My Policeman (7 page)

‘No. It sounds good.’

He grinned. ‘I knew you’d think so. It’s a great place. All sorts of paintings in there. I think you’d like it.’

Was our first date going to be at the art gallery? It wasn’t a perfect location, but it was a start, I thought. So, smiling brilliantly, I took off my swimming cap and shook my hair in what I hoped was a seductive way. ‘I’d love to go.’

‘Last week I saw this picture, massive it was, just of the sea. It looked like I could jump into it. Really just jump into it and swim in the waves.’

‘Sounds wonderful.’

‘And there’s sculpture, too, and watercolours, although I didn’t like those as much, and drawings that look unfinished but I think they’re supposed to be like that … there’s all sorts.’

Now my teeth were chattering but I kept smiling, sure an invitation would follow.

Tom gave a laugh and slapped my shoulder. ‘Sorry, Marion. You’re cold. I should let you get dressed.’ He rubbed his fingers through his wet hair. ‘Same time next Saturday?’

It was like that every week, Patrick. We’d talk – we were good at talking, back then – and then he’d disappear into town, leaving me damp and cold, with only the trudge up Albion Hill and the weekend with my family to look forward to. Some Saturday nights or Sunday afternoons I met Sylvie at the pictures, but her time was mostly taken up by Roy, and so most of my weekends were spent sitting on my eiderdown, reading, or preparing next week’s lessons. I also spent a lot of time at the windowsill, looking out at our tiny yard, remembering how it felt to be held by Tom in the water, occasionally spying a shiver in one of the neighbours’ curtains, and wondering when it would all begin.

A couple of months later, Sylvie and Roy announced their wedding date. Sylvie asked me to be bridesmaid, and, despite Fred teasing me about how I should really be maid-of-honour, I looked forward to the event. It would mean a whole afternoon with Tom.

No one used the phrase
shotgun wedding
, and Sylvie hadn’t confided in me, but there was a general feeling that the speed of the preparations meant that Sylvie must be expecting, and I presumed this was why Roy had been coaxed up the aisle of All Saints’. Certainly Mr Burgess’s face, rust-red and clenched in a grin, suggested as much. And instead of the fancy three-tier cake and Pomagne affair that Sylvie and I had often discussed, the reception was held at the Burgess’s house, with sausage rolls and mild ale for all.

You would have laughed, Patrick, at the sight of me in my bridesmaid’s dress. Sylvie had borrowed it from a cousin who was smaller than me and the thing barely skimmed my knees; it was so tight around the middle that I had to wear a Playtex girdle before I could get the zip done up at the back. It was
pale
green, the colour you see on sugared almonds, and I don’t know what it was made of, but it gave a soft crunching noise as I followed Sylvie into the church. Sylvie looked fragile in her brocade frock and cropped veil; her hair was white-blonde and despite the rumours there was no sign of any thickening about the waist. She must have been freezing: it was early November and the cold had bitten down hard. We both carried small posies of brownish chrysanthemums.

As I walked up the aisle I saw Tom, who was sitting in the front pew, holding himself very straight, staring at the ceiling. Seeing him in his grey flannel suit, rather than his swimming trunks, made him look unfamiliar, and I smiled, knowing I had seen the flesh beneath that stiff collar and tie. I stared at him, telling myself:
It will be us
.
Next time, it will be us
. And I could suddenly see it all: Tom waiting for me at the altar, looking back over his shoulder with a little smile as I entered the church, my red hair blazing in the light from the doorway.
What took you so long?
he’d tease, and I’d reply,
The best things are worth the wait
.

Tom looked at me. I snapped my gaze away and tried to concentrate instead on the back of Mr Burgess’s sweating neck.

At that wedding, everyone was drunk, but Roy was more drunk than most. Roy was not a subtle drunk. He leant on the sideboard in Sylvie’s living room, eating great chunks of wedding cake, staring at his new father-in-law. A few moments earlier, he’d shouted, ‘Lay off me, old man!’ at Mr Burgess’s unmoving back, and then he’d retired to the sideboard to stuff his face. Now the room was quiet, and no one moved as Mr Burgess collected his hat and coat, stood at the door and stated in a steady voice, ‘I’m not coming back in this house until you’ve hopped it and taken my trollop of a daughter with you.’

