The Uncommon Life of Alfred Warner in Six Days

by Juliet Conlin

  ‘You know, when you found me drunk in the shed,’ John continued. He shivered slightly. ‘Dad.’

  ‘I don’t want – ’ Alfred began, but John interrupted.

  ‘Dad.’ He stopped walking. His long arms hung at his sides. ‘I need you to know that I don’t blame you for anything. For what happened. For all the shit. It’s just . . . I don’t think I’m like regular people. I mean normal people. Like you and Mom.’

  Alfred turned to face him, and his heart broke at the sight of his dying son.

  When it came time for John to leave, he asked to call a taxi, but they insisted on driving him to the airport. John’s friend, Jackie, was waiting for him there. She embraced him, and then gave Isobel and Alfred a brief, surprising hug. Jackie had already checked in, so she waited with Isobel and Alfred as John went to the counter.

  ‘Are you guys okay with each other now?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Isobel said softly.

  Jackie nodded, moving her shoulders back and forth, as if in emphasis.

  ‘Jackie dear,’ Isobel said, in a thick voice. ‘You will call us, won’t you, when . . . ?’

  ‘Sure,’ she whispered.

  Jackie called eight months later.

  Day Five

  It was Alfred’s idea to visit the orphanage. The night was wet and cold, but I’d brought two thick blankets to wrap ourselves in. I’d also filled a thermos flask with glühwein before we left the flat.

  We sat on a little wall on the opposite side of Berliner Straße, just staring across at the building. It looked exactly as I’d imagined it from Alfred’s story: a neo-baroque white facade, red-painted window frames, Juliet balconies (sans geraniums at this time of year), the inscription on the gable – it was all there. I sat there, sipping my hot wine, while Alfred pointed out his dormitory window, the classrooms, the wall that ran around the property to the yard at the back.

  ‘The prayer room is on the other side, on the third floor. It’s a shame I can’t show you. It’s beautiful.’

  We had tried the front gate as soon as we had arrived, but it was, of course, locked. An information board hanging on the right of the gate told us that the building had been extensively renovated and reopened in 2001, and that it now housed a public library, a private school and a prayer room. I made a mental note to bring my pupils here on a day trip when the term started again in January.

  ‘And up there – ’ he now pointed to a window on the second floor, ‘that was the boys’ common room. You know, sometimes when the Jungvolk marched by, boys the same age as us, we would stand at the window and admire their smart black uniforms.’ He shook his head. ‘Can you imagine?’

  ‘Perhaps you just wanted to belong.’

  He shivered. ‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we did.’

  ‘Come on Alfred,’ I said, yawning. ‘It’s freezing. Maybe we should go home now.’

  He tucked the blanket more tightly around his legs. ‘Just a little while longer, Julia. Please.’

  We sat there for some time. I finished the rest of the glühwein, while Alfred began a hushed conversation with himself – or his voices. I yawned again, and was about to suggest heading home, when in the building behind us, someone opened a window and the sound of swing music drifted out. I’ve always liked the lilting, offbeat rhythm of swing, and before long, I found my feet tapping along to the music. I felt Alfred’s eyes on me, and turned to find him smiling at me.

  ‘How about it?’ he asked.

  ‘How about what?’

  ‘You know.’ He winked at me. ‘May I have this dance?’

  ‘Oh. I don’t think – ’

  ‘Come on, Julia. Do it for me. It may well be my last.’

  And before I knew it, he had slipped his arm around my waist, taken my right hand in his left, and guided me onto the pavement as though it were a dance floor. He held the rhythm in his body; I felt it in the squeeze of his hand on mine and the slight pressure he applied to my lower back. I began moving freely, stepping back, then forwards, amazed at how my feet seemed to be moving of their own accord, despite my tiredness. Alfred whirled me around to the music, with the energy and stamina of a much younger man, until I was crying with laughter. And then – just crying. Presently, he slowed down and took my hands in his.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  He pulled out a handkerchief and offered it to me. It turned out to be perfectly clean after all, smelling only very vaguely of violets.

