When Skies Have Fallen

  ***

  Arty tugged hard on the belt of his dressing gown, took a deep breath, and opened the front door. “Constable.”

  “Sorry to wake you, sir. We’ve had a report of a disturbance. May we come in?” The two policemen barely waited for Arty to move aside before they were standing next to him.

  “I haven’t heard or seen anything,” he said curtly, not intentionally to aggravate them. It was hard to squeeze out the words without giving away his pain.

  “We’ll just take a quick look around and satisfy ourselves.”

  They strode down the hallway and Arty limped after them as quickly as his stupid broken legs would allow. They glanced into the sitting room, the kitchen, the bathroom and then walked straight into the bedroom, as if it were a public space, not a man’s private domain. Arty was incensed by the violation, and there was not a thing he could do about it.

  “Are you married, sir?”

  “No, Constable. Why do you ask?”

  “This is your room, is it?”

  “Yes. The apartment only has the one bedroom.”

  “And you live here alone?”

  “I do,” Arty confirmed calmly, though his heart was racing and the pressure in his head was tremendous, the only positive aspect being that the combination of anger and fear was seeing off the pain.

  “Has anyone else been sleeping in this bed?”

  Arty bit back the urge to ask if the disturbance was caused by a little girl with long golden hair and a penchant for porridge. “No,” he said.

  “So you’re the only one who sleeps in this double bed, sir?”

  “My legs are restless at night, Constable. I need the space.”

  “Restless legs, sir?”

  The questions were merely a means to delay their departure, and again, Arty was powerless to protest. “An accident in 1945.”

  The policeman nodded. “That will be all, sir. Sorry to wake you.” As the two officers reached the apartment’s front door, the one doing all of the talking turned to his colleague and stated loudly enough for Arty to hear, “We’ll check the flats upstairs while we’re here.”

  Arty watched from the communal hallway as they trod heavily up to first floor and banged on Jean and Charlie’s door. It was flung wide open, revealing Charlie’s angry scowl, Eddie’s cries drifting down to where Arty stood.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” Charlie demanded.

  At the same time, Jim descended the stairs from the top floor, stopped a few feet behind the two policemen and asked, “Is everything all right, officers?”

  “You check upstairs,” one of them said and entered Jean and Charlie’s apartment. Arty held his breath, trying to listen to what the other officer was saying to Jim on the way up to the top-floor apartment, but he couldn’t hear over the blood banging on his ear drums. He went back inside and shut the door. He wasn’t the only one on edge: poor Silky was prowling the hallway like a caged beast. Arty gently scooped her up and went to wait in the bedroom. It was four o’clock in the morning, he was wide awake and he was livid—in part at his own foolishness for dancing and drinking and being so loud in public, because now it had brought them to the attention of the local constabulary.

  That was the main source of his anger: after such a perfect night of dancing and intimacy, both he and Jim had been sound asleep when the first knock came at the door. Knowing what was coming, Jim went straight up to the top-floor apartment, where, thankfully, they’d made up the bed and left it in a state of disarray for this eventuality. There were even a few tins of food in the kitchen cupboards and, along with the kettle and teapot Jim and Molly’s group used for their meetings, the apartment might just pass as someone’s home.

  But even before tonight, they’d known this would happen sooner or later, and Arty’s previous meekness, his fear of being publicly shamed, was fading fast. If they arrested Jim they might send him back to West Virginia, where the law was just as harsh as in Britain, should he make it alive past the violent mob in his hometown.

  Some forty-five minutes later, when the policemen finally left, Jim returned to Arty, utterly broken. He sat next to him on the edge of the bed, his hands covering his face.

  “I’m so sorry, darlin’,” he whispered hoarsely. “I am so, so sorry.”

  Arty put an arm around Jim’s shoulders, and he toppled helplessly, shaking so violently it made Arty squeeze harder to try and make it stop. “Why are you sorry?”

  “I lied to them.”

  “To protect us.”

  “I promised I’d never deny my love for you.”

  “You had no choice.”

  “All the bullcrap I’ve been talking, saying we gotta stand tall and proud…” Jim tried to pull away, but Arty refused to let go. As if in cahoots, Silky stretched her front legs over Jim’s knees and hooked her claws into the fabric of his dressing gown.

  “You were frightened,” Arty stated. Jim gave no response, yet Arty knew Jim’s self-torture was nothing to do with failing to stand tall and proud, or denying his feelings. There were so many things he wanted to say, to offer comfort, make it all better, but none of them were worth expending the breath. Could they fight this? Unlikely. Now the police were suspicious they’d be back again. They’d need to find somewhere else to hold the meetings. Jim would have to move upstairs for real. But all of that was superficial; they’d find a way to cope, learn to live with it if they had to.

  Jim gulped and sniffed, reaching down a shaky hand to stroke Silky’s smooth grey fur. She purred her permission. Jim laughed sadly.

  “I love you,” Arty said.

  “I love you,” Jim echoed.

  “We’ll get through this, love, I know we will. Look how much we’ve already survived.” We’ve got to live…

  “I hear you.” Jim took a long, deep breath and slowly released it. “I got to get up for work soon. What will you do with your day? You gonna talk some more with Jean?”

  “Yes,” Arty said. They were moving on. No more talk of Jim’s ‘denial’, or the reason behind it. That was who Jim was, but it didn’t stop Arty from willing him to hear in his heart the words he could not, would not say.

  He can’t get to you here. I won’t let him.

  * * * * *