Tom Graham - Life on Mars - Borstal Slags

‘It wasn’t me I saw, it was that devil out there!’ Sam howled. ‘I am alive ! The here and now is 1973, and in 1973 I am alive !’

‘No, Sam. You’re dead. You’re dead, and you’re lost – not in one place, not in another – somewhere in-between—’

‘I am alive !’

‘You’re fooling yourself, Sam.’

‘If I am, then I’m happy with that! I came back here by choice. I came back here because I want to be here. I came back here for colour, and feeling – and Annie. I came back here for life . I don’t understand what it all means, and I don’t want to understand. I just want to live my life .’

‘You have no life, Sam. And neither does your beloved Annie. Or that horrid man you work for, the one who smells of ciggies and is always shouting. Or any of you.’

‘Bullshit! They’re all alive! Of course they’re alive! And as for me , I’m more alive than I’ve ever been!’

‘If you’re all so alive, Sam, then what are you all doing here ? This isn’t a place for the living, Sam.’

Sam wanted to yell at this little brat to keep her lies to herself, but deep down he knew that she wasn’t lying at all. Indeed, he had long since suspected what she was telling him, though he had fought against the knowledge, suppressed it, blotted it out with his police work, with his clashes with Gene, with his feelings for Annie, with that constant internal mantra that said, I’m just a copper, not a philosopher – I’m just a copper, not a philosopher – I’m just a copper, not a —

‘You don’t need to be a philosopher to work it out, Sam,’ the Test Card Girl said. ‘A simple copper is more than able to see what’s what.’

‘I’m alive,’ Sam declared.

‘No, you’re dead.’

‘I’m alive, and so is Annie.’

‘She’s dead too. So’s your horrid boss man. So are your friends in CID. All dead, Sam. You know that. You won’t accept it, but you know it. Think about it, Sam. You know you’re dead – you remember – you remember jumping from that roof and falling—’

Sam turned away, shaking his head, but the girl’s voice would not stop.

‘You remember, Sam. The others, they don’t remember. They’ve been here too long. They should have moved on by now. And if you stay long enough, Sam, you’ll start forgetting too. You’ll forget you had a life before this one. You’ll become like them . Lost, Sam. Lost.’

There were tears in Sam’s eyes now. He dashed them furiously away, but more came. He was thinking of Annie, of the life she’d had before this one. Had she, like Sam, come from the future? Or had she come from a life even further back than 1973? And how had that life ended? How had she died?

‘You know how she died, Sam. It was a horrible death.’

‘Stop it.’

‘Painful. Nasty.’

‘I said stop it!’

‘And it wasn’t quick, Sam.’

‘I don’t want to be in this damned dream any more, you filthy little bitch!’

‘Awake, asleep, whatever.’ The girl shrugged. ‘And calling me names won’t help you, Sam. Look at that vast universe out there. You can’t just wish it away. What will happen to you, Sam? Do you think you can carry on like this for ever, drifting in the gaps between this world and that one? You all have to move on one day. You, and your guv’nor, and your little friends in CID, and Annie too.’

‘I’m not going anywhere! I’m staying here, in nineteen-bloody-seventy-bloody-three with Annie! I am staying! We are staying!’

‘You think so? You think that you’ll keep hold of your darling Annie when that thing drags itself out of the darkness and comes for her? Will you go with her to the horrid place he’ll take her to? Could you even find that place? And, if you did, what then? Oh, Sam, it’s all so complicated. So complicated – and so hopeless! Better to give up on it all.’

Sam’s thoughts were crashing about inside his mind like waves tormented by a storm. Tears were flooding down his face now. He looked for answers, comebacks, words of defiance, but all he could find was a numb, silent horror deep within him. He knew the girl was telling him the truth. He knew that whatever it was that was prowling through the darkness towards his darling Annie was beyond his powers to defy. It would find her, it would drag her away – and there was nothing Sam could do to prevent it.

He felt small, cold fingers gently taking hold of his hand.

‘I can help you, Sam. I can make you fall asleep so that all this nastiness and confusion is forgotten. No pain, Sam, just rest. Hold onto my hand and I’ll lead to you to a place where you can go to sleep.’

‘I’m asleep already.’

‘Not deeply enough. Hold onto my hand.’

‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here. I’m staying with my Annie.’

‘You know that’s hopeless, Sam. Hold onto my hand. I’ll take you away. And whatever happens to Annie – well, Sam, you’ll never know. It’ll be better that way. Better not to know, not never ever ever . Hold onto my hand, Sam. Hold onto my hand.’

But Sam had had enough. His mind was reeling from all this vertiginous metaphysics. He thrust the Test Card Girl’s hand away and shoved past her, blundering into Mrs Slocombe’s display of ladies’ apparel. Comically huge brassieres and girdles fell across him. He dashed them aside and raced for the doors at the back of the set. Slamming into them, he felt them sag under his weight. They were just painted plywood, braced at the back and fixed down with stage weights. Sam battered at the doors, but they would not open. They shook and lurched and groaned and shuddered, but still they stood firm.

Sam hammered at them with all his strength. He began shouting. He was still shouting when he found himself face down on the floor of his flat in a pool of spilt brown ale, the TV grandly playing the national anthem and primly reminding him to please turn off his set.

Monday morning. Sam arrived at the grey, slablike building that housed CID. Reaching the concrete steps that led up to it, he paused, taking in the pale sky, the first rays of the sun, the high-up scraps of ragged grey cloud.

A normal sky. A normal Manchester morning.

He breathed in the air.

Car fumes – the whiff of distant cigarette smoke – normal, all so normal …

He patted a concrete wall.

Normal.

He patted himself, felt his body solid and real beneath his leather jacket and slacks.

Normal. Everything’s normal. If this is death, then death is normal. It’s just normal.

And permanent? Would all this seeming normality last? And if so, for how long?

That’s a question nobody can answer. Not knowing why you’re here, and how long you’ve got – not knowing the answers to the big questions is well, it’s just normal.

‘Situation normal,’ he said to himself. ‘Everything might have changed for me but, in some ways, nothing’s changed at all.’

The mantra started up in his head once again: I’m not a philosopher, I’m just a copper. I’m not a philosopher, I’m just a copper.

It blotted out the crazy dreams of the night before. It smothered Sam’s suspicion that nothing about him was real, that it was all just illusion. It muffled the ice-cold terror within him that awful things were going to happen, that horror and pain were just over the horizon, that hell itself was drawing near.

I’m just a copper. I’m just a simple copper. I do my job and nick the bad guys and keep my head down because I’m just an oh-so-simple copper.