  1990 - 2005

  Their final years together, between Alfred’s retirement and the onset of Isobel’s illness, slid by unremarkably. A stillness had entered their relationship, as though something, some thing, that had fluttered around between them for the past forty odd years had finally come to rest after a long, dusty journey, filling an otherwise empty space. Indeed, when Alfred had cause to look back, the time ran together in his mind; Christmases, birthdays, weekend trips to Cornwall and the Lake District, once or twice to Scotland – in their repetitions, these events became increasingly indistinct from each other. Few new memories were formed; instead, old memories were snatched up and held close like lifebuoys. Family photographs took on a grand importance, imbued with a sense of perfection of the moments captured – John in his first pair of swimming trunks, snapshots of Alfred decorating the Christmas tree, Isobel as a little girl on her father’s arm outside the vicarage.

  Indeed, the inability to form new memories was the first sign of Isobel’s gradual, cruel decline. Of course, they both began to suffer the eccentricities of age – mislaying their reading glasses, keys, library books – but soon, Isobel’s memory loss became more disturbing and frightened them both. Once on the way to the supermarket, she sat beside him in the car, nervously, tensely, and when he asked what the matter was, she said, ‘We’re on our way to the doctor’s, aren’t we?’, in a voice so full of fear that Alfred answered, ‘Yes’, and drove past Tesco and into town, where, by the time he’d parked the car, she had forgotten all about the doctor’s.

  When some roof tiles needed replacing, she paid the contractor twice, costing them five hundred pounds, which Alfred only managed to reclaim by threatening to involve the police. And although he knew that it wasn’t her fault, he couldn’t help but get angry and frustrated at times.

  ‘Don’t cook potatoes if you can’t remember to turn off the cooker,’ he shouted at her once, when she had left the potatoes to boil dry and started a small fire in the kitchen.

  Isobel stood in the corner miserably, as he doused the fire and wrenched open the windows to clear the black smoke. ‘We’re old, Alfie,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘Old people are entitled to forget things now and again.’ And he regretted having raised his voice.

  Shortly after this incident, he had the gas cooker replaced by an electric one, after coming home to the smell of gas. The young man who came to install the new cooker spent over an hour with Isobel, explaining how to use it, kindly and patiently. On his way out, he said to Alfred, ‘Give her a day or two, mate. There’s nowt much can go wrong, but change can be difficult to handle.’

  Alfred woke that night to find Isobel’s side of the bed empty. He discovered her standing in the kitchen in her nightdress, staring at the new cooker. Her small, frail figure was illuminated by a smear of moonlight, making her appear almost ghost-like.

  ‘Alfie,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘Someone’s been in the house. They’ve taken our cooker.’

  Alfred moved forward and put his hands on her shoulders, wanting to reassure her, but then he noticed a sudden awareness in her eyes, as though she had briefly surfaced from great depths of confusion. For a moment, she understood, and it terrified her. Although, thankfully, she remained physically capable of washing, dressing and eating (when prompted) until she died, the disease ate through her brain at a brutal, merciless rate. By the time she turned seventy-seven, she didn’t recognise herself in the mirror. She had no memory of ever having children. She didn’t know her own na
me, the day of the week, the year. But she knew Alfred to the end; even when she was no longer capable of coherent speech, he saw it deep down; beyond the milky surface of her eyes, he saw that she knew and loved him.

  In 2004, Isobel died of a stroke beside him in bed.

  For almost a year, Alfred lived alone. He cooked and cleaned for himself, unwilling to hire domestic help. He noticed, but ignored, the fact that the house was falling into increasing disrepair. When the layer of grease on the cooker refused to yield, even with the fiercest scouring and dousing in bleach, he reckoned that the heat from the hob would kill any dangerous bacteria, and left it. When he could no longer bend over to clean the bathtub without severe back pain, he reckoned that it would clean itself with the soap in the bathwater.

  But one evening, as he got into bed, he was hit by the stench of sweat and urine and something not quite definable, but certainly not pleasant, and he realised that he hadn’t changed his sheets since Isobel died, months earlier. He muttered some sarcastic thanks to his voice-women – why couldn’t they remind him to do these things? Or were they, like him, subject to senility? So he decided to set a date, changing his bedding on the first Sunday of every month, and adding a small spray of Isobel’s perfume to his pillowcase – he had chosen the brand for her, a subtle, violet-scented fragrance, as a tenth wedding anniversary gift and she had remained loyal to it for the rest of her life.

