My Policeman (6 page)

On Saturday morning I rose early. I’d like to tell you that I’d dreamed all night of being in the waves with Tom, but that wouldn’t be true. I don’t remember what I dreamed, but it was probably located in the school, and it would have involved me forgetting what I was supposed to be teaching, or being locked in the stationery cupboard, unable to get out and witness what kind of havoc the children were creating. All my dreams seemed to be along these lines at that time, no matter how much I longed to dream of Tom and myself in the sea, of the two of us going out and coming in, coming in and going out with the waves.

So: I rose early, having dreamed of desks and chalk and cardboard milk bottle tops pierced with a straw, and from my window I saw that it was not a promising morning. It had been a mild September, but the month was drawing to a close now, and as I walked past Victoria Gardens the grass was soaked. I was very early, of course; probably it wasn’t yet seven, and this added to the delicious feeling I had of doing something secret. I’d left my parents sleeping, and had told no one where I was going. I was out of the house, away from my family, away from the school, and the whole day lay ahead.

To pass the time (I still had at least forty minutes to kill before the enchanted hour of eight in the morning arrived) I
strolled
along the front. I walked from the Palace to the West Pier, and on that morning the Grand Hotel in all its wedding-cake whiteness, with its porter already standing to attention outside, complete with top hat and gloves, looked incredibly average to me. I didn’t experience the pang I usually felt on passing the Grand – the pang of longing for hushed rooms with potted palms and ankle-deep carpets, for discreet bells rung by ladies in pearls (for that was how I imagined the place, fuelled, I suppose, by films starring Sylvia Syms) – no; the Grand could stand there, ablaze with money and pleasure. It meant nothing to me. I was happy to be going to the milk bar between the piers. Hadn’t Tom looked me up and down, hadn’t he taken in the whole of me with his eyes? Wasn’t he about to appear, miraculously tall, taller than me, and looking a bit like Kirk Douglas? (Or was it Burt Lancaster? That set of the jaw, that steel in the eyes. I could never quite decide which of the two he most resembled.) I was very far, at this point, from what Sylvie had told me about Tom on the bench in Preston Park. I was a young woman wearing a tight pointed bra, carrying a yellow flowered bathing cap in her basket, ready to meet her recently returned sweetheart for a secret early-morning swim.

So I thought as I stood by the milk bar’s creaking sign and looked out to sea. I set myself a little challenge: could I avoid looking towards the Palace Pier, the way I knew he would come? Fixing my eyes on the water, I imagined him rising from the sea like Neptune, half draped in bladderwrack, his neck studded with barnacles, a crab hanging from his hair; he’d remove the creature and fling it aside as he shrugged off the waves. He’d make his way noiselessly up the beach towards me, despite the pebbles, and would take me in his arms and carry me back to wherever it was he’d come from. I started
to
giggle at myself, and only the sight of Tom – the real, living, breathing, land-walking Tom – stopped me. He was wearing a black T-shirt and had a faded brown towel slung over his shoulders. On seeing me, he gave a brief wave and pointed back the way he’d come. ‘The club’s got a changing room,’ he called. ‘This way. Under the arches.’ And before I could reply, he walked off in the direction he was pointing.

I remained standing by the milk bar, still imagining Neptune-Tom coming out of the sea, dripping salt and fish, spraying the shore with brine and sea creatures from some deep, dark world beneath.

Without turning around, he shouted, ‘Haven’t got all day,’ and I followed him, hurrying behind and saying nothing until we reached a metal door in the arches.

Then he turned and looked at me. ‘You did bring a hat, didn’t you?’

‘Of course.’

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. ‘Come down when you’re ready, then. I’m going in.’

I went inside. The place was like a cave, damp and chalky-smelling, with paint peeling from the ceiling and rusty pipes running along one wall. The floor was still wet, the air clinging, and I shuddered. I hung my cardigan on a peg at the back of the room and unbuttoned my dress. I’d graduated from the red bathing costume I’d worn that day at the lido years ago, and had bought a bright green costume covered in swirly patterns from Peter Robinson’s. I’d been quite pleased with the effect when I’d tried it on in the shop: the cups of the bra were constructed from something that felt like rubber, and a short pleated skirt was attached to the waist. But here in the cavern of the changing room there was no mirror on the wall, just a list of swimming races with names and dates
(I
noticed that Tom had won the last one), so after pulling the flowered cap on my head and folding my dress on the bench, I went outside, wearing my towel around me.

