My Policeman

by Bethan Roberts

Being naked just reminds you you’re alone.

Friend. Girlfriend. Sweetheart. Fiancée. I can deal with all of those. I’ve had some experience. Michael had a girlfriend,

Wife, even. I think I can deal with wife. Wives are at home, that’s the good thing about them. They’re at home, they’re silent, and they’re glad to see the back of him.

Lover, I cannot deal with. Lover is different.

Icarus flew too close to the sun, his wings melted,

“It’s nothing serious, Mr. Hazlewood. He’s a married man. It’s just a bit of fun.” “It doesn’t sound like much fun to me.”

“For a policeman, you’re very romantic.” “For an artist, you’re very afraid,” he said.

but he was silent, and when he adjusted my veil, his hand shook. I think to myself now: I should have been aware of the significance of that moment. It was the last time my father could make any claim to be the most important man in my life.

What did you say in your speech?

“So he must have changed, or maybe we were wrong, or something, but either way I want you to forget

Tom needs me. We are married and it’s going to be just fine.

tell you all this, Patrick, so you’ll know how it was between me and Tom. So you’ll know there was tenderness, as well as pain. So you’ll know how we failed, both of us, but also how we both tried.

On my inquiry about how he spent the day while 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.”

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.

I was grateful to you for your graciousness.

didn’t notice you and Tom slip out of the room.

bodies were close, your eyes locked, and as your hand fell on Tom’s upper arm, I was sure I saw my husband’s eyes close and his mouth fall open, just for a moment.

As you’ll have gathered, there is something about this routine that inhibits real conversation or deviation of any kind. There is also, I think, something about it that both Tom and I find reassuring.

I imagined a child might bring me closer to myself.

I wanted blankness,

That was when I knew I’d definitely found the right Patrick Hazlewood.

Looking back now, and writing this, it’s obvious to me that I’d known, on some level, all along—perhaps from when Sylvie had told me that Tom wasn’t like that, and certainly from the moment I witnessed the two of you standing together outside Osborne House.

From then on, I could no longer avoid thinking about you, and therefore thinking about Tom, in this new way. The word had been uttered, and there was no going back.

Despite your enthusiasm for walking, Tom was always more at home in the water,

I could just press down that word of Julia’s into the place in my mind where I stored Sylvie’s comments and the image of you and Tom outside Osborne House. Here was my husband, the man I’d wanted for so long,

“Julia said something about Patrick today.” I hadn’t managed to say awful. It was very like my first day at St. Luke’s, when my voice seemed completely detached from my body;

It was true that you’d paid for Tom’s suit.

It was the only time he undressed me.

I think, to give myself the opportunity to see you alone. I knew I couldn’t possibly discuss matters with you, but, without Tom there, I could perhaps weigh you up for myself.

Milly Oliver, however, backed away from its devilish-looking eyes, and I thought her the most sensible girl of all.

He doesn’t make assumptions just because of how you look. At that moment I knew it to be true, and felt a little ashamed of myself.

A love letter from you? Both ideas were ludicrous; Tom would never have taken such risks.

I could not formulate any words at all. Instead I began to cry. It was such a relief, Patrick, to take this woman’s way out.

a modern marriage.

Marion, whether you’ve got a dirty mind.”

could say nothing. Nothing at all.

But after Julia’s naming of his disposition, my husband’s relationship with you began to come into sharp, terrifying focus.

considerable backbone were things I did not have. Not when it came to my marriage. And so I took the coward’s way out.

chose silence rather than further confrontation.

“To resistance,”

effort to prove myself a good and loyal wife.

You can see, Patrick, that I was very confused about everything at this time.

Of course survival should come before democracy or even freedom.

I thought, for a moment, how pleased you would be that I was part of something that involved such an esteemed group of writers and artists. You’d introduced Tom and me to the work of the people the speaker had mentioned, and you would be proud,

I would never tell you about this day. It would be my secret. You and Tom had your secrets, and now I had mine. It was a small, rather harmless secret, but it was my own.

My husband is afraid of heights. And he’s also sexually abnormal.

“It’s all right,” said Julia. “I’ve got you.”

You had done such a good job of saying everything, and Tom had said absolutely nothing.

For many years now, Tom and I have taken holidays apart, and I’m always careful to laugh off inquiries about my husband’s whereabouts while traveling.

Venice is one of the many words we do not utter