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Bernie After Sorrell
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Bernie had the fiercest face. Always alive, he was compelling to watch. Bernie also had a thing about my wife. Sorrell bore my first child. She still carries that weight on her face, and mostly on her abdomen. She didn't look fat as such, but I'd tell her in all honesty that the birth of our son made her strong. Which is true - she sure looks capable to me. Just the way she smiles (the way happy faces can look ugly) and radiates a happiness that overrides physical attraction. Sorrell has the biggest smile, all her top teeth taking up the bottom half of her face. Like I said, Sorrell was not outstandingly attractive, or slim, but her grin made all my friends mutinous, and I'll try to refrain from becoming overly covetous. Just then a chill passed through me. Sorrell saw me shiver, but she didn't ask. I get these cold shivers so often it's like I'm being stalked by the after-life.
Sorrell gave me a fever. Bernie gave it a name. All three of us would go drinking, and between those two entities I turned into an experiment. A rubber band measure of friendship, and, latterly, tolerance. Sorrell wore me down with her 'one last drink before bed' and Bernie brought me round with black coffee laced with alcohol. I'm in love with, beside Sorrell as everyone is, this particular feeling. I get blown open by it - I physically grow in size and shrink inside. I walk and watching my feet hit the ground is like standing on a ledge peering over. I can watch my arms float out from their joints, and grab at objects with a single impulse. I feel perforated. No wonder, when Sorrell sees me shiver, that she ignores it. Bernie calls it morning fever. Frankly, I'd call it still being drunk in the morning, but its' become a ritual between us. See, Bernie and Sorrell don't get hangovers. Don't ask me how, they just don't. Bernie and Sorrell drink more than I do, and they both enjoy watching me keep up. Until late in the morning when Bernie looks like drinking for eternity, Sorrell rises and declares that she's going to bed. Steadily. Bernie doesn't even notice - he doesn't know where he's sleeping tonight. Sorrell, on her way out of the room, holds the door to and tells him - you can stay here if you want to - and then leaves. Bernie can sleep anywhere, he makes no attempt to acknowledge Sorrel's' offer. I'm drunk but episodes like that (when I don't believe in a telepathy between them) make me suspicious.
Like I say, Sorrell has an unwavering self-assurance, that serves to dissolve mine. She could manage without me. She could leave me for Bernie without taking the blame. Incidentally, once Sorrell leaves the room Bernie continues without breath. He seems to be able to treat everybody, myself and Sorrell, to the same version of himself. Especially Sorrell, for whom I thought he'd at least act nervous, humble or deliberately luke-warm (considering my involvement with her). But Bernie simply comes back to life, kneels up and pours two more measures of neat brandy into glass tumblers, invites me to face him and I am willed up from the sofa by a thread of his power, brought forward and lowered until my knees bend over beneath me and my hands rest on the table and my drink respectively. The next morning, besides the fever, Bernie and me wake up covered in dust. I look at him, thinking his hair had turned grey in patches, and as he wakes up the dust begins to fall off in showers. Sorrell woke me up half an hour ago. Now she's back, picking at the fluff on my shoulders, combing her hair and then brushing me over. Bernie makes us coffee, Sorrell drives me to work, and for the remainder of the working day she and Bernie, for all I know, stay at home together. When I come home, on this occasion, Bernie is still there, wearing the same clothes.
Sorrell works from home. Between the study, the living room, the garden in the summer and the bedroom where her box-files and folders are stacked, this house is her office. Bernie, characteristically has drawn another picture of Sorrell. I found this one on the kitchen table underneath that mornings' papers. Sorrell on the telephone. To complement my collection of Sorrell asleep under a blanket on the sofa (which seems to prove she doesn't stop drinking during the daytime, or at least that she's never refrained from trying) Sorrell in the garden, Sorrell by the window and Sorrell on the telephone. My least favourite, because of it's positioning. Bernie sat below her and sketched looking up her skirt, directly. His pencil-work is good. Bernie never displayed an inclination to draw when I knew him before Sorrell. Sometimes I think Bernie gets me drunk and sends me off to work in a haze to spend the day with my wife - who happily accepts his company, as I said, she's so self-assured that if I mentioned it upset me, Sorrell would surely recommend I learn to live with it.
