My Policeman Page 2

  It was not quite hot enough for bathing outside – a freshening wind was coming from the sea – but the sun was bright. Sylvie and I lay flat on our towels. I kept my skirt on over my costume, whilst Sylvie arranged her things in a neat row next to me: comb, compact, cardigan. She sat up and squinted, taking in the crowds on the sun-drenched terrace. Sylvie’s mouth always seemed to be pulled in an upside-down smile, and her front teeth followed the downward line of her top lip, as if they’d been chiselled especially into shape. I closed my eyes. Pinkish shapes moved around on the insides of my eyelids as Sylvie sighed and cleared her throat. I knew she wanted to talk to me, to point out who else was at the pool, who was doing what with whom and which boys she knew, but all I wanted was some warmth on my face and to get that far-away feeling that comes when you lie in the afternoon sun.

  Eventually I was almost there. The blood seemed to have thickened behind my eyes and all my limbs had gone to rubber. The slap of feet and the crack of boys hitting the water from the diving board did nothing to rouse me, and although I could feel the sun burning my shoulders I remained flat on the concrete, breathing in the chalky smell of the wet floor and the occasional waft of cold chlorine from a passer-by.

  Then something cool and wet fell on my cheek and I opened my eyes. At first all I could see was the white glare of the sky. I blinked, and a shape revealed itself, outlined in vivid pink. I blinked again and heard Sylvie’s voice, petulant but pleased – ‘What are you doing here?’ – and I knew who it was.

  Sitting up, I tried to gather myself together, shading my eyes and hastily wiping sweat from my top lip.

  There he was, with the sun behind him, smirking at Sylvie.

  ‘You’re dripping on us!’ she said, brushing at imaginary droplets on her shoulders.

  Of course, I’d seen and admired Tom at Sylvie’s house many times, but this was the first time I’d seen quite so much of his body. I tried to look away, Patrick. I tried not to stare at the bead of water crawling its way from his throat to his navel, at the wet strands of hair at the nape of his neck. But you know how hard it is to look away when you see something you want. So I focused on his shins: on the glistening blond hairs that covered his skin; I adjusted the straps of my one-piece, and Sylvie asked again, with an overly dramatic sigh: ‘What do you want, Tom?’

  He looked at the two of us – both bone-dry and sun-blotched. ‘Haven’t you been in?’

  ‘Marion doesn’t swim,’ announced Sylvie.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, looking at me.

  I could have lied, I suppose. But even then I had a terrible dread of being found out. In the end, people always found you out. And when they did, it would be worse than if you’d simply told the truth in the first place.

  My mouth had dried, but I managed to say, ‘Never learned.’

  ‘Tom’s in the sea-swimming club,’ said Sylvie, with what sounded almost like pride.

  I’d never had the urge to get wet. The sea was always there, a constant noise and movement on the edge of town. But that didn’t mean I had to join it, did it? Until that moment, not being able to swim hadn’t seemed the least bit important. But now I knew that I would have to do it.

  ‘I’d love to learn,’ I said, trying to smile.

  ‘Tom’ll teach you, won’t you, Tom?’ said Sylvie, looking him in the eye, challenging him to refuse.

  Tom gave a shiver, then snatched Sylvie’s towel and wrapped it about his waist.

  ‘I could,’ he said. Rubbing roughly at his hair, trying to dry it with one hand, he turned to Sylvie. ‘Lend us a bob.’

  ‘Where’s Roy?’ asked Sylvie.

  This was the first I’d heard of Roy, but Sylvie was obviously interested, judging by the way she dropped the question of swimming lessons and instead craned her neck to see past her brother.

  ‘Diving,’ said Tom. ‘Lend us a bob.’

  ‘What are you doing after?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  Sylvie opened her compact and studied herself for a moment before saying, in a low voice, ‘I bet you’re going to the Spotted Dog.’

  At this, Tom stepped forward and made a playful swipe for his sister, but she ducked to avoid his hand. His towel fell to the floor and again I averted my eyes.

  I wondered what was so bad about going to the Spotted Dog, but, not wanting to appear ignorant, I kept my mouth shut.

