Old God's Time

Tom anticipates visiting Fleming soon. He buys a new toothbrush and products to deep clean his apartment as though he were leaving, though he isn’t. He thinks the shopkeeper is silently hostile toward his purchases as they cross gender roles, but he is friendly as he leaves. Looking at his apron, Tom thinks about how forensics make the old, violent methods of extracting information obsolete. He also recalls the unwritten rules that the police could not interfere with domestic violence or church-run orphanages and institutions.

He suddenly realizes he forgot his cap, and he thinks about how he forgets a lot of things these days. He bumps into Tomelty, who is dressed finely in contrast to his usual gardening clothes. Tomelty asks Tom for a favor as a retired policeman, which panics Tom, but he just wants Tom to turn a blind eye to his other tenant’s arrangement with a wealthy older man. Tomelty comments that in the past, she would have been condemned, referencing the Catholics; Tom realizes Tomelty is Protestant. Tom agrees with him.

Tom wonders what it would have been like to grow old with June. He remembers her physicality and the way she orgasmed.