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On my first day in the job, two years out from meeting Ange, I was nineteen and living at home with the folks. My pea-green Nova was parked in the driveway, with Pearl Jam in the CD player that would jump through the songs each time I drove over a pothole. That first day, Mum took a photo of me in my uniform, standing in the back garden by the flower beds. It was seven thirty in the morning, my head was still in bed, my stomach in my mouth, it was like starting comprehensive school all over again. I suppose that’s not too far from the truth. I learned more in twenty years on the job than I ever could have done in a classroom. Granted, it’s not the kind of stuff most people want to know, or what I even expected to know, but I’ve learned it all the same. I never stopped learning. That hasn’t changed.
Fresh out of the shower, the towel around my waist, I run my hand down the badge on the polo shirt hanging on the outside of the wardrobe, brush lint from the trousers hung next to it, while on the floor, the boots I polished before bed lie side by side in perfect alignment. Everything cleaned and pressed and worthy of what it represents. From the drawer, I take underwear and black socks, throwing them on the bed just as my phone vibrates on the bedside table. Dan’s name flashes up across the screen, and I sit on the edge of the mattress to read his message.
Mum says we’ll call over tonight. She needs to get some stuff.
I pull in a deep breath and consider myself in the wardrobe mirror. There’s no hiding from it – I look like a man who’s wife has left him. I look like a man approaching forty who’s wife has left him. I look like a man who’s fucked up, approaching forty, and his wife has left him.
In the photograph, the one Mum took of me by the begonias, my grin is broad, hands clasped behind me, shoulders back, chin up, lid on firm and straight, exuding confidence, authority, pride, and all the rest of it. The copper’s stance. But it’s a pose that can lose its edge over the years, in a kind of gradual deflation. The shoulders tip forward an inch or two, the chin lowers, smile’s more guarded. A good day might inject some of that old energy, a job well done – a life saved especially, or a crime prevented. But those days are hard to remember. Easier to recall are the other ones. And they’re what drag the shoulders down. Bit by bit by bit...
Staring at my reflection in the mirror, I pull myself up, straightening my spine, and wonder if Mum were to take the photo again now, how the two might compare. It wouldn’t be the threatening paunch, or the age lines, or even the thinning hair that would be the most obvious spot the difference. It would be the look in my eye. And I don’t mean my fresh naivety then compared to what I know now. I mean how proud I was. Putting the uniform on, having not just a steady job but a useful one too, a necessary one. I was pleased with myself for doing that. And though Dad never said, I think a part of him was proud too.
That morning, my first day, Dad came in from a twelve-hour night shift, wished me good luck with a tap on the arm and went straight upstairs to take a shower. Mum, never one to challenge him, had thinned her lips and kept her disappointment to herself. But in the garden as she snapped the photo, I’d squinted against the sunlight and glimpsed up, catching sight of Dad’s outline on the other side of the net curtain in their bedroom. I pretended I hadn’t seen him, but when I looked back to Mum and the camera lens, the smile I gave her was genuine.
Dad was a proud man. I understood that. Respected him for it. But looking at myself in the mirror, I can’t imagine Dan ever saying the same about me. Pride starts with the self. I used to think I had it. But these last few months a big red flag has been waving at me, trying to draw my attention, and I’ve carried on like it wasn’t there.
The phone screen times out. I turn it back on and type my reply, telling Dan I’ll see him later. And when I get up from the bed, I pull on the uniform for the last time.
*
Sergeant Roberts sits across the desk, his chin tilted down and his eyes peering up at me. This is his You’re bullshitting me face, usually reserved for criminals or members of his team who’ve fucked up. I’ve certainly fucked up enough, but he doesn’t know about all that, only about Simons’ complaint. Instead, he’s adopted this pose because I’ve just dropped my letter of resignation on top of his Western Mail.
‘You’re bullshitting me,’ he says. Roberts has the presence of a mildly irritated bulldog on most occasions, but more so from this angle.
‘No, sir. I’d like to effect my departure as soon as possible, allowing for any outstanding holidays.’
‘Bull. Shit. You know all this stuff with this lecturer will pass, don’t you? It’s a blip on your record, Steve, no more than that. You didn’t lay a hand on him, that’s the main thing. Just, go through the channels, let it work itself out, job done. It’s nothing to end your career over. I’ve seen officers do a lot worse and get away with it.’ He coughs into his fist and pulls in his eyebrows. ‘Not that I approve, of course.’
