My Policeman

by Bethan Roberts

He was so contained back then. Tom. Even the name is solid, unpretentious, but not without the possibility of sensitivity.

Sometimes there were moments when I wanted to rename him. Tommy.

“It’s the red in her,” because the ginger strain was on my mother’s side.

the Red Peril,

but I always felt it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, having red hair: people expected me to have a temper, and so, if I f...

Then I brought her thumbnail to my mouth and ran my top lip over the smooth finish, to check it was dry.

because it made him look like a Ted;

It tasted of iron and was slightly lumpy, but Dad and my brothers covered their plates with it.

There was so much gravy that they got it on their fingers and in their nails, and they would lick it off while Mum smoked, waiting for the washing-up.

there never seemed to be much conversation. They’d talk through us: You’ll have to ask your father about that. Or: What does your mother say?

Mum standing by the window, smoking. I don’t think she ever sat at the table to eat with us,

I still seemed to be a long rectangular shape with a bit of extra padding around the sides. I’d had my hair cut into a bob by then, which I was pleased with, but I was too tall.

My father told me not to stoop, but he also made a point of telling me to always choose flat shoes. “No man wants to look up a woman’s nose,”

They wore well-cut jackets and walked with their hands in their pockets and their long fringes falling over their faces, whereas the boys I knew (and these were few) sort of charged toward you, looking straight ahead. No mystery to them. All up front.

You went to one of those schools, but you were never like that, were you, Patrick? Like me, you never fit in. I understood that from the start.

all I wanted was some warmth on my face and to get that faraway 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.

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

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.

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?

our beautiful boy beaten by his little sister, marked by her soft cotton towel.

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

he gave me a glimmer of hope that I clung to until his return, and, if I’m honest, even beyond that.

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.

he smelled—do you remember?—he

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 odor of the talc, but if you were close enough, the warm, muddy smell of skin beneath.

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, on the weekend.

“Wasn’t I going to teach you to swim?”

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 don’t think I ever wrote about his body, although it was obviously this that impressed me the most;

So you see, Patrick, I was typical. So typical.

I looked forward to the day when he would come home and teach me to swim.

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?

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.

I don’t know what else I could do. Or, It doesn’t look like I’ll be getting hitched, does it?

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.

Something a little quieter, perhaps?”

“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.

I remember that I once felt intense and secret things, just like you, Patrick. I hope you will understand that, and I hope you can forgive it.

“We’re very happy,” she declared, with a secretive little smile. I asked her if Roy had taken advantage of her, but she shook her head and there was that smile again.

His shoulders didn’t look as though they could bear any weight at all.

“Tom’s not like that, Marion,” said Sylvie.

wouldn’t mind going the whole way, but then he won’t marry me, will he?”

she doesn’t know him like I do. I know what he’s like.

(in my fantasy, brother and sister were best of friends),

When I moved my head on the pillow at night, the taint of the classroom shifted around me.

I never fully accepted that smell. I learned to tolerate it, but I never ceased to notice it.