Soon, though, his denial gave way to raging self-pity, and then to a sadness that numbed his spirit. He was aching to reach the lowest point possible, in the hope that from there, things could only get better. His voice-women were more vociferous than ever; he could feel them plucking and pinching at him with their words of consolation, encouragement, reproach:
Better to have loved and lost
She might be back tomorrow, you never know!
Pull yourself together
You’re still a young man . . .
But more often than not, he blocked them out, wanting instead to let the numbness creep over him and eradicate the memories of Isobel’s smell, her laugh, her small, soft, familiar body, the mother-of-pearl scar across her belly, her dark nipples, the freckles on her shoulders. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t forget. He couldn’t imagine his life without her. He still loved her, urgently. Surely she had once loved him, hadn’t she?
And as urgently as he missed Isobel, he began to ache with memories of his son. Or rather, the lack of memories. It struck him how little attention he had paid to the small things that made up John’s childhood, things that may have seemed trivial at the time, but taken together, made up his son’s essence. He couldn’t recall John’s first words, the names of his school friends, how it felt to hug him. The memories he did have were smudged and unclear, and this shamed him. He was adrift in a huge space of sadness.
One day, on his way to work, he spotted a removal van outside Amelia’s house, with several burly men heaving boxes and furniture into the van – and his mood took a new turn. Despite the fact that he and Amelia lived in such close proximity, their paths had rarely crossed recently. Alfred would spend almost all his waking hours in the gardens at March House, the only place he could quash the sense that he was crumbling away on the inside. Amelia, it seemed, spent most of her evenings out. Alfred hadn’t been back to Uttoxeter to speak with her. For one thing, he had believed her when she told him she had tried to talk Isobel out of going away. For another, she had represented the only tie to Isobel that remained, and he had been fearful of antagonising her. He had secretly hoped that she would, in time, supply him with details of Isobel’s whereabouts.
Now she was leaving, and that meant that Isobel was gone for good. A fresh panic overcame him. He barely got through the day. His mouth was dry and his head throbbed viciously. Thankfully, Daffyd ignored his frequent visits to the garden shed, where he locked himself in and found himself hyperventilating and in crazed conversation with his voice-women. He remained bent over with his head between his legs until he felt his breathing calm down. By the end of the day, he was dizzy with exhaustion. But then, just as he was swinging his leg over his bicycle to head home, Alice approached him. The sun was just setting, and her face was cast in a pink-grey light.
‘Can I have a quick word?’ she said.
‘Of course.’ Alfred leant his bicycle against the wall, went up the steps and removed his shoes. He followed her into the house. She led him through to the morning room and switched on a small Tiffany table lamp that gave off a pleasant, multicoloured light.
‘Would you like a drink? Something to eat?’ she asked, and without waiting for an answer, went over to a large mahogany liquor cabinet and took out a bottle of cognac. ‘I’m having one,’ she said. ‘Do please join me.’
‘All right,’ Alfred said. ‘Thank you.’
Alice handed him his drink and sat down. ‘You’ve been working very hard, lately. The garden is looking quite marvellous.’
Alfred gave her a strained smile. He knew she knew about Isobel – everyone did. ‘Keeps me busy,’ he said. ‘And there’s nowhere I’d rather spend my time.’
At this, she let out a small sigh, almost a mewing sound. ‘Oh dear, Alfred. I’m afraid I have some bad news. I’ve been meaning to tell you for a couple of weeks, but I wasn’t sure how.’
‘Is everything all right?’ he asked, knowing that anything she had to tell him couldn’t possibly make him feel any worse. He was wrong.
‘Yes. No.’ She threw her hands up. The cognac sloshed around in her glass but, by some careful design on the part of the glassblower, didn’t spill over the sides. ‘We’re leaving England.’
‘Oh.’ Alfred took a sip of cognac and felt its heat immediately. His stomach was practically empty.
