The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days

by Juliet Conlin

  ‘Please, take a seat,’ Hugo said, dropping onto a chair behind the table. He frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name,’ he said.

  ‘Alfred Warner,’ Alfred said, sitting down opposite him. ‘And this might sound a bit odd, but – ’

  Hugo waved his hand across his face. ‘It’s all odd around here.’ He let out a low, melodious laugh. ‘Alistair and I – we’re brothers, as you might have gathered – have been going spare trying to find someone to fill the position. You wouldn’t believe how many oddballs there are out there who claim to know all about chemistry.’ He leaned forward. ‘You’re not one of those, are you?’

  ‘I – ’ Alfred began, uncomfortably aware of the wetness of his right sock. ‘I’m here for the gardening job.’

  Hugo straightened up, pulling his eyebrows together. ‘The gardening job?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alfred continued. ‘I’m recently out of work, and I thought – ’

  Hugo interrupted him gently. ‘God, I’m sorry. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. We’re looking for a chemist. For the processing. Distillation, fractionation, fermentation, that sort of thing. For the herbal products.’ He gave Alfred an apologetic look. ‘And you have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?’

  Alfred shook his head slowly. As he was wondering how to best extract himself from this awkward situation and ask his voice-women what exactly they had thought they were up to, he heard a knock behind him. Hugo moved his head to look at a spot behind Alfred’s shoulder.

  ‘Not now, please. I’ll be with you in . . . in a couple of minutes.’ He looked back at Alfred. ‘I’m very sorry. Like I said, there’s been a misunderstanding.’

  Then Alfred heard a voice. ‘Mr Warner? Is that you?’

  He turned to see a ginger-haired man standing at the door. It was Daffyd.

  ‘Mr Warner!’ he said, his face breaking into a broad smile. He had never quite got used to calling Alfred by his first name. ‘So nice to see you!’

  ‘You two know each other?’ Hugo asked.

  Alfred nodded, about to explain, but Daffyd was evidently excited to see him there, and got in first. ‘Yes, Mr Marcus, I mean Hugo. Mr Warner was my boss, at March House. Is he going to be working here? Are you going to be working here, Mr Warner?’

  Hugo got up. ‘Actually, Daffyd, I was just telling Mr Warner that we’re looking for a chemist, not another gardener.’

  Daffyd’s shoulders slumped, then rose again. ‘But he’s an expert. Tell him, Mr Warner.’ He took a small step forward. ‘He knows everything about herbs. About – ’ he grimaced, ‘what’s her name again, Mr Warner? That lady with the herbs?’

  His exuberance made Alfred smile. ‘Hildegard of Bingen,’ he said. Then he turned to Hugo. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve wasted your time,’ he said. ‘There was, as you say, a misunderstanding.’

  Hugo crossed his arms. ‘You’ve read Hildegard of Bingen?’ he asked.

  Daffyd opened his mouth to speak, but Alfred silenced him with a look and said, ‘Yes. I’m very familiar with her work.’

  ‘She’s not too specific about her recipes, unfortunately.’

  ‘I like to think of her work as inspirational more than instructional,’ Alfred answered.

  Hugo had the beginnings of a smile on his lips. ‘We’re having a little trouble with the aloe vera. Any ideas?’

  ‘Perhaps the soil is a little too moist?’ Alfred offered. He knew that Daffyd was over-generous with the watering.

  Hugo nodded slowly. Alfred glanced over at Daffyd and saw the tips of his ears glowing red. Daffyd was thirty years old now, but still reminded Alfred of the gangly teenager he’d first met.

  ‘And how long have you been a gardener?’ Hugo asked Alfred.

  Alfred let out a rush of air. ‘Over twenty-five years, now.’ Had it really been that long?

  ‘Hmm.’ Hugo put a finger to his mouth and tapped his lips. Finally, he said, ‘Would you mind waiting here for a moment? I’ll just go and have a word with Alistair.’

  He left Alfred and Daffyd in the office. Daffyd’s grin was still fixed on his face. ‘Would be great, wouldn’t it? You and me working together again.’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Alfred asked.

  ‘Only three weeks. I was gutted when the job finished at March House, what with Janice pregnant again and all. But then I saw a job advert in the paper and they took me on right away. Mrs Singer-Cohen wrote me a great reference.’ He looked down at his boots. ‘Were a shame she had to leave. I really liked her.’

