen. They’ll get him out.’