‘Oh?’ Alice echoed. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’ Then she put her glass down and placed her hands in her lap. ‘I’m sorry, Alfred. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just . . . well, Samuel has just gone ahead and done it. Sold the factory, sold the house, just decided he’s some kind of Zionist all of a sudden, for God’s sake.’ She sniffed. ‘So he’s left me here to pack up, and I’ll be joining him in Tel Aviv in September.’
Alfred said nothing. What was there to say?
‘The Worthingtons are buying the house. God knows, some relation died and left them the necessary funds. They want to turn Tean Hall into some kind of hotel and move in here.’ She looked around the room. ‘C’est la vie, eh? Anyway, Tean Hall estate will be pulled back together. That’ll make a lot of people around here happy, I’m sure.’
‘Not me, Alice.’
She put her head to one side. ‘I know. And I’m sorry, Alfred. I talked to Elizabeth Worthington, and she says they won’t be needing you. I told her what an asset you are, how she’d be lucky to find anyone to match your skills, but she was . . . stubborn.’ She sounded unhappy, and tired. ‘You’ll get a good severance, though. Samuel is generous, if nothing else.’
Alfred drained his glass. He didn’t care about any severance pay. He was losing his garden, he was losing Alice. He almost didn’t hear the voice-women.
Severance? She thinks it’s that easy just to pay you off?
It’s the least she can do. It’s not as though she really wants to go, is it?
Oh, leave him alone. Alfred’s heart is breaking as we speak.
He ignored them. The cognac left him feeling dazed and slightly sick. He felt the numbness that had protected him for so many months being scraped away, leaving him raw and exposed. Alice was staring at him, her dark eyes asking him a question he couldn’t read. She was close to fifty now. Her black hair was shot through with streaks of silver, and the skin in the hollows beneath her high cheek bones had begun to sag. But her eyes still held that fierce spiritedness he’d seen when they first met. She was even now extremely beautiful.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
Alice shook her head. ‘So am I,’ she said despondently.
For a while, they sat in silence as the darkness unfurled outside, throwing the corners of the room into shadow. Alice got up and walked over to the window. Alfred could see her face mirrored in the black glass. She opened the window and the fragrant, woody smell of a recent bonfire drifted in. ‘What the hell am I going to do in Israel?’ she said, sounding close to tears. ‘I’m not observant, I only go to the synagogue on High Holy Days. What do I know about kosher, or mitzvah? There are over six hundred of them, for crying out loud!’ She gave a strange, strangled laugh.
Alfred got to his feet. She looked so fragile, so unhappy – she was a reflection of his own misery. He went over to her and turned her gently around, and then placed two fingers on her mouth. He could feel the softness of her lips and the sticky lipstick that covered them. ‘It’s all right,’ he said, and pulled his hand away.
‘I’m frightened, Alfred,’ she said, tilting her head back to look up at him. Two fine creases curved from either side of her nose to the outside of her mouth. Smile lines. Her throat was smooth and white. He couldn’t imagine it tanned by the Mediterranean sun. She raised herself onto her tiptoes and kissed him. Her mouth had the sharp, aromatic taste of cognac. Alfred closed his eyes and held the kiss, indecisive for a moment, but then finding himself increasing the pressure until her lips had parted. He put his arms around her back. Her back was pleasantly toned, and he rubbed his hands up and down, feeling the slight movements of muscle beneath her
dress.
Then there was the sound of footsteps outside the room. Alice pulled away and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘It’s Emma,’ she whispered.
Alfred took a step back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry,’ and he fled the room.
When he got home, he sat in the dark for a long time. He still felt aroused, but also ashamed for failing to control himself. A whole concoction of emotions rose and fell inside him, as though they were being pulled back and forth by the moon, making him seasick. He didn’t know how long he sat like this, but after a long while, there was a knock on the front door. He rose from his armchair, becoming aware only now of the patter of rain outside.
