My Policeman

by Bethan Roberts

  The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a boy’s cheek pressed against the glass panel in the door. But still my limbs would not move, so it was a relief when the door opened and the boot-mark boy asked again, with the hint of a smirk, ‘Can we come in now?’

  ‘You may,’ I said, turning to the blackboard so I wouldn’t have to watch them appear. All those tiny bodies looking to me for sense, and justice, and instruction! Can you imagine it, Patrick? In a museum, you never face your audience, do you? In a classroom, you face them every day.

  As they were filing in, whispering, giggling, scraping chairs, I took up the chalk and wrote, as I’d been taught at college, the day’s date in the left-hand corner of the board. And then, for some strange reason, it struck me that I could write Tom’s name instead of mine. I was so used to writing his name every night in my black book – sometimes a column of Toms would form, and become a wall of Toms, or a spire of Toms – that to do the same so boldly in this public place suddenly seemed entirely possible, and perhaps even sensible. That would shock the little bleeders. My hand hovered over the board and – I couldn’t help it, Patrick – a laugh escaped me. Silence fell on the class as I stifled my guffaw.

  A moment passed as I gathered myself, then the chalk touched the slate and began to form letters; there was that lovely, echoey sound – so delicate and yet so definite – as I wrote, in capitals:

  MISS TAYLOR.

  I stood back and looked at what my hand had written. The letters climbed towards the right-hand side of the board as if they, too, wanted to escape the room.

  MISS TAYLOR

  —my name from now on, then.

  I hadn’t meant to look directly at the rows of faces. I’d meant to fix my eyes on the Virgin above the door. But there they all were, impossible to avoid, twenty-six pairs of eyes turned towards me, each pair utterly different but equally intense. A couple stood out: the boy with the boot-mark hair was sitting on the end of the second row, grinning; in the centre of the front row was a girl with an enormous number of black curls and a face so pale and thin that it took me a second to look away from her; and in the back row was a girl with a dirty-looking bow in the side of her hair, whose arms were crossed tightly and whose mouth was bracketed by deep lines. When I caught her eye she did not – unlike the others – look away from me. I considered ordering her to uncross her arms straight away, but thought the better of it. There’d be plenty of time to tackle such girls, I thought. How wrong I was. Even now I wish I hadn’t let Alice Rumbold get away with it on that first day.

  SOMETHING STRANGE IS happening as I write. I keep telling myself that what I am writing is an account explaining my relationship with Tom, and everything else that goes with it. Of course, the everything else – which is actually the point of writing at all – is going to become much more difficult to write about very soon. But I find, unexpectedly, that I’m enjoying myself immensely. My days have the kind of purpose they haven’t had since I retired from the school. I’m including all sorts of things, too, which may not be of interest to you, Patrick. But I don’t care. I want to remember it all, for myself, as well as for you.

  And as I write, I wonder if I will ever have the courage to actually read this to you. That has always been my plan, but the closer I get to the everything else, the more unlikely this seems.

  You were particularly trying this morning, refusing to look at the television, even though I’d switched it from This Morning, which we both hate, to a rerun of As Time Goes By on BBC2. Don’t you like Dame Judi Dench? I thought everyone liked Dame Judi. I thought her combination of classical actressiness and cuddly accessibility (that ‘i’ in her name says so much, doesn’t it?) made her irresistible. And then there was that incident with the liquidised cornflakes, the tipping-over of the bowl, which made Tom exhale a hefty tut. I knew you weren’t quite up to sitting at the table for breakfast, even with your special cutlery and all the cushions I’d provided to stabilise you, as Nurse Pamela suggested. I must say I find it difficult to concentrate on what Pamela says, so intrigued am I by the long spikes protruding from her eyelids. I know it’s not particularly unusual for plump blondes in their late twenties to wear false eyelashes, but it’s a very strange combination – Pamela’s brisk white uniform, her matter-of-fact manner, and her partygoing eyes. She repeatedly informs me that she comes every morning and evening for an hour so I can have what she calls ‘time out’. I don’t take time out, though, Patrick: I use the time to write this. Anyway, it was Pamela who told me to get you out of bed as often as possible, suggesting that you could join the ‘family table’ for meals. But I could see your hand was utterly wild as you brought the spoon up to your face this morning, and I wanted to stop you, to reach out and steady your wrist, but you looked at me just before it reached your lips, and your eyes were so alight with something unreadable – at the time I thought it was anger, but now I wonder if it wasn’t a plea of some kind – that I was distracted. And so: wham! Over it went, milky slop dribbling into your lap and dripping on Tom’s shoes.

