Ataxia Part 7: Sofas, Pews and The Inevitable Flood
Alfie stood before his childhood home, the holding amber of the streetlight did little to illuminate the street. It simply just fossilized Alfie against the darkness. He looked up at the house with not a light on and saw his parent’s bedroom window open, the curtain damply hanging from it. He reflected as to when the last time was he’d seen it closed.
He entered the dark interior of his family home, illuminated by the tv that flickered softly spraying a technicolour haze across the floorboards. His mother asleep on the sofa. Alfie stood, with his back to the doorway, for a moment he watched for a sign of life. A flicker to rest the anxiety, or some finality. He could see her chest shakily rising and falling, barely noticeable in the dim light. He shook her awake. Told her she’d fallen asleep watching the tv. She smiled blearily and informed him he’d been smoking but don’t worry she wouldn’t tell anyone. Alfie asked why.
“I wanted to see you grow up.” She said. He wasn’t sure what she meant.
Drip
He sat watching the small fishing trawler sink in the harbour. A storm had rolled in the night dooming the poor vessel to its grave. Alfie had become fond of the trawler, its almost industrial nature had been a respite from the obscene natural beauty of his cliff edge. He sat with his sketchbook on his lap. The blank page mocked him and his lack of familiarity with his surroundings. He’d brought his sketchbook to the cliff face most days hoping something would come out. Yet nothing. He looked away from the mocking page and back to the harbour as the coast guard paced back and forth down the pier. A few cars had pulled up, and the men from the nearby Fjords leant against them watching on. Alfie couldn’t tell from his vantage point whether their presence was one of solemnity or enjoyment. Maybe he was projecting.
The waves lapped around the boat like a lasso pushing the position of the stern as it slowly worked its way down into the water. Alfie then spotted a man in a red hat, he recognised him as the captain of the stricken vessel the captain too had an unsure presence much like the men of the fjords. They all seemed to be watching on. The captain turned and spotted Alfie watching from the cliff he gave Alfie a small wave and suddenly Alfie felt embarrassed at his own voyeurism. He looked down to his sketchbook hoping his hands would take the pencil and begin to draw but once more nothing came out. Embarrassed to spoil the page with his own input.
“What’re you drawing?” A solemn voice cut Alfie’s internal monologue short. Alfie turned to see Mike stood at the roadside.
“Just a boat sinking.” Alfie lied embarrassed by the nakedness of the page before him. He slammed the sketchbook shut.
“Your sister’s waiting” Mike gestured to the hatchback sat at the roadside Sol, in the passenger seat, staring ahead ceremonially. Her dark shoulder length hair braided to give it some formality to go with her dress. Alfie thought it was a nice dress, he looked at his own suit feeling slightly uncomfortable with its tailored nature. He blanched at the idea of the well-meaning sentiments that do little to cure the grief, the rigid formality of well wishes that mean nothing in whatever language they are said in, ‘ Kondolerer’ or ‘I’m sorry for your loss’, but then what else do people say at funerals.
Drip
Alfie splashed into his living room to find his dad, Mike, asleep on the wine stained sofa he looked worse than his mother did that night. Alfie saw the front room slowly flooding. He saw the bath, then the hole in the ceiling. He looked at it all numbly, picking Terry up, and waded to the damp red sofa.
“I turned the electric off” Mike said as Alfie made his way to the sofa.
“That’s good.” Alfie replied, sitting next to his father the dog making himself comfortable alongside them. The three sat like funeral goers on church pews. “Why not the water?” Alfie asked,
Mike shrugged absently. Alfie stood once more wading his way through the dirty water to the stop cock. Slowly the water receded into a light drip and a stillness came over the flooded house. Alfie stood across the room looking at his dad. Now seeing him clearly for the first time in his life.
Mike’s distant expression stayed unchanged as he asked, “How’s Ameerah?”
Alfie waded his way back over “She’s fine. She’s getting married.” For the first time as he said it there was no bitterness and no mope attached. Just a calm reality of how quickly something so that once had seemed so damning had become a fact of life. Alfie noticed a severe looking letter addressed to Mike drifted past him in the water, the blue detailing across the top had merged with the text reading ‘private and confidential’ becoming smeared and illegible. He picked it up as he sat down again. “What’s this?” he asked.
“Oh, A colonoscopy.” Mike replied cheerily.
“Are you dying now too?” Alfie asked wryly. Mike once again shrugged.
“You get to about fifty and they want to poke and prod you to make sure you aren’t going to keel over suddenly.” He explained.
“So, you’re doing it slowly then?” Alfie asked teasingly as to veil his anxiety.
Mike shrugged again. Alfie felt he deserved more than a shrug, he was trying to laugh it off, but Mike wasn’t having any of it. Mike looked like a man whose reason to live was implied by his heart still beating.
“I’ve told you about Doug right, my dog we had as a kid.” Mike started.
Alfie nodded unsure where this story was going. “Well. He died one Christmas when I was about thirteen, fourteen. He’d started weeing on everything. He Ruined your nana’s favourite coat. So, he wasn’t really himself anymore.” Mike said, with each word seeming easier than the last he heaved an emotional lead weight from his chest and out into the space ahead, onto the wall and its grotesque wallpaper. “Well, we took him to the vet you see. They said he had a tumor, and they could remove it, but he would likely never be the same dog. He was a good dog. I remember him looking at me on that last day. He had no idea.”
“So you killed him” Alfie said childishly he was shocked at his hurt at the story. He hadn’t had any connection to the dog prior to this point but now tears stung his eyes. Mike looked to Alfie for the first time since starting his story.
“No. Well. Yes. But it wasn’t worth keeping him alive. He had a happy life… We buried him in the garden out there. The ground was soft, so he rested easy. We planted that cherry tree on the mound. We never got any cherries from it. But the tree is still there.”
“He could have lived. Why did you choose? How could you choose?” Alfie spoke with a childish rage. He couldn’t understand why. He wasn’t angry about the dog, but his gut screamed that his dad was talking in subtext, and he was sick of fucking subtext. Mike looked at his son calmly.
“He couldn’t. Look Alf. I’m saying a time will come. Sorry to get a bit gothy, but at some point, you will have to make decisions like that. What happened with Ameerah is the end of something. Or the start and you don’t know but you can’t dwell on it. What you had was what it was. It is what it will always be, and you can love her forever but it’s not the end of your life. Much like for her, it’s the start of your lives. And the sad reality it might not include the two of you together. We all leave things behind. It’s ok to dwell in your sadness for a while. Just don’t let the flood come. Alf. Your mum, bless her, could still make these decisions even in the end.”
Alfie stared at his dad numbly the veil of subtext had been lifted. Alfie no longer understood what he felt, it wasn’t anger. Was this grief? Was this grief for someone who was still living?
“Are you scared dad?” Alfie asked,
“I’m not scared of it anymore. I just don’t want it to hurt.” Mike replied. He thought of the window and about how he could now finally close it in some way. “Hold my hand” he said.
“Why, I don’t need to?” Alfie replied.
“I know but I do” he replied. Alfie took his father’s hand in his. As they sat side by side on their new kind of church pew.
Written by George Trueman
I am a 20-year-old poet & writer from Bradford. Originally wanting to join politics, I pivoted to create art as it was the quickest way for me to express my thoughts and feelings about complex matters in a succinct and confident way.
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