  Sylvie let a small silence pass before she murmured, ‘You’re going there. I know it.’ Then she grabbed the corner of the towel, jumped up, and began to twist it into a rope. Tom lunged for her, but she was too quick. The end of the towel landed across his chest with a crack, leaving a red line. At the time, I fancied I saw the line pulsing, but I’m not sure of that now. Still, you can picture it: our beautiful boy beaten by his little sister, marked by her soft cotton towel.

  A flash of anger passed across his face, and I bristled; it was getting cooler now; a shadow was creeping over the sunbathers. Tom looked to the ground and swallowed. Sylvie hovered, unsure of her brother’s next move. With a sudden grab, he had the towel back; she was ducking and laughing as he flicked the thing madly about, occasionally slapping her with its end – at which she’d let out a high-pitched squeal – but mostly missing. He was gentle now, you see, I knew it even then; he was padding about and being deliberately clumsy, teasing his sister with the idea of his greater strength and accuracy, with the idea that he might strike her hard.

  ‘I’ve got a bob,’ I said, feeling for change in my cardigan pocket. It was all I had left, but I held it out to him.

  Tom stopped flicking the towel. He was breathing hard. Sylvie rubbed at her neck where the towel had hit. ‘Bully,’ she muttered.

  He held out his palm, and I placed my coin in it, letting my fingertips brush his warm skin.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, and he smiled. Then he looked at Sylvie. ‘You all right?’

  Sylvie shrugged.

  When he’d turned his back, she stuck out her tongue.

  On the way home, I smelled my hand, breathing in the metallic scent. The tang of my money would be on Tom’s fingers now, too.

  Just before Tom left for his National Service, he gave me a glimmer of hope that I clung to until his return, and, if I’m honest, even beyond that.

  It was December and I’d gone to Sylvie’s for tea. You’ll understand that Sylvie rarely came to my house, because she had her own bedroom, a portable record-player and bottles of Vimto, whereas I shared a room with Harry and the only thing to drink was tea. But at Sylvie’s we had sliced ham, soft white bread, tomatoes and salad cream, followed by tinned mandarins and evaporated milk. Sylvie’s father owned a shop on the front that sold saucy postcards, rock dummies, out-of-date packets of jellied fruits, and dolls made from shells with dried seaweed for collars. It was called Happy News because it also sold newspapers, magazines and copies of the racier titles wrapped in cellophane. Sylvie told me that her father sold five copies of the Kama Sutra every week, and that figure trebled over the summer. At the time, I’d only a dim idea that the Kama Sutra was, for reasons unknown to me, a forbidden book; but I’d pretended to be impressed, opening my eyes wide and mouthing ‘Really?’ as Sylvie nodded, triumphant.

  We ate in the front room, and Sylvie’s mother’s budgerigar provided a constant background tweep. There were plastic chairs with steel legs and a wipe-clean dining table with no cloth. Sylvie’s mother was wearing an orangey shade of lipstick, and from where I was sitting I could smell the lavender cleaning fluid on her hands. She was extremely overweight, which was strange, because all I ever saw her eat were salad leaves and cucumber slices, and all I ever saw her drink was black coffee. Despite this apparent self-denial, her features seemed lost somewhere in the swollen flesh of her face, and her bosom was enormous and always propped up on display, like an oversized, well-whipped meringue in a baker’s window. When I knew I shouldn’t spend any more time looking at Tom, who was sitting next to his mother, I would fix my eyes on Mrs Burgess’s cush
iony cleavage. I knew I shouldn’t really look there, either, but it was better than being caught with my eyes wandering all over her son. I was convinced I could feel the heat rising from him; his naked forearm rested on the table, and it seemed to me that his flesh was warming the entire room. And I could smell him (I wasn’t just imagining this, Patrick): he smelled – do you remember? – he smelled of hair oil, of course – Vitalis, it would have been then – and of pine-scented talc, which I later learned he dashed liberally beneath his arms every morning before pulling on his shirt. At that time, as you’ll recall, men like Tom’s father did not approve of talc. It’s different now, of course. When I go to the Co-op in Peacehaven and pass all the young boys, their hair so closely resembling Tom’s as it once was – slicked with oil and teased into impossible shapes – I’m overwhelmed by the fabricated scent of their perfume. They smell like new furniture, those boys. But Tom didn’t smell like that. He smelled exciting, because, back then, men who covered their own sweat with talc were rather suspect, which was very interesting to me. And you got the best of both worlds, you see: the fresh odour of the talc, but if you were close enough, the warm, muddy smell of skin beneath.