Sylvie fled upstairs, and all eyes turned to Roy, who was by now crushing cake crumbs in his little fists. Tom put on a Tommy Steele record and shouted, ‘Who’s for another?’ while I made my way to Sylvie’s room.

Sylvie’s sobs were loud and breathy, but when I pushed the door open I was surprised to find she was not sprawled on the bed, beating the mattress with her fists, but standing before her mirror, naked except for her underwear, with both hands curled around her stomach. Her pink knickers were slightly slack at the back but her bra stood up impressively. Sylvie had inherited her mother’s expressive bosom.

Catching my eye in the glass, she gave a loud sniff.

‘Are you all right?’ I began, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She looked away, her chin quivering with the effort of suppressing another sob.

‘Don’t take any notice of your dad. He’s overemotional. He’s losing a daughter today.’

Sylvie gave another sniff and her shoulders drooped. I stroked her arm while she cried. After a while she said, ‘It must be nice for you.’

‘What must be?’

‘Being a teacher. Knowing what to say.’

This surprised me. Sylvie and I had never really discussed my job; most of our conversations had been about Roy, or about films we’d seen, or records she’d bought. We’d been seeing less of each other since I’d started at the school, and perhaps this wasn’t just because I had less time and she was busy with Roy. It was like at home; I never felt quite comfortable talking about the school, about my
career
, as I was afraid to call it, because no one else knew the first thing about teaching. To my parents and brothers, teachers were the enemy. None of them had enjoyed school, and although they were
quietly
pleased, if a little puzzled, by my success at the grammar, my decision to become a teacher had been met with stunned silence. The last thing I wanted was to be what my parents despised: a toffee-nosed show-off. And so, as often as not, I said nothing about how I spent my days.

‘I don’t know what to say all the time, Sylvie.’

Sylvie shrugged. ‘It won’t be long before you can get a place of your own now, though, will it? You’re earning proper money.’

It was true; I’d started saving money and it had crossed my mind that I could rent a room somewhere, perhaps on one of the wide streets in the north of Brighton, nearer the downs, or even on the seafront at Hove, but I didn’t relish the thought of living alone. Women didn’t live alone then. Not if they could help it.

‘You and Roy will have a place of your own, too.’

‘I’d like to be
on
my own,’ sniffed Sylvie, ‘so I could do what I bloody well like.’

I doubted this, and said in a soft voice, ‘But you’re with Roy now. You’ll be a family. That’s much better than being alone.’

Sylvie turned away from me and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Got a hanky?’ she asked, and I passed her mine. She blew her nose loudly. Sitting next to her, I watched as she took off her wedding ring, then slid it back on again. It was a thick dark-gold band, and Roy had one to match, which surprised me. I hadn’t thought he was a man who would wear jewellery.

‘Marion,’ she said, ‘I’ve got to tell you something.’ Leaning close to me, she whispered, ‘I lied.’

‘Lied?’

‘I’m not expecting a baby. I lied to him. To everyone.’

I stared at her, uncomprehending.

‘We have done it and everything. But I’m not pregnant.’
She
put a hand over her mouth and let out a sudden shrill laugh. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’

I thought of Roy’s open mouth, full of cake, of his eagerness to push Sylvie along at the roller rink, of the way he couldn’t tell what was interesting to talk about and what was not. What an absolute fool he was.

I looked at Sylvie’s stomach. ‘You mean – there’s nothing …?’

‘Nothing in there. Well, just my insides.’

Then I too began to giggle. Sylvie bit down on her hand to stop herself from laughing too loudly, but soon we were both rolling on the bed, clutching one another, shuddering with barely suppressed mirth.

Sylvie wiped her face with my hanky and took a deep breath. ‘I didn’t mean to lie, but I couldn’t think of any other way,’ she said. ‘It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it?’

‘Not so terrible.’