  Pamela says that hearing is the last of the senses to go in a stroke patient. Even though you have no speech, you have excellent hearing, she says. It must be like being a toddler again, able to comprehend others’ words but unable to make your mouth form the shapes necessary to communicate fully. I wonder how long you’ll be able to stand it. No one has said anything about this. The phrase ‘no one can say’ has become detestable to me. How long until he’s on his feet, Doctor? No one can say. How long until he’ll be able to speak again? No one can say. Will he have another stroke? No one can say. Will he ever recover fully? No one can say. The doctors and nurses all talk of the next steps – physiotherapy, speech therapy, counselling, even, for the depression we’ve been warned can set in – but no one is prepared to forecast the likelihood of any of it actually working.

  My own feeling is that your greatest hope of recovery lies in just being here, under this roof.

  Late September 1957. Early morning at the school gates, and the sky still more yellow than blue. Clouds were splitting above the bell tower, wood pigeons were purring their terrible song of longing. Oh-oooh-ooh-oh-oh. And there Tom was, standing by the wall, returned to me.

  By then I’d been teaching for a few weeks and had grown more accustomed to facing the school day, so my legs were a little sturdier, my breath more controlled. But the sight of Tom made my voice disappear completely.

  ‘Marion?’

  I’d imagined his sturdy face, his moon-white smile, the solidity of his naked forearm, so many times, and now here he was, on Queen’s Park Terrace, standing before me, looking smaller than I’d remembered, but more refined; after almost three years’ absence his face had thinned and he stood straighter.

  ‘I wondered if I’d bump into you. Sylvie told me you’d started teaching here.’

  Alice Rumbold pushed past us singing, ‘Good morning, Miss Taylor,’ and I tried to pull myself together.

  ‘Don’t run, Alice.’ I kept my gaze on her shoulders as I asked Tom, ‘What are you doing up here?’

  He gave me a flicker of a smile. ‘I was just … taking a walk around Queen’s Park, and thought I’d look at the old school.’

  Even at the time, I didn’t quite believe this statement. Had he actually come up here just to see me? Had he sought me out? The thought made me catch my breath. We were both silent for a moment, then I managed to say, ‘You’re a bobby now, aren’t you?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Police Constable Burgess at your service.’ He laughed, but I could tell he was proud. ‘’Course, I’m still on probation,’ he added.

  He looked me up and down then, quite brazenly, taking his time over it. My hands tightened around my basket of books while I waited to read the verdict on his face. But when his eyes met mine again, his expression remained the same: steady, slightly closed.

  ‘It’s been a long time. Things have changed,’ I said, hoping to draw a compliment, no matter how insincere. />
  ‘Have they?’ After a pause he added, ‘You certainly have.’ Then, briskly, before I could blush too hard: ‘Well. I’d better let you get on.’ I’m remembering now that he looked at his watch, but that may not be true.

  I had a choice, Patrick. I could say a quick goodbye and spend the rest of the day wishing we’d had more time together. Or. Or, I could take a risk. I could say something interesting to him. He’d returned, and was standing before me in the flesh, and I could take my chance. I was older now, I told myself; I was twenty years of age, a redhead whose hair was set in brushed curls. I was wearing lipstick (light pink, but lipstick nevertheless), and a blue frock with a trapeze skirt. It was a warm September day, a gift of a day when the light was soft and the sun still glowing as though it were summer. Ooh-oooh-ooh-oh-oh went the wood pigeons. I could well afford to take a risk.

