FROST STILL ON the pavements, the gas heater leaking fumes into my office, a sweater on beneath my jacket, Jackie shivering loudly at every opportunity, and he came back.
The time: seven thirty. The day: Tuesday. I was finishing a plate of goulash at the flat. And suddenly the buzzer shrieked. DUM-de went my heart, but just once. I’ve almost learned not to expect him to be there.
But there he was. He said nothing as I opened up. I managed to catch his eye for a second before he looked down.
‘It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?’ he said. His voice was calm, rather cool.
I showed him in. This time he carried no uniform and was wearing a long grey overcoat, which he allowed me to take from him once we were inside. The garment was large enough to make a canopy, to take shelter beneath, and I stood for a moment, holding it in my arms and watching him as he made his way to the spare bedroom without invitation from me.
In a fit of tidying, I’d removed the easel and paints, and the chair in which he’d posed was now back in its proper place, next to the bed.
He stopped in the centre of the room and swivelled round to face me. ‘Aren’t you going to draw me?’ His normally pink cheeks were pale and his eyes were stony.
I was still holding on to the coat. ‘If you like …’ I said, looking around for somewhere to discard it. Placing it on the bed seemed a bit too forward. Like tempting fate.
‘I thought that’s what we were doing here. A portrait. On Tuesday evenings. A portrait of an ordinary person. Like me.’
I draped his overcoat across the chair. ‘I can draw you, if you like …’
‘If I like? I thought it was what you wanted.’
‘Nothing’s set up, but—’
‘This isn’t even a studio, is it?’
I ignored this. Allowed a small silence to pass. ‘Why don’t we discuss this in the sitting room?’
‘Did you get me here under false pretences?’ His voice was low, a shiver of anger running through it. ‘You’re one of them importuners, aren’t you? You got me here with one thing in mind, didn’t you?’
He licked his lips. Pushed back his cuffs. Took a step towards me. In that moment, he looked every inch the bully-boy policeman.
I stepped back, sat on the bed and closed my eyes. I was ready for the blow. For the big fist on my cheekbone. You’ve got yourself into this mess, Hazlewood, I told myself. These toughs are all the same. Just like that boy Thompson at school: fucking me by night, fighting me by day.
‘Answer my question,’ he demanded. ‘Or don’t you have an answer?’
Without opening my eyes, I replied in the softest voice I could: ‘Is this how you treat your suspects?’
I don’t know quite what possessed me to push him like this. Some remnant of trust in him, I suppose. Some belief that his fear would pass.
A long pause. We were still close; I could hear his breathing slow. I opened my eyes. He was looming over me, but his usual flushed complexion had returned. His eyes were an intense blue.
‘I can draw you,’ I said, looking up at him. ‘I’d like to. I want to complete the portrait. That’s not a lie.’
His jaw was working slowly, as if he were keeping back some utterance.
I said his name. And when I reached out a hand and hooked it behind his thigh, he did not move away from me. ‘I’m sorry if you think I got you here for one thing only. That could never be true.’
I said his name again. ‘Stay the night this time,’ I said.
His thigh hard against my hand.
After a moment, he let out a breath. ‘You shouldn’t have asked me here.’
‘You wanted to come. Stay the night.’
‘I don’t know …’
‘There’s nothing to know. There’s just these things that you and I must do.’ My cheek was near his groin now.
He pulled away from my grip. ‘I came here to tell you I can’t come again.’
A long silence. I kept my eyes on him, but he wouldn’t return my gaze.
Eventually I said, with what I hoped was a note of mirth in my voice: ‘Did you have to come here to tell me that? Couldn’t you have popped a note through my door?’
When he didn’t respond, I couldn’t help adding: ‘Something along the following lines, perhaps: Dear Patrick, It was nice knowing you, but I have to put an end to our friendship as I am a very respectable copper and also a coward—’
He lashed out an arm. Instinctively I ducked, but no blow came. I was almost disappointed. I’m ashamed to admit that I’d wanted his hands on me, whatever it took. Instead of meeting my cheek, his fist went to his own temple and he ground his flesh with his knuckles. Then he made a strange sound – something between a gargle and a sob. His face creased into a terrible red mask, his eyes and mouth clenched.
‘Don’t,’ I said, standing and putting a hand on his arm. ‘Please don’t.’
We stood together for a long time while he fought to get his breathing back under control. Finally he brought a forearm to his face and dragged it back and forth across his eyes. ‘Can I have a drink?’ he asked.
I fetched us some drinks and we sat together on the sofa, cradling our brandies. I kept trying to think of something to say that would reassure him, but could come up with nothing but platitudes, so kept my silence. And slowly, his face cooled, his shoulders relaxed.
I poured myself another and ventured: ‘You’re not a coward. It’s brave of you to come here at all.’