  He had never been a fussy eater, and was thus quite satisfied with the contents of the different tins of food he’d pick up in the supermarket – ravioli, beans, goulash. A check-up at the doctor’s several months ago had revealed high blood sugar levels, and Alfred was instructed to watch his intake of sweets and do thirty minutes’ worth of brisk walking a day. The walking was no problem, but he found it difficult to forgo his daily biscuits – something, he ultimately decided on balance, life was too short to do. On occasion, when he felt the need for company other than his voice-women, he went to the pub. Overall, he managed.

  Then one day, he slipped trying to get out of the bath. He simply lost his balance. He grabbed hold of the shower curtain with his right leg already out of the bath, knowing even as he did that it wouldn’t hold his weight, and watched as the plastic rings holding the curtain in place popped off the bar, one by one, as if in slow motion.

  Oh crikey! he heard, falling awkwardly, trying to retrieve his right leg back into the tub, and then felt the pain slice through his hip as he hit the edge of the bath. He must have passed out for a while, because presently, the water was tepid and he was shivering. There was a fierce, hot throbbing in his right hip, and when he tried to sit up, it was agony. He lay back gingerly, trying to find the position that was least painful.

  Christ! How are you going to get out of this one, Alfred?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, and began to cry.

  After a while, his tears subsided and he began shaking again, each spasm sending a jolt of pain from his hip across his pelvis and down his thigh.

  You have to remain calm, Alfred. Now, first things first. You need to let the water out of the bath, or you’ll die of hypothermia. Can you reach the plug with your foot?

  Holding his breath against the pain, Alfred managed to clasp the chain of the bath plug between the toes of his left foot.

  Yes, good, now give it a quick tug.

  Alfred tugged and cried out as the pain shot through his other leg, but the plug had slipped out and the water slowly drained out, leaving him lying wet and cold in the tub.

  ‘What now?’

  Towel. Can you grab the towel?

  Alfred reached his arm out and pulled a large thick towel from the rack on the wall. Then, moving as little as possible, he covered himself up.

  It’s late. I’m afraid you will probably be here all night, my dear. Won’t be terribly comfortable, but shouldn’t kill you, either.

  No. It’s going to be a balmy night.

  ‘How are you going to get me out?’ he said, almost in tears again.

  Kssss, what are we – your fairy godmothers?

  Shhh, Alfred. Don’t cry. You’ve no choice but to stay where you are. In the morning, we’ll see what we can do. Now sleep, if you can.

  Alfred closed his eyes. For what seemed like hours, he just lay there, his thoughts going around in circles, but eventually, shock and exhaustion overcame him and he fell into a shallow, pained sleep. He woke to the sound of birdsong. The light coming in through the open window was bright, bouncing off the white tiles and almost blinding him. And then

  Rise and shine! Let’s go go go!

  It took him a few seconds to remember where he was, and almost instantaneously, he felt a sharp pain in his hip.

  Okay. By my reckoning, the postman will be here between eight and eight-fifteen. It’s now seven fifty-two. So let’s stay on our toes!

  ‘But he won’t know I’m here,’ Alfred said, and started to panic.

  Calm down, Alfred. Let’s think about this.

  Alfred lay very quiet, trying to focus on the birdsong outside and away from his dread of dying of cold, or thirst, or pain – alone and naked in his bathtub. Then, he heard the most joyous sound of the garden gate squealing open, the crunch of footsteps on the gravel, and –

  Quickly, Alfred. No time to spare!

  ‘Help!’ he called, his voice strangled and pathetically low. ‘Help! Help me!’

  The muffled clunk of the letterbox, footsteps retreating back down the path.

  Right. Shouting’s not going to do it. Throw something out of the window. Quickly!

  Alfred looked around, desperate and in terror.

  The shower gel! Now, Alfred, now!

  He took the bottle of shower gel from the ledge of the bath and raised his arm to throw it.

  You have to sit up, get some traction. It’s going to hurt, very much, but it’s your only chance.