  ‘Yes, so did I.’

  They stood in silence for a moment. From beyond the wooden wall they could hear the two brothers in quiet conversation.

  ‘So this place,’ Alfred said. ‘It’s herbal products?’

  ‘Yes. Medicinal products, they want to make, you know, from nature. But also beauty products. Stuff for ladies. Janice says it’s a craze, it’ll never last, but you never know, do you?’ He shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘And it’s a job.’

  They both turned as Hugo came back in, Alistair trailing behind.

  ‘Well,’ Hugo said firmly, ‘we’ve had a little chat, and would like to suggest something to you. As you can see, we’re just starting out,’ he spread out his arms for emphasis, ‘and we, well, we hadn’t planned on hiring more staff than absolutely necessary. Two gardeners might be stretching it.’ He glanced at Daffyd, who shot a nervous look at Alfred. ‘But don’t worry, Daffyd, we hired you first, so we’re keeping you on.’

  Daffyd gave out a small ‘oh’ sound. The red on his ears had spread across his face, but he looked extremely relieved.

  ‘So to get to the point,’ Hugo continued, ‘your kind of expertise sounds incredibly valuable, Mr Warner, so we’d like to suggest a week’s trial. If that works out, then – ’

  ‘That sounds perfect,’ Alfred said.

  ‘We can’t afford to pay much,’ Alistair piped up. He gave Alfred a bashful smile, and Alfred realised that what he had earlier taken to be unfriendliness was actually shyness.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Alfred said, and it was.

  ‘Well then,’ Hugo said, ‘let me give you the grand tour.’

  By the end of that first week, Alfred had been offered a permanent job. At March House, the herbs had been his territory and responsibility, so he spent a fair amount of time instructing Daffyd in the art of cutting and comminuting, and on how to distinguish an edible plant from its toxic doppelgänger. Daffyd displayed a nimbleness and intelligence Alfred had never noticed before, and he felt a shade of shame that he hadn’t encouraged the man’s skills when they both worked at March House.

  Hugo and Alistair eventually managed to recruit a chemist – Gillian, a recent chemistry graduate who, despite holding a first-class degree, was finding it difficult to find a job on the grounds of her gender. At forty-six, Alfred was the oldest by far, and was treated by the others with a respect and admiration he was unaccustomed to. Alistair though, who had a fair knowledge of traditional medicine himself, was always eager for Alfred’s advice. He bowed to Alfred’s authority and experience, and read the books Alfred recommended with insight and enthusiasm.

  In all, it was hard yet immensely gratifying work, and over the years, the company – in contrast to Janice’s early prediction – flourished and grew. By the time Alfred retired eighteen years later, the company employed thirty full-time staff.

  Over the days that followed Isobel’s return, Alfred waited for her to tell him of where she’d been, what she’d done during her absence, but she remained frustratingly silent. It took an incredible effort for Alfred not to lose his temper and tell her to leave again, if she weren’t prepared to talk to him. But he waited.

  That’s the spirit, Alfred! Time heals all wounds.

  Ksss, unless you keep picking at the scab, ha ha.

  It was two months before she finally broke her silence, and not quite in the manner he had expected.

  ‘I ran into Janice today,’ she said one e
vening, as an episode of Coronation Street was drawing to a close. (Alfred never watched the programme, and was surprised that Isobel was so au fait with the intricacies of the plot – and then it occurred to him that she hadn’t been living on another planet during her absence, but rather a mere fifty miles away.)

  ‘Daffyd’s wife?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye. Out for a walk with the bairns.’ She gave him a wistful smile. ‘Have you seen the twins? They’re just the sweetest things.’

  Janice and Daffyd now had four children – the most recent pregnancy had produced a couple of red-headed boys, much to Daffyd’s delight.

  ‘And so,’ Isobel continued, ‘I thought it’d be nice to have them round for dinner. What do you think?’

  ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ Alfred said. He got up and turned the sound down on the television. ‘In fact,’ he added, ‘if you’re up to it, why not invite Hugo and Alistair as well? I know they’re keen to meet you.’ He felt that now she had opened the door a chink, he needed to make the most of it.