  When we’d finished our sandwiches, Mrs Burgess brought through the tinned peaches on pink dishes. We ate in silence. Then Tom wiped the sweet juice from his lips and announced, ‘I went down the conscription office today. To volunteer. That way I get to choose what I do.’ He pushed his dish away and looked his father in the face. ‘I start next week.’

  After giving a brief nod, Mr Burgess stood up and held out his hand. Tom also stood, and clasped his father’s fingers. I wondered if they’d ever shaken hands before. It didn’t look like something they did often. There was a firm shake and then they both glanced around the room as if wondering what to do next.

  ‘He always has to outdo me,’ Sylvie hissed in my ear.

  ‘What’ll you be doing?’ asked Mr Burgess, still standing, blinking at his son.

  Tom cleared his throat. ‘Catering Corps.’

  The two men stared at one another and Sylvie let out a giggle.

  Mr Burgess suddenly sat down.

  ‘This is news, isn’t it? Shall we have a drink, Jack?’ Mrs Burgess’s voice was high, and I thought I heard a little crack in it as she pushed back her chair. ‘We need a drink, don’t we? For news like this.’ As she stood, she knocked the remains of her black coffee over the table. It spread across the white plastic and dripped on to the rug below.

  ‘Clumsy cow,’ muttered Mr Burgess.

  Sylvie let out another giggle.

  Tom, who seemed to have been standing in a trance, his arm still slightly outstretched where he’d shaken his father’s hand, moved towards his mother. ‘I’ll get a cloth,’ he said, touching her shoulder.

  After Tom had left the room, Mrs Burgess looked around the table, taking in each of our faces. ‘Whatever will we do now?’ she said. Her voice was so quiet that I wondered if anyone else had heard her speak. Certainly no one responded for a few moments. But then Mr Burgess sighed and said, ‘Catering Corps isn’t exactly the Somme, Beryl.’

  Mrs Burgess gave a sob and followed her son out of the room.

  Tom’s father said nothing. The budgie tweeped and tweeped as we waited for Tom’s return. I could hear him talking in a hushed voice in the kitchen, and I imagined his mother weeping in his arms, devastated, as I was, that he was leaving.

  Sylvie kicked my chair, but instead of looking at her, I fixed Mr Burgess with a stare and said, ‘Even soldiers have to eat, though, don’t they?’ I kept my voice steady and neutral. Later on, this was what I did when a child answered me back in class, or when Tom told me it was your turn, Patrick, at the weekend. ‘I’m sure Tom will make a good chef.’

  Mr Burgess gave a tight laugh before pushing back his chair and hollering towards the kitchen door: ‘For God’s sake, where’s that drink?’

  Tom came back in, holding two beer bottles. His father snatched one, held it up to Tom’s face and said, ‘Well done for upsetting your mother.’ Then he left the room, but instead of going into the kitchen and comforting Mrs Burgess, as I thought he might, I heard the front door slam.

  ‘Did you hear what Marion said?’ squawked Sylvie, snatching the other bottle from Tom and rolling it between her hands.

  ‘That’s mine,’ said Tom, grabbing it back from her.

  ‘Marion said you’ll make a good chef.’

  With a deft flick of his wrist, Tom released the air from the bottle and tossed the metal cap and the opener aside. He took a glass from the top of the sideboard and carefully poured himself half a pint of thick brown ale. ‘Well,’ he said, holding the drink before his face and inspecting it before taking a couple of gulps, ‘she’s right.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked directly at me. ‘I’m glad there’s someone with some sense in this house,’ he said, with a broad smile. ‘Wasn’t I going to teach you to swim?’