I wonder if Bernie ever learnt to sketch as a valid means to look at my wife. If not, then the bottle does the same. Even for her. Guess what, said Bernie. Sorrell killed an animal. Really, I ask. Uh-huh. Sorrell is standing behind me. No one speaks until Bernie says - on her way home. After she dropped you off this morning. What kind of animal, I ask her. Sorrell waits, she comes around from behind me before she answers. I don't know,
she says, it was dead. As if, rightly, that it stopped being an animal once it stopped being. I don't know what to say. I can't help thinking that if she didn't drink so much, especially last night, she'd stand a better chance of not killing anything in her car of a morning. And again - guess what, Bernie found himself a girlfriend.
Really?
Uh-huh.
How did you manage that?
Oh, I don't know. Well, she was keen on me.
As if, what else could he do? Again, regardless of the way that Bernie looks at me, then my wife (as if another relationship would certainly finish us) I can't help thinking that if he didn't drink so much, perhaps he'd have more luck choosing a mate. If Bernie wasn't so forgetful, if the alcohol to his brain hadn't been so corrosive, maybe he'd remember which one of them was supposed to call the other - apropos the other night. Even if he doesn't look concerned, Bernie is worried about what happens next. I think he knows that Sorrell is never going to leave me for him, although we both know Sorrell could leave me at any time. Bernie is more worried about himself. I'd hate to see Bernie end up lonely but it looks more likely every day. With every mouthful Bernie turns more sour, and the chances of him charming any stranger get slimmer.
That night I pulled a strand of Sorrel's' hair that went on forever shining as it unravelled between my fingertips, stuck to my sleeve by static, or, as I thought, does she really love me. Is Sorrell stuck on me? Maybe. And just as I was scared our child would change things between us irrevocably, with or without Bernie, so was Sorrell. For the first time in ages she stepped out from behind him to tell me so. Out of her shadows Sorrell was the girl I always meant to marry, This fear was the only thing we'd agreed upon since. How relieved I was to hear her say as much. Until she said something along the lines of - I'm so glad we agree, I didn't want this baby to stop us enjoying ourselves. How impressed was I by Sorrel's determination to continue drinking? Figure it out. Now it wasn't only the sound of Sorrell and Bernie downstairs that kept me awake.
All I could see ahead of us was a giddy, unbalanced new-born baby. Until Sorrell came to be, had me hold her glass whilst she undressed, got in beside me and finished whatever they'd been mixing together, and then fell asleep instantly. Every morning she'd tell me exactly the same thing - personally, I blame the fruit juice. Presently, I was more worried about the effects of morning sickness on Sorrell's body (whether she would detect any sign of it) than whether the contents of our fridge had expired. And Bernie was still Bernie, he didn't seem to flirt any less with Sorrell because of the baby. That much I expected. At least I thought it would have become more pronounced; like Bernie and Sorrell would pretend to continue as normal, but in doing so, trying hard to recreate that carelessness, they'd only succeed in making a heightened sense of normality between each other.
Half their luck. Bernie after Sorell has no conscience where my feelings are concerned. And neither does Sorrell. What I expected of them and did not get, was exactly what I produced from myself. Poor Sorrell, the last thing she needed was a husband with his head up in the clouds for days after she told me I was so alert to everything, and dead silent. If there are any real feelings for me underneath or about Sorrell, then I wonder what damage it did to them, having me wandering around in a state of surreal calm and denial. Not only had I kidded myself there was nothing going on between them, I was even relaxed about the finite term of Sorrell's pregnancy. At least, whenever those two saw me.
So Sorrell and Bernie make themselves sick by drinking. Then blame it on the food and suchlike. I almost ended up so isolated I guess I would have loved to be so drunk as them.. Instead, I just filled up that void, and their evenings' void, and any other I could find with my own random guilt. I didn't smile, it became almost existential. I wanted to walk right downstairs and shake them rotten. What are you doing with your lives? What do you think five days out of seven drunk is going to achieve?
