My Policeman

by Bethan Roberts

At the time, my hair, which was as red as it ever was, still hung in a thick plait down my back. If I lost my temper at home – I remember once shutting my brother Fred’s head in the door with some force – my father would look at my mother and say, ‘It’s the red in her,’ because the ginger strain was on my mother’s side. I think you once called me the Red Peril, didn’t you, Patrick? By that time, I’d come to like the colour, but I always felt it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, having red hair: people expected me to have a temper, and so, if I felt anger flaring up, I let it go. Not often, of course. But occasionally I slammed doors, threw crockery. Once I rammed the Hoover so hard into the skirting board that it cracked.

But you know how hard it is to look away when you see something you want.

I suspect that you know about desire, about the way it grows when it’s denied, better than anyone.

What else can make him real, except for my words on paper? When no one else can know, how can I convince myself of his actual presence, of my actual feelings?