Allowing the words upon the small screen to sink in, Alfie froze. Following the briefest of intervals, he snapped out of his trance having arrived at the realisation that Roxy would soon be skulking outside dejectedly. Were she to succeed in finding him, she would waste no time in degrading herself, pathetically begging him for their relationship to go back to normal. He used the term normal particularly loosely; what had their relationship been anyway? What was going on lately? Alfie knew precisely what had been occurring of late; a gradual acceptance on his part of the fact that Michael had been accurate in his damning assessments of the relationship. He termed it a relationship only for it involving two people, who were in some capacity now associated with the other. Alfie had regarded his relationship with Kat in their early days as being nothing short of perfect, and there were no elements of his present relationship which seemed to correlate with any part of it. Michael, the man with no relationship successes to speak of. He supposed he could say the same for Kat, Alfie thought sadly. No. He couldn't allow himself to entertain that notion any further. That was merely the interest that others seemed to vest, naming no names but knowing exactly who came top of the list. He shoved the phone back into his pocket roughly, before starting toward his destination at pace.
Glancing back toward the Vic on his way, Alfie cursed himself for bothering to look for any signs of curtain twitching. So what if she saw him? He would have a perfectly legitimate excuse for his visit, and she would swallow it in a second, before embarking on her childlike pleas. They would be not dissimilar to those of a child who had been denied of access to their Play Station, and would go right through him. He would accept them without hesitation, if nothing else to spare himself from any further ordeal.
..
Alfie tapped lightly on the dark green door. He knew that Bianca would delight in devising all kinds of stories for Roxy's benefit were she to become aware of his being there. As he awaited its opening, his mind drifted back to the countless times that he had visited the same person at Number 23, merely doors away from where he now stood. And yet the respective situations seemed miles adrift.
Eventually, the door swung open and Alfie came face to face with his wife. She remained silent as he stared at her for perhaps a little too long, taking in her features once again. No words were necessary; she was elated to see him once more, never before having appreciated his presence so much as she had following her stupid mistake and their consequential break up. The term stupid mistake was something of an understatement, but what more could she do?
"Is Bianca in?" asked Alfie simply. To a bystander, it might have looked as if he and Bianca had some business which they needed to attend to, but the two knew exactly what had been meant by this question. They were the only two people who mattered.
"She got called in for an appointment at the school. Tiff put drawing pins on her teacher's chair," Kat informed her husband. "You can guess what happened next," she grinned, still amused by the tale. A hint of sadness crept in as she recalled the time that Shenice had spent with Alfie and herself; the schemes that she and Tiffany had played.
The story caused Alfie to chuckle; it seemed like something his wife would do, and he smiled as he was once again reminded of this side of her. Fellow residents of Albert Square had informed Alfie that Roxy had once been much the same in this respect, but Alfie struggled to recall the last occasion upon which he had observed any first hand evidence of this. He could only presume the assertion had been a comparison relative to… her… that woman.
Kat brought the two sides of her cardigan together, wrapping it around herself delicately and folding her arms across her chest; almost cuddling herself as she had done many a time in the months since their break up. She left Alfie to his thoughts for a moment, still standing on the edge of the doorstep with Alfie outside of the house.
"Wonder how long it is before we start getting calls like that about our Tommy, ey?" Alfie quipped, now having snapped out of his previous thoughts, not all of which had consisted of happy memories.
Kat giggled at this; there it was, that dirty laugh of hers that Alfie had missed so much. "I know," she muttered, having been thinking the same herself, but not wanting to scare Alfie away through voicing it herself. "You wanna come in?" she asked him. "Whitney's out with Tyler, Liam's gone to stay with Ricky for a few days and the rest are in bed."
With this, Alfie nodded and stepped inside once Kat had cleared the way. He was soon taking a seat on the beige couch, Kat making her way to the kitchen to prepare two coffees.
Returning a short time later, Kat passed a steaming hot mug to her husband. The two then sat in a tense silence until Alfie took a sip of his coffee and remarked, "You remembered."
Nervously, Kat replied with, "Of course I did." While not wanting to cause the atmosphere between them to become tenser still, she was mindful also of the possibility that she might agitate Alfie with her words. The last thing she wanted was to eradicate what small possibility she believed they had of ever making it up again. Properly.
Alfie gave another small smile at her words, while placing his mug down onto the coffee table which stood before them.
"Nothing wrong with Tommy is there?" asked Kat, the curiosity surrounding Alfie's appearance now becoming too much for her to take. As the words left her lips, Kat wasn't sure what worried her the most; the atmosphere between them or the mere thought that something could be wrong with her son. Half a year ago, less, it would have been the latter without a shadow of a doubt, but now the thought of reuniting with her husband increasingly dominated her thoughts. She'd wanted him back from the very second they'd broken up, of course she had, but having set out upon the long road to sorting her life out in recent months, she was now more determined than she ever had been to make this a reality.