  So I said: ‘When are you going to give me that swimming lesson?’

  He gave a big Tom laugh. It drowned out everything around us – the children’s shouts in the schoolyard, the pigeons’ calls. And he slapped me on the back, twice. On the first slap, I almost fell forwards on to him – the air around me became very warm and I smelled Vitalis – but on the second I steadied myself and laughed back.

  ‘I’d forgotten that,’ he said. ‘You still can’t swim?’

  ‘I’ve been waiting for you to teach me.’

  He gave a last, rather uncertain, laugh. ‘I bet you’re a good teacher.’

  ‘Yes. And I need to be able to swim. I have to supervise the children, in the pool.’

  This was an out-and-out lie, and I was careful to look Tom fully in the face as I uttered it.

  He slapped me on the back again, lightly this time. This was something he did often in the early days, and at the time I was thrilled by the warmth of his hand between my shoulder blades, but now I wonder if it wasn’t Tom’s way of keeping me at arm’s length.

  ‘You’re serious.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He put a hand to his hair – shorter now, less full, more controlled after the army, but still with that wave that threatened to break free at any moment – and looked down the road, as if searching for a response.

  ‘Do you mind starting in the sea? It’s not really advised for beginners, but it’s so warm at the moment, it would be a shame not to; the salt, it aids buoyancy …’

  ‘The sea it is. When?’

  He looked me up and down again, and this time I did not blush.

  ‘Eight on Saturday morning all right? I’ll meet you between the piers. Outside the milk bar.’

  I nodded.

  He gave another laugh. ‘Bring your costume,’ he said, starting off down the road.

  On Saturday morning I rose early. I’d like to tell you that I’d dreamed all night of being in the waves with Tom, but that wouldn’t be true. I don’t remember what I dreamed, but it was probably located in the school, and it would have involved me forgetting what I was supposed to be teaching, or being locked in the stationery cupboard, unable to get out and witness what kind of havoc the children were creating. All my dreams seemed to be along these lines at that time, no matter how much I longed to dream of Tom and myself in the sea, of the two of us going out and coming in, coming in and going out with the waves.

  So: I rose early, having dreamed of desks and chalk and cardboard milk bottle tops pierced with a straw, and from my window I saw that it was not a promising morning. It had been a mild September, but the month was drawing to a close now, and as I walked past Victoria Gardens the grass was soaked. I was very early, of course; probably it wasn’t yet seven, and this added to the delicious feeling I had of doing something secret. I’d left my parents sleeping, and had told no one where I was going. I was out of the house, away from my family, away from the school, and the whole day lay ahead.

  To pass the time (I still had at least forty minutes to kill before the enchanted hour of eight in the morning arrived) I strolled along the front. I walked from the Palace to the West Pier, and on that morning the Grand Hotel in all its wedding-cake whiteness, with its porter already standing to attention outside, complete with top hat and gloves, looked incredibly average to me. I didn’t experience the pang I usually felt on passing the Grand – the pang of longing for hushed rooms with potted palms and ankle-deep carpets, for discreet bells rung by ladies in pearls (for that was how I imagined the place, fuelled, I suppose, by films starring Sylvia Syms) – no; the Grand could stand there, ablaze with money and pleasure. It meant nothing to me. I was happy to be going to the milk bar between the piers. Hadn’t Tom looked me up and down, hadn’t he taken in the whole of me with his eyes? Wasn’t he about to appear, miraculously tall, taller than me, and looking a bit like Kirk Douglas? (Or was it Burt Lancaster? That set of the jaw, that steel in the eyes. I could never quite decide which of the two he most resembled.) I was very far, at this point, from what Sylvie had told me about Tom on the bench in Preston Park. I was a young woman wearing a tight pointed bra, carrying a yellow flowered bathing cap in her basket, ready to meet her recently returned sweetheart for a secret early-morning swim.

