The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days

by Juliet Conlin

  Hey Brynja. When Mom gets home from work, we can all go to the beach. What d’you say? You wanna go to the beach?

  You wipe the juice moustache from your mouth with the back of your hand. Yes. You nod. You live close to the beach but you’ve only been a few times. Do I get ice cream?

  Sure. Papa laughs and lights his pipe. The smoke smells spicy and sweet and makes you dizzy.

  But I gotta finish my picture first, you say.

  What’s your picture of? Come and show your Papa. Smoke comes out of his mouth with the words.

  You pick it up and take it over to him. These are the princesses. And these are the princes.

  And that one?

  That’s Mom. She’s the queen.

  And that’s me, huh?

  You nod.

  I’m the king, right?

  No. You’re a prince.

  Not the king?

  You shake your head. You’re a prince.

  Just a prince? His voice is sleepy.

  Uh-huh. But you’re the best one.

  Papa smiles. The best of princes. I like that. He strokes your hair and closes his eyes.

  You climb onto his lap. Yes, Papa. That’s what the ladies told me. You’re the best of princes. His eyelids are yellowish and quivering, with spidery blue veins. You reach out your finger to touch one, but then his eyelids open.

  The ladies? he says. He blinks very slowly.

  Uh-huh. They said.

  You smile at him but he grabs your shoulders, squeezes them hard, and then he’s yelling at you – You’re making that up, Brynja, there are no fucking ladies – and he’s shaking you by the shoulders so your teeth clack together and you start crying.

  In the evening: Did you have a baby today, Mom?

  You’re in the bathtub. Mom is rubbing your legs with a flannel. Millions of soap bubbles covering your body. Some of them have rainbows in them.

  I did, sweetie. A little girl. Pink and rosy.

  Can you bring one home?

  Mom laughs. She picks up a plastic cup. Put your head back, sweetie.

  The warm water flows from the cup through your hair, into your ears. You jerk your head forward. Now you have soapy water in your eyes. Mom!

  You have to keep your head back, Brynja. Sorry.

  A towel! A towel!

  Mom hands you a towel – you rub your face.

  But I can’t bring one home, sweetie, Mom says. The babies aren’t mine. They belong to the women who give birth to them. I just help them do that.

  You want a baby. A little sister. To play with.

  Mom squeezes shampoo onto her hand and rubs it into your hair. You like the way Mom rubs your head. But then she stops.

  What’s this, liebling? She touches your shoulder where Papa grabbed you earlier. Is that a bruise? She pulls your hair back and looks at the other shoulder. Brynja?

  You pull your knees up to your chin.

  Brynja, talk to me. How d’you get these bruises?

  Very quietly, you say: Papa got mad with me because of the ladies.

  Papa did this?

  Uh-huh.

  Mom rinses her shampoo fingers in the water. Hang on, sweetie, I’ll be right back. She gets up and leaves the bathroom.

  You turn onto your front, pretend you’re swimming. You push yourself backwards and forwards – your soapy body slips and slides along the bottom of the tub. It’s fun. The water sloshes up and over the sides. You hear Mom shouting.

  You hit our baby, you son of a bitch?

  It’s not what you think, Sabine. I didn’t hit her. She was acting crazy. I just tried to –

  Crazy, huh? She’s the crazy one?

  You turn onto your back and lower your head into the water. Just your face above the surface, now. Your ears are underwater. You can’t hear what they’re saying. Just shapeless watery sounds, without the sharp edges. You lie there for a while. The water’s getting cold and the bubbles have nearly all gone. You sit up. The door flies open, crashing into the side of the tub. It’s Papa. You shiver.

  What the fuck? You can’t leave a four-year-old in the bathtub unsupervised!

  He lifts you out and wraps you in a towel.

  My hair, you say. It still has shampoo in it.

  But Papa just carries you through to the den and sits you on the couch. Mom’s standing at the door. The lights are off. The TV is flickering, but the sound isn’t on. Tom and Jerry.

  Like what? Like I’m the bad parent now? Mom’s voice is low, but you can tell she’s very mad. You shouldn’t have told her. She comes and picks you up and sits you on her lap. She rubs your head with the towel. Too hard.

