My Policeman (24 page)

WE’RE TIRED TODAY
. I was up most of the night writing, and now, at eleven thirty in the morning, I’ve only just sat down with a coffee after bathing and dressing you, giving you breakfast and moving your body so you can look out of the window, although I know you’ll be asleep again within the hour. It’s stopped raining but the wind is up and I’ve turned the heating on, giving the house a dry, dusty smell that I find quite comforting.

I wonder how much longer we have, if I’m honest, to get through this story. And I wonder how much time I have to persuade Tom to talk to you. Last night he didn’t sleep well either – I heard him get up at least three times. It won’t surprise you to know we’ve had separate rooms for many years now. During the day he goes out, and I don’t ask him where he spends his hours any more. I stopped asking at least twenty years ago, after I received the answer I’d known was coming. Tom was on his way to work, I remember, and was wearing his security guard’s uniform. It was very shiny, that uniform – all silver buttons and epaulettes and a big belt buckle at the waist. A poor imitation of a policeman’s uniform, but Tom looked striking in it, nevertheless. He was on night shifts at the time. On my enquiry about how he spent the day whilst I was at work, he looked me in the face and said, ‘I meet strangers. Sometimes we have a drink. Sometimes we have
sex
. That’s what I do, Marion. Please don’t ask me about it again.’

On hearing that, there was a part of me that was relieved, because I knew I hadn’t totally destroyed my husband.

Perhaps he still meets strangers. I don’t know. I know that on most days he takes Walter for lengthy walks across the downs. I used to volunteer at the local primary on Tuesdays, helping the little ones with their reading, and Tom would stay indoors on that day. But since you came, I’ve told the school I’m no longer available, and so Tom goes wandering every day of the week. He is a busy man. He has always been good at being busy. He swims every morning, even now. No more than fifteen minutes, but still he drives down to Telscombe Cliffs and enters the icy water. I don’t need to tell you, Patrick, that for a man of sixty-three, he is remarkably fit. He never let himself go. He keeps a close eye on his weight, hardly ever takes a drink, swims, walks the dog, and watches documentaries in the evening. Anything involving real-life crime interests him, which always surprises me, considering what happened. And he talks to no one. Least of all to me.

You see, the truth is he didn’t want you to come here. It was my idea. In fact, I insisted. You’ll find it hard to believe, but in over forty years of marriage, I’ve never insisted on anything like I insisted on this.

Every morning I hope my husband won’t leave the house. But since the morning when I tried to have you sit at what Nurse Pamela calls the ‘family table’, Tom doesn’t even breakfast with us. I used to find his absence something of a relief, after everything we’d been through, but now I want him here by my side. And I want him by your side, too. I hope that he will join us in your room, if only for a little while. I hope that he will come and at least look at you – really look at
you
– and see what I can see: that despite everything, you still love him. I hope this will break his silence.

Instead of four days in Weymouth, you offered us the use of your cottage on the Isle of Wight over half-term.

Although I had my misgivings, I was so desperate to escape from the separate-beds arrangement at Tom’s parents’ house, into which we’d moved while we were waiting for a police house, that I agreed. (There wasn’t the space, Tom said, for a double bed in his room, so I’d ended up in Sylvie’s old room.) Tom and I would have four nights to ourselves, and you’d join us for the final three, in order to ‘show us around the place’. It would mean a whole week away, and for most of that time I’d be alone with Tom. So I agreed.

The cottage was not at all what I’d imagined. When you’d said cottage, I’d presumed you were being modest, and that what you really meant was ‘small mansion’, or, at the very least, ‘well-appointed seaside villa’.

But no. Cottage was a more than accurate description. It was situated down a gloomy narrow lane in Bonchurch, not far from the sea, but not near enough to afford a view of the coast. The whole place was dank and close-feeling. There were two bedrooms, the double with a sloping ceiling and a sagging bed. At the front was an overgrown garden, and out the back, a privy. There was a tiny kitchen with no electricity, but the cottage did stretch to gas. Every window was small and rather grubby.

