Riptide

Troy
§ 58

Walter Stilton ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He was more than partial to thick giblet soup, the toughness of gizzard held no fear for him and stuffed, roast heart no symbol. When he could get it-when his wife had queued half a morning to get it-he loved liver slices fried in breadcrumbs-but most of all he adored to start the day with grilled mutton kidneys, faintly piss-tanged to the palate-a breakfast, if not fit for a king, then sweetly fit for a Chief Inspector of the London Metropolitan Police Force.

He moved softly about the kitchen. It had been light since before five and first light woke him better than any alarm clock. Tangible light in the basement room, the promise of the heat of the day beyond its windows. Summer mornings such as this made him peckish. He’d eat his plate of grilled kidneys, washed down with strong, sweet, milky tea, silently reading last night’s evening paper. And when he had done he would pad about the kitchen in his socks, shirtless, the braces hanging down his back like the reins of some giant and unruly toddler, making tea and toast for his wife. He was always first up-had been since the first morning of their marriage. It was a habit of his father’s. Handed down. A Derbyshire miner, at work before the world was awake, he would always light the fire, feed himself and take breakfast to his wife. It was the only domestic chore he would undertake-so it was with Stilton. He’d never washed so much as a cup and saucer in his married life, but he’d stoked the Aga and made breakfast every day of it.

A saucer of milk for the pusscat, then softly up the stairs to the first floor. Edna was awake, windows open, a curtain flapping gently in the summer breeze. Stilton set down the tray upon her knees and said nothing. He’d run out of things to say to her. And there was nothing she asked of him.

‘Will you be late home?’ she asked.

‘Hard to say, love.’

And in that the routine of conversation in the wake of the death of their children varied not one whit from the routine of thirty years and more. They neither had the vocabulary to prolong the manifestation of grief.

Stilton dressed. A clean shirt aired on the Aga’s front rail. The collar stud eased in with a practised thumb. His Metropolitan Police Bowls Team tie. His shiny black boots, the pusscat weaving between his legs and lashing out at the laces as he did them up.

Looking at himself in the mirror of the hallstand-a silent voice in the head telling him to look like a copper, shoulders back, a tug of the hatbrim, trying for the glint of steel in the eyes-he heard the creak of bedsprings in the room above and the plump thump of his plump wife’s feet on the floor. Day begun. He pulled the door wide, the morning light reflecting brightly off the broken facade of the house opposite, and stepped out into the last day of his life.