He looked into his glass. ‘How do you do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Live … this life?’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That.’
Where to begin? I had a sudden desire to stand up and stride about like a barrister, telling him a truth or two about this life, as he put it. Meaning my life. Meaning the lives of others. Meaning the morally dissolute. The sexually criminal. Meaning those whom society has condemned to isolation, fear and self-loathing.
But I restrained myself. I didn’t want to scare the boy.
‘I don’t have much choice. I suppose I just jog along …’ I began. ‘Over the years, one learns …’ I trailed off. What does one learn? To fear all strangers, and distrust even those close to you? To dissemble whenever possible? That utter loneliness is inevitable? That your lover of eight years will never stay more than one night, will become ever more distant, until you finally break into his room and find his cold, grey, vomit-encrusted body slumped across the bed?
No, not that.
Perhaps, then, that despite all this, the idea of normality fills you with complete dread?
‘Well. One learns to live as one can.’ I took a long drink of brandy and added, ‘As one must.’ I tried to put all images of Michael out of my head. It was the smell in there that was so awful. The sweet, rotting closeness of death by medication. Such a cliché. I thought it even then, holding his poor, beautiful body in my arms. They’d won. He’d let them win.
I’m still furious with him for that.
‘Didn’t you ever think of getting married?’
I almost laughed, but his face was grave. ‘There was a girl once,’ I said, relieved to think of something else. ‘We got along well. I suppose it may have crossed my mind … but, no. I knew it would be impossible.’
Alice. I hadn’t thought about her for the longest time. Last night I played it down to my policeman, but it all came back to me: that moment, at Oxford, when I thought perhaps marriage to Alice would be the best solution. We enjoyed one another’s company. We even went to dances, although after a few weeks I sensed she wanted something to happen after the dance. Something I could not make happen. But she was cheerful, kind, open-minded even, and it did occur to me that with Alice as a wife I might be able to escape my minority status. I would have access to easy respectability. I’d have someone to look after me who might not make too many demands. Who might even understand if I suffered the occasional lapse … And I was fond of her. Many marriages, I knew, were based on much less than that. Then Michael and I became lovers. Poor Alice. I think she knew what – or rather, who – was keeping me from her, but she never caused a scene. Scenes weren’t Alice’s style, which was one of the things I liked about her.
‘I’m planning to marry,’ said my policeman.
‘Planning?’ I took a breath. ‘You’re engaged, do you mean?’
‘No. But I’m thinking about it.’
I put my glass down. ‘You wouldn’t be the first.’ I tried a laugh. If I could make light of it, I thought, we could get off the subject. And the sooner we got off the subject, the sooner he might forget all this nonsense and we might get to bed. I knew what he was doing. I’ve experienced it a few times before. The post-consummation straight talk. I’m not queer. You know that, don’t you? I’ve got a wife and kids at home. This has never happened to me before.
‘Thinking about it and doing it are entirely different propositions,’ I said, stretching a hand towards his knee.
But he wasn’t listening. He wanted to talk.
‘The other day I was called in to see the guv. And d’you know what he asked me? He said, When are you going to make some girl a respectable policeman’s wife?’
‘The impudence!’
‘It’s not the first time he’s mentioned it … Some bachelors, he says, some bachelors have found it hard to rise through the ranks in this division.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Not much. ’Course, they’re coming down hard on all of us now, what with the Chief being in the dock … Everyone’s got to be whiter than white.’
I knew all that business wouldn’t be good for us. ‘You could’ve told him you’re far too young to be married and it’s none of his beeswax.’
He laughed. ‘Listen to you. Beeswax.’
‘What’s wrong with beeswax?’
He just shook his head. ‘There’s plenty married much younger than me.’
‘And look at the state they’re in.’
He shrugged. Then gave me a sideways glance. ‘It wouldn’t be so bad, would it?’
His tone was so deliberately offhand that I knew he’d someone in mind. That he was already planning it. And I guessed it was the teacher he’d mentioned, that day I showed him Icarus. Why else would he mention her at all? I’d been so utterly stupid.
And so I said, as brightly as I could, ‘It’s the girl you mentioned, isn’t it?’
He swallowed. ‘We’re just friends, at the moment. Nothing serious, you know.’
He was lying.
‘Well. It’s as I said. I’d like to meet her.’
I have no choice, I know that. I can pretend she doesn’t exist and risk losing him altogether, or I can put myself through the ordeal and keep a crumb of him.
I could even work on putting him off the woman.
So we’ve arranged that she will come to the museum some time soon. I deliberately avoided setting a precise date with the rather pathetic hope that he might forget the whole thing.
And he’s agreed to sit and finish the portrait. I will get him on paper, whatever it takes.