‘May I come in?’ It was Alice, strands of wet hair clinging to the sides of her face. ‘I’m soaked. I borrowed Cook’s bicycle.’
Alfred took her hand and led her into the house, and immediately, the tidal wave inside him subsided and was replaced by pure, vibrant longing. They began to make love on the living room floor, in front of the cold, empty fireplace, and when Alice started shivering, Alfred picked her up and carried her upstairs. She was as light as he had imagined.
They undressed each other, unhurried, wordlessly. The skin on Alice’s belly was still amazingly taut, the skin white and flawless. He pushed the image of Isobel’s caesarean scar out of his mind. He slid his hand up between her legs and she let out a soft purr – he couldn’t imagine any sound more sensual, more sexual. They spent a long time exploring each other; Alice ran her hands across his stomach, his shoulders and upper arms, making small appreciative noises that told him she was enjoying his body.
She fell asleep first, and Alfred watched her, trying not to think beyond the moment.
After this first night together, Alice came to his house most evenings. She waited until he had left March House after work, and joined him less than half an hour later. Here, they acted out a kind of mock marriage; she would cook something simple, they would eat together, watch television or listen to music, play Scrabble – as though they needed some kind of domestic facade to justify the passion with which they made love every night.
‘Stay here with me, Alice,’ he said one night, when she was getting dressed to go home, pulling her stockings up slowly, reluctantly, and fixing them to the suspender belt.
‘Not tonight. Perhaps on Saturday. Emma’s staying at her sister’s overnight.’
‘I don’t mean for the night,’ he said. ‘I mean – stay. Here, in England. With me.’
‘You know that’s not possible,’ she said.
‘But why?’
She leaned over and kissed him. ‘Don’t spoil things, Alfred. Please.’
The affair lasted six weeks. When it was time for Alice to leave, Alfred offered to drive her to the airport. She declined.
‘I’m no good at that sort of thing,’ she said. Her voice was liquid. ‘You know – tearful goodbyes and all that.’
Ten months later, he was watching the news distractedly when there was a knock at the door. He got up, wiped some toast crumbs off his shirt and went to answer. It was Isobel, a small red suitcase in her hand. Her hair had grown down to below her shoulders; she wore dark blue jeans and a beige kaftan he didn’t recognise. She didn’t smile, or cry; in fact, her face held very little expression. She looked familiar and alien at the same time.
‘I’m back,’ she said quietly. ‘If you still want me.’
Alfred opened the door wider and stepped aside to let her in.
1972 - 1987
Isobel had changed, of course, during her ten-month absence, but in a way Alfred found difficult to put his finger on. She seemed to have shed all her remaining girlishness and acquired instead a toughness that took him some time to become accustomed to.
‘I don’t want you to think I’m shutting you out,’ she said that first night, her hands gripping the cup of hot chocolate Alfred had made her, ‘but there’s a lot I discovered about myself while I was gone, and I need to do some sorting out.’
Alfred was silent for a moment. When he had opened the door to find her standing there, in the dark, like some forlorn fairytale princess, all the anger and despair he’d felt over the past several months flashed through him, and he didn’t know whether he wanted to strike her or take her in his arms. He did neither. Instead, he went into the kitchen and busied himself with making a hot drink. She took it gratefully, and they sat wordlessly in their living room, the quiet buzz of the television still on in the background.
Give her some time.
You are angry and hurt, but you must let her know you still love her.
They were right. He did still love her. So he asked the only question he really cared about. ‘Are you staying?’
Isobel blew on her hot chocolate, took a sip and said, ‘I’d like to Alfie, I really would. But we’ll have to wait and see.’
She went to bed – in John’s old room – shortly afterwards. The next morning, Alfred came downstairs to find her making porridge in the kitchen.
‘So,’ she said. Her hair was wet from the shower and she had tied her old apron around her waist. The scene was so familiar to Alfred that for a moment, he wondered if he had just imagined her absence. ‘How are things at March House?’