  That night, I wrote in my hard-backed black notebook: His smile is like a harvest moon. Mysterious. Full of promises. I was very pleased with those words, I remember. And every evening after that, I would fill my notebook with my longing for Tom. Dear Tom, I wrote. Or sometimes Dearest Tom, or even Darling Tom; but I didn’t allow myself that indulgence too often; mostly, the pleasure of seeing his name appear in characters wrought by my hand was enough. Back then I was easy to please. Because when you’re in love with someone for the first time, their name is enough. Just seeing my hand form Tom’s name was enough. Almost.

  I would describe the day’s events in ludicrous detail, complete with azure eyes and crimson skies. I don’t think I ever wrote about his body, although it was obviously this that impressed me the most; I expect I wrote about the nobility of his nose (which is actually rather flat and squashed-looking) and the deep bass of his voice. So you see, Patrick, I was typical. So typical.

  For almost three years, I wrote out all my longing for Tom, and I looked forward to the day when he would come home and teach me to swim.

  Does this infatuation seem faintly ludicrous to you, Patrick? Perhaps not. I suspect that you know about desire, about the way it grows when it’s denied, better than anyone. Every time Tom was home on leave I seemed to miss him, and I wonder now if I did this deliberately. Was waiting for his return, forgoing the sight of the real Tom, and instead writing about him in my notebook, a way of loving him more?

  During Tom’s absence I did have some thoughts about getting myself a career. I remember I had an interview with Miss Monkton, the Deputy Head, towards the end of my time at the grammar, when I was about to sit my exams, and she asked me what my plans for the future were. They were quite keen on girls having plans for the future, although I knew, even then, this was all a pipe-dream that only stood up inside the walls of the school. Outside, plans fell apart, especially for girls. Miss Monkton had rather wild hair, for those days: a mass of tight curls, specked with silver. I felt sure she smoked, because her skin was the colour of well-brewed tea and her lips, which frequently curled into an ironic smile, had that dry tightness about them. In Miss Monkton’s office, I announced that I would like to become a teacher. It was the only thing I could think of at the time; it sounded better than saying I’d like to become a secretary, but it didn’t seem completely absurd, unlike, say, becoming a novelist or an actress, both of which I’d privately imagined myself being.

  I don’t think I’ve admitted that to anyone before.

  Anyway, Miss Monkton twisted her pen so the cap clicked and said, ‘And what’s made you reach this conclusion?’

  I thought about it. I couldn’t very well say, I don’t know what else I could do. Or, It doesn’t look like I’ll be getting hitched, does it?

  ‘I like school, miss.’ As I spoke the words, I realised they were true. I liked the regular bells, the cleaned blackboards, the dusty desks full of secrets, the long corridors crammed with girls, the turpentine reek of the art class, the sound of the library catalogue spinning thr
ough my fingers. And I suddenly imagined myself at the front of a classroom, in a smart tweed skirt and a neat chignon, winning the respect and affection of my pupils with my firm but fair methods. I had no conception, then, of how bossy I would become, or how teaching would change my life. You often called me bossy, and you were right; teaching drills it into you. It’s you or them, you see. You have to make a stand. I learned that early on.

  Miss Monkton gave one of her curled smiles. ‘It’s rather different,’ she said, ‘from the other side of the desk.’ She paused, put her pen down and turned to the window so she was no longer facing me. ‘I don’t want to dampen your ambitions, Taylor. But teaching requires enormous dedication and considerable backbone. It’s not that you’re not a decent student. But I would have thought something office-based would be more your line. Something a little quieter, perhaps?’

  I stared at the trail of milk on top of her cooling cup of tea. Apart from that cup, her desk was completely empty.

  ‘What, for example,’ she continued, turning back towards me with a quick look at the clock above the door, ‘do your parents think of the idea? Are they prepared to support you through this venture?’

  I hadn’t mentioned any of this to Mum and Dad. They could hardly believe I’d got in to the grammar in the first place; at the news, my father had complained about the cost of the uniform, and my mother had sat on the sofa, put her head in her hands and cried. I’d been pleased at first, assuming she was moved to tears by her pride in my achievement, but when she wouldn’t stop I’d asked her what was wrong and she’d said, ‘It’ll all be different now. This will take you away from us.’ And then, most nights, they complained that I spent too long studying in my bedroom, rather than talking to them.