She tucked her blonde hair behind her ears and giggled again, rather listlessly this time. Then she fixed me with her eyes. ‘Marion. How am I going to explain it to him?’

The intensity of Sylvie’s stare, the hysteria of our laughter just moments before and the stout I’d drunk must have made me reckless, Patrick, for I replied: ‘Say you lost it. He’s not to know, is he? Wait a bit, and then say it’s gone. That happens, all the time.’

Sylvie nodded. ‘Maybe. It’s an idea.’

‘He’ll never know,’ I said, clasping her hands in mine. ‘No one will know.’

‘Just us,’ she said.

Tom offered me a cigarette. ‘Is Sylvie all right?’ he asked.

It was late afternoon now, and getting dark. In the gloom at the back of the Burgesses’ garden, beneath a wedge of ivy,
I
leant on the coal bunker, and Tom sat on an upturned bucket.

‘She’s fine.’ I inhaled and waited for the dizzy feeling to knock me slightly out of time. I’d started smoking only recently. To enter the staff room you had to push your way through a curtain of smoke anyway, and I’d always liked the smell of my father’s Senior Service. Tom smoked Player’s Weights, which weren’t as strong, but when the first hit came my mind sharpened and I focused on his eyes. He smiled at me. ‘You’re a good friend to her.’

‘I haven’t seen her much lately. Not since the engagement.’ I blushed as I said the word, and was glad of the darkening sky, of the shade from the ivy. When Tom didn’t respond, I galloped on: ‘Not since we’ve been seeing one another.’

Seeing one another
was not what we were doing. Not at all. But Tom didn’t contradict me. Instead, he nodded and exhaled.

There was a noise of slamming doors from the house, and someone stuck their head out the back and shouted, ‘Bride and groom are leaving!’

‘We’d better see them off,’ I said.

As I straightened up, Tom put a hand on my hip.

He’d touched me before, of course, but this time there was no solid reason for him to do so. This wasn’t a swimming lesson. He didn’t need to touch me, so he must have wanted to, I reasoned. It was this touch, more than anything, that convinced me to act as I did over the following few months, Patrick. It went right through the sugared-almond green of my frock and into my hip. People say that love is like a lightning bolt, but this wasn’t like that; this was like warm water, spreading through me.

‘I’d like you to meet someone,’ he said. ‘I’d be interested to know what you think.’

This was not the utterance for which I’d hoped. I’d hoped for no utterance at all. I’d hoped, in fact, for a kiss.

Tom let his hand fall from my hip and he stood up.

‘Who is it?’ I asked.

‘A friend,’ he said. ‘I thought you might have things in common.’

My stomach turned to cold lead. Another girl.

‘We should see them off …’

‘He works at the art gallery.’

To cover the relief I felt on hearing that masculine pronoun, I took a long drag on my cigarette.

‘You don’t have to,’ said Tom. ‘It’s up to you.’

‘I’d love to,’ I said, exhaling a plume of smoke, my eyes watering.

We looked each other in the face. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine. Perfectly fine. Let’s go in.’

As I turned to walk back to the house, he put his hand on my hip again, bent towards me and let his lips brush my cheek. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Sweet Marion.’ And he strode indoors, leaving me standing in the gloom, my fingers touching the dampness he’d left on my skin.

THERE WAS PROGRESS
this morning, I’m sure of that. For the first time in weeks, you spoke a word I could understand.

I was washing your body, which I do every Saturday and Sunday morning, when Pamela doesn’t make her visit. She offered to send someone else at weekends, but I refused, telling her I’d cope. As always, I was using my softest flannel and my best soap, not the cheap white stuff from the Co-op but a clear, amber-coloured bar that smells of vanilla and leaves a creamy scum around the old washing-up bowl that I use for your bed bath. Wearing the scratched plastic apron I used to don for painting sessions at St Luke’s, I pulled back the sheets to your waist, removed your pyjama jacket (you must be one of the few men left in the world to wear a blue striped pyjama jacket, complete with collar, breast pocket and swirling piping on the cuffs) and apologised for what was coming next.