  Ow, Mom, you’re hurting me!

  Sorry, liebling. I’m sorry. Mom hugs you close. It’s warm inside the towel. You hitch it up over your head, like a hood.

  Papa is walking up and down, like he needs to walk but doesn’t know where to go. To the window, turn, back towards the door, turn, to the window. He stops to pick up his small metal pipe.

  Not now, Mom says to him. Her voice is very quiet and tired. You put a finger to your mouth, chew your nail.

  Don’t tell me what to do, Papa says, but doesn’t light the pipe. Then he shakes his head and heads quickly towards the door. I’m sorry, Sabine. This isn’t working.

  1987 - 1988

  John sat on the living room sofa, holding a cup of tea between his hands, as though to warm himself. It was mid-afternoon on a hot summer’s day; the windows stood open, but the breeze, when it came, provided no relief from the heat and only served to tease the net curtains.

  ‘Please eat something,’ Isobel said, pushing a plate of sandwiches across the coffee table closer to him. Although she avoided the sun, she was developing light brown spots on her hands, shaped like jigsaw pieces. ‘I made some sandwiches.’

  John shook his head. ‘I ate on the plane.’

  ‘But – ’

  ‘It’s okay, Mum, really.’ He made it sound like ‘Mom’.

  Isobel looked to Alfred for support, but Alfred didn’t want to add to the awkwardness that hung in the room. So instead, he said, ‘I bet John’s saving his appetite for a proper home-cooked meal, aren’t you?’

  John smiled and let out a tired, relieved sigh. ‘Yes, Dad.’

  Alfred helped himself to a cheese and ham sandwich, noting that Isobel had cut off the crusts, just as she had done for John when he was a child. Truth be told, he also wished that John would eat something. When he had answered the door an hour earlier, he hadn’t at first recognised his son. Before him stood a man with dusty blond hair, tall and painfully thin, the skin stretched across his face so as to accentuate the squareness of his jaw and the almost unnatural roundness of his eyes. The image of an Auschwitz survivor flickered briefly across Alfred’s mind. Then the man stepped forward and said, ‘Hi Dad’, and Alfred was momentarily unable to speak.

  ‘Can I come in?’ John said, and when Alfred nodded and opened the door wider, John turned back to where a taxi was waiting and gave the driver a sign that he could drive on.

  Now, an hour later, John – thirty-five years old, no longer their surly, adolescent son – was in their living room, declining the offer of his mother’s sandwiches. The air was still and heavy with questions and reproaches, but neither Alfred nor Isobel seemed to want to take the initiative. Perhaps they were both afraid of where it would lead them.

  Finally, Isobel got to her feet and broke the silence. ‘Well then, I’ll pop upstairs and make up a bed for you. I’m afraid there’s only a fold-out mattress. Your room, well . . . ’ She trailed off and hurriedly left the room.

  Then Alfred and John spoke at the same time.

  ‘How was your flight?’

  ‘You look well.’

  They exchanged the pleasantries simultaneously, making them both laugh nervously. Alfred leaned forward.

  ‘Are you sure you won’t eat any of your mother’s sandwiches?’ he asked.

  John shook his head.

  ‘Then another c
up of tea?’

  ‘To be honest, I’m feeling a little nauseous,’ John said.

  Alfred smiled. ‘Then I’ve got just the thing. Come with me.’ He stood up and went into the kitchen. John followed him. Alfred took two large glass jars from a wall cabinet and then went to fill the kettle.

  John opened one of the jars and sniffed. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘That one’s dried yarrow, the other is balm,’ Alfred replied. ‘We’ll make you a tea from that. Works well against nausea.’

  They waited for the kettle to boil. The muted thump and whoosh of the dishwasher filled the silence.

  John said, ‘You know what, Dad, you don’t sound that Scottish anymore. The Midlands have got to you.’

  ‘And you sound like a Yank,’ Alfred responded. They both laughed, less nervously this time.

  Alfred poured the boiling water over the tea. ‘Let that infuse for five or six minutes. Works wonders on an upset tummy.’