  So I thought as I stood by the milk bar’s creaking sign and looked out to sea. I set myself a little challenge: could I avoid looking towards the Palace Pier, the way I knew he would come? Fixing my eyes on the water, I imagined him rising from the sea like Neptune, half draped in bladderwrack, his neck studded with barnacles, a crab hanging from his hair; he’d remove the creature and fling it aside as he shrugged off the waves. He’d make his way noiselessly up the beach towards me, despite the pebbles, and would take me in his arms and carry me back to wherever it was he’d come from. I started to giggle at myself, and only the sight of Tom – the real, living, breathing, land-walking Tom – stopped me. He was wearing a black T-shirt and had a faded brown towel slung over his shoulders. On seeing me, he gave a brief wave and pointed back the way he’d come. ‘The club’s got a changing room,’ he called. ‘This way. Under the arches.’ And before I could reply, he walked off in the direction he was pointing.

  I remained standing by the milk bar, still imagining Neptune-Tom coming out of the sea, dripping salt and fish, spraying the shore with brine and sea creatures from some deep, dark world beneath.

  Without turning around, he shouted, ‘Haven’t got all day,’ and I followed him, hurrying behind and saying nothing until we reached a metal door in the arches.

  Then he turned and looked at me. ‘You did bring a hat, didn’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He unlocked the door and pushed it open. ‘Come down when you’re ready, then. I’m going in.’

  I went inside. The place was like a cave, damp and chalky-smelling, with paint peeling from the ceiling and rusty pipes running along one wall. The floor was still wet, the air clinging, and I shuddered. I hung my cardigan on a peg at the back of the room and unbuttoned my dress. I’d graduated from the red bathing costume I’d worn that day at the lido years ago, and had bought a bright green costume covered in swirly patterns from Peter Robinson’s. I’d been quite pleased with the effect when I’d tried it on in the shop: the cups of the bra were constructed from something that felt like rubber, and a short pleated skirt was attached to the waist. But here in the cavern of the changing room there was no mirror on the wall, just a list of swimming races with names and dates (I noticed that Tom had won the last one), so after pulling the flowered cap on my head and folding my dress on the bench, I went outside, wearing my towel around me.

  The sun was higher now and the sea had taken on a dull glitter. Squinting, I saw Tom’s head bobbing in the waves. I watched as he emerged from the sea. Standing in the shallows, he flicked his hair back and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, as if trying to get some warmth back into his flesh.

  Almost toppling, and having to grab my towel to keep it from falling to the ground, I managed to walk halfway down the beach in my sandals. The crunch and crack of the pebbles convinced me that this scene was real, that th
is was actually happening to me: I was approaching the sea, and I was approaching Tom, who was wearing only a pair of blue striped trunks.

  He came up to greet me, catching my elbow to steady me on the stones.

  ‘Nice cap,’ he said, with a half-smirk, and then, glancing down at my sandals, ‘Those will have to come off.’

  ‘I know that.’ I tried to keep my voice light and humorous, like his. In those days it was rare, wasn’t it, Patrick, for Tom’s voice to become what you might call serious; there was always a lot of up-and-down in it, a delicacy, almost a musicality (no doubt that’s how you heard it), as though you couldn’t quite believe anything he said. Over the years, his voice lost some of its musicality, partly, I think, in reaction to what happened to you; but even now, occasionally, it’s like there’s a laugh behind his words, just waiting to sneak out.

  ‘OK. We’ll go in together. Don’t think about it too much. Hold on to me. We’ll just get you used to the water. It’s not too cold today, quite warm in fact, it’s always warmest this time of year, and it’s very calm, so it’s all looking good. Nothing to worry about. It’s also very shallow here, so we’ll have to wade out a bit. Ready?’

  It was the most I’d ever heard him say, and I was a bit taken aback by his brisk professionalism. He used the same smooth tone I did when trying to coax my pupils to read the next sentence of a book without stumbling. I realised that Tom would make a good policeman. He had the knack of sounding as though he were in control.

  ‘Have you done this before?’ I asked. ‘Taught people to swim?’

  ‘In the army, and at Sandgate. Some of the boys had never been in the water. I helped them get their heads wet.’ He gave a short laugh.