My Policeman Read Online Free Page B

me, anyway. Occasionally he’d shout a comment to Roy as we skated round, but Roy didn’t always look back. That was because his eyes were caught up with Sylvie’s. It was like they couldn’t look anywhere else, not even where they were going. Tony didn’t hold my arm as we skated round, and I managed to get ahead of him several times. As I skated I thought of the smile Tom had given me the day he’d announced he was joining the Catering Corps, how his top lip had disappeared above his teeth and his eyes had slanted. When we stopped for a Coke, Tony didn’t smile at me. He asked me when I was leaving school, and I said, ‘Never – I’m going to be a teacher,’ and he looked at the door like he wanted to skate right through it.
    One sunny afternoon not long after that, Sylvie and I went to Preston Park and sat on the bench beneath the elms, which were lovely and rustly, and she announced her engagement to Roy. ‘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.
    For a long time we just watched the people going by with their dogs and their children in the sunshine. Some of them had cones from the Rotunda. Neither Sylvie nor I had money for ice cream and Sylvie was still silent, so I asked her: ‘How far have you gone, then?’
    Sylvie looked over the park, swinging her right leg back and forth impatiently. ‘I told you,’ she said.
    ‘No. You didn’t.’
    ‘I’m in love with him,’ she stated, stretching out her arms and closing her eyes. ‘Really in love.’
    This I found hard to believe. Roy wasn’t bad looking, but he talked too much about absolutely nothing. He was also slight. His shoulders didn’t look as though they could bear any weight at all.
    ‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ Sylvie said, blinking at me. ‘I love Roy and we’re going to be married.’
    I gazed at the grass beneath my feet. Of course I couldn’t say to Sylvie, ‘I know exactly what it’s like. I’m in love with your brother.’ I know that I would’ve ridiculed anyone who was in love with one of
my
brothers, and why should Sylvie have been any different?
    ‘I mean,’ she said, looking straight at me, ‘I know you’ve got a crush on Tom. But it’s not the same.’
    Blood crawled up my neck and around my ears.
    ‘Tom’s not like that, Marion,’ said Sylvie.
    For a moment I thought of standing up and walking away. But my legs were shaking, and my mouth had frozen in a smile.
    Sylvie nodded towards a lad passing by with a large cornet in his hand. ‘Wish I had one of those,’ she said, loudly. The boy twisted his head and gave her a quick glance, but she turned to me and gently pinched my lower arm. ‘You don’t mind that I said that, do you?’ she asked.
    I couldn’t reply. I think I managed to nod. Humiliated and confused, all I wanted was to get home and think properly about what Sylvie had said. My emotions must have shown on my face, though, because after a while Sylvie whispered in my ear, ‘I’ll tell you about Roy.’
    Still I couldn’t respond, but she continued, ‘I did let him touch me.’
    My eyes shifted towards her. She licked her lips and looked to the sky. ‘It was strange,’ she said. ‘I didn’t feel much, except scared.’
    I fixed her with a stare. ‘Where?’ I asked.
    ‘Round the back of the Regent …’
    ‘No,’ I said. ‘Where did he touch you?’
    She studied my face for a moment and, seeing that I wasn’t joking, said: ‘You know. He put his hand there.’ She gave a quick glance down to my lap. ‘But I’ve told him the rest will have to wait until we’re married.’ She stretched back on the seat . ‘I wouldn’t mind going the whole way, but then he won’t marry me, will he?’
    That night, before sleep, I thought for a long time about what Sylvie said. I re-imagined the scene again and again, the two of us sitting on the bench, Sylvie