He laughed. He had most definitely not imagined her absence – he hadn’t been back to March House for eight months.
She eyed him quizzically. ‘What’s so funny?’
So he told her: True to her word, Alice had arranged for him to receive a severance payment large enough to live off for an entire year. But several weeks after her departure, when one day sludged into the next, and Alfred began waking and sleeping to an increasingly irregular rhythm, rarely bothering to shave or, on some days, even bothering to change out of his pyjamas, the voice-women decided it was time for him to start looking for a new job. They woke him with screeches at seven in the morning, chided him relentlessly until he had bathed, shaved and dressed properly, and instructed him to get in the car and drive southwards, towards the small town of Stone. Alfred obeyed without objection. He was too empty to fight them.
Ooh, wait until you see what we’ve found!
Just the thing for you, Alfred.
‘Shut up! I can’t drive with this racket,’ he mumbled angrily, as he drove the car along the narrow country road, slowing at corners in anticipation of on-coming traffic. When he approached the black, wrought-iron gate of March House, he turned his head away until he had driven past. It had rained heavily during the night, but now the sun was bright and hot, and he cursed his voice-women for making him wear his thick corduroy jacket.
A left at the next junction, if you please.
Alfred flicked his indicator on and turned at the junction. Then –
A sharp right, now. Now!
Alfred yanked the steering wheel to the right and found himself driving down a tree-lined dirt track, wet and muddy from the night’s rain. After a few hundred yards, he arrived at a building, a large barn or farm outbuilding, with a long corrugated plastic extension at the side. Above the barn door, there was a hand-painted sign, Herbaceuticals Ltd., in kaleidoscopically swirling patterns. It clicked into place – Alfred had read about this place recently in the local paper. A couple of Oxford graduates had started up some manufacturing company in the area. A short paragraph, nothing more.
A young man in a faded t-shirt, jeans and wellingtons was standing at the door, smoking. Alfred stopped the car and switched off the engine. He smiled at the man as he got out.
‘Can I help you?’ the man asked, a little suspiciously. He had a cut-glass accent.
‘Hello,’ Alfred said, wondering where to start. His voices had brought him here to ask for a job, he presumed, but the young man didn’t appear too welcoming. He took a few steps in his direction,
Mind the – !
but it was too late. He’d stepped into a puddle and his right foot was soaking. The man grinned and pinched out his cigarette.
‘Are
you here for the job?’ he asked, now more friendly.
‘Yes,’ Alfred answered quickly.
The man took a few steps towards him and held out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you. Alistair Marcus.’
Alfred shook his hand.
‘Hang on,’ Alistair continued. ‘I’ll go and fetch Hugo. He’s the business side of things.’ He walked back and opened the door to the barn. ‘Hugo! There’s a man here for the job.’
A moment later, another man appeared. It was immediately obvious that the two men were brothers, if not twins. The second man, Hugo, had the same dark hair, albeit covered partially by a blue bandana, the same square jaw and straight narrow nose. The only difference was that Alistair held himself with less self-assurance, as though not quite knowing what to do with his long arms and legs.
‘You’re here for the job?’ Hugo said to Alfred.
Alfred repeated his ‘yes’, although less hastily this time. He still had no idea what job he was here for, and his voice-women were keeping quiet.
‘Hugo Marcus, how do you do?’ He also shook Alfred’s hand, though more forcefully than his brother. They had the same impeccable manners, which contrasted oddly with their informal, somewhat dirty clothes. They would look more at home in suits, Alfred suspected.
‘Please, come into the office,’ Hugo continued and led the way inside.
The office was a space in a corner of the barn, separated from the rest of the building by a makeshift wall made of wooden planks. The window, which was missing a pane of glass, had been covered with transparent plastic sheeting. The light that came in was speckled. A large table was covered in neat piles of papers and folders, and a stack of books.
The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days Page 30