  Isobel shrugged. ‘Sure. Why not? And, of course, Gillian. She sounds like a most interesting young woman. How about two weeks on Saturday?’

  ‘Beats me why Alfred kept you a secret,’ Hugo said, letting his spoon fall onto his plate. ‘That is the best Baked Alaska I’ve ever tasted.’

  There was a consenting murmur from the other dinner guests. Isobel smiled graciously. She sat very straight, these days, Alfred thought. It must be those exercises she did every day, the ones in which she seemed to tie herself – effortlessly – in knots.

  ‘Yes, it was lovely,’ Janice said, placing her hands on her stomach. ‘It’s a slimming week coming up for me, I think. But – ’ she pushed back her chair to stand up, ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to be off. Babysitters are horrendously expensive these days.’

  ‘Thanks for having us,’ Daffyd said, following suit and getting to his feet. ‘It was splendid.’

  Janice and Daffyd left behind the suspended air of anticipation of whether the other dinner guests – Hugo and his girlfriend Kate, Alistair and Gillian – should also take their leave, but Isobel waved them down. ‘It’s nae even ten o’clock,’ she said, beginning to clear up the dinner plates.

  Alfred got to his feet. ‘Let me do that,’ he said, and she smiled at him and sat down. From the kitchen, he heard the conversation resume. They talked briefly about Janice and Daffyd, the fact that the couple seemed intent on covering the entire county of Staffordshire with their red-haired Welsh offspring. Then, just as Alfred was carrying some coffee cups into the dining room, he heard Kate ask Isobel, ‘Do you and Alfred have children?’ He stopped at the doorway and looked over at Isobel. Several fine creases appeared in the corners of her eyes – only Alfred knew this to be a shadow of her earlier pain. ‘No,’ she said quietly, ‘no children.’

  ‘Right,’ Alfred said in an attempt to sound jovial. ‘Let’s move into the living room.’

  Here, Hugo and Kate searched through the record collection and finally settled on the Beatles’ Revolver. There wasn’t enough room for everyone on the sofa and armchair, so Isobel hastily threw some scatter cushions on the floor. Alfred took a seat on one of the cushions, resting his back against the sofa.

  ‘So,’ Hugo said, picking up where he’d left off earlier, ‘where have you been hiding her, Alfred?’

  ‘He hasn’t been hiding me anywhere, Hugo,’ Isobel said. ‘I went to live in Birmingham for a while. I needed some time away.’

  Alistair and Hugo exchanged a look, and Kate seemed to cringe slightly, but Isobel continued. Perhaps she needed the safety of an audience to tell her story, Alfred thought. ‘I went to live with a group of women. A lot of them were there because of violence, abusive husbands, you know? Cigarette burns, bloodied lips, traumatised children, that sort of thing. It was pretty awful.’ She breathed in and out, deeply. ‘I suppose I needed to . . . to see that.’

  ‘What for?’ Gillian asked, the only one apparently not embarrassed by Isobel’s unselfconscious disclosure.

  ‘To realise how privileged I am,’ she said, and squeezed Alfred’s arm. ‘To realise how very special my husband is.’ It was the first time she had touched him like that since coming home.

  Gillian leaned forward. ‘There’s a place in Stoke,’ she said. ‘A women’s refuge. They’re looking for volunteers, if you’re interested.’

  ‘Oh, leave it, Gill,’ Hugo said, in a bored voice. ‘For once, let’s not talk about women’s lib, or Bloody Sunday, or Nixon. Let’s just chill.’

  Gillian scowled at him, but Isobel said, ‘No, that sounds very interesting. Thanks, Gillian.’

  Alfred suddenly remembered the coffee he’d started making earlier, and was about to suggest a cup for everyone, if only to ease the tension, when Hugo jumped up and fetched his jacket.

  ‘I think we all need to chill,’ he said, producing a couple of joints from his jacket pocket. ‘You don’t mind?’ he asked in the direction of Isobel and Alfred. (Alfred knew that they grew marijuana plants in the company greenhouse – which was fine by him, as long as they didn’t expect him to tend to them.)

  ‘Go right ahead,’ Isobel said, in a tone that surprised Alfred. When John was still living at home, she had been vociferously anti-drugs.