Honestly, I wanted to dare them not to drink for a month. I really wanted to help them, it hurts me to see them both acting so irresponsibly. But I didn't. I felt sick because of it. Bernie and Sorrell didn't really take much note. Why would they? I hadn't made a single noise to indicate my annoyance. Randomly, humanly, they'd ask me how I was. To which I'd just shut up, say ok or so-so, urging them secretly into miracle powers of the unspoken. Which of course, never did happen. I lost my two best friends to alcoholic liquids. It is existential after all. And at home, everywhere I look, those flimsy aluminium cans appear everywhere.
* * * * * * * * *
I couldn't get an image of my pregnant wife out of my head, and the reality of Sorrell downstairs and indoors with Bernie, drunk or asleep ( which always was just a breather for her ).Whether that was love or fear I'm not sure. It took a while, but I soon caught Bernie on his own, and confronted him - he was holding on to our banister at the time, Sorrell calling his name from the kitchen where they'd settled.
Bernie you don't belong here.
Which took a minute, but he was able to reply, it was early - there's a mirror at home says I do.
Yes, that's right, Bernie had his own home. I didn't want a convoluted argument with him, so I said, I can't tear you away from her, and went away. Although I don't strictly understand the logic of it ( Bernie and I could still be the best of friends - he made me laugh, it was simple - even in the middle of this combat, it was surreal but I was getting used to feeling uncertain again ) but whatever the outcome of our conversation in Sorrell's mind, Bernie was pleased with himself.
Whenever I walked home I could her the sound of those two like a brutal argument from the pavement down the road easily. Bernie wouldn't ever hurt Sorrell, unless she asked him to, but I was the one who had to walk through the door to the welcoming chorus of their shouts and bangs. Which was nothing short of embarrassing. It took a week, say Monday to Friday, for me to realise that unless I did something, I had another 6 to 8 months of this to endure.
I guess I failed Sorrell. I think I let her down, the next few weeks were a demonstration of my weaknesses. I came home from work and shared a drink with Sorrell whilst Bernie made himself invisible. We ate dinner together in a gentle silence not far from the oven and the sink. Both of us were tired, it was easy not to move too far. Then I lost track of Sorrell, until an hour or so later, when the sound of her and Bernie reminded me what was happening. Although I said nothing. See, Sorrell decides to go to bed and I count her footsteps on the stairs and then the landing until she's right outside the door.
I shut my eyes, and Sorrell turns the handle to enter. Behind the curtain, as soon as she comes in , the rooms spins. Sorrell attempting to undress herself in pitch blackness. I can tell when she lies down next to me it didn't quite work out . The wool of her sweater, the cotton of her shirt. The coarseness of her trouser leg that brushes mine. The banging of the door against the latch that she couldn't shut properly, against the power of a simple draft. Within ten minutes Sorrell is upright again. All I hear of her is the sound of her lips against glass, liquids that cascade down her throat. Direct to her stomach. a slow, forced and deep breathing that wears her out. In the morning Bernie makes my coffee.
Sorrell appears about that same 10 minutes later than she normally would, to see me off to work. In the evening Bernie comes to see me. Again with his unbolted, rubbery joints. He can sit or stand up with such fluidity that stuff is surely taking him over; eroded his bones and his insides thanks to the very movements of his body. Sometimes I can almost hear it sloshing about inside him. Bernie gives me a drink and just his presence pins back my eyelids, overrides my objections and keeps me awake ( was he practising on me? did Sorrell teach him this? ) until the sound of footsteps outside meant that Sorrell's body woke her up to get itself into the safety of our bed.
That morning, she looked rotten. I said to her, Sorrell you look terrible. And she said, whatever's good for us. Now I don't know which pair she referred to. Did she mean that her drinking was holding our relationship together. That sober, Sorrell would leave me? Or did she mean Bernie and Sorrell.
Did their relationship take precedence over ours, in her mind? Was there something so right about them that I had no right to interfere with? Or was she talking about herself and our baby. Did she have knowledge of its' needs that early on? To help me out, Sorrell braced herself between the open front door and the banister and said to me - can't tear us apart - as she kissed me goodbye.
Matter of fact.
I left for work.
Trust Sorrell, who says to me 'what are you so afraid of?'
In those intermediary months when she wasn't showing, it was difficult for me to argue with her. Sorrell had control. I loved that about her. I thought it would be the one quality of hers that I learnt. She was free to take of mine in return. I was lying to myself. It was this simple - I was scared that Sorrell didn't love me anymore. for the both of us, love was an uncontrollable on/off switch. I knew that when I switched to Sorrell, there was nothing I could do to prevent it, mentally.