As we walked down that lane, the fruity stink of wild garlic was overwhelming. Even inside the cottage, with its mingled odours of damp rugs and gas, I could smell the stuff. I wondered how anyone could bring themselves to eat such a foul-smelling substance. To me it smacked of nothing so much
as
overripe sweat. I’m quite fond of garlic now, but back then, just walking along that lane with its banks of green tongues and white flowers, the heat and the smell rising, almost made me gag.

Still, it was a sunny week, and during our days alone, Tom and I indulged in all the usual holidaymaker activities. We walked along Blackgang Chine, saw a Punch and Judy show at Ventnor (Tom laughed very hard when the policeman appeared), visited the model village at Godshill. Tom bought me a coral necklace, the colour of peaches and cream. Each morning he cooked us bacon and eggs, and whilst I ate he would suggest a plan for the day, to which I always agreed. At night I was glad of the sagging bed – it rolled the two of us together, so we had to sleep very close. I spent many hours awake, enjoying the way my body would lock helplessly against his, my stomach filling the hollow of his back, my breasts squashed against his shoulders. Sometimes I blew softly on the back of his neck to wake him. We managed a repeat performance of our wedding night on the evening we arrived, and I remember there was less pain, but it was over very quickly. Still, I felt we could improve. I thought that if I could find a way to encourage Tom, to guide him without instructing him, then perhaps our bedroom activities would become more agreeable. It was early on in our marriage, after all, and hadn’t Tom told me, that night at your flat, that he’d had very little experience?

And then you arrived. I almost laughed when I saw you drive up in your green Fiat sports car, from which you jumped and collected your matching luggage. You wore a light brown suit with a red cravat tied loosely about your neck, and you looked like the perfect English gent on his spring break. As I watched from the bedroom window, I noticed your slight
frown
dissolve into a smile when Tom came down the path to meet you.

In the kitchen, I unloaded the boxes of supplies you’d brought – olive oil, bottles of red wine, a bunch of fresh asparagus, purchased, you said, from a charming roadside stall en route.

‘I’m so sorry about that bed,’ you announced, when we’d all had a cup of tea. ‘It’s an awful old thing, isn’t it? Like trying to sleep in a shifting sandpit.’

I reached for Tom’s hand. ‘We don’t mind at all,’ I said.

You stroked your moustache and glanced down at the table before announcing that you’d like to stretch your legs with a walk to the sea. Tom jumped up, saying he’d join you. The two of you, he informed me, would be back in time for lunch.

You must have seen my startled face, because you put a hand on Tom’s shoulder and said, looking at me, ‘In actual fact, I’ve brought a picnic with me. Let’s all go down and spend the day, shall we? Shame to waste this glorious weather, don’t you think, Marion?’

I was grateful to you for your graciousness.

Over the next few days, you showed us the coastal paths along the south of the island. As we walked, you made sure I was positioned between the two of you wherever the path allowed, guiding me to your side with a firm hand, never allowing me to lag behind. You seemed a bit obsessed with the stone that made up the landscape, telling us how each different type of rock, pebble and grain of sand was formed, pointing out the different sizes, shapes, colours. You referred to the landscape as
sculptural
, and talked of
nature’s palette
and the texture of her
materials
.

During one particularly long walk, when my shoes had started to pinch, I commented: ‘It’s all an artwork to you, isn’t it?’

You stopped and looked at me, your face serious. ‘Of course. It’s the great artwork. The one we’re all trying to imitate.’

Tom looked very impressed with this answer, and to my annoyance, I could think of absolutely no reply.

Every night you cooked dinner for us, spending hours in the kitchen preparing your dishes. I still remember what we had: beef bourguignon one night, chicken chasseur the next, and on the last night, salmon in a hollandaise sauce. The idea that you could successfully prepare and eat such sauces at home, rather than in some fancy restaurant, was novel to me. Tom would sit at the kitchen table and talk to you whilst you cooked, but I generally kept out of the way, taking the opportunity to disappear with a novel. I’ve always found too much socialising very tiring, and although I was still at a stage where I quite enjoyed your company, I needed to escape now and then.