Hearing this, Alfie quickly looked Kat in the eyes and assured her, "Of course not, he's great. Jean's with him." He hated the fact that his unannounced appearance had put such a thought in Kat's mind.
"I just wanted to see you. Check you were ok an' that. I heard that you and Whitney had quite a night last night."
"It was nothing," Kat insisted. When she thought about it, she wasn't sure why she had said that. One of her trademark mannerisms, she supposed. Bottle everything up, pretend everything is fine and deny that anything is happening. That was her.
"Come on, Kat," Alfie started gently. "I know you."
That was true. He was the only one who ever had. Most things, anyway. To this day, Kat still couldn't explain some of her actions, and there were no prizes for guessing which ones Kat had been referring to when this thought crossed her mind. She must have been on another planet, because she was even unable to recall the rationale that she had been deluding herself with at the time.
"I know what you've had to relive just to help her. Harry. Andy," he muttered sadly.
"It's fine. Yeah they hurt me but I've brought a lot more on myself."
Alfie knew immediately that Kat was referring to Derek when she said this. His heart went out to her as she said, "I just couldn't stand to watch her mess everything up like I did."
"I just wanted you to know that I'm proud of you, for doing that for Whitney."
"Won't your fiancée be wondering where you are?" Kat asked, regretting her words the very second that they left her mouth. Why had she said that? Did she want him to leave? She knew that the answer was a resounding no. She guessed that subconsciously, she hadn't wanted to discuss her past any further at the present moment. Despite this, Kat was unable to explain why she had no desire for such a discussion. Alfie helping her to fight her demons; it was one of the things that she had missed the most.
Alfie shook his head vigorously. "Nah," he said with little or no enthusiasm. "We're far from inseparable."
After an intermission, Kat could only manage, "Right," not knowing what to say, but feeling the need to punctuate the silence with something.
"It's nothing like us; we were pretty much joined at the hip, weren't we?" Alfie recalled, thinking back to their brief engagement.
"We were," Kat nodded as she remembered the time fondly. "I was gonna say that myself, but I didn't want you to think that…" she told him, before pausing, suddenly nervous once again. She couldn't exactly stop what she had been saying now. "… that I was playing games… you know… to try to get you back."
Kat had been expecting a quick come back to this, reiterating that it couldn't happen and that there was far too much water under the bridge for them now. It was almost as if that were a reflex for Alfie now. To Kat's surprise, Alfie did not do as predicted and instead launched into a tirade on the subject of his present relationship.
"Clean the bar Alfie. Hoover the lounge Alfie. Do the washing up Alfie."
Kat nodded, the miniature part of her she had allowed to remain optimistic throughout hoping that if she allowed him to continue uninterrupted, he would suddenly realise that he didn't want to be with Roxy at all.
"Go get the mixers Alfie. Call the brewery Alfie. Do the books Alfie."
She couldn't help but let a short laugh escape her at her husband's concluding remark. Well of course she wanted Alfie to do the books. It wasn't like Roxy was capable of doing them herself, was it? It wasn't her strong point by any stretch of the imagination, but even she would have realised that Michael had been conning Jean out of all their money.
Alfie didn't seem to have noticed Kat's minor indiscretion, for he continued on his escapade. "This morning she said she was going out for coffee, and she was gone for eight hours or more! That's not to say she didn't leave me with a list of orders, 'cause she did. 'Make the bed Alfie.'"
That final point proved too much for Kat, who suddenly exploded. She couldn't do it. She couldn't sit back and listen to the only man she'd ever loved talking about another woman, and about the bed that had been theirs; in the same sentence. Her sudden flare up knocked Alfie for six, even though he was more than aware of how feisty she could be. Alfie perceived it to be sudden, but how sudden could it truly be when he was talking to his wife about his new fiancée?
"If you want me back, I'll be there like a shot, but I can't be your flaming relationship councillor!" Kat screamed with all her might, pouring all of her pent up emotions into it.
Once the reality of what Kat had said, or rather screeched; hit him, Alfie's expression could only have been described as that of a rabbit caught in headlights. Why did he do this? Why was it time and time again a huge surprise for Alfie that Kat loved and wanted him? She understood that in taking the path that she had last year, she'd made him feel rejected, unwanted and without worth. But she'd made no secret of the fact that she deeply regretted her actions and longed to have him back.
"I can't Kat," he managed weakly, after what seemed like an eternity. There were scarcely two seconds between this and his making for the door.
"Alfie I know I broke your trust, badly. But if there's anything I can do to earn it back, please let me know," Kat called desperately after her departing husband. She could only hope that he had heard her pleas, because she wasn't sure when she would have enough courage to repeat them. As the front door slammed to a close, she fell to the floor and sobbed.
