Been having some thoughts about some comic panels where Alfred is musing on keeping the manor running, and things people have said to him over the years about it.
Alfred chose to stay, and he chose this path. And that’s interesting to me.
It confuses each of the children, when they come to stay at the Manor, for a long while that Alfred does all of the keeping of the house by himself, Bruce does none of it, and they get roped into chores.
Except Alfred will never hear of it.
If Alfred is an old man and Bruce’s friend, not a servant, as he claims, then grown-man Bruce should be doing his own chores.
The love language of these two men is acts of service. This is easily lost in the subterfuge of their life and barbless sniping.
Alfred’s fathomless love for the boy inside of the enormous man who inhabits the house comes with his hands smoothing all inside his domain. This is the only place Alfred will ever be able to make easy for Bruce, so that’s what he will do.
Bruce can and has kept the house before. He can cook and clean, do laundry, change bedding, etc. He’s done it before. He’s even tried to hire Alfred help, to assist him as he ages, or to pitch in himself.
Alfred simply won’t have it. The children are help enough as they learn responsibility and life skills for cleanliness and good housekeeping. Bruce keeps them all in house and home, with food to eat, clothes to wear, a city to live in more relative safety, and that is that.
More privately, Alfred has worried and wept over catastrophic blows and horrific injury at Bruce’s bedside more times that he should be able to count, and the base pleasure of seeing Bruce still live to inhabit the house is enough to keep said house running for him. That’s his boy, after all, and it is his pleasure to watch him live and breathe in a house-turned-tomb-turned-home-again that Alfred had despaired of seeing on more than one occasion. Bruce lives, and while Alfred lives he will keep the house running. That is his highest calling.
Alfred knows that washing dishes is surprisingly punishing on fingers that had been bent backwards and broken too many times. He knows that dusting high shelves and the many knick-knacks wearies overworked wrists. Sweeping and vacuuming are torture on a back that has been broken before. Beating rugs is awful on so many levels, even for Alfred himself, and the children have no trouble making games of it, so it all evens out. Alfred will manage all that he is able to do, and the children will help him with the rest.
Cooking is the one thing Alfred will always do for the joy of it. When Bruce eats in his own house, on that odd occasion their paths cross and Alfred can pin him down to it, searching for something to eat will never happen. Cases come and go with skipped meals for the sake of saving just one more life, but afterwards? All that muscle can’t go unfed, so Bruce allows for time to do just that. Alfred gets to cook rich and hearty things, Bruce gets to rest, and understanding goes both ways with appreciation and care arm in arm.
They understand each other at long last.
Bruce takes care of Gotham, Alfred takes care of the manor, and between them the Wayne legacy does not die in the bloody streets.
Bruce does not do chores. Alfred won’t let him. Bruce cleans up a whole city. In his house, as a rule, he will have rest.
The exception, made under Alfred’s narrowed eyes and helpless necessity, is when something goes terribly wrong in the mansion, and all hands come together to clean up. Bruce is to be found in the middle, doing the heavy, hard jobs, stolidly working to put his home back to rights. Alfred can’t very well refuse the help, because all hands are indeed needed, but it’s a very certain kind of sadness that rises whenever Bruce takes on Alfred’s duties.
Bruce doesn’t mind in the least, except that he realized a very long time ago Alfred preferred to have his household duties left to him in peace. Where certain chores were useful for the children, he would bend- but rarely for Bruce. It didn’t exactly stop him from pitching in when he had time, but it had to be done carefully and considerately.
It took a long time for this accord to come to the peace that it had morphed into, but every difficult step was worth it.