  ‘Thanks Dad.’ He grinned, causing the skin to stretch even tighter across his face and making him look ten years older. ‘You’ve become quite the Hildegard of Bingen.’

  Alfred smiled. ‘Actually, you’re not the first to say that.’

  They heard Isobel coming down the stairs. She popped her head around the kitchen door, avoiding John’s eye. ‘If I’m going to cook tonight, I’d better go shopping,’ she said. ‘I’ll be an hour or so.’

  When they heard the front door fall shut, Alfred said, ‘Give her a bit of time. She’ll come round.’

  ‘She’s still very pretty.’

  ‘Aye, she is.’ Alfred stirred the herbs around with a teaspoon and then removed them. ‘She left me for a while, years ago,’ he blurted out. ‘Not long after you’d gone.’

  ‘Really? Why, what happened?’ He sounded genuinely surprised. ‘Were you having an affair?’ He tried to make this sound jokey.

  Alfred shook his head. ‘No. I don’t really know why she left.’ He looked at John. ‘Maybe she was looking for a life that’s bigger.’

  John frowned.

  ‘You wrote that on the first postcard you sent us,’ Alfred said.

  John screwed up his face. ‘God, I was such an asshole back then.’ Asshole, not arsehole, Alfred noted. John pulled a pouch of tobacco out of his jeans pocket. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course I mind. You’re my son and it’s bad for your health.’

  John looked pained for a moment, but didn’t speak.

  ‘Outside, then, if you must,’ Alfred said. He took the mug of tea and they went out into the garden to sit on a wooden bench that stood at the back of the house. The sky was a spectacular blue, and the sun blazed down on them. Alfred broke into a slight sweat.

  ‘Not too hot for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh no,’ John said. ‘I love the heat. When I moved to New York last year, I thought that first winter was gonna kill me.’

  ‘So that’s where you live now?’

  John nodded. He took out some papers and began rolling a cigarette. His fingers were thin and his knuckles disproportionately large, his nails ridged and yellowish. He noticed Alfred staring.

  ‘So, don’t you want to ask me anything?’ He sounded anxious and challenging at once.

  Alfred was silent for a while. Where to start? Should he ask him why he left? Why he broke his parents’ hearts? What he had been doing all these years, with no letter, no telephone call, no sign of life, other than a few shabby postcards? Should he tell him that they had been grieving for their son? Finally he said, trying to keep any sign of reprimand out of his voice, ‘I suppose what I’d really like to know is, have you been happy?’

  John let out a long sigh, a kind of pshhhh sound. ‘I guess I’ve had my moments.’ He took a sip of tea. ‘Nice.’

  ‘How long are you staying?’ Alfred asked, realising then that he wanted John to say, ‘For good’.

  John lit his cigarette. ‘A week, if you’ll have me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I came over with a friend of mine, Jackie. She’s visiting a cousin in Manchester. I’ll need to give her a call and let her know.’

  Alfred looked out across the garden. Several butterflies were dipping and rising around the summer lilac. The neighbouring honeysuckle looked thirsty; its dark green leaves were drooping slightly among the brilliant magenta flowers. He’d have to make sure to water it generously that evening.

  ‘Jackie. Is she . . . ? Are you two . . . ?’

  John smiled. ‘No. She’s a good friend from New York. My best friend’s wife, actually.’

  ‘And you? Do you have a – ’

  John was overcome by a sudden, lengthy coughing fit. It was a rasping, grating sound, and confirmed to Alfred that his son’s state of health was anything but good. Finally, he stopped coughing and spat a lump of greenish mucus onto the ground. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Alfred asked.

  John didn’t answer this. Instead, he said, ‘No, I never got married. I – I had something going for a while. But . . . ’ he trailed off.

  Alfred gestured towards the mug. ‘Helping any?’

  John took another sip and nodded. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, the woman, the one I was with for a while.’ He looked across at Alfred. His eyes were dull, his pupils over-large. ‘She – we had a baby.’

  Alfred felt a little bubble of air rise up his throat. ‘You mean I have a grandchild?’

  John shrugged. The bones of his shoulders were clearly visible through his t-shirt. ‘Yeah,’ he said, very quietly. ‘A little girl. But . . . ’

  ‘But what? Can we meet her? How old is she?’