  Alistair lit the joint and inhaled. Then he passed it to Isobel. Without hesitating, she put her lips to the end and took a long draw. Then she nodded and handed it to Gillian.

  When the joint had almost come full circle, and Hugo offered it to Alfred, he shook his head with a smile. ‘I’m all right, thank you.’

  ‘Come on, old man,’ Hugo said. ‘It won’t kill you. And it’s herbal.’ He let out a laugh that sounded like a bark.

  The room was already filled with sweet, earthy-smelling smoke. Alfred looked over at Isobel, who had her eyes closed, her head resting against the side of the armchair. She appeared totally at peace.

  ‘Why not?’ Alfred said, before he could change his mind. He wasn’t an old man, no matter how much his bones ached sometimes. He was not yet forty-eight. He drew quickly on the joint and blew the smoke out in a thin stream. It tasted better than a cigarette, at least. But Hugo gestured for him to hand him the joint back.

  ‘You have to keep it in for a bit,’ he said, and demonstrated by inhaling deeply, holding his breath, and then letting the smoke out through his o-shaped mouth. ‘See, like that,’ he said, in a thin, nasal voice.

  Alfred took the joint again and sucked on it deeply. Then he held his breath.

  Oh, goodness, do we think this is a good idea?

  I think not…

  Kssss, come on! Let’s have some fuuuuuuunnnn!

  It burned and scraped his throat, but he managed to suppress a cough. A moment later, his heart began pounding, but it wasn’t unpleasant – quite the contrary, it was . . .

  Your turn again, Alfred.

  Already? He took the joint from Hugo’s hand and inhaled. He had never thought about what it might be like to get high. Nothing special, really, his mind was perfectly clear. Just that . . .

  Melting sensation, right?

  ‘Yes, exactly,’ he answered in his head.

  Then, after his third puff, he heard Kate shushing everyone as the staccato strings of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ filled the room. ‘Shhh, I love this song,’ she was saying. ‘It’s so . . . ’

  This is goooood! Ksss – you should do this more often, Alfred

  ‘It’s weird,’ he replied. ‘It’s making me . . . ’

  Can’t think of the word? Doesn’t matter

  ‘This is a very sad song,’ he said to the voice.

  I know. That’s the shift from C-major to E-minor

  ‘But the lyrics too. So sad. A very sad song indeed.’

  And then – he woke to a gentle, persistent tapping on his shoulder. ‘Alfie. Alfie.’ It was Isobel. ‘They’ve all gone home. You fell asleep.’

  He tried to sit up, but his limbs felt too heavy. ‘I’m sorry, I – ’

 
She laughed gently and lay down beside him, nestling her body into his. ‘You were talking to your voices,’ she whispered. ‘But don’t worry – everyone was too stoned to notice.’ She paused. ‘It was funny though. A running commentary on “Eleanor Rigby”.’ She started to giggle, and before he knew it, he was giggling alongside her, until the two of them were laughing so hard it was difficult to breathe. Then they kissed – softly, chastely – and a moment later, Isobel had fallen asleep next to him on the floor.

  Two months later, Isobel got a job as a volunteer at the women’s refuge in Stoke; a year after that, she was offered a full-time job. Gone was her girlishness, but with it, also her mood swings, her snappishness, and although Alfred sometimes missed the Isobel he had first kissed in Mauchline, the girl with the bright laugh and uneven temperament, he knew he would marry her again if he had his time back – and that, surely, was the measure of a happy marriage.

  Then, almost fifteen years after Alfred and Isobel had received the last postcard from John, he returned unannounced.

  Nineteen Eighty-Six

  You don’t get the first one right. You try again – circle for the head, then the legs. No, there’s something goes between the head and the legs, you remember. The belly! You draw another bigger circle under the head, then the arms attached to that and the legs.

  Hey, Brynja, what’ya doing?

  Papa crouches down on the floor beside you.

  I’m drawing, you say.

  Cool. Want some juice? It sure is hot today.

  Mmm, yes please.

  Papa goes to the kitchen.

  The fingers – one, two, three, four, five – you count out loud. Soon, you have lots of people.

  Here’s your juice. He sets the glass down on the floor beside you and goes to sit on the couch. The curtains are drawn but it’s a sunny day and the light in the den is buttercup yellow. You sip your juice. It’s sweet and cold.