‘This isn’t about that.’ At least, it’s not all about that.
‘Well, what?’ he says, flipping his hands on the desk. Roberts is old school. Pussyfooting around privacy isn’t his thing.
‘It’s personal.’
‘So take some time off. Go sun yourself. You need me to fill out one of them mental health checklist thingamabobs? Pass you on to a what’s-it-called champion? Probably got the name of ours here somewhere...’ He sifts through files and paperwork on his desk, before giving up and dropping his clasped hands down with a thump and a heavy sigh. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Steve, you’re one of our best, most experienced. More family than any of us. Part of the furniture.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ I say.
Roberts eases back in his seat and folds his arms, subjecting me to a steely-eyed evaluation. When he reaches his verdict, he jabs a finger at me.
‘What you need is a change of scenery. It kills me to do this, but if it’s the difference between losing you from our crew and losing you altogether, how about I put the feelers out with our colleagues out west? I’m sure they’d have a role for you somewhere, even a promotion. You should have been sergeant before I was out of nappies.’
‘Let me stop you there, Sarge, before you embarrass yourself further.’
I get up from the chair and extend my hand across the desk. Roberts eyes me for a long time, contemplating all the ways he might be able to change my mind. He waves my offer of a handshake away.
‘When are you wanting to go?’
‘Whatever you need me for. I won’t leave you high and dry, sir.’
‘I need you for the next twenty years. When?’
I drop my hand to my side. ‘Soon as possible, Skip.’
He points to the chair I vacated. ‘Sit your arse then, Fuller. Let’s see how you’re fixed.’
When he picks up the phone to call HR, he looks grim, and even more so fifteen minutes later when he concedes to shake my hand and tell me to come back anytime over the next couple of weeks when I change my mind. I thank him and leave the room to clear out my locker and return all Force-issued equipment to the front desk, knowing that changing my mind isn’t going to happen. The line’s already been crossed.
*
Starting downstairs, I fill a black bag with the takeaway cartons and empty bottles, clear away days-old dirty plates and coffee mugs, then spray polish over the cleared surfaces. After that I dig the vacuum cleaner out from the cupboard under the stairs and do the bedrooms first, then the landing, before working my way down to the sitting room, where I lift the sofa cushions and press the nozzle down into the gaps to catch all the crumbs, a few wrappers, and the hollow casing from a party popper – last New Year or the one before, who knows? Manoeuvring the armchair across the room, I run the cleaner over the dust and hair that have worked their way under there, and – apologising to Rumpole – suck up some ashes I failed to sweep up yesterday. The rest of him is back in the urn with its hairline crack running down the middle that I’m hoping Ange won’t notice. Or if she does, that she thinks it’s a part of the ceramic, a natural fault line in its design.
With all the windows around the house open to air it out, I sit at the kitchen counter for a coffee break. I’ve polished the furniture in the rooms upstairs, changed the beds, scrubbed the shower and bleached the toilet. It’s just after two o’clock. Four hours at least before Ange and Dan get here.
When I’m done with the coffee, I rinse the cup, dry it and put it away in the cupboard, then hunt through the drawers until I find what I’m after. The notepad’s right there, but it’s another five minutes before I’ve got a pen that works, and another twenty minutes before I actually make a start. It’s because I know this is the coward’s way out. A one-way conversation. No one gets to argue back, no one gets to disagree, and I don’t get to see their disappointment any more. But I will have tied up all the loose ends. It’s the least I can do.
By four, my time’s up. I leave Dan’s note on his pillow and Ange’s propped against the spice rack on the kitchen counter. From where I stand by the breakfast bar, I look back down the hallway to the front door. What would I do if Ange walked in now? Would I still keep my resolve, knowing what I have to do? Knowing that it’s best for everyone?
No light comes through the glass panel at the top of the door. The hallway is dim on what’s become a gloomy overcast day, and looking at it I feel as stripped bare and empty as the rooms I’ve cleaned.
I lose track of how long I’m there for – seconds, minutes, an hour, waiting for Ange, waiting for something – before I go out of the back door and round the house to the garage without turning back. I can’t, or else I’ll never do this.
