My Policeman

by Bethan Roberts

anxious to see him that anything seemed possible. Conventions, other people’s opinions, the law, all appear laughable in the face of your desire, your drive to reach your love. It’s a blissful state. It’s fleeting, though, this feeling. Soon you realize that you’re walking in the rain, getting soaked, when you should be at your desk. Women with children jostle you, casting their eyes suspiciously over a single man without coat or hat in a shopping street during the middle of the afternoon. Old couples scurrying to bus stops charge at you with umbrellas. And you think, even if he is there, what can I possibly say to him? Of course, in the moment itself, in the blissful moment when anything’s possible, there’s no need for words. You’ll simply fall into each other’s arms, him understanding everything—everything—at last. But when the feeling starts to wane, when another woman has just said excuse me but stepped on your foot anyway, when you’ve glimpsed your reflection in Sainsbury’s shop window and seen a wild-eyed, rain-scattering man past his first flush of youth gaping back at you, then you realize there will have to be words.