The Detective's Daughter

11

The bed was unmade. He sniffed the sheet: fresh laundered Egyptian cotton. He wished she would keep the bedroom in order. But as soon as she smiled he could not be cross any more. Wet from the shower, he towelled himself dry, covering himself as best he could for he was modest about his body. Drawing a comb through his hair he assured her that he belonged entirely to her, whatever she did or had done.

She liked that. ‘I don’t even belong to myself!’

When he examined her features, he saw their son in her generous mouth, full lips parted over faultless teeth. The scarf suited her elegant neck. On his way out he smoothed the sheets, tucking them in tight, hotel-style.

He was consumed by her and in this he was lucky; not many men felt this way about their loved ones. Most people lived half-lives servicing long-dead relationships, paying mortgages, mowing lawns, marking anniversaries; lives of drudgery that were merely endured. He was sure of her. She would never leave. He kept her secrets; he kept her safe.

He stopped in the doorway of the boy’s room. He wandered in and flicked through the heavy pages of his own stamp collection, which was laid out on the table like an exhibit. He tipped a model Spitfire suspended from the ceiling: it revolved until the momentum died. On the bookshelf he blew dust off the line of intricately painted medieval knights and the Sherman and Panther tanks, strategically positioned between the Hardy Boys books and the encyclopaedias.

He had been about to get in the shower when there was a knock at the door. They were not expecting anyone; he pulled the curtains when he got home to discourage visitors. He refused to answer, but she had made him. He agreed that the caller would have seen the landing light – why draw attention to themselves? He donned a bathrobe, cool and slinky, that reached to his calves, which she had said made him look like a transvestite. He did not like it when she teased him. She teased more when he told her this.

A potato-faced woman out of a Grimms’ fairy tale with black braids and a ghastly lipstick, in an embroidered gingham apron, had been about to give up. He pulled himself together. She was not a figment of some childhood fable. Her skin appeared golden in the setting sun. Beside her was a gruff daughter, an overweight teenager with a missing incisor. The mother thrust a bouquet of heather wrapped in foil at him. Superstitious, he had bought the heather before she could finish her sales spiel.

The kitchen was chilly after the hot shower. He had stopped her taking sugar; she liked lemon in Earl Grey now. He had taught her so much.

He lingered by the sink, waiting for the kettle to boil, contemplating the rooks roosting in the chestnut trees. The birds had been there for at least sixty years; his father remembered them when he was a boy. One day his own son would stand here and observe the same scene.

When he had stepped out of the shower she had knelt before him; she knew exactly what to do.

She could make him feel like a king.

The winter sun dipped behind the trees while he sipped Earl Grey and watched the rooks.