A Short Story About Love
Part One
Tony had been alone for as long as he could remember now. There was someone, once. Julie. But she left him. They all left him, eventually. Only The Job stayed with him, but he was beginning to realise, with a dread which gripped his insides every time he looked in the mirror now, that one day soon that would leave him too.
The job was what got him out of bed in the mornings, and the job was what brought him into contact with her, one morning, in the parade room.
Inspector Gold introduced her as Pc McLeod. It was only after they had begun their shift that he discovered her name was Heather. She was young, yet old enough to cope. She had a laugh which sounded genuine and which she meted out in careful doses – just enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck tingle. He wasn't foolish enough to fall in love that day. In fact, the thought didn't even enter his head. She was too young and too pretty for it to even be a consideration. But he was male, and she was attractive – his lonely brain allowed him to entertain that fact.
It was only after a few weeks working together that something started to happen. Not anything notable, nothing that would set alarm bells ringing and cause him to panic and run away. In the old days that was his reaction to any notion of commitment to a woman. And then it changed sometime in his forties to being a desperation for affection. His friend Dave Quinnan changed that, with his relationship with Polly Page. He had watched his friends go through marriages and painful divorces, and find themselves in the same position as he did now – growing old alone. His sensible mind kept telling him that he was best off out of it. But his bruised soul told him that it was better to have love and lost. Except he didn't know if it was better, because he had never really loved at all.
One evening in the pub, however, it came as a shock to him when he realised that something had changed. An ordinary evening after an ordinary shift with a group of friends having a not so quiet drink in the bar. He was sitting at a table with his pint, waiting for Heather to return from the toilet. They had spent the last hour talking and laughing. Just being together and having fun. When he saw her coming back through the masses of rowdy city boys who were sinking their pints, he smiled to himself. And when one stepped out in front of her and caught her arm playfully, the smile was dragged from his lips. He watched her laugh politely at City Boy's joke, and saw her lean her head in to catch his next comment. She pulled back and shook her head with a smile. But City Boy didn't seem to want to take no for an answer, and so she began to humour him for a little while more. Except Tony didn't want her to humour him. He wanted her to come back to him. He wanted her to come over and put her arms around his neck and press her wine-kissed lips against his cheek and ask him to take her home. He wanted Heather. And when he saw her look across the bar to him and smile and wink, for one small fleeting fanciful moment, he thought that she wanted him too. And so he stood up and went over to where she stood, and deftly maneuvered her out of City Boy's grip, and took her away from everyone else.
If he hadn't had quite so much alcohol, then he might never have done what he did next. He asked her if she wanted to go somewhere quieter. And she said yes. So they left the busy bar, and he walked her home. And when they came to her doorstep, she asked if he wanted to come in for a cup of coffee, and he said yes. When she put the kettle on and pulled out some coffee cups, he thought that he had got it all wrong and that she really did mean a cup of coffee. He was about to excuse himself and leave when she set down the teaspoon she was holding and turned to face him, dark fringed eyes making his mouth go dry. She looked upwards for a second, as though embarrassed, or perhaps looking for courage. Then she stepped forwards and took his face in her hands and kissed him gently on the lips. For Tony, it was the beginning of a dream sequence that lasted long into the night and which only ended when he came round the next morning to find himself naked in a strange bed, with Heather beside him holding the coffee which she had promised him the night before.
Their relationship began as a secret, something which they tried to keep from their friends. Tony thought perhaps she was embarrassed about people knowing that she slept with him. There were several young and attractive men at the station, indeed everywhere in London. He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that she might choose him over them. But when they were out together away from the others, she never left him in any doubt of her feelings. If they went for a drink in the city, she would hold his arm proudly. Whenever anyone asked her to dance, or wanted to buy her a drink, she would thank them politely, but point to him sitting in some far corner of the bar, and smile and wink at him. And of course, when they were alone together she left him in no doubt as to what her feelings were for him. He would lie awake in the early hours of the morning feeling her soft hair against his bare skin and breathing in the smell of her breath as it escaped her lips. And thinking that something this good could never last.
He was in the area car when the call came through of a disturbance somewhere on the other side of Sun Hill. By the time he arrived, the street was cordoned off and armed police officers marched back and forth like toy soldiers let loose from their cases. Words came in snatches. Hostage situation. Armed robber. Desperation. And then, Pc McLeod. Heather. For hours he stood there, silently waiting and watching for something to happen. Until the inevitable happened, with gunfire and shouting. And blood. Not Heather's blood, not at that point. But afterwards, over her hospital bed, he learned that it was the blood of their unborn child which had caused her to lose consciousness. The child he had known nothing about, until it was too late.
She never seemed the same to him after that. Blaming herself for not telling anyone. She had only found out, but had not believed it herself. And suddenly, instead of giving him everything he wanted, she had taken it all away from him. And though he forgave her a thousand times over for that, he realised that she couldn't. But it was still a shock when she told him she was transferring to City of London police. Her shining eyes were dead and dull, and the wink with which she had lured him was a twitch of her eye muscles. The night she packed her bags and left he cried himself to sleep with her smell still enveloping his senses.