It would have been so irrational had I wanted to. So what if Sorrell's switch had gone from on to off? I know there's nothing I could say or do to turn it back, from off to on or on to off. All in all, Sorrell would just throw me lifelines like - you look so cute when you frown. I'd convinced myself I was an unfit father, and my baby hadn't even taken form yet. Bernie hadn't even mentioned it once yet. Sometimes Sorrell could just say my name and I'd doubt myself all over again.
But, and this right here is with notable reluctance, I have to hand it to Bernie. Here I am talking about myself amongst all my friends when it's Bernie who keeps the title for himself, Bernie who outlasts me, Bernie who adds up better than I do.
I heard he kept hold of a girl longer than a few days, I hear Bernie upset my wife (but I don't know what their spat was about), I hear Bernie moved to the outskirts of town and all of this, I hear not for the first time, is down to a large slice of luck. But they're all rumours, so there's no point in me speculating.
However, it is all true. Bernie and Sorrell have made up somewhat. Sorrell says, 'we're cooling' but since she had her first child she's been less like ice and more water. At a guess, as Sorrell might say less like ice and more like ice-cream which, if she did, would be self-evident. I can't imagine the old Sorrell saying anything of the sort.
Sundays are the only time Bernie and she might meet much to the mutual relief of both mother and father. Bernie collects the child and pushes its' pram around the town early in the morning. Whether its' for his health, or the child's, I don't know. But, eventually, one way or another, after a tour of churches, office blocks and alleyways, baby and Bernie can be seen outside any number of cafe's as Bernie reads his Sunday paper.
There are occasions when Bernie doesn't even meet Sorrell, face to face, for weeks. Sorrell, now so tired out and still melting, hears Bernie arrive every week and acknowledges him with a throaty 'thank you' in response to his tap-three-times on the bedroom wall when he arrives to collect our child. And again, upon his return, tap-three-times so Sorrell knows baby's back safe, and worn out.
But, after all, (and this reluctance, plus Bernie's drinking habits, will be the death of me, certainly) this is mostly supposed to be about Bernie, minus Sorrell. So, like walking into a room with her hands over my eyes from behind me, I'll push you gingerly into a roomful of Bernie's stagnant adventures. For better or worse, and always undoubtedly for the poorer, Bernie performs acts of question, of indecision, of instinct or inexplicable reason, acts of fortune, acts beyond his control and finally, most resoundingly, acts of human kindness. For Bernie was random, not so much generous (as it implies a degree of condescension) but helpful. I'll take my hands away now, adjust yourself, prepare for pure and undiluted Bernie, subtracted from Sorrell.
Bernie rented a castle-keep of a house. It was, rightly for him, beautiful. With or without the use of his strained eyes. Unfortunately, its' grand face looked over a minor concrete cliff that became a motorway someone had lain across his front garden. Quite how Bernie had the fortune to even be offered the use of such a thing, is beyond me. But then that's just pure Bernie.
He lived in a gorgeous, real sorrowful looking gatehouse in a clearing in the woods on a slope that pointed, with clear foresight, to the motorway, right there. About ten feet from the window.
Which didn't stop Bernie from his usual practice of waking every morning in glorious, fortuitous sunlight, and stretching in front of his open bedroom window. Naked, as was his right, and for all the world to see as it passed him on the motorway within spitting distance of his front gate. If Bernie is one thing, then he is not arrogant as his naked posturing might seem, he is lucky. Bernie at the front window fresh from his bedding is only a beautiful sight when he is surrounded by golden sunshine, six or seven am., the grey stone of a miniature castle, the moss on the trees and hills behind from over which the light cascades. Oh, and the occasional bird of prey in perfect, hanging stillness over a field mouse in the woods either side of him.
Bernie can't (or won't) take care of himself, but there is something that will always take care of Bernie. He is lucky, like I said. Bernie after Sorrell is really just Bernie minus the Sorrell. He'll make it. Bernie is not one of my kind. Like it should be this way around :-Bernie after the Sorrell : the life of the third wheel, and nothing else.
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