The sun was higher now and the sea had taken on a dull glitter. Squinting, I saw Tom’s head bobbing in the waves. I watched as he emerged from the sea. Standing in the shallows, he flicked his hair back and rubbed his hands up and down his thighs, as if trying to get some warmth back into his flesh.

Almost toppling, and having to grab my towel to keep it from falling to the ground, I managed to walk halfway down the beach in my sandals. The crunch and crack of the pebbles convinced me that this scene was real, that this was actually happening to me: I was approaching the sea, and I was approaching Tom, who was wearing only a pair of blue striped trunks.

He came up to greet me, catching my elbow to steady me on the stones.

‘Nice cap,’ he said, with a half-smirk, and then, glancing down at my sandals, ‘Those will have to come off.’

‘I know that.’ I tried to keep my voice light and humorous, like his. In those days it was rare, wasn’t it, Patrick, for Tom’s voice to become what you might call serious; there was always a lot of up-and-down in it, a delicacy, almost a musicality (no doubt that’s how you heard it), as though you couldn’t quite believe anything he said. Over the years, his voice lost some of its musicality, partly, I think, in reaction to what happened to you; but even now, occasionally, it’s like there’s a laugh behind his words, just waiting to sneak out.

‘OK. We’ll go in together. Don’t think about it too much. Hold on to me. We’ll just get you used to the water. It’s not too cold today, quite warm in fact, it’s always warmest this
time
of year, and it’s very calm, so it’s all looking good. Nothing to worry about. It’s also very shallow here, so we’ll have to wade out a bit. Ready?’

It was the most I’d ever heard him say, and I was a bit taken aback by his brisk professionalism. He used the same smooth tone I did when trying to coax my pupils to read the next sentence of a book without stumbling. I realised that Tom would make a good policeman. He had the knack of sounding as though he were in control.

‘Have you done this before?’ I asked. ‘Taught people to swim?’

‘In the army, and at Sandgate. Some of the boys had never been in the water. I helped them get their heads wet.’ He gave a short laugh.

Despite Tom’s assurances to the contrary, the water was extremely cold. As I went in, my whole body clenched and the breath was sucked out of me. The stones drove into my feet and the water chilled my blood immediately, leaving my skin pimpled, my teeth chattering. I tried to concentrate my energy on the point where Tom’s fingers met my elbow. I told myself that this contact was enough to make it all worth while.

Tom, of course, made no sign of noticing the iciness of the water or the sharpness of the stones. As he walked in, the sea rocking at his thighs, I thought how springy his body was. He was leading me and so was slightly ahead; this allowed me to look at him properly, and as I did so I managed to steady my juddering jaw and breathe through the cold that was smashing into my body with each step. So much Tom in the waves, springing through the water. So much flesh, Patrick, and all of it shining on that bright September morning. He let the water splash up his chest, still holding my elbow. Everything was moving, and Tom moved too: he moved with
the
sea or against it, as he wished, whereas I felt the movement too late and only just managed to retain my balance.

He looked back. ‘You all right?’

Because he smiled at me, I nodded.

‘How does that feel?’ he asked.

How, Patrick, could I begin to answer him?

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘A bit cold.’

‘Good. You’re doing well. Now we’re going to do the tiniest bit of swimming. All I want you to do is follow me, and when we’re deep enough, let your feet lift off the bottom and I’ll hold you up, just so you can feel what it’s like. Is that all right?’

Was that all right? His face was so serious when he asked me this that it was hard to keep from laughing. How could I object to the prospect of Tom holding me?

We waded further out, and the water took my thighs and waist, touching every part of me with its freezing tongue. Then, when the sea was up to my armpits and beginning to splash at my mouth, leaving a salty trail on my lips, Tom put a hand flat on my stomach and pressed. ‘Feet off the bottom,’ he commanded.

