Tom Graham - A Fistful of Knuckles

Sam Tyler stood alone on the high roof of the CID building, the uncaring wind roaring in from across the city and battering him.

That’s where I’m going to die, he thought. Right down there.

Inching forward, he peered over.

An eight storey drop. The cold air rushing over me as I fall. Glimpses of sky, of glass, of buildings out there on the horizon, flashing by as I fall — and then the shattering impact as I slam into the concrete.

Sam found himself edging his feet further over the brink, as if the abyss was drawing him into itself.

Thirty-three years from now, I’ll run across this rooftop … and jump from this very spot … and die, right there … right down there.

A pair of uniformed coppers strolled casually across the exact spot Sam was looking at, their voices just audible;

‘What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

‘I dunno. What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

‘You shouldn’t have to say nuffing, you’ve told her twice already.’

As the coppers’ coarse laughter reached him, Sam leant forward, teetering, almost daring himself to fall. His thoughts were reeling.

The year is 1973, but I remember 2006 … the future is also the past … I can recall my own death, leaping from this rooftop, and yet here I am, more alive than I’ve ever been …

Sam shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind of the turmoil. He focused on the here and now, on the physical reality of where he was; he felt the bite of the Manchester wind as it cut through his jacket, the sharp sting of the early autumnal cold already hinting at the harsh winter to come, the roar of his blood as it pounded through his ears, the steady beating of his own heart. These things were real. The world he was in was real. That was all that mattered.

Annie’s real too. And she is what matters most of all.

He had stood here before, on this very brink, back when he’d first arrived in this strange time and place. Looking for a way home, he had believed he would find it here. His plan had been to jump, to jolt himself back into 2006, and escape the alien planet of 1973 upon which he was marooned.

But as he had stood there, nerving himself for the plunge, Annie had suddenly appeared, her hair blowing across her anxious face as she reached out her hand to him.

‘We all feel like jumping sometimes, Sam,’ she had said. ‘Only we don’t, me and you — coz we’re not cowards.’

‘No — we’re not,’ he said to himself now, bracing his body against the anger of the wind. ‘We’re many things, but we’re not that. ’

And so, that time around, he had not jumped. He had saved that jump for the future. But it would not be cowardice that would drive him to hurl himself from this precipice, nor would it be despair. He would jump for a reason. He would jump so that he could escape the emptiness of existence in 2006 and return here, to the strange, maddening, exhilarating world of ‘73. He would jump so he could be with Annie.

I was right to come back here, he told himself. I belong here. 1973 is my home. No doubts — no regrets — I made the right choice to come back.

If he had made the right choice to come back here, why did he feel, deep inside, that there would be no happily ever after for him and Annie? Why did he fear that what lay ahead was not life but darkness and death — and maybe something worse than death?

He knew the source of his fear. It came from her, the blank-faced brat who had floated out of his TV screen whispering words of doom and despair ever since he had pitched up here. The Test Card Girl, that incessant gremlin from the deep pit of his subconscious, would not let him go. She haunted him, taunted him, forever wheedling him to give up and die.

‘You have no future,’ she told him, over and over. ‘You have nothing to look forward to but misery and hopelessness and oblivion …’

Sam felt himself slowly falling forwards, giving himself up to the lure of the drop. At once, he pulled himself back, stumbling away from the edge, his heart racing. He drew in huge lungfuls of cold air and forced his tumultuous thoughts to calm down.

‘Everything’s going to be all right,’ he told himself, looking out across the grey Manchester cityscape spread out all around him. ‘Everything’s going to work out fine …’

Movement caught his eye. Three dark specks were travelling slowly and steadily across the autumnal skyline, passing over the city towards him. It was a trio of light aircraft, flying in formation, trailing behind them banners printed with bright red letters. Sam peered and squinted, trying to make out the word on the first banner.

‘ World …’

He shielded his eyes and tried to decipher the second banner.

‘ Of …’

World of — what? Leather? Opportunity? Adventures?

Before the third plane’s banner came into view, a man suddenly began speaking in a cheery and familiar voice directly behind Sam’s back.

‘Hello, and a very warm welcome to World of Sport. ’

Sam spun round. The rooftop had transformed into a TV studio, with typewriters clacking and reporters bustling; behind a desk sat a man smiling warmly beneath his moustache — a man whose face and voice were straight out of Sam’s memories of childhood Saturdays.

Dickie Davies shuffled the sheaf of papers on his desk and announced brightly: ‘And in a full line up this afternoon we’ve got exclusive live coverage from CID A-Division, including all the latest shoddy police practice, professional incompetence and casual sexism from regulars Ray Carling and Chris Skelton — plenty of action there — plus we’ll be bringing you the highlights of the week’s heavy-drinking, chain smoking, and nig-nog baiting from DCI Gene Hunt, so make sure you stay tuned for all that.’

Dickie Davies now raised his eyes to stare directly at Sam, the good-natured light going out of them.

‘But right now we’re going over live to the rooftop of Manchester CID where Detective Inspector Sam Tyler is once again trying to convince himself that he has any sort of a future with Annie Cartwright. Of course, the two of them have about as much chance of being happy together as Evel Knievel has of clearing a jump without breaking every bone in his back … and deep down Tyler knows it. But until he stops kidding himself and starts facing up to the awful reality of the situation, then I’m going to have to keep on popping up like this and having words with him.’

Dickie stood up from behind his desk, and as he did his moustache vanished, his body shrank, his suit became a black dress, and his face morphed in the small, round, pale face of a twelve year old girl, with a big teardrop painted on each cheek.

‘Awful things are going to happen,’ the Test Card Girl said sadly. ‘You should never have come back here.’

The TV sports’ studio melted away. There was just Sam and the Test Card Girl, high up atop CID, the city of Manchester spread out all about them and the grey sky reeling over their heads.

Sam clenched his fists and said: ‘You don’t scare me anymore. I know what you are. I know what you’re playing at.’

‘I’m just telling you the truth, Sam …’

‘Oh no you’re not. You’re trying to mess with my head. But you’re nothing ! You’re not even real!’

‘But I’m very real, Sam. And so is the horrible fate that’s in store for you and Annie.’

‘I’m done listening to you. You’re just a bad dream. Go back to where you came from.’