After we’d finished our meals, which were always delicious, we’d sit and drink wine by candlelight. Even Tom acquired a taste for your reds. You’d talk about art and literature, of course, which Tom and I both lapped up, but you also encouraged me to talk about teaching, about my family, and about my views on ‘the position of women in society’, as you put it. On the second evening, after the chicken chasseur and too many glasses of Beaujolais, you asked me for an opinion on working mothers. What effect did I think they had on family life? Was adolescent delinquency the fault of the working mother? I knew there’d been a big debate about this in the papers recently. One woman – a schoolteacher in fact – had
been
blamed for her son’s death from pneumonia. It was said that if she’d been at home more she would have spotted the seriousness of the boy’s illness much earlier, and his life would have been spared.

Although I’d read about the case with some interest – mainly because it involved a schoolteacher – I didn’t feel quite ready to voice an opinion on the matter. All I had to go on, at the time, were my feelings. I didn’t seem to have the words, back then, to talk about such things. Even so, encouraged by the wine and your intent, interested face, I admitted that I wouldn’t want to give up work, even if I had children.

I saw a little smile form beneath your moustache.

Tom, who’d been busy playing with a puddle of candle wax during this conversation, looked up. ‘What was that?’

‘Marion was just saying she’d like to continue to work after you have children,’ you informed him, watching my face as you spoke.

Tom said nothing for a moment.

‘I haven’t made any real decisions,’ I said. ‘We’d have to talk about it.’

‘Why would you want to carry on working?’ asked Tom, with that deliberate mildness to his voice that I would later recognise as rather dangerous. At the time, though, I did not understand this warning.

‘I think Marion’s quite right.’ You filled Tom’s wine glass to the brim. ‘Why shouldn’t mothers go out to work? Especially if their children are in school. It would have done my own mother the power of good to have some profession, some
purpose
.’

‘But you had a nanny, didn’t you? And you were away at boarding school most of the time.’ Tom pushed his glass away. ‘It was completely different for you.’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’ You grinned at me.

‘No child of mine …’ Tom began, then trailed off. ‘Children need their mothers,’ he began again. ‘There’d be no need for you to go to work, Marion. I could provide for a family. That’s the father’s job.’

Back then, I was surprised by the strength of Tom’s feelings on the matter. Now, looking back, I can understand them more. Tom was always close to his own mother. When she died, over ten years ago now, he took to his bed for a fortnight. Until then, he’d seen her every week without fail, usually alone. During the early days of our marriage, if I entered my mother-in-law’s house I would remain largely silent, whilst Tom filled her in on his latest triumphs on the force. Sometimes, I knew, they were fabricated, but I never tackled him about it. She was immensely proud of him; the place was decorated with photographs of her son in uniform, and he returned the compliment by taking round catalogues of outsized clothes and suggesting which ones might suit her. Towards the end, he even chose and ordered the clothes for her.

‘No one’s debating your fitness to be a father, Tom,’ you said, your voice soft and consoling. ‘But what about what Marion wants?’

‘Isn’t all this a bit theoretical?’ I asked, trying to giggle. ‘We may not even be lucky enough to have children—’

‘Of course we will,’ Tom stated, reaching over and placing a warm hand on mine.

‘That’s not what we’re discussing,’ you said, quickly. ‘We’re discussing whether mothers should go out to work—’

‘Which they shouldn’t,’ said Tom.

You laughed. ‘You’re very categorical about that, Tom. I didn’t have you down as being so – well,
suburban
about it.’

Again you laughed, but Tom did not. ‘What do you know about it?’ he demanded, his voice low.

‘We’re just debating the issue, aren’t we? Chewing the proverbial fat.’

‘You don’t know anything about it, though, do you?’

I stood and began to clear the plates, sensing a growing tension that I didn’t quite understand. But Tom continued, his voice rising, ‘You know nothing about children, or about being a parent. And you know nothing about being married.’

Even though you managed to keep smiling, a shadow passed across your face as you muttered, ‘And long may that remain the case.’

I set about bringing through dessert, talking all the time about what a wonderful apple and rhubarb tart you’d made (your pastry was always better than mine – it melted on the tongue), giving the two of you time to gather yourselves. I knew Tom’s moods blew over fairly quickly, and if I could just keep twittering on about custard and spoons and fruit fillings, everything would be all right.