I needn’t tell you, Patrick, that I obeyed, utterly mesmerised by the huge strength of that hand on my stomach, and by Tom’s eyes, blue and changing like the sea, on mine. I let my feet lift and I was borne upward by the salt and the rocking motion of the water. Tom’s hand was there, a steady platform. I tried to keep my head above the waves, and for a second everything balanced perfectly on Tom’s flat hand and I heard him say, ‘Good. You’re almost swimming.’

I turned to nod at him – I wanted to see his face, to smile at him and have him smile back (proud teacher! best pupil!) – and then the sea came up over my face and I couldn’t see. In my panic I lost his hand; water rushed backwards through
my
nose, my arms and legs whipped about wildly, trying to find something to grip, some solid substance to anchor me, and I felt something soft and giving beneath my foot – Tom’s groin, I knew it even then – and I pushed off from that and managed to come up for a breath of air, heard Tom shouting something, then, as I went under again, his arms were around me, gripping my waist and pulling me free of the water so my breasts were nigh on in his face, and I was still struggling, gasping the air, and it wasn’t until I heard him say, ‘You’re all right, I’ve got you,’ in a slightly annoyed tone, that I stopped fighting and clung to his shoulders, my flowered bathing cap flapping loose at the side of my head like a piece of skin.

He carried me back to shore in silence, and when he deposited me on the beach I couldn’t look at him. ‘Take a moment,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ I gasped.

‘Get your breath back, then we’ll try again.’

‘Again?’ I looked up at him. ‘You are joking?’

He ran a finger along the length of his nose. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not joking. You have to get back in.’

I gazed down the beach; the clouds were gathering now and the day hadn’t warmed up at all.

He held out a hand to me. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Just once.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll even forgive you for kicking me where you did.’

How could I refuse?

Every Saturday after that, we met in the same place and Tom tried to teach me to swim. I’d wait all week for that hour with Tom in the sea, and even as it got much colder I felt this warmth in me, a heat in my chest that kept me moving in the water, kept me swimming those few strokes towards his waiting
arms
. You won’t be surprised to hear that I was a deliberately slow learner, and as the weather worsened we were forced to continue our lessons in the pool, even though Tom still swam in the sea every day. And, gradually, we started talking. He told me that he’d joined the police force because it wasn’t the army, and everyone said he should, what with his height and his fitness, and it was better than working at Allan West’s factory. But I could feel that he was proud of his job, and that he enjoyed the responsibility and even the danger of it. He seemed interested in my job, too; he asked a lot about how I taught the children and I tried to give him answers that would sound intelligent without being off-putting. We talked about Laika, the dog the Russians had just sent into space, and how we both felt sorry for her. Tom said he’d like to go into space, I remember that, and I remember saying, ‘Perhaps you will, one day,’ and him laughing hysterically at my optimism. Occasionally we talked about books, but on this subject I was always more enthusiastic than Tom, so I was careful not to say too much. But you’ve no idea, Patrick, how liberating – how
daring
, even – it felt to talk about these things with Tom. I’d always thought, up to then, that I should keep quiet about what I would now call my
cultural interests
. Too much talk about such things was tantamount to showing off, to getting ideas above your station. With Tom it was different. He wanted to hear about these things, because he wanted a part of them too. We were both hungry for this other world, and back then it seemed as though Tom could be my partner in some new, as yet undefined, adventure.

Once, as we were walking along the poolside back to the changing rooms, both wrapped in our towels, Tom suddenly asked, ‘What about art?’

I knew a little about art; I’d taken art A level at school,
liked
the Impressionists, of course, particularly Degas, and some of the Italian painters, and so I said: ‘I like it.’

‘I’ve been going to the art gallery.’

This was the first time that Tom had told me about anything he did – apart from swimming – in his spare time.

‘I could get really interested in it,’ he said. ‘I’ve never looked at it before, you know? I mean, why would I?’

I smiled.

‘But now I am, and I think I’m
seeing
something there, something special.’

We reached the door of the changing rooms. Cold water was dripping down my back, and I began to shiver.

‘Does that sound stupid?’ he asked.