  He didn’t stop to think. If he had, for a moment, imagined the excruciating pain that was to follow, he might well have chosen to die here in the bath. But he sat up, heard the scrape of bone on bone inside his hip, felt a dizzying rush of agony, and with a strength he didn’t think he possessed any longer, tossed the bottle towards the open window. He watched it fly through the window, a perfect aim, and lay back again, hoping unconsciousness would take the pain from him. For a moment, there was silence; even the thrush had suspended its song. Alfred hardly dared to breathe.

  ‘Oi!’ It was the postman. ‘Oi! Watch it!’ A pause. Then: ‘Hey, Mr Warner, that you? Everything all right?’

  ‘Help,’ Alfred whispered. It was all he could manage.

  The postman’s voice, loud and clear: ‘If that’s a burglar, I’m calling the police. I’ve got my phone with me.’

  With his eyes closed and his stomach queasy, Alfred heard the postman speaking on his phone. ‘Yeah. 24 Barton Road, Checkley . . . Something’s going on . . . Yeah, quick as you can, please . . . Best send an ambulance too, just in case.’

  Fifteen minutes later, Alfred was on his way to Stoke-on-Trent City General Hospital, and through the fuzzy haze of morphine, he realised that at the age of seventy-eight, he was riding in a blue-light-flashing ambulance for the very first time.

  When he woke from the surgery, a youngish woman was sitting on a chair next to his bed.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, chirpily.

  Alfred frowned. ‘What’s the time?’ he asked. His voice was raspy.

  The woman smiled and rolled her eyes. ‘Not literally. I meant, because you’ve just woken up . . . oh, never mind.’ She looked a little annoyed, as though he had spoiled her favourite joke. Then she put a smile back on her face. ‘I’m Mandy,’ she announced, ‘the Geriatric Care Officer.’

  Alfred let his eyes slide shut. He was intensely thirsty. He swallowed with difficulty. ‘Can I – some water please?’

  ‘Oh, right. Sure.’ Mandy got up and filled a paper cup with water from a water-cooler in the corner of the room. ‘Here.’

  Alfred drank it in one d
raught, although it was icy-cold.

  ‘Right, Alfred,’ Mandy continued. Her voice was thin and high, and she smelled very strongly of hairspray. ‘As I said, I’m the Geriatric Care Officer, and I’m here to discuss a couple of things with you. I’m sorry to do this right now, but I have to pick up my daughter from nursery school at three, and my co-worker, Jill, is down with the flu. Do you think you can manage a little chat?’

  Alfred nodded weakly.

  ‘Now – ’ Mandy looked at a chart she was holding. ‘We had quite a fall there, didn’t we?’

  Alfred touched the back of his right hand, where the drip needle was held in place by a plaster. It was extremely itchy underneath. He wasn’t, as far as he could tell, in pain, but he felt fuzzy and tired.

  ‘Ooh, don’t pick at that,’ Mandy said, reaching over and pulling his arm back. He didn’t have the strength to fight her. ‘Now. You’ve been given a new hip, the old one was well past its sell-by-date. I suppose you can consider yourself lucky – some people have to wait months for a hip replacement. But then, I’m a glass-half-full kind of girl.’ She gave him an oddly laboured wink, like something she’d practised in the mirror.

  ‘When can I go home?’ Alfred asked.

  ‘Ah. Now that’s what I’m here to discuss with you. You see, you’ll need someone at home with you for the first week or so. Have you a daughter, perhaps, who can take some time off work? Or a nice neighbour? If all goes well, and you don’t develop any infection or other postoperative complications, you should be discharged within six or seven days. Then you’ll have a spell of physical therapy, and before long, you’ll be good as new.’

  Alfred blinked. Oddly, his eyes were watery while his throat felt parched, as though the fluids had taken a wrong turn somewhere inside his body. ‘No,’ he said. ‘There’s no one.’

  Mandy sighed. ‘Oh dear. That’s a shame. Well, Alfred, then we’re going to have to think about residential care.’ Alfred blinked again and felt a tear running down his face. Mandy held up a hand. ‘Now, there’s no need to cry. I know it can come as a shock to realise we are no longer able to look after ourselves. But there are some nice homes. Some very nice homes.’ Her tone held the implication that there were also some very horrible homes.