  John rested his elbows on his thighs and put his head in his hands. The cigarette he held between his fingers was trembling visibly. ‘Shit, Dad. I – I did a lot of crazy stuff.’ He ran his hands through his hair and sat up. ‘Nothing I’m too proud of. Drugs . . . and stuff.’

  ‘But your daughter?’

  He shook his head. ‘It just didn’t work out. Sabine and I – that’s her mother – we, well, we decided to split when the kid was three.’

  ‘So she’s living with her mother?’

  ‘Yeah. At least, I guess so. I haven’t seen Brynja for over two years.’

  Alfred’s heart churned. ‘Brynja – is that her name?’

  John gave him a warm smile. ‘Yeah. I remembered you telling me once when I was a kid that you would have called me that if I’d been born a girl. You said it was my grandmother’s middle name.’

  Pearls of sweat broke out on Alfred’s forehead. The heat was making him feel slightly faint.

  John looked momentarily panicked. ‘Did I get it wrong?’

  Alfred shook his head. ‘No. You got it absolutely right.’ He thought he might cry.

  ‘I’ve been trying to find her since I – ’ He stopped and seemed to sink into himself. ‘We split when I was still living in San Francisco. I was kinda . . . out of my head at the time. The drugs, you know, you think they’re gonna give you answers, but they just mess you up. God – ’ he shook his head. ‘I’ll spare you the details, but it was pretty ugly. And not good for a kid.’

  Everything seemed to have come to a standstill. The air was hot and brooding, even the butterflies were no longer flying about and had settled tiredly on the shrubs. All that could be heard was the faint gurgle of water flowing through a pipe that fed the dishwasher on the other side of the wall.

  ‘And now?’

  John took a deep breath. Alfred could hear his son’s lungs whistling. ‘Now I guess I’m paying the price.’

  Then, not at all suddenly – in fact, Alfred felt that everything had been leading up to this moment – John leaned into his father and rested his head on his shoulder. He began to cry. ‘I’m dying, Dad.’

  ‘He’s got AIDS,’ Alfred said to Isobel in the dark.

  When there was no response from her side of the bed, he turned and found her lying on her back, her face twis
ted into a grimace of pain and grief. She was sobbing silently, deep down in her throat. He slid his arm under her neck and pulled her around, so that he was holding her tight in his arms.

  Alfred hadn’t known what to expect from Isobel. He had feared that she might smother John with the love she had stored up over all the lost years, and that John might run away again. But she didn’t. She was soft and calm, asking him in a measured tone to explain the medication he was taking, the side effects, the doctor’s prognosis, any complications he might expect. She made him tea, offered blankets when he shivered, and never once insisted that he eat when he complained of a lack of appetite.

  Alfred hadn’t had the heart to tell her about their granddaughter that first night, and as each day passed, there never seemed to be the right moment – the moment when he would give her a grandchild and snatch her away at the same time. He approached John again on the subject when Isobel was at the hairdresser’s. She had wanted to cancel the appointment, she didn’t want to miss a moment spent with her son, but John had insisted, promising they would all go out for a meal afterwards and that he would eat everything on his plate. She smiled at this and left reluctantly.

  ‘Is there no way of contacting her?’ Alfred asked John. They were taking a walk through one of the fields at the back of the village. The corn stalks were over six feet high, and Alfred could remember a time when John would delight in playing hide-and-seek here, much to the farmer’s annoyance.

  ‘I tried, Dad,’ he said. He was wearing one of Alfred’s thick woollen jumpers, despite the heat. ‘Sabine never wanted alimony. I think she was pretty mad when I left, and then it was just her and Brynja. But ever since . . . since I got the diagnosis, I’ve called everyone who we both knew, Sabine and me, but it’s – ’ His chin was trembling. He took a deep breath and swallowed, his over-large Adam’s apple rising and falling in his throat. ‘It’s pretty hopeless.’

  Alfred put his arm around John’s shoulder. He was an inch or two shorter than his son, but he felt immeasurably larger. They began the short walk home.

  ‘You remember that fight we had?’ John said.

  Alfred didn’t respond. It was something he would rather not remember.